What is POSAT?
By PHYLLIS STERLING SMITH
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Of course coming events cast their shadows
before, but this shadow was 400 years long!
The following advertisement appeared in the July 1953 issue of severalmagazines:
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 thename of that same society. Other readers, as their eyes slid over thefamiliar format of the ad, speculated idly about the persistent andmildly mysterious organization behind it. A few even resolved to clipthe attached coupon and send for the booklet—sometime—when a pen orpencil was nearer at hand.
Bill Evans, an unemployed pharmacist, saw the ad in a copy of YourLife 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 particularlyliked that thought, even though he had long since ceased to believeit. He actually took the trouble to mail the coupon. After all, hehad, literally, nothing to lose, and nothing else to occupy his time.
Miss Elizabeth Arnable was one of the few to whom the advertisementwas 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 alwaysliked to think that it amused her cats as well as herself. Readingwould be so selfish under the circumstances, wouldn't it? Not but whatthe cats weren't almost smart enough to read, she always said.
It just so happened, however, that she had bought a copy of theAntivivisectionist Gazette the day before. She pounced upon the POSATad as a trout might snap at a particularly attractive fly. Havingfilled out the coupon with violet ink, she invented an errand thatwould take her past the neighborhood post office so that she could postit as soon as possible.
Donald Alford, research physicist, came across the POSAT ad tucked atthe bottom of a column in The Bulletin of Physical Research. He wasengrossed in the latest paper by Dr. Crandon, a man whom he admiredfrom the point of view of both a former student and a fellow researchworker. Consequently, he was one of the many who passed over the POSATad with the disregard accorded to any common object.
He read with interest to the end of the article before he realized thatsome component of the advertisement had been noted by a region of hisbrain just beyond consciousness. It teased at him like a tickle thatcouldn't be scratched until he turned back to the page.
It was the symbol or emblem of POSAT, he realized, that had caught hisattention. The perpendicularly crossed ellipses centered with a smallblack circle might almost be a conventionalized version of the Bohratom of