Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

44 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION guess what will happen if they try to take us. They'll be right under the ship’s guns while we’re parleying.” “Tve no faith in their ability to see reason as we understand it,’’ Pascoe put in. “For all their civilized veneer they may be the most treacherous characters this side of Sirius.” Then he grinned and added, ““But [I’ve faith in my legs. By the way these aliens get into action I’d be a small cloud of dust in the sunset before one of them could take aim.” Leigh smiled, led them through the main lock. Every port was filled with watching faces as they made their way down to the track. Gun-teams stood ready in their turrets grimly aware that they could not beat off an attempted snatch except at risk of killing friends along with foes. But if necessary they could thwart it by wrecking the rails behind and ahead of the train isolating it in readiness for further treatment. For the time being their role was the static one of intimidation. Despite this world’s apparent lack of danger there was a certain amount of apprehension among the older hands in the ship. A pacific atmosphere had fooled humans before and they were wary of it. The six reached the railroad a couple of hundred yards in advance of the train, walked toward it. They could see the driver sat behind a glasslike panel in front. His big yellow eyes were staring straight ahead, his crimson face was without expression. Both his hands rested on knobbed levers and the sight of half a dozen other-worlders on the lines did not make him so much as twitch a finger. Leigh was first to reach the cab door and stretch out a hand to grasp incurable difficulty number one. He took hold of the handle, swung the door open, put a pleasant smile upon his face and uttered a cordial ‘‘Hello!”’ The driver did not answer. Instead, his eyeballs began to edge round s‘dewise while the train continued to pelt along at such a rate that it started pulling away from Leigh’s hand. Perforce, Leigh had to take a step to keep level. The eyes reached their corners by which time Leigh was compelled to take another step. Then the driver’s head started turning. Leigh took a step. More turn. Another step. Behind Leigh his five companions strove to stay with him. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was tough going. They could not stand still and let the train creep away. They could not walk without getting ahead of it. The result was a ludicrous march based on a hop-pause rhythm with the hops short and the pauses long. By the time the driver’; head was halfway round the long fingers of his right hand had started uncurling from the knob it was holding. At the same overstretched instant the knob commenced to rise on its lever. He was doing something, no doubt of that. He was bursting into action to meet a sudden emergency. Still gripping the door, Leigh edged along with it. The others went hop- pause in unison. Pascoe wore the pained reverence of one attending the tedious funeral of a rich uncle who has just cut him out of his will. Imagination told Leigh what ribald remarks were being tossed around among the audience in the ship. : Ccommicboooks. conn