Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION coming to that. It is very simple. In fact, it is so simple that a young man like you, who has spent most of his life in a laboratory and has had little chance to knock about in the world, might overlook the obvious fact while looking for a much more complex and unlikely explanation. Of course Louis the Gimp spoke Spanish—or some language which you thought was Spanish. Of course he tried to deceive us. Of course he attacked us and escaped.” Professor Knaut looked straight into Strothmeyer’s face, a gleam of triumph in his eye. “What else would a dangerous criminal like Louis the Gimp do? Would he sit down at the table with us and say: ‘Well, now, gentlemen!’? Would he? No! Of course he wouldn’t. He would behave just as he did behave. He would try every trick and stratagem which his twisted brain could manufacture to confuse and confound us. These actions of his, this mumbling of Spanish non- sense, this attack on you, this theft of my clothing—ail this 16 was the sort of behaviour which an examination of the - known character of Louis the Gimp would clearly foretell. You thought that the experi- ment had failed.’’ Professor Knaut shook his head good- naturedly. Strothmeyer, my boy, it has succeeded beyond our fondest hopes. We have proved everything we set out to prove.” The professor held his fing- ers up before Strothmeyer and ticked them off, one by one. *“One—we have shown that a total organism can be re- created by our phoenix method. Two—we have shown that frozen animal cells react just as well, when thawed, as cells which are put into the nu- tritive bath while still warm from their parent body. Three—we have shown that a human organism can -be ex- actly duplicated from cells. And four—with the recreation of Louis the Gimp, we have shown that the duplicate man is the same person, psycholo- gically, as the original man.”’ The professor put his hands behind his back and threw out his meagre chest. ““This means that we have conclusively and comiclooks.conn