Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

34 day for a long time. They had planned well; so well that even America’s own Intelligence agents had thought the talks of peace were sincere. They had stressed the desirability of friendship between East and West and the West had hoped, and half-believed, and let themselves be caught unawares and unprepared. The anonymous phone call implicating Connie had been only a touch to add weight to the evidence against Miles; the evidence that had resulted in the postponement of the ship’s flight and had insured that neither Miles nor anyone else would be inside the ship and in position to prevent its seizure when the attack came. It had all been done with exact and detailed precision; the timing of the robot’s phone call to Security, the attack in the early dawn before Clarke or Vickson had time -to appear—or was Vickson their agent, and already inside the ship? He would have to move fast—if it wasn’t already too late. He swung the door wide and thrust June into the car. “Get behind that wheel and drive like heil back to where Connie is. If a plane comes at you, jump and run—don’t stay in the car or they'll get you. Pil have to try to get to the ship—”’ A plane roared over them and its tracers made a bright splash of yellow phosphorescence on the pavement be- side them. The tires of an army truck screamed at the intersection a hundred feet behind them and June, watching, cried, ““Connie!”’ Connie was coming toward them across the intersection, trying to run as best she could, and the army truck was braking and slewing desperately to avoid hitting her. Then the plane banked and turned and came roaring back at them and June half sobbed a terrified “No!” as its tracers licked ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION down at the truck and across it, to lash at Connie who had reached the curb. She crumpled to the walk and the plane went its way, while the army truck wandered aimlessly down the street with the dead driver slumped over the wheel. “No!” June shoved past him, her face white with fear, and ran to her sister. He followed, sick at heart with the foreknowledge of what he would see. Connie was lying very still, her face like that of a pale, waxen doll that had gone to sleep. June was kneeling be- side her, holding her hand and saying over and over in a dazed voice: “Con- Rie | 2:5 OMNES =. do it?’’ “She had to,” he said softly. “She was going to you because you might need her. She was a nurse and she was going to you and Tim and all those who might be hurt and in need of her,”’ The siren whimpered off into silence and the bark of one lone antiaircraft gun came to them, to falter and stop as another attack of bombers roared over it. “They killed her!’’ June’s voice was numb with the shock. She held Con- nie’s hand between both her own, a bright red splotch on her knee where it touched Connie’s side as she knelt beside her. “They killed her—they killed my sister!”’ She raised her face to look at the planes circling above them and a ter- rible, savage hatred blazed through the hurt and pain in her eyes. Then the tears that the first shock had held back came, and he hurried quietly away, leaving her crying with shaking, muffled sobs beside her sister. There was nothing he could do to comfort her and it would be better for her to not follow him. He ran in a steady trot, two blocks to the highway that paralleled the why did you Eomichboo Shi(S@) in