Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

ILL WIND 45 even if you had turned down the flight. It’s just that... well, you and Dave are different; I don’t need to tell you that. Dave is the kind of man I want to marry, that’s all. You're—” “I’m just your big kid brother.” “Well, not any more. You’ve changed a little since I saw you last.” She was silent for a moment as she sipped her drink. ‘‘We still want you to be our best man, if you will.” “If I can, but chances are now that I'll be upstairs when Dave is down here. We’re short of crews until the Goddard series takes over next month. I’ve still got to run the acceptance tests on the six ships of the class and help train the crews. And, between times, I’m on the schedule board, worse luck.” “You sound as if you don’t like it. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, the schedule board?” Jeanie asked. Dan shook his head and took a swallow of his drink. “I thought I did. I had my crack at it; that’s all I want. The regular runs just aren’t my meat. I’m a test pilot, and a good one; I can’t change. I don’t want to change. Being a scheduled pilot is a different sort of thing, and Dave is the perfect pilot for the regular runs, Me, I’m too good, too fast, too hasty, too impul- sive. I can make them fly; I can make any ship fly, or know the reason why. But once I know they can . . . well, I’m finished with them.” He took another sip of his drink and went on, “No, Jeanie, the real space pilot is Dave.” “T’ve never heard you talk about Dave that way before,” Jeanie ob- served. ““You used to hate him.” “IT guess I never really understood him. We had a long talk out at the station while we were waiting for the boys to cannibalize the Apollo so we could ‘get the Ares back down. We. didn’t know whether Dave was going to live to see the ground again. You talk about a lot of things when you think there isn’t very much time left to do it in.” He glanced at his watch suddenly. “Speaking of time, I haven’t got very much of the stuff right now myself. Got a training run in the centrifuge to make this evening, and a lift tomorrow morning. No rest for the weary.” He drained his glass, walked to the living room, and picked up his hat. ““You’ve got a good man, Jeanie. He’s dependable. He'll never let you down. Me, Ill probably have a girl on every planet once we get there—and we will. Thanks for the drink.” The evening paper was lying on the front porch where the newsboy had thrown it. The El Paso Times’ head- line glared up at him: “STRANDED SATELLITE SPACEMEN SAVED BY HEROIC PILOT!” It seemed funny to him that he didn’t want to be called a hero. He felt that somehow he didn’t rate the title. Or perhaps it was because he now understood what it meant: a hero is a guy who does a dirty job because he gets pushed into it. The Organ Mountains were a ruddy orange in the light of the setting sun. As he watched, a lacy vapour trail advanced its finger toward the sky, and a brilliant star broke into the sun- light, climbing—climbing. He knew it was the reconditioned Apollo on its way out to the space station, the steppingstone to the planets. Let them have the glory of con- quering new worlds! He’d give them the ships to do it with: bigger, better, more powerful ships that would some day make Man the king of the Uni- verse! After all, wasn’t he the best test pilot White Sands had? . Cconnicloooks.c© Al