Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

THE PHOENIX NEST meyer, his assistant, disagreed, saying that it was quite within the framework of the energy- propagation theory of Wet- more and Nicholas to suppose that the human mind was an integral, sub-atomic field, self- contained and self-perpetuat- ing, and that its dependence upon an organism was neither complete nor continuous. The argument went round and round, while preparations were made and while the first duplicate body was growing— the test body which preceded Churchill. But both of the scientists knew that the end of the argument could come only with the awakening of the first duplicate man. The “‘parent”’ was one Louis the Gimp, who was waiting in the Sing Sing death house. This fact was known only to the two scientists. They had chosen this course in order to simplify the legal problems which were implicit in the creation of a thoroughgoing doppleganger for a free citizen. The prisoner was soon to be executed. Should the dupli- cate be exact, he would be embarrassed by that fact for only a few weeks after his awakening. Dr. Strothmeyer had ob- jected to this plan, saying that public opinion might resent the creation of a new mur- derer to take the place of the old one, but Knaut quieted him with the reminder that since no birth certificate or registration of any kind existed for the duplicate murderer, he himself did not in fact exist and could be done away with, if the need arose, without illegality. Strothmeyer ob- jected again that this raised the question of the rights of persons risen from the phoenix nests, but Knaut grunted that someone could cross that bridge when he came to it, and that it was not their worry anyway. In due time, the duplicate was complete. They wakened him at the physical age of twenty-four, which was the exact age of the doomed man. They drained off the nutrient bath first. Then they sub- jected him to the waking ray and the fine streams of cold water. And he woke. As he opened his eyes, he was ad- dressed by Professor Knaut. comiclooks.conn