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Fantasia, v. 1, issue 1, January 1941
Page 6
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FANTASIA 6 The Scientist plods homeward. In the crimson dusk, the towering stacks of the armament factory puff and roar, smudging the sky with black oily smoke. Long rows of dingy workers' tenements march off into the distance. The Scientist ascends the creaking wooden steps of his own hovel, enters and slams the rattling door, climbs the long, dismal staircase. In his own room, he washes quickly, cleansing himself of the stubborn grime accumulated in a day of toil on roaring, clanking assembly lines. The Scientist throws the filthy towel in a corner, glances at the battered, loudly ticking clock on his paint-chipped table. He sits on the bed and waits. Men enter without knocking. Men in greasy overalls of the armament plant, and men in the dead black uniforms of the secret police. Army blue stalks in with colonel's stars on its shoulders. The dim, flickering lights of the room go on, and distorted shadows of huddled heads and shoulders lie heavily on the walls. "And this...This latest occurrence," declares the Scientist in a low hot whisper, "serves, not as further proof, but merely as another demonstration that I will -- or rather that I have -- succeeded...Eight years ago, when the method was only a germ of an idea, the "purge of imposters" took place...In the same hall...You recall that several hundred replicas of John Barton appeared while the local secret police boss was lecturing his thugs on "law and order"...They resembled, I learned through some of our members who were in attendance, John Barton -- aged about fifty. They were executed on the spot by the police. Some of them were intermixed and horribly mangled. That was eight years ago. Barton is forty-eight today..." The army colonel speaks thoughtfully: "Then this is about the point at which you are to effect the reversal in time. Obviously, Barton is to be in the same hall when he is thrown back. And I happen to know that he speaks there again two weeks from now, at a convention of serial technicians on leave from the Southern front..." "That would indicate," returns the Scientist, "that that occasion is the last on which Barton will ever speak to anyone. I am ready, myself; and though I am not quite certain just how to go about it, it seems that anything will accomplish the results -- since, as we know, they have already been accomplished..." The Young Man moves restlessly from a shadowy corner of the room. "We know that during the last eight years," he summarizes, "there have been four such occurrences, at increasingly lengthened intervals. But all have occurred at the same hall. The first, eight years ago, involved several hundred Bartons who materialized at the rear of the hall. The second, three years ago, involved between one and two hundred, and they appeared halfway down on the main floor. The third, a month ago, found some thing like seventy replicas materializing still further toward the rostrum, while the last one, two days ago, saw the twenty Bartons flash on in the front rows..." The Scientist nods with satisfaction. "Exactly," he says. "The time interval grows shorter as we near the point of reversal. Likewise, the number of Bartons which appear grows smaller. Thirdly, the materializations occur progressively closer to the rostrum on which John Barton will be standing when I end his life-track and send him racing back along time in duplicate..." "But I can't understand," a black-clad secret police officer objects, "how Barton can appear in duplicate!" The Scientist smiles. "I don't understand that either. Neither do I know why he appears more than once. Neither do I understand why the materializations occur progressively closer to the rostrum on which John Barton will be standing when I end his life-track and send him racing back along time in duplicate..." "But I can't understand," a black-clad secret police officer objects, "how Barton can appear in duplicate!" The Scientist smiles. "I don't understand that either. Neither do I know why he appears more than once. Neither do I understand why the materializations occur at increasing distances from the rostrum...All I understand is that somehow, with that," he indicates the hexagonal wooden frame criss-crossed by cotton threads that rests in a corner, and the rheostat and tuning fork on the table, and the battered flashlight which holds a small dry battery, and a toylike transformer, "I am going to -- and already have -- sent John Barton skipping back along time like a flat rock skipping on water; that somehow, the rate of materialization in this world, as he bounces back through the ages, is not an orderly progression, but irregular and increasingly long; that somehow, there is a growing error -- a growing shift in space away from the point at which the reversal takes place; that somehow, with each successive backward hop, Barton materializes in increasingly large numbers..."
