The World of Null-A by A. E. van Vogt, van Vogt

of the machine on the table. The moving fingers twisted powerfully. There was a click and a hum.
    At first nothing happened. He was tensed to resist energy flows. And there weren’t any. Blankly he watched the machine. It hummed and throbbed. Like so many devices, it had its own special electron tubes. Whether they were used for controlling the speed of unseen motors or for amplifying some obscure sound in his body or converting energy or timing changes in an invisible process, or for any one of a hundred other tasks, it was impossible for Gosseyn to decide.
    Some of the tubes peeped brightly out of holes in an opaque, curving plastic instrument box. Others, he knew, were too sensitive to be exposed to anything so violent as the normal temperature and brightness of a room. They would be hidden deep in their little enclosures with only a minute fraction of their easily irritated glass-smooth forms connected with the outside.
    Watching hurt his eyes. He kept blinking and the tears that resulted blurred his vision. With an effort, Gosseyn looked away from the table and its machines. The movement must have been too sudden for his strained nerves. Something banged inside his head and a violent headache began. He realized with a start that this was what the machine was doing to him.
    It was as if he had sunk to the bottom of a pool of water. There seemed to be heavy pressure on him from every side, inside included. As from a great distance, he heard Thorson’s calm voice lecturing his hearers.
    “This is an interesting machine. It manufactures a variation of nervous energy. The energy is absorbed through the dozen nodes I have placed on Gosseyn’s head and shoulders, and flows evenly along all the nerve paths that have been previously established in his body. It does not itself establish any new patterns. You must think of it as an impulse that rejects instantly the slightest difficulty. It- recoils from obstacles that vary by approximately one per cent from what to it is normal. It is a supreme adherent of the school of energies that follow the path of least resistance.”
    It was hard, thinking against the sound of the voice. Gosseyn’s mind couldn’t form a complete thought. He strained against the blurring power of the voice and against the energy that was flowing through him. Nothing came but spasms of ideas and Thorson’s voice.
    “The medically interesting characteristic of this artificial flow of nervous energy is that it is photographable. In a few moments, as soon as the movement of artificial energy has penetrated the remotest easy paths, I’ll obtain several negatives and make some positive prints. When enlarged in segments through a projector, the prints will show us in what parts of his brain his memory is concentrated. Since science has long known the nature of the memory stored in every cell group, we can then decide where to concentrate the pressures that will force the particular memory we want onto the verbal level.
    “A further use of this machine, using more power and combined with a complicated word-association system-formula, will perform the actual operation.” He shut off the machine and pulled some film out of the camera. He said, “Watch him!” He disappeared through the nearest door.
    Watching wasn’t necessary. Gosseyn couldn’t have stood steadily on his feet. His brain was turning rapidly in an illusion of spinning. Like a child that has whirled around and around too often, he had to unwind. Thorson was back before he could see straight.
    He entered slowly, and, ignoring both “X” and Hardie, walked over to Gosseyn. He had two prints in his hand, and he paused with them directly in front of his prisoner and stared at him.
    “What have you found?” said Hardie from Gosseyn’s left.
    Thorson waved at him, an impatient command to be silent. It was a startlingly discourteous gesture and, what was more, he seemed to be unaware that he had made it. He stood there, and suddenly his