Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION ence had achieved the ability to duplicate and reduplicate the human body. But he was equally sure that this duplica- tion had nothing whatsoever to do with personality. The chance that either of these two duplicates would be Sir Win- ston Churchill come back to life was, he thought, infinites- imal. The chance that both the new organisms would be Churchill was, by the integral- field theory of non-material mind, totally absent. If, as Strothmeyer believed, the human mind was a field of energy not truly dependent upon an organism, then Churchill still existed, some- how, as an individual. He might conceivably become attracted to a new body which so exactly resembled his old one. He might, if he were able, take the opportunity to enter one of these new bodies at its awakening. But it would be far-fetched to expect him to enter both of them. As Strothmeyer attended the Churchills, adjusting the controls and the nutritional, pressiveand circulatory valves, and replenishing supplies, he had many weeks in which to 20 cogitate these matters. He could not, of course, breathe a word of his thoughts to Professor Knaut, who might have thrown him off the pro- ject for such continued theor- etical defection. But Stroth- meyer could peer in through the glass and wonder. The lights within the nests glowed warmly upon the super-healthy skins of the two duplicates, as they turned slightly in their controlling webs and went through their natural cycles of alimentation with the dormant dignity of impersonalised puppets. Clearly, they were not human beings. Not yet. They were only human bodies. Some- thing was still missing from them. Something which, in a mysterious and wonderful way, would be added to them when they were awakened. What that something was, Strothmeyer knew only vaguely. But he felt that he did know. It was his deep conviction that he had the true approach to the human mind and that Professor Knaut had the false approach. This something might be called a soul. It might be comiclooks.conn