The following memorandum was originally attached to the extract from the Bannerman Journal; it carries the McCarran initialing.
Aug. 11, 1951
The original letter of complaint written by Stephen Clyde, M.D., and mentioned in the accompanying letter of Captain Blaine, has unfortunately been lost, owing perhaps to an error in filing.
Personnel presumed responsible have been instructed not to allow such error to be repeated except if, as, and/or when necessary.
C. McC.
On the margin of this memorandum there was a penciled notation, later erased. The imprint is sufficient to show the unmistakable McCarran script. The notation read in part as follows: Far be it from a McC. to lose his job except if, as, and/or—the rest is undecipherable, except for a terminal word which is regrettably unparliamentary.
STATEMENT BY LESTER MORSE, M.D., DATED AUGUST 9, 1951
On the afternoon of July 30, 1951, acting on what I am obliged to describe as an unexpected impulse, I drove out to the country for the purpose of calling on my friend Dr. David Bannerman. I had not seen him nor had word from him since the evening of June 12 of this year.
I entered, as was my custom, without knocking. After calling to him and hearing no response, I went upstairs to his bedroom and found him dead. From superficial indications I judged that death must have taken place during the previous night. He was lying on his bed on his left side, comfortably disposed as if for sleep but fully dressed, with a fresh shirt and clean summer slacks. His eyes and mouth were closed, and there was no trace of the disorder to be expected at even the easiest natural death. Because of these signs I assumed, as soon as I had determined the absence of breath and heartbeat and noted the chill of the body, that some neighbor must have found him already, performed these simple rites out of respect for him, and probably notified a local physician or other responsible person. I therefore waited (Dr. Bannerman had no telephone), expecting that someone would soon call.
Dr. Bannerman’s journal was on a table near his bed, open to that page on which he has written a codicil to his will. I read that part. Later, while I was waiting for others to come, I read the remainder of the journal, as I believe he wished me to do. The ring he mentions was on the fifth finger of his left hand, and it is now in my possession. When writing that codicil Dr. Bannerman must have overlooked or forgotten the fact that in his formal will, written some months earlier, he had appointed me executor. If there are legal technicalities involved, I shall be pleased to cooperate fully with the proper authorities.
The ring, however, will remain in my keeping, since that was Dr. Bannerman’s expressed wish, and I am not prepared to offer it for examination or discussion under any circumstances.
The notes for a revision of one of his textbooks were in his desk, as noted in the journal. They are by no means “messy”; nor are they particularly revolutionary except insofar as he wished to rephrase, as theory or hypothesis, certain statements that I would have supposed could be regarded as axiomatic. This is not my field, and I am not competent to judge. I shall take up the matter with his publishers at the earliest opportunity.[5]
So far as I can determine, and bearing in mind the results of the autopsy performed by Stephen Clyde, M.D., the death of Dr. David Bannerman was not inconsistent with the presence of an embolism of some type not distinguishable post mortem. I have so stated on the certificate of death. It would seem to be not in the public interest to leave such questions in doubt. I am compelled to add one other item of medical opinion for what it may be worth:
I am not a psychiatrist, but, owing to the demands of general practice, I have found it advisable to keep as up to date as possible with current findings and opinion in this branch of medicine. Dr. Bannerman possessed, in my opinion, emotional and intellectual stability to a better degree than anyone else of comparable intelligence in the entire field of my acquaintance, personal and professional. If it is suggested that he was suffering from a hallucinatory psychosis, I can only say that it must have been of a type quite outside my experience and not described, so far as I know, anywhere in the literature of psychopathology.
Dr. Bannerman’s house, on the afternoon of July 30, was in good order. Near the open, unscreened window of his bedroom there was a coverless shoe box with a folded silk scarf in the bottom. I found no pillow such as Dr. Bannerman describes in the journal, but observed that a small section had been cut from the scarf. In this box, and near it, there was a peculiar fragrance, faint, aromatic, and very sweet, such as I have never encountered before and therefore cannot describe.
It may or may not have any bearing on the case that, while I remained in his house that afternoon, I felt no sense of grief or personal loss, although Dr. Bannerman had been a loved and honored friend for a number of years. I merely had, and have, a conviction that after the completion of some very great undertaking, he had found peace.
YOUTH, by Isaac Asimov
CHAPTER I
There was a spatter of pebbles against the window and the youngster stirred in his sleep. Another, and he was awake.
He sat up stiffly in bed. Seconds passed while he interpreted his strange surroundings. He wasn’t in his own home, of course. This was out in the country. It was colder than it should be and there was green at the window.
“Slim!”
The call was a hoarse, urgent whisper, and the youngster bounded to the open window.
Slim wasn’t his real name, but the new friend he had met the day before had needed only one look at his slight figure to say, “You’re Slim.” He added, “I’m Red.”
Red wasn’t his real name, either, but its appropriateness was obvious. They were friends instantly with the quick unquestioning friendship of young ones not yet quite in adolescence, before even the first stains of adulthood began to make their appearance.
Slim cried, “Hi, Red!” and waved cheerfully, still blinking the sleep out of himself.
Red kept to his croaking whisper, “Quiet! You want to wake somebody?”
Slim noticed all at once that the sun scarcely topped the low hills in the east, that the shadows were long and soft, and that the grass was wet.
Slim said, more softly, “What’s the matter?”
Red only waved for him to come out.
Slim dressed quickly, gladly confining his morning wash to the momentary sprinkle of a little lukewarm water. He let the air dry the exposed portions of his body as he ran out, while bare skin grew wet against the dewy grass.
Red said, “You’ve got to be quiet. If Mom wakes up or Dad or your Dad or even any of the hands then it’ll be ‘Come on in or you’ll catch your death of cold.’”
He mimicked voice and tone faithfully, so that Slim laughed and thought that there had never been so funny a fellow as Red.
Slim said, eagerly, “Do you come out here every day like this, Red? Real early? It’s like the whole world is just yours, isn’t it, Red? No one else around and all like that.” He felt proud at being allowed entrance into this private world.
Red stared at him sidelong. He said carelessly, “I’ve been up for hours. Didn’t you hear it last night?”
“Hear what?”
“Thunder.”
5
LIBRARIAN’S NOTE: But it seems he never did. No new edition of