Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Striker remembered talk he had heard from some of his younger assistants—strange words like “Speedup” and “industrial decrepitude.” And now, Ironically, he was only beginning to understand them. “Let’s get away from this,” he spat to his companion. “| can’t stand it!” Later, when they were smoking cigars of a sort in Maun’s modest apartment, the man from the past unburdened his soul. “Maun,” he cried, “one million! And what has it meant to man? To my eyes there has not been one upward step since the day when | left my own time and advanced into this. What can it mean?” The old man shrugged. “Who can say? | can see that there is in operation a rising tide of internationalism. | thought once that | might see political and national boundaries swept away before | died. Now it seems that it will take a little longer than that. Shall | tell you how far back history goes for us?” “Half a million years?” guessed Striker. “No,” said the old man. “Not much more than twelve thousand. And what traces we have of that early day are obscured. Man was then only a little above the beasts. First recorded civilization is Loayan, flourishing nine thousand years ago. And they were a crude people without industries or trade.” “And since then,” said Striker, “the climb to your present Status has been slow and irregular?” “Exactly. Do you recognize the pattern?” “Very well indeed. And so | find myself in a world almost a duplicate of my own, yet unable to use my talents and knowledge. There was a song in my time—” He hummed a bar of the smash hit, Put Me in My Place. Abruptly Maum sat up. “Do that again,” he said excitedly. Striker whistled the tune and went on to the end with fancy runs and trills. CORniclooo SS CO