Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 52 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

A DATE WITH THE PAST relieving them of the need to isolate one variable after an- other in a given problem. It could handle up to ten thous- and continuously altering vari- ables at the same time before it broke down, while the human brain found it difficult to handle two, without giving undue weight to one or the other. The enquiry office told Lyssen that Master del Marno usually worked on the tenth floor of Annexe Two, with his wife, but only she had checked in that morning, and did not wish to be disturbed. Perhaps his home, which was nearby——? Del Marno’s home Sta to be a neat white house over- looking the river. Impressed _ by this evidence of wealth, for the tax on private houses in space-starved New York was enormous, Lyssen approached the front door and pushed his card into the receiving slot. His name registered, and he heard a buzzer begin to sound insistently. After some three minutes he was about to give up and search for del Marno else- where, when the buzzer ceased abruptly and the front door clicked open. Lyssen saw a man swaying unsteadily at the 99 end of a narrow hall. He was dark and heavily built, his hair tousled, and appeared to be dressed only in a nightshirt. ‘“‘Er—Master Roger del Marno?” said Lyssen cau- tiously. ‘““Come’n help me, damn you,” said the other, in a — blurred, monotonous voice. ““Sleep—mustn’t sleep—keep awake——” He slowly slumped down the wall to the floor and feebly propped him- self up on his hands, still muttering and shaking his head from side to side. Lyssen was shocked. At first he thought the man was just drunk, but as he knelt down beside him, he caught the word “hypno-drug.”’ So that was it. He searched his memory frantically; what was the treatment? Maybe a doc- tor—then he remembered. He must get the man back to sleep again, and then con- tinually order him to wake up until the command registered in the subconscious mind—if it did at all. Possibly the original hypnotic command was too strong to be contra- dicted. Still, he could try. The man must have a pheno- menal will to have woken himself up anyway, and that would help. conmicloooks.comnn