Duel by Richard Matheson Page B

entablature were the words: HISTORY IS LIVING. After a moment the wall was there again, solid and opaque.
    â€œWell?” Wade asked.
    â€œWe build our history texts, you see, not on records but on direct testimony.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œWe transcribe the testimony of people who lived in the times we wish to study.”
    â€œBut how?”
    â€œBy the re-formation of disincarnate personalities.”
    Wade was dumbfounded. “The dead?” he asked hollowly.
    â€œWe call them the bodiless,” replied Clemolk.
    â€œIn the natural order, Professor,” the historian said, “Man’s personality exists apart from and independent of his corporeal frame. We
have taken this truism and used it to our advantage. Since the personality retains indefinitely—although in decreasing strength—the memory of its physical form and habiliments, it is only a matter of supplying the organic and inorganic materials to this memory.”
    â€œBut that’s incredible,” Wade said. “At Fort—that’s the college where I teach—we have psychical research projects. But nothing approaching this.” Suddenly he paled. “Why am I here?”
    â€œIn your case,” Clemolk said, “we were spared the difficulty of reforming a long bodiless personality from your time period. You reached our period in your chamber.”
    Wade clasped his shaking hands and blew out a heavy breath.
    â€œThis is all very interesting,” he said, “but I can’t stay long. Suppose you ask me what you want to know.”
    Clemolk drew out the control board and pushed a button. “Your voice will be transcribed now,” he said.
    He leaned back and clasped his colorless hands on his lap.
    â€œYour governmental system,” he said. “Suppose we start with that.”
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    â€œYes,” Clemolk said, “it all balances nicely with what we already know.”
    â€œNow, may I see my chamber?” Wade asked.
    Clemolk’s eyes looked at him without flickering. His motionless face was getting on Wade’s nerves.
    â€œI think you can see it,” Clemolk said, getting up.
    Wade got up and followed the historian through the doorway into a long similarly shaded and illuminated hall.
    You can see it.
    Wade’s brow was twisted into worried lines. Why the emphasis on that word, as though to see the chamber was all he would be allowed to do?
    Clemolk seemed unaware of Wade’s uneasy thoughts.
    â€œAs a scientist,” he was saying, “you should be interested in the aspects of re-formation. Every detail is clearly defined. The only difficulty
our scientists have yet to cope with is the strength of memory and its effect on the re-formed body. The weaker the memory, you see, the sooner the body disintegrates.”
    Wade wasn’t listening. He was thinking about his wife.
    â€œYou see,” Clemolk went on, “although, as I said, these disincarnate personalities are re-formed in a vestigial pattern that includes every item to the last detail—including clothes and personal belongings—they last for shorter and shorter periods of time.
    â€œThe time allowances vary. A re-formed person, from your period, say, would last about three quarters of an hour.”
    The historian stopped and motioned Wade toward a door that had opened in the wall of the hallway.
    â€œHere,” he said, “we’ll take the tube over to the laboratory.”
    They entered a narrow, dimly lit chamber. Clemolk directed Wade to a wall bench.
    The door slid shut quickly and a hum rose in the air. Wade had the immediate sensation of being back in the time-chamber again. He felt the pain, the crushing weight of depression, the wordless terror billowing up in memory.
    â€œMary.” His lips soundlessly formed her name.
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    The chamber was resting on a broad metal platform. Three men, similar to Clemolk in appearance were