Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

“...AND A STAR TO STEER HER BY” 5 making cups of his hands and scanning the sky near the zenith. Sunlight glinted off something high in the Martian sky. ““There!’’ Garver picked it up with his eyes and followed it. McBee saw it, too. A ship took form against the purple background. It grew as it fell. Then her jets fired with a flash of blinding white. When she began to hover about three miles up, McBee exclaimed, “That’s the Fafnir’s paint design! Vanderhoff must be having trouble. No wonder; she’s an old ship.” They heard the rumble of her jets a few seconds later, then the bulk of the League building hid the remaining thousand feet of her descent. The fluttery rumble died, and there was no explosion. “He got breathed. ““Aye, let’s go back to our drinks.” her down,” Garver “Jetman First-Class Rod Garver report to the dispatch room!” the loud-speaker cut through the lounge several hours later. “It can’t be!” he exclaimed to Angus as he rose. “It’s a mistake! Don’t guzzle my drink; Ill be right back.” They couldn’t have called me so soon, he thought as he hurried through the halls. He knew it didn’t happen this way. , The League steward merely slipped him a sheet of paper, the standard job-offer form, with its brief message: Ship: S. S. Fafnir. Commander: Captain P. R. Vander- hoff, F. T. Location: Landing stage 14, Canal- opolis Spaceport. Job Description: Chief jetman and power officer. Thirty minutes later, he was stand- ing at the bottom of a gantry crane and looking up at a two-hundred-forty- foot pencil of power-packed metal. The dorsal fin displayed the words: S. S. Fafnir, Raketenfulgplatz fir Raumschiffarht, Deutschland, Terra. One of the Ring Class, Garver thought. Somebody had undoubtedly misspelled her name on the commissioning papers years ago, but that was not uncom- mon; there was a ship on the Luna shuttle named Jabberwack. The Ring Class was a group of good ships, sound and well-built with pre- cision parts made only as the Germans can make them, but old. The retract- ing landing jack on her ventral side dated her as well as the sharp-angled shape of her fins and landing wings. Her hull was pocked and dented slightly, but the black, white, and Ted paint design had only been scorched once. They were unloading cargo from the upper locks. Garver waited for the freight lift to come down, then rode back up. The man who stood in the lock checking off cargo on a clipboard was attired in the warm orange coveralls of the Canalopolis ground crews. He was a round-faced, gray-haired Dutch. man, stockily-built and fiftyish. The battered steamer cap he wore on his head was old beyond description, probably handed down to him through generations for it bore the words, ‘The Amsterdam Line.” Garver approached him. “‘Captain Vanderhoff?”’ “Yes?” The little man looked up from his board. “Garver. The League steward sent me over.”’ Vanderhoff shook Garver’s hand quickly. As another load of cargo left the lock, he went back to his clip- board for a moment, then remarked to Garver, “I need a jetman.” ‘““‘Where are you bound?” “Terra.” COMIGDIOOKS Eom,