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This page displays the actual textual differences between The World of Â (Simon & Schuster, 1948) and The World of Null-A (Berkley Medallion, 1970). The rewriting is not extensive, and seems to be limited to three contiguous passages from chapters 10, 24, and 35. The 1970 Berkley edition also featured a seven-page introduction by van Vogt — which is quite interesting, but not included here. The substitution of ‘null-A’ for ‘Â’ in the title and elsewhere, plus a few other minor typographic modifications, originated in the Ace editions, published in 1953 (D-31) and 1965 (F-295). This page — nicely formatted by Michael McKinney — is meant to be read as part of my study, The Three Worlds of Null-A (a downloadable PDF file), which compares the plots of the 1945, 1948, and 1970 versions of The World of Null-A in great detail.

TEXT 48: CHAPTER 10 | TEXT 70: CHAPTER 10

| Reading proved too quiet an occupation at first. Gosseyn turned on the wire recorder and gradually settled down. He began to read in a more sustained fashion. He ate lunch with a book beside his plate. By evening he was even more relaxed. With considerable anticipation, he lifted a side of beef from a deep freezer and sliced off a thick steak. After dinner he picked up the volume on Venusian history. It told the story of the first men to land on Venus. |  | Reading proved too quiet an occupation at first. Gosseyn turned on the recorder and gradually settled down. He began to read in a more sustained fashion. He ate lunch with a book beside his plate. By evening he was even more relaxed. With considerable anticipation, he lifted a side of beef from a deep freezer and sliced off a thick steak. After dinner he picked up the volume on Venusian history. It told the story of the first men to walk on Venus late in the twentieth century. It described how the boiling hell of that atmosphere was tamed as early as the first quarter of the twenty-first century, of how ice meteorites from Jupiter were coasted into a close orbit around Venus, and of how as a result it rained for thousands of days and nights. |
| It told of the realization by the Institute of General Semantics, just then, in 2018 A.D., entering its governmental phase, of the Â potentialities of the bountiful planet. The Machine method of selecting colonists came a hundred years later, and the greatest selective emigration plan in the history of man began to gather momentum. Population of Venus as of 2560 A.D. — 119,000,038 males, 120,143,280 females, the book said. When he finally put it down, Gosseyn wondered if the surplus of females might explain why an Â woman had married John Prescott. |  | The ice meteorites ranged in size from ten to a hundred cubic miles; and when they had melted their huge volume of water down on the surface, and into the atmosphere, Venus had oceans and oxygen in its atmosphere. By 2081 A.D. the Institute of General Semantics, just then entering its governmental phase, realized the null-A potentialities of the bountiful planet. By this time, transported trees and other plants were growing madly. The Machine method of selecting colonists came a hundred or so years later, and the greatest selective emigration plan in the history of man began to gather momentum. Population of Venus as of 2560 A.D. — 119,000,038 males, 120,143,280 females, the book said. When he finally put it down, Gosseyn wondered if the surplus of females might explain why a null-A woman had married John Prescott. |

TEXT 48: CHAPTER 24 | TEXT 70: CHAPTER 24

| He had to hold himself in his chair, to relax, to remember. And then, and not till then, did he climb to his feet and pace the floor in the burning excitement of an immeasurably great discovery made. To force a greater approximation of similarity. What else could it be? |  | He had to hold himself in his chair, to relax, to remember. And then, and not till then, did he climb to his feet and pace the floor in the burning excitement of an immeasurably great discovery made. To force a greater approximation of similarity. What else could it be? And the method of forcing would have to be through memory. Perfect memory was, literally, a replay in the mind of an event exactly as it had originally been recorded. The brain, obviously, could only repeat its own perceptions. What it failed to retain of the process level in nature, it would — naturally — fail to similarize. The abstraction principle of General Semantics applied. Abstraction of perceptions. So that, basically, what was involved was a greater awareness of that which made up a person’s identity: the memory stored in the brain and elsewhere in the body. The more he strove for perfect memory, the more clearly demarcated an individual he would be. |
| There just wasn’t anything else that offered as logical a continuity of the developing of the null-A idea. But what good would it be when he finally achieved it? |  | . . . What else could it be? There just wasn’t any other possibility that offered as logical a continuity of the developing of the null-A idea. But what good would it be when he finally achieved it? |