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FANTASIA 6 The Scientist plods homeward. In the crimson dusk, the towering stacks of the armament factory puff and roar, smudging the sky with black oily smoke. Long rows of dingy workers' tenements march off into the distance. The Scientist ascends the creaking wooden steps of his own hovel, enters and slams the rattling door, climbs the long, dismal staircase. In his own room, he washes quickly, cleansing himself of the stubborn grime accumulated in a day of toil on roaring, clanking assembly lines. The Scientist throws the filthy towel in a corner, glances at the battered, loudly ticking clock on his paint-chipped table. He sits on the bed and waits. Men enter without knocking. Men in greasy overalls of the armament plant, and men in the dead black uniforms of the secret police. Army blue stalks in with colonel's stars on its shoulders. The dim, flickering lights of the room go on, and distorted shadows of huddled heads and shoulders lie heavily on the walls. "And this...This latest occurrence," declares the Scientist in a low hot whisper, "serves, not as further proof, but merely as another demonstration that I will -- or rather that I have -- succeeded...Eight years ago, when the method was only a germ of an idea, the "purge of imposters" took place...In the same hall...You recall that several hundred replicas of John Barton appeared while the local secret police boss was lecturing his thugs on "law and order"...They resembled, I learned through some of our members who were in attendance, John Barton -- aged about fifty. They were executed on the spot by the police. Some of them were intermixed and horribly mangled. That was eight years ago. Barton is forty-eight today..." The army colonel speaks thoughtfully: "Then this is about the point at which you are to effect the reversal in time. Obviously, Barton is to be in the same hall when he is thrown back. And I happen to know that he speaks there again two weeks from now, at a convention of serial technicians on leave from the Southern front..." "That would indicate," returns the Scientist, "that that occasion is the last on which Barton will ever speak to anyone. I am ready, myself; and though I am not quite certain just how to go about it, it seems that anything will accomplish the results -- since, as we know, they have already been accomplished..." The Young Man moves restlessly from a shadowy corner of the room. "We know that during the last eight years," he summarizes, "there have been four such occurrences, at increasingly lengthened intervals. But all have occurred at the same hall. The first, eight years ago, involved several hundred Bartons who materialized at the rear of the hall. The second, three years ago, involved between one and two hundred, and they appeared halfway down on the main floor. The third, a month ago, found some thing like seventy replicas materializing still further toward the rostrum, while the last one, two days ago, saw the twenty Bartons flash on in the front rows..." The Scientist nods with satisfaction. "Exactly," he says. "The time interval grows shorter as we near the point of reversal. Likewise, the number of Bartons which appear grows smaller. Thirdly, the materializations occur progressively closer to the rostrum on which John Barton will be standing when I end his life-track and send him racing back along time in duplicate..." "But I can't understand," a black-clad secret police officer objects, "how Barton can appear in duplicate!" The Scientist smiles. "I don't understand that either. Neither do I know why he appears more than once. Neither do I understand why the materializations occur progressively closer to the rostrum on which John Barton will be standing when I end his life-track and send him racing back along time in duplicate..." "But I can't understand," a black-clad secret police officer objects, "how Barton can appear in duplicate!" The Scientist smiles. "I don't understand that either. Neither do I know why he appears more than once. Neither do I understand why the materializations occur at increasing distances from the rostrum...All I understand is that somehow, with that," he indicates the hexagonal wooden frame criss-crossed by cotton threads that rests in a corner, and the rheostat and tuning fork on the table, and the battered flashlight which holds a small dry battery, and a toylike transformer, "I am going to -- and already have -- sent John Barton skipping back along time like a flat rock skipping on water; that somehow, the rate of materialization in this world, as he bounces back through the ages, is not an orderly progression, but irregular and increasingly long; that somehow, there is a growing error -- a growing shift in space away from the point at which the reversal takes place; that somehow, with each successive backward hop, Barton materializes in increasingly large numbers..."
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