Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

SAM Hoheimer has a brother in Security, general’s rank, good detection record. A blind? Who knows? Slap the brother in jail, at least, for the duration. Better check his_ staff—Central Records shows that his chief field agent, Jones, has five days unaccounted for a year ago; he claimed Security secrecy at the time, but a double cross-check shows it wasn’t so. Shoot Jones! He has a nephew in the Army, a captain. Pull that unit out of the firing line till we can study it man by man! We’ve had too many mutinies al- ready. Lindahl was also a close friend of Benson, in charge of the Tennessee Atomic Ordnance Works. Haul Ben- son in! Check every man connected with him! No trusting those scientists, they’re always blabbing secrets. The first Hoheimer’s son is an in- dustrialist, he owns a petroleum-syn- thesis plant in Texas. Nab him! His wife is a sister of Leslie, head of the War Production Co-ordination Board. Get Leslie, too. Sure, he’s doing a good job, but he may be sending in- formation to the enemy. Or he may just be waiting for the signal to sabo- tage the whole works. We can’t trust anybody, I tell you! What’s this? Records relays an Intelligence report that the mayor of Tampa was in cahoots with the rebels. It’s marked ‘‘Unreliable, Ru- mor’’—but Tampa did surrender with- out a fight. The mayor’s business partner is Gale, who has a cousin in the Army, commanding a robomb base in New Mexico. Check both the Gales, Records—So the cousin was absent four days without filing his whereabouts, was he? Military privi- leges or not, arrest him and find out where he was! Attention, Records, attention, Rec- ords, urgent. Brigadier John Harms- worth Gale, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, refused to divulge information HALL 21 required by Security officers, claiming to have been at his base all the time. Can this be an error on your part? Records to Security Central, ref: et cetera, et cetera. No possibility of error exists except in information received. To Records, ref: et cetera, et cetera. Gale’s story corroborated by three of his officers. Put that whole nae under arrest! Re-check those reports! Who sent them in, anyway? To Records, ref: et cetera, et cetera. On attempt to arrest entire personnel, Robomb Base 37-J fired on Security detachment and repulsed it. At last reports, Gale was calling for rebel forces fifty miles off to assist him. - Details will follow for the files as soon as possible. So Gale was a traitor! Or was he driven to it by fear? Have Records find out who filed that information about him in the first place. We can’t trust anybody ! Thornberg was not much surprised when his door was kicked open and the Security squad entered. He had been expecting it for days now. One > man can’t keep ahead of the game for- ever. No doubt the accumulated in- consistencies had finally drawn suspi- cion his way; or perhaps, ironically, the chains of accusation he had forged had by chance led to him; or perhaps Rodney or another person here had decided something was amiss with the chief and lodged a tip. He felt no blame for whoever it was if that had been the case. The tragedy of civil war was that it turned brother against brother; millions of good and decent men were with the government because they had pledged themselves to be. Mostly, he felt tired. He looked down the barrel of the gun and then raised weary eyes to the hard face behind it. “I take it connicloooks.c© inn