Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

ae 38 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Lodi AY uh OA Mei Pen un a "4 att SL Cory He A look through the srt revealed the same landscape as before. Some two dozen of the crew were fooling around outside, beneath a sun that had not visibly changed position in the sky. The road still wound through the valley and over the hills without a soul upon it. The railroad track still reposed_ with all the impassive silence of a long abandoned spur. Pascoe said, thoughtfully, ‘This is a good example of how one can deduce something from nothing.” ‘Meaning what?’’ inquired Leigh, showing interest. “The town is nine miles away. We could walk there in about two hours. They’ve had several times that long in which to sound the alarm, summon the troops, launch an assault.” He gestured toward the peaceful scene. ‘““Where are they?” “You tell us,”” Walterson prompted. “Any life form capable of constructing roads and rails obviously must have eyes and brains. Therefore it is pretty certain that they’ve seen us either hanging above or coming down. I don’t believe that they remain unaware of our existence.”’ He studied his listeners, went on, ““They haven’t — shown up because they’re deliberately keeping away from us. That means they’re afraid of us. And that in turn means they consider themselves far | weaker, either as result of what they’ve seen of us so far or maybe as result — of what they learned from contact with Boydell.” “T don’t agree with that last bit,’’ opined Leigh. “Why not?” “Tf they saw us either up above or coming down, what did they actually see? A ship and nothing more. They observed nothing to indicate that we are of Boydell’s own kind though it would be reasonable to assume it. Factually, we're still a bunch of unknowns to them.”’ | “That doesn’t make hay of my reasoning.” “It spoils it on two counts,” Leigh insisted. “Firstly, not having weighed ) and measured us, how can they tell that they’re weaker? Secondly, Boydell — himself called them unconquerable. That suggests strength. And strength of | a redoubtable order.” ; “Look,” said Pascoe, “it doesn’t really matter whether they’re stronger | or weaker in their own estimation. In the long run they can’t buck the © power of the human race. The cogent point right now is that of whether | they are friendly or antagonistic.” I “Tf friendly, they’d have been around dickering with us hours a ago. There’s © CONMGCIOOKS.COl