A. E. van Vogt - Null-A 02 by The Players of Null-A

Author:The Players of Null-A [Null-A, The Players of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-25T20:32:13+00:00

Gosseyn nodded to himself. He felt stimulated, and he could not completely fight off Ashargin’s uneasiness. But there was no doubt in his mind as he climbed out of the bathtub.

The moment for him to defy Enro had arrived.

He dressed, nevertheless, without haste, and then left the bedroom. Nirene was waiting in the living room. Gosseyn hesitated at sight of her. He was acutely conscious of Enro’s special power of hearing and seeing through solid walls. There was a question he wanted to ask, but not directly.

The solution occurred to him after a moment. ‘Have you a palace directory?’

She walked silently to the videophone in one corner, and brought a glowing flexible plate, which she handed him with the explanation: ‘Just pull that slide down. Each time it clicks it shows the floor of the person you want, and where his apartment is. There’s a list of names on the back. It’s automatically kept up to date.’

Gosseyn didn’t need the list. He knew what names he wanted. With a quick movement of his hand he slid the lever to Reesha, covering the action as much as possible.

Presumably, Enro could ‘see’ through a hand as readily as through walls, but there must be some limitation to his gift. Gosseyn decided to depend on speed.

One glance he took, had his information, and then he shifted the lever to the name of Secoh. That, also, required only an instant. He moved the lever casually but swiftly to zero position, and handed the plate back to Nirene.

He felt wonderfully calm and at ease. The Ashargin body was quiescent, accepting the violent positivities that were being forced upon it with an equanimity that promised well for the future.

‘Good luck,’ he said to Nirene.

He suppressed an Ashargin impulse to tell her where he was going. Not that Enro wouldn’t know in a few minutes. But he had the feeling that if he named his destination an attempt would be made to divert him.

Out in the hall, he walked swiftly toward the stairway, climbed one flight of stairs, which brought him within one floor of Enro’s apartments. He turned off to the right, and a moment later he was being admitted to the apartment of the woman he had once known as Patricia Hardie. He hoped that Enro would be curious as to what his sister and the Prince Ashargin had to say to each other, and that the curiosity would restrain him from immediate punitive action.

As Gosseyn-Ashargin followed the servant into a large reception room he saw that Eldred Crang was standing at the window. The Venusian Null-A detective turned as the visitor entered, and gazed thoughtfully at him.

There was silence as they looked at each other. It seemed to Gosseyn that he was more interested in seeing Crang than Crang could possibly be in the Prince Ashargin.

He could appreciate Crang’s position. Here was a Null-A who had come into the heart of the enemy stronghold, who was pretending- -with her connivance—that he was married to

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