Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

QUIZ He changed the subject. “Are you the only one that’s going to ask them uestions?”’ “I’m the only one who will talk to them initially, and it’s been left to my discretion exactly what we ask them at first. However, there’s a committee working on a list of potential questions. Pil probably draw the ones I ask from it.” “Did you have anything specific in mind?” I hesitated a moment. “You under- stand that the exact line of questioning is classified but I can give you a general hint. There are some questions we'd like to ask about the fissioning of light elements and there are some about radioactivity and fuels and fuel consumption figures for rockets. That type of knowledge is probably elementary to them. There are a few I’d like to ask myself about crystal structure and atomic theory, but itll be a while before I get in my innings.” ““How about the social sciences?”’ I gave him a thoughtful look. “T think I know what you’re driving at,”’ I said dryly. ““We’d like to ask a lot about government and psychology and medicine. We’re not just thinking of the next one after the H-bomb.” “I wasn’t worried about it,” he said quietly. “But I’m glad you told me just the same.” Miss Chandler came in with another set of reports and I skimmed through them with a sinking heart. Dot wanted me,to ask the aliens about a cure for cancer. Sam wanted a formula for peace. My own committee, I knew, was primarily interested in the answers to questions that would take researchers years to find on their own. But somebody was going to be. left out; the potential list of questions had just grown suddenly shorter. I looked up at Sam’s questioning GAME 37 face and tried to keep my voice from shaking. “The aliens are dying.” There wasn’t much to do the next few hours. Sam telephoned in a few leads and then both of us spent the later hours chain-smoking in the ante- room and watching a dream slowly crumble. The dream grew a little more tattered, a little more tenuous with every worried face that disappeared into the room beyond and came out looking even more worried. Their ex- pressions were more accurate than the calibrations on a fever thermometer. “Just how bad off are they?” Sam finally asked. I ran my hand across the faint stubble on my chin. “They'll be gone by morning.” I was too tired to even feel a reaction to my own admission. The dream was almost ended. The millennium would take a millennium and utopia was still something you wrote books about. People would die of cancer and there would still be wars and scientists would still spend agonizing years tracking down elementary facts. “You know,” Sam said, “‘when I was small, I used to ask my folks a lot of questions. And when I had stumped them, I hoped that some day I would run into somebody who knew all the answers. I think, in a way, all of us are like that. We all hope that some. day we’ll run into somebody who can tell us anything we want to know.” “We almost did,” I said. “It’s going to be a big disappoint- ment to everybody,” he continued. “‘] think almost everybody was hoping for something from this. Something that would make life a little easier, a little better for them.” I knew what he meant. “There isn’t any hope of getting anything from them, huh?” ‘I ground my cigarette butt out Conmicloooks COL