Suite Mentale | Page 6

with another mind. Because, at the 'instant' of contact, you become that person; you must enter his own memory at the beginning and go up the hyper-tube. You will have all his memories, his hopes, his fears, his sense of identity. Unless you know--beyond any trace of doubt--who you are, the result is insanity."
* * * * *
The Senator puffed his pipe for a moment, then shook his head. "It sounds like Oriental mysticism to me. If you can travel in time, you'd be able to change the past."
"Not at all," Camberton said; "that's like saying that if you read a book, the author's words will change.
"Time isn't like that. Look, suppose you had a long trough filled with supercooled water. At one end, you drop in a piece of ice. Immediately the water begins to freeze; the crystallization front moves toward the other end of the trough. Behind that front, there is ice--frozen, immovable, unchangeable. Ahead of it there is water--fluid, mobile, changeable.
"The instant we call 'the present' is like that crystallization front. The past is unchangeable; the future is flexible. But they both exist."
"I see--at least, I think I do. And you can do all this?"
"Not yet," said Camberton; "not completely. My mind isn't as strong as Wendell's, nor as capable. I'm not the--shall we say--the superman he is; perhaps I never will be. But I'm learning--I'm learning. After all, it took Paul twenty years to do the trick under the most favorable circumstances imaginable."
"I see." The Senator smoked his pipe in silence for a long time. Camberton lit a cigaret and said nothing. After a time, the Senator took the briar from his mouth and began to tap the bowl gently on the heel of his palm. "Mr. Camberton, why do you tell me all this? I still have influence with the Senate; the present President is a protégé of mine. It wouldn't be too difficult to get you men--ah--put away again. I have no desire to see our society ruined, our world destroyed. Why do you tell me?"
* * * * *
Camberton smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid you might find it a little difficult to put us away again, sir; but that's not the point. You see, we need you. We have no desire to destroy our present culture until we have designed a better one to replace it.
"You are one of the greatest living statesmen, Senator; you have a wealth of knowledge and ability that can never be replaced; knowledge and ability that will help us to design a culture and a civilization that will be as far above this one as this one is above the wolf pack. We want you to come in with us, help us; we want you to be one of us."
"I? I'm an old man, Mr. Camberton. I will be dead before this civilization falls; how can I help build a new one? And how could I, at my age, be expected to learn this technique?"
"Paul Wendell says you can. He says you have one of the strongest minds now existing."
The Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. "You know, Camberton, you keep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I thought you said he was dead."
Again Camberton gave him the odd smile. "I didn't say that, Senator; I said they buried his body. That's quite a different thing. You see, before the poor, useless hulk that held his blasted brain died, Paul gave the eight of us his memories; he gave us himself. The mind is not the brain, Senator; we don't know what it is yet, but we do know what it isn't. Paul's poor, damaged brain is dead, but his memories, his thought processes, the very essence of all that was Paul Wendell is still very much with us.
"Do you begin to see now why we want you to come in with us? There are nine of us now, but we need the tenth--you. Will you come?"
"I--I'll have to think it over," the old statesman said in a voice that had a faint quaver. "I'll have to think it over."
But they both knew what his answer would be.

Transcriber's Note
This etext was produced from Future Science Fiction No. 30, 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

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