Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Cardon put the disk in his pocket recorder and set it for play-back, put- ting the plug in his ear. After a while, he - shut it off and took out the ear plug. “That’s bad! What are we going to do about it?” | Lancedale shrugged. “What are you going to do?” he countered. “You're Pel- ton’s campaign manager—Heaven pity him.” Cardon thought for a moment. “We'll play it for laughs,” he decided. “Some of our semantics experts could make the joke of the year out of it by the time the polls open tomorrow. The Fraternities bribing their worst enemy to attack them, so that he can ruin their business; who’s been listening to a tape of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at Independent-Conservative headquarters?” | “That would work,” Lancedale agreed. “And we can count on our friends Joyner and Graves to give you every possible assistance with their customary bull-in-a- china-shop tactics. I suppose you’ve seen these posters they’ve been plastering around: Jf you can read this, Chester Pelton is your sworn enemy! A vote for Pelton is a vote for your own enslave- ment!” : “Naturally. And have you seen the tele- Ih ii) ‘whl Uf yy, Foe | Yj Y Yy a Yip Yy\ Vs Yi VL] Yi4 M4, VY, Y ter 4) 4/2) ‘. ‘ f HY, Y, , 4 iy : , % Yip ey p / f BY y Wy / : Wy , y 7 7 YJ fh! Vb Sih / 4 Wy Yi fy f Yi) WY, bith ALY yp ff! i /} ft / f U i} y y oe Lye ° a cast we’ve been using—a view of it, with a semantically correct spoken para- phrase?” | Lancedale nodded. “And I’ve also noticed that those posters have been acquiring different obscene crayon-draw- ings, too. That’s just typical of the short- range Joyner-Graves mentality. Why, they’ve made more votes for Pelton than he’s made for himself. Is it any wonder we’re convinced that people like that aren’t to be trusted to formulate the future policy of the Fraternities?” “Well . . . they’ve proved themselves — wrong. I wonder, though, if we can prove ourselves right, in the long run. There are times when this thing scares me, chief. If anything went wrong—” “What, for instance?” | “Somebody could get to Pelton.” Car- don made a stabbing gesture with the stiletto, which he still held. “Maybe you don’t really know how hot this thing’s gotten. What we had to cut out of Mon- gery’s report, this morning—” “Oh, I’ve been keeping in touch,” Lancedale understated gently. “Well then. If anything happened to Pelton, there wouldn’t be a Literate left alive in this city twelve hours later. And I question whether or not Graves and Joyner know that.” “I think they do. If they don’t, it’s Eomichbooks.co