Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
PROLOGUE TO AN ANALOGUE
By LEIGH RICHMOND
Finnagle's Law shows that many times we don't get the effectwe planned on. But ... there's an inverse to that famous law,too....
Illustrated by Schoenherr
he IWC program was a newscast by Bill Howard, and the news wasparticularly vicious that night.
Bill, his big homely face leaning across a desk toward the viewer,talked in horrified tones of the "pest-sub" that had reputedly gotstuck in the Suez and spread epidemic across Cairo.
It was easy to assume, Bill told his audience, that the nations mostinterested in creating a crisis in the world right now had put the subthere to make an excuse to accuse us of the terror. It was undoubtedlyreally there, and was undoubtedly really of American make, and theepidemic was undoubtedly very real indeed, he said. The United Nationsinvestigating team, due to go into the Canal Zone the next day andmake their report to the world, would find that the epidemic wascaused by laboratory-developed bacteria, carried in by anAmerican-made sub. It would be at least as bad, if not worse, thanreported.
The question before the world, Bill said, was not whetherbacteriological warfare had started, but who had started it—and thefact that the sub carried United States markings and was of UnitedStates make did not at all answer the question.
Bacteriological warfare had broken out and where it would strike nextwas anybody's guess.
"But let there be no mistake," Bill said. "This is war."
It was on that note that the station break came, and the thirteenwitches, trademark of the International Witch Corporation, came on.
Harvey Randolph, manufacturer of the Witch line of products, leanedtoward the screen intently. He had just transferred his account toBurton, Dester, Duston & Oswald, and they had dreamed up a new-typecommercial for the products.
The thirteen witches were long-legged, slender dancing gals, in tallblack witch caps and long black capes, crimson-lined, and very littleelse. Each had long hair that swirled as she danced.
Randolph chewed his lip, watching them thoughtfully.
They came on with what was almost a valkyrie cry—"Witches of theworld, unite—to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean—NOW!"
"Hm-m-m," thought Randolph. The cry struck rather sourly at the endof that "this is war" sentence from the newscast, he thought, but thenthat dramatic newscast-ending was rather unusual.
The witches were singing a jingling chorus as they danced. "No task istoo big, no task is too small," they sang. "Which Witch do you need?You should have them all—"
Each witch, of course, displayed her particular product from the Witchline—detergent, soap, shampoo, cleanser, cleaning fluid....
"Witch soap or detergent....
"Witch cleanser upsurgent....
"Which Witch do you need? You should have them all...."
This was fairly average as commercials go, thought Randolph. The bigBDD&O radical innovation would be next.
It was. On the screen behind the witches appeared a map of the SuezCanal, an