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

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

NULL-ABC 7 “There ain’t no pictures in it; nothing but print. It’s a Literate book,” Olaf said in disgust, as though at something obscene. “An’ there ain’t nothin’ on the instrument board but letters.” ““That’s right,” Ray agreed. “I saw the book; no pictures in it at all.” “Well, of all the quarter-witted stupidity! —The confounded imbeciles at that agency—” Pelton started to his feet. Claire un- locked the table and slid it out of his way. Ray, on a run, started for the lift and vanished. “I think some confounded Literate at the Rolls-Cadipac agency did that,” he fumed. “Thought it would be a joke to send me a Literate instruction book along with a copter with a Literate instrument board. Ah, I get it! So I’d have to call in a Literate to show me how to start my own ‘copter, and by noon they’d be laughing about it in every bar from Pitts- burg to Plattsburg. Sneaky Literate trick!” They went to the lift, and found the door closed in their faces. “Oh, confound that boy!” Claire pressed the button. Ray must have left the lift, for the operating light went on, and in a moment the door opened. He crowded into the lift, along with his daughter and Olaf. On the landing stage, Ray was already in the ’copter, poking at buttons on the board. “Look, Olaf!” he called. “They just shifted them around a little from the summer model. This one, where the prop- control used to be on the old model, is the one that backs it up on the ground. Here’s the one that erects and extends the prop,”—he pushed it, and the prop snapped obediently into place—‘and here’s the one that controls the lift.” An ugly suspicion stabbed at Chester Pelton, bringing with it a feeling of frightened horror. “How do you know?” he demanded. Ray’s eyes remained on the instrument board. He pushed another button, and the propeller began swinging in a lazy circle; he pressed down with his right _ foot, and the ’copter lifted a foot or so. “What?” he asked. “Oh; Jimmy showed me how theirs works. Mr. Hartnett got one like it a week ago.” He motioned to Olaf, setting the “copter down again. “Come here; I'll show you.” The suspicion, and the horror, passed in a wave of relief. “You think you and Olaf, between you, can get that thing to school?” he asked. ~ “Sure! Easy!” “All right. You show Olaf how to run it. Olaf, as soon as you’ve dropped Ray at school, take that thing to the Rolls- Cadipac agency, and get a new one, with a proper instrument board, and a proper picture book of operating instructions, I’m going to call Sam Huschack up per- sonally and give him royal hell about this. Sure you can handle it, now?” He watched the ’copter rise to the two thousand foot local traffic level and turn in the direction of Mineola High School, fifty miles away. He was still looking anxiously after it as it dwindled to a tiny dot and vanished. “They'll make it all right,” Claire told him. “Olaf has a strong back, and Ray has a good head.” : “Tt wasn’t that that I was worried about.” He turned and looked, half ashamed, at his daughter. “You know, for a minute, there, I thought . . . I thought Ray could read!” “Father!” She was so shocked that she forgot the nickname they had given him when he had announced his candid- acy for Senate, in the spring. “You didn’t!” “I know; it’s an awful thing to think, but— Well, the kids today do the craziest things. There’s that Hartnett boy he runs around with; Tom Hartnett bought Liter- ate training for him. And that fellow Prestonby; I don’t trust him—” “Prestonby?” Claire asked, puzzled. “Oh, you~ know. The principal at school. You’ve met him.” 7 Claire wrinkled her brow—just like her mother, when she was trying to re- member something. “Oh, yes. I met him at that P.T.A. meeting. He didn’t impress me as being much like a teacher, but I suppose they think anything’s good enough for us Illiterates.” Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby remained standing by the lectern, looking Eomichbooks (E(@) me —