Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

THE GULF to make that statement, and no one thought to ask him if it were true.” “But why? What would anyone gain by getting Tim into trouble like that?” “It wasn’t for personal reasons. Someone didn’t want that ship tested today !” “Then it was—’’ June stopped as a dull, distant roaring came to them “It must have been—” She stopped again as the roaring increased, coming from above them and to the southwest, filling the air like the hum of a billion bees. ““What’s that?” : He stopped the car and jumped out, to look into the sky and see the source of the sound. Planes, wave upon wave of them, coming in and down on Cen- ter from the southwest—from toward the Gulf of California. They were com- ing as fast as their jets could send them; almost as fast as the sound that preceded them. The first wave parted in definite formations as it came in, part of it dissolving to strike at the six antiaircraft gun positions that surrounded Center and the main body coming in on Center itself. ‘““What is it?” June was beside him with her hand on his arm. “They couldn’t be ours—”’ “No,” he said tonelessly, “they’re not ours.” They stood and watched—there was nothing else they could do. The first wave passed low above them with a deafening, ground-shaking roar and was gone in the space of two breaths. The bombs shot downward in fast, flat arcs and their explosions raced through the city at the speed of the planes that had dropped them; red and yellow spurts of flame that leaped upward and hurled strange broken things into the air, to be sil- houetted momentarily against the pale dawn. The second wave came close behind 2 BETWEEN 33 the first; a roar that swelled into a crescendo then boomed into the dis- tance with the bomb bursts a thun- derous staccato racing along on the ground behind them. Then the anti- aircraft guns came to life, licking thin, defiant tongues of flame at the in- vaders. The third wave concentrated on the gun positions and some of them plunged to earth, trailing black plumes of smoke, but three of the guns were still when the others had passed on. For a few seconds Center was al- most quiet by contrast to the thunder and fury that had filled it and a dog could be heard somewhere among the wreckage, barking and whining anxiously as it ran back and forth in a vain search for its master. A woman screamed, a sound that cut through the morning air ‘like a thin, sharp knife, then the alarm siren began to moan and wail, half drowning the sound of cold motors breaking into life and the shouted orders of men. The next attack on Center was a wave of fighters, boring in on the ma- chine-gun towers in the Computer and laboratory area. The machine gun in the towers met their fire and tracer bullets were golden lances that met and crossed and struck the towers, to ricochet away in beautiful para- bolic curves. Two of the attacking planes wavered and spun to the ground, but when the others turned to renew the attack there were no guns left to oppose them. They began to strafe the streets and the cars that were trying to make their way through the debris, patrol- ing the area around Lab 4 and con- centrating vicious fire on any vehicle that attempted to go in that direction. They had not bombed the laboratory area or the adjacent landing strip, and Knight realized, as he watched them, that there could be but one reason. Russo-Asia had planned for this eommichoooks.eo@ im