Read The World of Null-A for Free Online

The fact that your illusion was related to Patricia Hardie is very suggestive to me.”
    Gosseyn hesitated, then spoke the thought that had been in his mind. “Many psychoneurotics have equally strong beliefs. Such people usually claim identification with the great: ‘I am Napoleon’; ‘I am Hitler’; ‘I am Tharg’; ‘I am married to Patricia Hardie.’ Was my false belief in that category?”
    “Definitely no. Very strong convictions can be induced by hypnotic means. Yours comes under that heading. That is why you were able to throw off the emotion of grief when you first learned that she was not dead. Your recovery is not yet completed, however.”
    There was a pause. Then the Machine spoke again and there was a curious sadness in its words. “I am only an immobile brain, but dimly aware of what is transpiring in remote parts of Earth. What plans are brewing I can only guess. You will be surprised and disappointed to learn that I can tell you nothing more about that.”
    “What can you tell me?” asked Gosseyn.
    “That you are very deeply involved, but that I cannot solve your problem. I want you to go to a psychiatrist and have a photograph taken of your cortex. I have an impression of something in your brain, but I cannot define it. And now that is all I will say to you. Good-by until tomorrow.”
    There was a click from the door as it unlocked automatically. Gosseyn went out into the corridor, hesitated for a moment, and then worked his way northward through the hurrying crowds.
    He found himself on a paved boulevard. To the northwest, starting at about a quarter of a mile from the Machine, other buildings began. They were geometrically arranged in clusters around the boulevard, at the far end of which, amid embanked flowers and trees, stood the palace of the Machine.
    The palace was not tall; its stately contours nestled among the vivid green and brilliance of its verdant environment. But that wasn’t what held Gosseyn. His mind was reaching, visualizing, comprehending. President Hardie and his daughter Patricia lived there. If he was deeply involved, then so must they be. What had made them plant in his mind the conviction that he was married to a dead Patricia? It seemed futile. Any hotel-group lie detector would have found him out even if Nordegg hadn’t been around to accuse him.
    Gosseyn turned and strode around the base of the Machine back toward the city proper. He ate lunch in a small restaurant near the river, then began to thumb through the yellow pages of a telephone directory. He knew the name he was looking for, and he found it almost right away:
     
    ENRIGHT, DAVID LESTER, psychologist
    709 Medical Arts Building
     
    Enright had written several books which were prescribed reading for anyone who hoped to get beyond the tenth day in the games. It was a pleasure to remember the crystal-like clarity of the man’s writing, the careful semantic consideration given to every multi-ordinal word used, the breadth of intellect and understanding of the human body-and-mind-as-a-whole.
    Gosseyn closed the directory and went out into the street. He felt at ease; his nerves were calm. Hope was surging in him. The very fact that he remembered Enright and his books in such detail showed how lightly the intruding amnesia rested on his memory. It shouldn’t take long once the famous man began to work on him. The reception clerk in the doctor’s office said, “Dr. Enright can be seen by appointment only. I can give you an hour three days from now; that is, Thursday at two P.M. You must, however, make a twenty-five-dollar deposit.”
    Gosseyn paid the money, accepted his receipt, and went out He was disappointed, but not too much so. Good doctors were bound to be busy men in a world that was still far from having attained null-A perfection.
    On the street again, he watched one of the longest, most powerful cars he had ever seen slide past him and draw up at the curb a hundred feet away. The car gleamed in the