Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

28 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Howe’s searching fingers found such a spot, and lingered over it. The greatest part of Little Joe’s reputation, I think, he decided, rests in the ship’s value as a symbol. Other craft had, perhaps, gone far- ther, with greater cargoes. Some were momentarily more famous, for one reason or another. Nevertheless, there was no ship so well known as Little Joe, no matter in what part of the galaxy one might be. One of the first interstellar freighters, a voice, remembered perhaps from one of the recent public eulogies, said in his mind. One of the first! This was true. Not, in all proba- bility, the very first—but certainly the last survivor of the first. The ship’s bedplates and tubes had known more modifications than he would have believed improved engine designs possible. The celestial globe in the navigator’s cubby had been replaced time after time, to match the progress of that evanescent line where frontier stopped and unknown dark began. The corners and odd angles of the holds were full of the trapped remains of scores of outmoded cargoes, no longer worthy of shipment from one solar system to another. He heard, again, Scout among the farthest frontiers of the human race. comiiclooolkks.conn