The professor shook his head. Very slowly, he said: "Not for you, my
boy. Not for you." He paused. "You see, you were born without arms. In
such a case the cellular memory does not seem to exist--like a man who
has never been to New York. He cannot draw the map. He has no memory to
begin with."
The silence this time was a long one.
At last Charley said: "But somebody could tell him. I mean about New
York, so he could draw the map."
"Perhaps," the professor said. "We are working on it. Some day--"
"But not today," Charley said. "Is that it?"
"I ... I'm afraid so," the professor said.
Charley sat for a long time, thinking. He pictured the carnival, and the
shrinking audiences. Could he explain to them why he couldn't get arms?
Would any audience stop to listen and digest the truth? Charley thought
of the armless man in the Flea Museum, and decided slowly that no
explanation would be good enough. People didn't stop to make small
distinctions. Not in a sideshow. Not in a carnival.
No.
There was only one thing he could do; he saw that clearly. But it took
him a long time to find the right words. At last he had them.
"Professor," he said, "suppose I go right back to being a sideshow
exhibit--but with a limited audience."
Professor Lightning looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" he said.
"Well," Charley said, carefully and with a sudden, surprising feeling of
hope, "you don't happen to need a new guinea pig, do you?"
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ May 1959.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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