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.

THE GARDEN IN THE FOREST be little more than misshapen circles, indented at the top and elongated at the bottom. But each was crayoned an intense red and each was labeled— so that there could be no recom for doubt—with the word, ‘“‘hart.’’ In the center of the paper there was a much larger, though unmistakably similar design. That one was not colored, but within its outline were several lines of carefully printed words: I am sory you dont have a hart. My mother says your my magination but I no your real and I think your nice. Will you be my valentine? For a long time Ghan sat motionless in the summerhouse. The February wind coming over the winter fields rattled the rose vines and ruffled his cilia. The sheet of paper in his hand fluttered every now and then, and each time he heard the sound he looked down at the incarnadine hearts and the sprawling simple words. Finally he got up and moved over the dead mounds of last summer’s gar- den towards the buildings. He went around the corner of the barn and he approached the small white dwelling behind the barn. The little girl was standing on the porch steps talking earnestly to a disheveled doll which she had propped upon the railing. She did not notice his approach and he stopped some distance from her, standing quietly in the snow. He waited until she turned and saw him, and then he slipped into the blue deeps of her eyes— The clearing was a garden. There were quaint multicolored parterres and green pathways. There were alabaster fountains and the laughing sound of water. There was sunlight and warm summer air. He walked through the garden, gently. He came to a stream of blue a5 water with a delicate bridge arching over it. He stepped onto the bridge and looked down into the clear un- troubled water. A bluebird flew down from a white cloud and perched upon his shoulder. From the bridge he could see the forest. It was a dark forbidding forest and it grew riotously all around the garden. Even as he watched it seemed to move in closer, and abruptly the bluebird on his shoulder flew away— The little girl was regarding him solemnly. “I came to thank you for your valentine,” Ghan said. “It was very beautiful.” “You were gone away and I didn’t, know if you’d be back,” the little girl said. “But I left it just in case. Will you be going away again?” “No,” Ghan said. ‘‘Not for a long time.” From: Ghan, Supreme Arbiter Field Base 1 Sol III To: Administrator of Alien Cul- tures Stellar Headquarters Sosterich III GENERAL: Any governing body, in order to attain objective judgment and in order to have the right to elimi- nate whole civilizations, or fractions thereof, as a consequence of that judgment, must possess two pre- requisite qualities: (1) Divinity; (2) Omniscience. It is the considered opinion of the Supreme Arbiter that the present Sosterich governing body possesses neither quality (1) nor quality (2). It is the further considered opinion of the Supreme Arbiter that the branch of the present Sosterich gov- erning body, known as the Adminis- tration of Alien Cultures, is opinion- ated, impetuous, and unreliable; and connicloooks.c© im