Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

COMMENCEMENT NIGHT 85 formed a rough, natural jetty. Pulling himself carefully up over the sharp incrustations, he scrambled ashore and unfastened the lung from his chest. This and his swim-fins he ditched in the profuse undergrowth and turned on the two-way. When Dr. Finley’s face and shoulders glowed into the dollar-sized screen, sunk into the set’s butt end, Ted told where he was and checked reception. Then he turned inland, oddly self- conscious as he passed before the hidden eye and mike units, each time resisting the impulse to thumb his nose or grimace into them. Nerves, he guessed. He was pretty highly keyed. He forced himself to take it easier. Reception, both sight and sound, faded completely away as he neared the blind spot. Ted thought it over, then backed out and checked when the worried-looking Finley reappeared. “You faded, too,”’ said the director. “Some sort of natural blanket, you suppose ?” Ted didn’t think so. “Let me go in closer, sir,” he whispered. “Maybe it'll lift closer in. If it’s from the ship, it’s bound to have a sort of umbrella effect, or his stuff wouldn’t work, either.”” He began to move forward while Finley chewed that over with one of the electronics men. The blan- keting could have a central no-zone, he supposed, but there was no telling how close. Thirty feet from the ship? A yard? He entered the meadow. It was still there. But now a light burned within it, a soft and faintly greenish glow, like the low flare from an early cathode tube. Something about it served to impress upon Ted the absolute alienness of the ship. His skin prickled uncomfortably as he considered a few of the grimmer pos- sibilities: Hard radiations, for one. Should have brought a counter. Extra- terrestrial germs. Should have — He ran a hand over his mouth. Should’a stood in bed. A glance showed the transceiver still dead. He moved in closer, tempted by the craft’s great windows and the half-seen objects within. “Hello,” said a mild tenor voice behind him. In English. Ted whirled, automatically hefting the mass of the two-way. ‘*Peace,”’ continued the voice. “‘And speak island?” He came forward from the pool of shadow cast by a boulder. A human, Ted saw with relief, clad like himself in shorts and sandals. No, not quite human .. . taller, more slender, and with huge black eyes almost twice the - size of Ted’s own. But decently humanoid. Thankfully, he put aside all worries of intelligent fungi, frog creatures, and other Sunday supple- ment spawnings. “That is yours?” He indicated the alien ship. “Yes. An old model, but one to which after long years of use I have become attached. It gets me there.”’ Ted took a long breath and asked the question. ““Where?”’ _ .. “Back and forth. To this planet from others unknown to you. My home is in another star system. One nearer the center of the galaxy.” He stepped closer, an effortless grace to his movements that suggested his accustom to greater gravities than Earth’s. “May I compliment you on your composure?”’ Ted made the palm up island ges- ture that meant acceptance, acquies- cence. The motion caught the other’s notice. “I tried to make them quit that. Semantically,” he used the English word, “‘it’s too broad. By the way, I am called Eren Tu.” ““Jepson.”” He swallowed with diffi- culty. “Ted Jepson. You tried to what?” conniclooks.corn