Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

82 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION sheer strength. It took him a quarter of an hour to make the ascent. With scratched and bleeding fingers, he dragged himself over the lip of the cliff and peered down at the island beyond. The first non-islander on the spot in thirty-six years. It was a dubious honor, he reflected dourly—like being the first man to paint a goatee on the Mona Lisa. Shedding himself of his sandals and muddy shorts, he ditched them in some bushes and set off naked down the hill. With his dark lamp-tan and sinewy build there was a fair chance of his being taken for an islander if spotted by some over-alert tech. Knowing the location of the eyes and mikes gave him better odds, he hoped, and the man on night duty in the View Room usually kept on only those screens that showed the village and its nearby paths. Not that he’d be any worse off if spotted. Of course, he mused dryly, picking his way through a heavy stand of coconut palms, he could always stay topside. It was unlikely that they'd send a posse after him. He could hole up in one of the blind spots and maybe become a sort of god to the islanders. But he remembered the children in the lagoon who had looked three minutes into the future... Punk material for worshipers. The first blind spot he entered gave him a mild surprise. In what had been thought to be a solid tangle of bamboo and breadfruit trees, Ted found a tiny rectangular lake, made by someone’s damming up the leg of a stream. Investigation proved it to be as wide across as he could reach, up to his shoulders in depth, and about twenty paces long. Quite adequate for practicing the Australian crawl. But why? Why should the islanders, So enviously free of superstition and legislation, take such pains to hide the activity? Were the kids forbidden by their elders to use such a swimming style, and had they built this spot to outwit the oldsters? A flimsy supposition at best. He gave it up and left the thicket. It was brighter now. From the western oceans a half moon had swum above the horizon, and with it came a freshening breeze that bore the scent of wood smoke and jasmine. Ted struck off through the shadows for the second spot on his itinerary, a quarter of a mile away. Nature had caused this one: The disastrous typhoon of *78 which had killed twenty of the islanders had torn from a hillside one of the “‘boulders”’ with its eye and mike setup, and had hurled it into the sea; wires and all. The area it had scanned was conse- quently lost, of course—a triangular half-acre of grass and rocks, crossed by, two paths. Since then, by careful observation, the top brains of the project had deduced that the area was unchanged and as unimportant as ever. Ted came to an abrupt halt as he entered the rough meadow. ~ The top brains, he observed, had made an impulsive deduction. Where the paths had once intersected sat a huge sphere of glass and dull metal. Two rods protruded from a band about its middle, and to an opening between them led a flight of four or five steps. He crept to within ten yards of the thing before its purpose dawned on him. After thinking carefully for a few minutes, surprised at his own calm- ness, he backed cautiously away. The tide was in when he reached the cliff so he didn’t bother to climb down. He jumped. Five minutes later he was within the island, clinging © weakly to a submarine’s mooring line. Another five sufficed to see him into Dr. Finley’s austere quarters. Cconnicloooks.conn