Astounding Science Fiction, August 1955 (British Edition) — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

94 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Yes, Salgath Trod agreed to that. ete am now terminating the playback of Councilman Salgath’s call to ” Tortha Karf said, re-appearing on the screen. “At this point Council- man Salgath began making a statement about his criminal activities, which we have on record. Because he named a number of his criminal associates, whom we have no intention of warning, this portion of Councilman Salgath’s call cannot at this time be made public. We have no intention of having any of these suspects escape, or of giving their associates an opportunity — to murder them to prevent their furnishing us with additional information. Incidentally, there was an attempt, made on the landing stage of Paratime Police Headquarters, to murder Councilman Salgath, when he was brought here guarded by Paratime Police officers—”’ He went on to give a colorful and, as far as possible, truthful, account of the attack by the two pseudo-policemen and their pseudo-prisoner. As he told it, however, all three had been killed before they could accomplish their purpose, one of them by Salgath Trod himself. The image of Tortha Karf was replaced by a view of the three assassins lying on the landing stage. They all looked dead, even the one who wasn’t; there was nothing to indicate that he was merely drugged. Then, one after another, their faces were shown in closeup, while Tortha Karf asked for close attention and memorization. “We believe that these men were Fifth Level Proles; we think that they were under hypnotic influence or obeying posthypnotic commands when they made their suicidal attack. If any of you have ever seen any of these men before, it is your duty to inform the Paratime Police.”’ ‘That ended it. Tortha Karf pressed a button in front of him and the screen went dark. The spectators relaxed. “Well! Nothing like being sincere with the public, is there?’’ Della com- mented. “I’ll remember this the next time I tune in a Management public statement.” ‘In about five minutes,’’ one of the bureau-chiefs said, “all hell is going to break loose. I think the whole thing is crazy!”’ “I hope you have somebody who can give a convincing impersonation,” Lovranth Rolk said. “Yes. A field agent named Kostran Galth,” Tortha Karf said. “We ran the personal description cards for the whole Force through the machine; Kostran checked to within one-twentieth of one per cent; he’s on Police Terminal, now, coming by rocket from Ravvanan Equivalent. We ought to have the whole thing ready for telecast by 1730 tomorrow.” ‘He can’t learn to imitate Salgath’s voice convincingly in that time, with all the work the cosmeticians’ll have to be doing on him,”’ Dalla said. “Make up a tape of Salgath’s own voice, out of that pile of recordings we got at his apartment, and what we can get out of the news file,” Vall said. ““We have phoneticists who can split syllables and splice them together. Kostran will deliver his speech in dumb-show, and we’ll dub the sound in and telecast them as one. I’ve messaged PolTerm to get to work on that; they can start as soon as we have the speech written.” i COMME OOKS.COM