the wolf pack.
We want you to come in with us, help us; we want you to be one of us."
"I? I'm an old man, Mr. Camberton. I will be dead before this
civilization falls; how can I help build a new one? And how could I, at
my age, be expected to learn this technique?"
"Paul Wendell says you can. He says you have one of the strongest minds
now existing."
The Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. "You know, Camberton, you
keep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I thought you said he
was dead."
Again Camberton gave him the odd smile. "I didn't say that, Senator; I
said they buried his body. That's quite a different thing. You see,
before the poor, useless hulk that held his blasted brain died, Paul
gave the eight of us his memories; he gave us _himself_. The mind is not
the brain, Senator; we don't know what it _is_ yet, but we do know what
it _isn't_. Paul's poor, damaged brain is dead, but his memories, his
thought processes, the very essence of all that was Paul Wendell is
still very much with us.
"Do you begin to see now why we want you to come in with us? There are
nine of us now, but we need the tenth--you. Will you come?"
"I--I'll have to think it over," the old statesman said in a voice that
had a faint quaver. "I'll have to think it over."
But they both knew what his answer would be.
Transcriber's Note
This etext was produced from _Future Science Fiction_ No. 30, 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
have been corrected without note.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Suite Mentale, by Gordon Randall Garrett
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