The World of Null-A Read Online Free PDF Page A

daintily put up in boxes and plasto containers for outside service. There was reinforced orange juice, cereal, with cream in a separate plasto, hot kidneys on toast, and coffee, also with its separate cream.
    Five dollars, he estimated. Which was pure luxury for a couple who had to live for thirty days on a very small amount of money. And, besides, a girl who possessed five dollars would surely have paid it to her landlady for another night’s lodging. Furthermore, she must have had a good job to think in terms of such a breakfast. That brought a new thought. Gosseyn frowned over it a moment, then said, “This boss of yours who made the passes at you-what’s his name?”
    “Huh?” said Teresa Clark. She had finished her kidneys and was searching for her purse. Now she looked up, startled. Then her face cleared. “Oh, him!” she said.
    There was a pause.
    “Yes,” Gosseyn urged. “What’s his name?”
    She was completely recovered. “I’d prefer to forget about him,” said Teresa Clark. “It’s not pleasant.” She changed the subject. “Will I have to know much for the first day?”
    Gosseyn hesitated, half inclined to pursue further the subject of her boss. He decided not to. He said, “No. Fortunately, the first day has never been more than a perfunctory affair. It consists primarily of registrations and of being assigned to the cubbyhole where you take your early tests. I’ve studied the published records of the games of the last twenty years, which is the furthest back the Machine’ll ever release, and I’ve noticed that there is never any change in the first day. You are required to define what null-A, null-N, and null-E stand for.
    “Whether you realize it or not, you cannot have lived on Earth without picking up some of the essence of null-A. It’s been a growing part of our common mental environment for several hundred years.” He finished, “People, of course, have a tendency to forget definitions, but if you’re really in earnest about this-“
    “You bet I am,” said the girl.
    She drew a cigarette case out of her purse. “Have a cigarette.”
    The cigarette case glittered in the sun.  Diamonds, emeralds, and rubies sparkled on its intricately wrought gold surface. A cigarette, already lighted in some automatic fashion inside the case, protruded from its projector. The gems could have been plastic, the gold imitation. But it looked handmade, and its apparent genuineness was staggering. Gosseyn put its value at twenty-five thousand dollars.
    He found his voice. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t smoke.”
    “It’s a special brand,” said the young woman insistently. “Deliciously mild.”
    Gosseyn shook his head. And this time she accepted the refusal. She removed the cigarette from the case, put it to her lips, and inhaled with a deep satisfaction, then plunged the case back into her purse. She seemed unconscious of the sensation it had caused. She said, “Let’s get busy with my studies. Then we can separate and meet here again tonight. Is that all right?”
    She was a very dominating young woman, and Gosseyn wasn’t sure that he could even learn to like her. His suspicion that she had come into his life with a purpose was stronger. She Was possibly a connecting link between himself and whoever had tampered with his brain. He couldn’t let her get away.
    “All right,” he said. “But there isn’t any time to waste.”

III
     
    To be is to be related.
    C.J.K.
     
    Gosseyn helped the girl off the surface car. They walked rapidly around a screening nest of trees, through massive gates, and came in sight of the Machine. The girl walked unconcernedly on. But Gosseyn stopped.
    The Machine was at the far end of a broad avenue. Mountaintops had been leveled so that it could have space and gardens around it. It was a full half mile from the tree-sheltered gates. It reared up and up in a shining metal splendor. It was a cone pointing into the lower heavens and crowned by a star