Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

HUMPTY DUMPTY 63 There would be the wound which could not heal, which could never heal among a telepathic race whose memories would go on and on, unweakened by transmission down through the generations. A hundred million years might pass, and even then the ancient wound would burn as on the day it had been made. Operation Apocalypse would de- stroy the Baldies, too. For they would feel that enormous death, feel it with the fatal sensitivity of the telepath, and though physically they might live on, the pain and the guilt would be passed on from generation to crippled generation. Suddenly Cody moved. His finger pushed a button. In- stantly the guarding monitor began to erate. There was a soft humming that lasted less than a second. Then a light burned bright on the control panel, and under it was a number. | Cody pressed another button. The unerring selectors searched the cal- culator for the bit of crystal that held the code of Operation Apocalypse. The crystal, with its cipher of frozen dots of energy, was ready. A thousand minds, sensing Cody’s thought, reached toward him, touched him, spoke to him. He paused for an instant while he learned that man had not yet made his decision. The voices in his mind became a tumultuous clamor. But the ultimate decision was neither man’s nor theirs; the responsibility was his own, and he waited no longer. He moved his hand quickly forward and felt the cool, smooth plastic of a lever sink with absolute finality be- neath his fingers. On the bit of ferroelectric crystal waiting in the calculator, the cipher- pattern of energy shivered, faded, and vanished completely. Operation Apocalypse was gone. Still Cody’s fingers moved. Memory after memory died within the great machine. Its vast pools of data drained their energy back into the boundless sea of the universe and were lost. Then at last the brain of the calculator was empty. There was no way to re- create the Apocalypse—no way and no time. Only waiting was left. He opened his mind. All around him, stretching across the earth, the linked thoughts of the Baldies made a vast, intricate webwork, perhaps the last and mightiest structure man would ever build. They drew him into their midst and made him one with them. There were no barriers at all. They did not judge. They understood, all of them, and he was part of them all in a warm, ultimate unity that was source of enough strength and courage to face whatever decision mankind might take. This might be the last time man would ever bind itself to- gether in this way. The pogrom might go on until the last Baldy died. But until then, no Baldy would live or die alone, - So they waited, together, for the answer that man must give. = SV Connicloooks.ec© im