TEXT 48: CHAPTER 35 | TEXT 70: CHAPTER 35

| That was all, but Gosseyn thrilled with excitement. He must have struck a tiny mass of cells. Once again, the minutes flowed by, and then: |  | That was all, but Gosseyn thrilled with excitement. He must have stimulated a tiny mass of cells. Once again, the minutes flowed by, and then: “— Memory certainly turned out to be a remarkable . . . But between your group and mine, the continuity was broken. My accident was too much for the process. Too bad — but, still, you’ve already had the experience of apparently surviving as an individual, so you know how complete —” This time, there was only the tiniest pause, then the next thought followed: |
| “. . . I used to wonder if there wasn’t someone else. I thought of myself as a queen in the game — in such a setup you would be a pawn on the seventh row, just about ready to queen. But then I would come to a blank, for a queen, no matter how powerful, is only a piece. Who, then, is the player? . . . Frankly, Gosseyn, I don’t think there is one. . . . Once more . . . [incoherently] . . . the circle is completing, and we are no further ahead . . .” |  | “. . . I used to wonder if there wasn’t someone else. I thought of myself as a queen in the game — in such a setup you would be a pawn on the seventh row, just about ready to queen. But then I’d come to a blank, for a queen no matter how powerful is only a piece. Who, then, is the player? Where did all this start? . . . Once more . . . (incoherently) . . . The circle is completing, and we are no further ahead —” |
| Frantically, Gosseyn fought to hold the connection, but there was a blur, and then nothing. As he strained for more thoughts, he grew conscious of the fantastic thing he was doing. He pictured himself in this shattered, bejeweled building trying to read the mind of a dead man. Surely, in all the universe, this was unique. The personal thought faded, because, once more — contact. “. . . Gosseyn, more than five hundred years ago . . . I nourished null-A, which someone else started . . . The secret of immortality could not, of course, be given to the unintegrated, who would, like Thorson, think of it as a means to supreme power . . .” |  | Frantically, Gosseyn fought to hold the connection, but there was a blur, and then nothing. As he strained for more thoughts, he grew conscious of the fantastic thing he was doing. He pictured himself in this shattered, bejeweled building trying to read the mind of a dead man. Surely, in all the universe, this was unique. The personal thought faded, because once more — contact. “. . . Gosseyn, more than five hundred years ago . . . I nourished null-A, which someone else started. I was looking for a place to settle, and for something to be that was more than mere continuity; and it seemed to me that the Non-Aristotelian Man was it . . . Our secret of immortality could not, of course, be given to the unintegrated, who would, like Thorson, think of it as a means to supreme power —” |
| The blur came back, and during the minutes that followed it was evident the cells were losing their unity of personality. Wild cells remained, bewildered groups, masses of neurons, holding their separate pictures unsteadily against the encroaching death. Finally, he caught another coherent thought: “. . . I discovered the galactic base, and visited the universe . . . I came back and superintended the construction of the Games Machine — only a machine could in the beginning control the undisciplined hordes that lived on Earth . . . And above everything else I chose Venus as the planet where men of null-A could — could —” |  | The blur came back, and during the minutes that followed it was evident the cells were losing their unity of personality. Wild cells remained, bewildered groups, masses of neurons, holding their separate pictures unsteadily against the encroaching death. Finally, he caught another coherent thought: “. . . I discovered the galactic base, and visited the universe . . . I came back and superintended the construction of the Games Machine — only a computer could in the beginning control the undisciplined hordes that lived on earth. And it was I who chose Venus as the planet where men of null-A could be free. And then, despite my loss of memory — my injury — I was able to start growing bodies again other than those of my own genera — genera —” |
| That was all he got. Minutes and minutes passed, and there was only an occasional blur. Gosseyn climbed at last to his feet. Except for one thing, he was satisfied. He felt the glowing excitement of a man who had triumphed over death itself. After a moment, the exception began to bother him. It had been vague, but now it came to the fore, product of an overtone picture that had come from Lavoisseur’s brain. |  | That was all he got. Minutes and minutes passed, and there was only an occasional blur. Gosseyn climbed at last to his feet. He felt the glowing excitement of a man who had triumphed over death itself. But it was too bad that the vital information of body duplication had not surfaced. Except for that and one other thing, he was satisfied. The other thing: he had, he realized, allowed one meaning to slide by him. But, now, it came to the fore, with its implications: “. . . Between your group and mine the continuity was broken!” |
| “He couldn’t have meant that,” Gosseyn thought shakily. But the other things began to fit, the mental telepathy; and besides who else could he be? Feverishly, he went in search of shave salve. He found a jar in a washroom down the hall. With trembling fingers, he rubbed it over the beard of the still, dead face. |  | Odd, how all these minutes, that had not really penetrated. The idea of a connection was so remote in his mind; his earlier rejection of “X” so complete. And yet — the continuity could only be, could only refer to . . . memory. Besides, who else could he be? Feverishly, he went in search of shave salve. He found a jar in a washroom down the hall. With trembling fingers, he rubbed it over the beard of the still, dead face. |

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