Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

breast five or six- little metal badges twinkled. . Why no other beer can compare with " delicious, tangy, Cardon’s Black Bottle. Won’t you try it?” he pleaded. “Then you will see for yourself why _ fTillions of happy drinkers always Call For Cardon’s. And now, that other favorite of millions, Literate First Class Elliot C Mongery.” Pelton muttered: “Why Frank sponsors that blabbermouth of a Mongery—” Ray, sliding back onto the bench, re- turned to his food. “Jimmy’s book had pictures,” he com- plained, forking up another mixture of eggs, bacon, toast and honey. “Book?” Claire echoed. “Oh, the in- structions for the ’copter?” “Pipe down, both of you!” Pelton commanded. “The newscast—” Literate First Class Elliot C. Mongery, revealed by a quick left quarter-turn of the pickup camera, wore the same starchy white smock, the same Sam Browne belt glittering with the badges of the organiza- tions and corporations for whom he was authorized to practise Literacy. The tab- let on his belt, Pelton knew, was really a camouflaged holster for a small auto- matic, and the gold stylus was a gas- projector. The _ black-leather-jacketed bodyguards, of course, were discreetly out of range of the camera. Members of the Associated Fraternities of Literates weren’t exactly loved by the non-reading public they claimed to serve. The sight of one of those starchy, perpetually-spotless, white smocks always affected Pelton like a red cape to a bull. He snorted in disdain. The raised eyebrow toward the announcer on the left, the quick, perennially boyish smile, followed by the levelly serious gaze into the camera—the whole act might have been a film-transcription of Mon- gery’s first appearance on the video, fifteen . years ago.’ At least, it was off the same ear of corn. “That big hunk of cheese,” Ray com- mented. For once, Pelton didn’t shush him; that was too close to his own atti- tude, at least in family-breakfast-table sip t . First of all: for the country and Att “en Ween” peed 4. a, ly Die et et ee ee ol ee Oe ye ee - CE Ce Sah ate a. 2 ? ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION especially the Newer New York area, and by the way, it looks as though somebody thought somebody needed a little cooling off, but we'll come to that later. Here’s the forecast: Today and tomorrow, the weather will continue fine; warm in the sun, chilly in the shadows. There won’t be anything to keep you from the polls, to- morrow, except bird-hunting, or a last chance at a game of golf. This is the first time within this commentator’s memory that the weather has definitely been in favor of the party out of power. “On the world scene: You'll be glad to hear that the survivors of the wrecked strato-rocket have all been rescued from ~ the top of Mount Everest, after a difficult and heroic effort by the Royal Nepalese Air Force. . . . The results of last week’s election in Russia are being challenged by twelve of the fourteen parties repre- sented on the ballot; the only parties not hurling accusations of fraud are the Demo- crats, who won, and the Christian Com- munists, who are about as influential in Russian politics as the Vegetarian-Anti- - Vaccination Party is here... . The Central Diplomatic Council of the Reunited Nations has just announced, for the hun- dred and seventy-eighth time, that the Arab-Israel dispute has been finally, de- finitely and satisfactorily settled. This morning’s reports from Baghdad and Tel Aviv only list four Arabs and six Israelis killed in border clashes in the past twenty- four hours, so maybe they’re really getting things patched up, after all. During the same period, there were more fatalities in Newer New York as a result of clashes between the private troops of rival racket gangs, political parties and business houses. “Which brings us to the local scene. On my way to. the studio this morning, I stopped at City Hall, and found our genial Chief of Police Delaney, ‘Irish’ Delaney to most of us, hard at work with a portable disintegrator, getting rid of record disks and recording tapes of old and long-settled cases. He had a couple of amusing stories. For instance, a lone Independent-Conservative partisan broke up a Radical-Socialist mass meeting pre- paratory to a march to demonstrate in Double Times Square, by applying his im (CCOPMICLOOKS5 eC)