Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

118 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION trader spacemen were snarling, building up courage for a rush to overwhelm him. “‘T just want to tell you some facts,” said Langley. ““You’ve all been the dupes of one of the biggest, brassiest swindles in history. You think you’re working for your own good—Valti, Brannoch—but I’m going to show you otherwise. You’ve got half an hour to wait in any event, so you might as well listen to me.” ‘Go ahead,” said Brannoch thickly. The American drew a shaky breath and launched into his account: the subversion of League and Technate and Society by a foreign and hostile power working for its own ends. He gave Valti the spool he had along, and the man put it in a scanner and studied it with maddening deliberation. A clock spun off lazy minutes, and Earth receded in the boat’s wake. The room was hot and silent. Valti looked up. “What are you going to do if I don’t codperate?” he asked. “Make you.”’ Langley waved his gun. The bushy red head shook, and there was a curious dignity over the pot- bellied form. “‘No. I’m sorry, captain, but it won’t go. You can’t operate a modern spaceship, you don't know how, and my old carcass isn’t worth so much that I'll do it for you.” Brannoch said nothing, but his eyes were chips of blue stone. “Can’t you see, man?’ shouted Langley. ““Can’t you think?” “Your evidence is very slender, captain. All the facts are susceptible of other interpretations.” “When two hypotheses conflict, choose the simpler one,” said Marin unexpectedly. Valti sat down. He rested his chin on one fist, closed his eyes, and looked suddenly old. “You may be right,’ said Brannoch. “I’ve had my suspicions of those animated pancakes for a long time. But we’ll deal with them later—after Thor is in a stronger position.” “No!” cried Langley. “You blind fool, can’t you see? This whole war is being engineered by them. They must regard men as dangerous vermin. They can’t conquer us by themselves, but they can get us to bleed each other white. Then they can mop up!” A bell rang. Langley turned his head, and brought it around at Marin’s scream. Brannoch was almost on him. He waved the Centaurian back, who grinned impudently, but let Valti go up to look at the instruments. The trader faced them all and announced flatly: “Someone has slapped a tracer beam on us. We’re being followed.” “Who? How far? How fast?” Brannoch snapped the questions out like an angry dog. “I don’t know. It may be your friends from Thrym, it may be Chanthavar.”’ Valti fiddled with some knobs and considered the readings of meters. ““Good- sized ship. Overhauling us, but we’ll get to ours about ten minutes ahead of them. It takes a while to warm up the generators for an interstellar j Jump; 80 | So com . Comics