Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

By MALCOLM JAMESON The Commission had a fine-sounding offer—just show ‘em how much of Venus you wanted and it was yours. Trouble was, you had to make a map of the unmappable! THE bright dot had grown to a disk days before, now it was a dazzling silvery sphere, looming straight ahead. Lorimer, the assistant umpire, sat in the radio booth dozing, his headphone strapped on. Hartley made a few last adjustments to his adored Maggy—the instrument with the X-ray eye -—and then walked over to where Travis sat staring into the visi-screen. “The big money sure ganged up on us,” remarked Hartley, surveying the outside scene as reflected before them. “They've got numbers, if that is what you mean,” said Travis, with a grim chuckle, “but I’m not so sure about the brains. The Farrington-Driscoll combine always did their dirty work statistically. They're doing it now. Most of those poor devils you see out there won’t be alive this 2 iime tomorrow. Driscoll’s game is as simple as the Rule of Three. The mortality of ships trying to land on Venus is roughly a hundred to one. Ergo! He sends a hun- dred and some odd ships. His competitors— like you and me and old Buck Turner— are playing singletons. All of us combined, if we were combined—which we are not— haven’t a ghost of a show along with his bird dogs.” “Unless we're smarter,’ amended Hart- ley. “Yes,” grunted Travis. Other ships were to the right and left of them, abreast but curving downward in a great circle that closed forty miles below their keel. The formation centered on the lone cruiser that carried the chief umpire and which followed the base ceurse between CcomiclbooksS.c©