The Science Fiction Anthology - Fritz Leiber

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the Rathaus the wooden angels have mostly broken off. Soltau Valley used to be proud of them—could you make good copies? And of course cameras are useless and the best drawings we can do look funny. Could you teach the youngers at least to draw so faces look like faces and not behinds? And like you were saying about you and Labuerre, maybe one younger there will be so crazy that he will want to learn it all, so Soltau will always have an artist and sculptor for the necessary work. And you will find a Lucy or somebody better. I think better.”

      “Hush,” warned the nurse. “You’re exciting the patient.”

      “It’s all right,” said Halvorsen eagerly. “Thanks, but it’s really all right.”

      The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of several magazines:

      MASTERY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE CAN BE YOURS!

      What is the secret source of those profound

      principles that can solve the problems of life?

      Send for our FREE booklet of explanation.

      Do not be a leaf in the wind! YOU

      can alter the course of your life!

      Tap the treasury of Wisdom through the ages!

      The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth

      POSAT

      an ancient secret society

      Most readers passed it by with scarcely a glance. It was, after all, similar to the many that had appeared through the years under the name of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over the familiar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent and mildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clip the attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen or pencil was nearer at hand.

      Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of Your Life and Psychology that had been abandoned on his seat in the bus. He filled out the blanks on the coupon with a scrap of stubby pencil. “You can alter the course of your life!” he read again. He particularly liked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believe it. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, he had, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.

      Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisement was unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, she very seldom read a magazine. The radio in her room took the place of reading matter, and she always liked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Reading would be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn’t it? Not but what the cats weren’t almost smart enough to read, she always said.

      It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of the Antivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSAT ad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Having filled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand that would take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could post it as soon as possible.

      Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked at the bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research. He was engrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admired from the point of view of both a former student and a fellow research worker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSAT ad with the disregard accorded to any common object.

      He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized that some component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of his brain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle that couldn’t be scratched until he turned back to the page.

      It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught his attention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a small black circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohr atom of helium. He smiled with mild skepticism as he read through the printed matter that accompanied it.

      “I wonder what their racket is,” he mused. Then, because his typewriter was conveniently at hand, he carefully tore out the coupon and inserted it in the machine. The spacing of the typewriter didn’t fit the dotted lines on the coupon, of course, but he didn’t bother to correct it. He addressed an envelope, laid it with other mail to be posted, and promptly forgot all about it. Since he was a methodical man, it was entrusted to the U.S. mail early the next morning, together with his other letters.

      Three identical forms accompanied the booklet which POSAT sent in response to the three inquiries. The booklet gave no more information than had the original advertisement, but with considerable more volubility. It promised the recipient the secrets of the Cosmos and the key that would unlock the hidden knowledge within himself—if he would merely fill out the enclosed form.

      Bill Evans, the unemployed pharmacist, let the paper lie unanswered for several days. To be quite honest, he was disappointed. Although he had mentally disclaimed all belief in anything that POSAT might offer, he had watched the return mails with anticipation. His own resources were almost at an end, and he had reached the point where intervention by something supernatural, or at least superhuman, seemed the only hope.

      He had hoped, unreasonably, that POSAT had an answer. But time lay heavily upon him, and he used it one evening to write the requested information—about his employment (ha!), his religious beliefs, his reason for inquiring about POSAT, his financial situation. Without quite knowing that he did so, he communicated in his terse answers some of his desperation and sense of futility.

      Miss Arnable was delighted with the opportunity for autobiographical composition. It required five extra sheets of paper to convey all the information that she wished to give—all about her poor, dear father who had been a missionary to China, and the kinship that she felt toward the mystic cults of the East, her belief that her cats were reincarnations of her loved ones (which, she stated, derived from a religion of the Persians; or was it the Egyptians?) and in her complete and absolute acceptance of everything that POSAT had stated in their booklet. And what would the dues be? She wished to join immediately. Fortunately, dear father had left her in a comfortable financial situation.

      To Donald Alford, the booklet seemed to confirm his suspicion that POSAT was a racket of some sort. Why else would they be interested in his employment or financial position? It also served to increase his curiosity.

      “What do you suppose they’re driving at?” he asked his wife Betty, handing her the booklet and questionnaire.

      “I don’t really know what to say,” she answered, squinting a little as she usually did when puzzled. “I know one thing, though, and that’s that you won’t stop until you find out!”

      “The scientific attitude,” he acknowledged with a grin.

      “Why don’t you fill out this questionnaire incognito, though?” she suggested. “Pretend that we’re wealthy and see if they try to get our money. Do they have anything yet except your name and address?”

      Don was shocked. “If I send this back to them, it will have to be with correct answers!”

      “The scientific attitude again,” Betty sighed. “Don’t you ever let your imagination run away with the facts a bit? What are you going to give for your reasons for asking about POSAT?”

      “Curiosity,” he replied, and, pulling his fountain pen from his vest pocket, he wrote exactly that, in small, neat script.

      It was unfortunate for his curiosity that Don could not see the contents of the three envelopes that were mailed from the offices of POSAT the following week. For this time they differed.

      Bill Evans was once again disappointed. The pamphlet that was enclosed gave what apparently meant to be final answers to life’s problems. They were couched in vaguely metaphysical terms and offered absolutely no help to him.

      His disappointment was tempered, however, by the knowledge that he had unexpectedly found a job. Or, rather, it had fallen into his lap. When he had thought that every

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