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

after tomorrow.” She hesitated, then: “I don’t wish to seem critical, John, but you’re away so often that I hardly feel married any more. It’s less than a month since you returned from Earth, yet now you want to be off again.”
    The man shrugged and, without looking up from his recorder, said, “I’m restless, Amelia. You know I have a high energy index. Until the mood passes, I’ve got to be on the move or build up silly frustrations.”
    Gosseyn waited. The conversation seemed to be over. The woman turned back into the house. The man sat several minutes longer on the steps, then stood up and yawned. He looked at ease, apparently unworried by what the woman had said. He was about five feet, ten inches tall. He seemed husky, but the appearance of strength wouldn’t matter if he had never taken null-A muscular training. People who were not conditioned had difficulty understanding how strong human muscles could be when they were temporarily cut off from the fatigue center of the brain.
    Gosseyn’s decision was made. The woman had called the man John. And no patients were due for several days.
    That was identification enough. This was John Prescott, galactic agent, pretending to be a doctor.
    The woman’s statement that nearly a month had passed since Prescott’s return from Earth staggered Gosseyn. Patricia Hardie had said to Crang, “Is Prescott going with you?” She must have meant to Venus, for here he was. But the shortness of the time elapsed was confusing. Had it taken his body only a few weeks to recuperate from its desperate wounds? Or had Prescott made several trips to Earth?
    Not, he realized, that it made any difference. What mattered right now was his attack. It must be made now, while Prescott stood unsuspecting here in this garden of his Venusian home.
    Now!
    The mud hindered Gosseyn’s forward dash. Prescott had time to turn, time to see his assailant, time for his eyes to widen and for shock to register on his face. He even managed to launch the first blow. If Gosseyn had been a smaller man, less superbly muscled, it might have stopped him. But he wasn’t. And Prescott did not get in a second blow. Gosseyn hit him three times on the jaw, and caught his limp body as he fell.
    Swiftly he carried the unconscious man up the veranda steps, and paused beside the door. There had been scuffling sounds. The woman might come out to investigate. But there was no movement from inside the house. Prescott stirred against his arm and moaned slightly. Gosseyn silenced him with another blow and stepped through the open door.
    He found himself in a very large living room. The room did not have a rear wall. It opened, instead, onto a broad terrace. There was a garden beyond, and then what seemed to be another valley almost lost in mist.
    To his right was a staircase leading to the upper floor, and to his left another stairway descended to the basement. On either side were doors that opened into rooms. Gosseyn heard pans rattling in one of the rooms, and there was the tantalizing odor of food cooking.
    He headed upstairs. At the top he found himself in a corridor with many doors leading from it. He pushed open the nearest one. It was a spacious bedroom, with a great curving window facing toward a grove of Cyclopean trees. Gosseyn lowered Prescott’ to the floor beside the bed, quickly tore a sheet into strips, and bound and gagged the unconscious man.
    Tiptoeing cautiously, Gosseyn went down the stairs and into the living room. The continuing rattle of kitchen utensils relaxed his tensed nerves. Apparently the woman had heard nothing. Gosseyn crossed the living room, paused briefly while he decided what to do with her, and then he stepped boldly across the threshold into the kitchen.
    The woman was serving food out of a series of electronic cookers. Gosseyn had a glimpse of a daintily set table in a little alcove, and then the woman saw him out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head in mild surprise.