Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

EARTHMAN, COME HOME Amalfi shot out into the alleyway and thence into the public square, caroming off an astounded guard. A shout rose behind him. He doubled over and kept running. The street was nearly dark in the twilight of the twin suns. He kept in the shadows and made for the nearest corner. The cornice of the building ahead of him abruptly turned lava- _ white, then began to dim through the red. He never did hear the accompany- ing scream of the mesotron rifle. He was concentrating on something else. Then he was around the corner. The quickest route to the edge of the city, as well as he could recall, was down the street he had just quitted, but that was now out of the question; he had no desire to be burned down. Whether or not he could get out of IMT in time by any alternative route remained to be seen. Doggedly, he kept running. He was fired on once more by a man who did not really know on whom he was firing. Here, Amalfi was just a running man who failed to fit the categories ; any first shot at him would be a reflex of disorientation, and consequently aimed badly. The ground shuddered, ever so delicately, like the hide of a monster twitching at flies in its sleep. Some- how, Amalfi managed to run still faster. The shudder came again, stronger this time. A long, protracted groan followed it, traveling in a heavy wave through the bedrock of the city. The sound brought Proctors and serfs alike boiling out of the buildings. At the third shock, something to- ward the center of the city collapsed with a sullen roar. Amalfi was caught up in the aimless, terrified eddying of the crowd, and fought, with hands, teeth and bullet head— The groaning grew louder. Abruptly the ground bucked. Amalfi pitched forward. With him went the whole milling mob, falling in windrows like stacked grain. There was frantic screaming everywhere, but it was worse inside the buildings. Over Amalfi’s head a window shattered explosively, and a woman’s body came twisting and tumbling through the shuddering air. Amalfi heaved himself up, spitting blood, and ran again. The pavement ahead was cracked in great, irregular shards, like a madman’s mosaic. Just beyond, the blocks were tilted all awry, reminding Amalfi irrelevantly of a breakwater he had seen on some other planet, in some other century— He was clambering over them be- fore he realized that these could only mark the rim of the original city of IMT. There were still more buildings on the other side of the huge, rock- filled trench, but the trench itself showed where the perimeter of the ancient Okie had been sunk into the soil of the planet. Fighting for air with saw-edged rales, he threw himself from stone to stone toward the far edge of the trench. This was the most dangerous ground of all; if IMT were to lift now, he would be ground as fine as mincemeat in the tumbling rocks. If he could just reach the marches of the Barrens— Behind him the groaning rose steadily in pitch, until it sounded like the tearing of an endless sheet of metal. Ahead, across the Barrens to the east, his own city gleamed in the last rays of the twin suns. There was fighting around it; little bright flashes were sputtering at its edge. The rockets Amalfi had heard, four of them, were arrowing across the sky, and black things dropped from them. The Okie city responded with spouts of smoke. Then there was an_ unbearably bright burst. After Amalfi could see 95 Ss EComichooksco