Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

THE BOOGIE MATRIX “She was dead pan—face and voice,” Pope stated. “Tt doesn’t matter. I’m relying on the Logical Analyser. I think we have enough basic data to punch a card full of holes. The machine will run through every conceivable permuta- tion and combination of the basic information, rejecting the improbable situations, and supplying detailed ana- lyses of the more likely situations which could con- form to the data we provide.” “T see,’ said Pope, thought- fully. “The facts we know are part of a pattern, and the machine picks out the most probable patterns, one of which will correspond to the real situation.” “Provided our basic facts are accurate. Now what do we know? Take Karl Soliki. - He’s in the Reversionist Index. - We could have arrested him long ago, but it’s been our policy to let him have enough rope to hang himself. We believe that he’s tied up with a Reversionist plot to seize power. But that’s all we know. We haven’t any defi- 79 nite evidence to go on at present. “Then there’s Bax Borden, the composer. He’s not a known Reversionist, but he has tendencies that way. He’s in the Index because of an indiscreet musical work— Matrix 22—which was re- cently banned by the Culture Board. The only link between these two—Borden and Soliki —is this girl, Zora Varney. We've been studying her for some months. She’s visited Soliki quite frequently—and Borden less frequently. To- day she went straight from one to the other, staying about twenty minutes at each address. That sounds like business rather than pleasure —especially when you take into account the fact that Borden is broadcasting a new work tomorrow evening— Matrix 24—and it has already been approved by the Culture Board. That may be signifi- cant—and that’s why she was brought in for interrogation.” ““Maybe we ought to arrest Borden and Soliki?’ Pope suggested. “Not yet, Lieutenant. We want to find out what is going comicloooks.conn