Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER TWELVE The Great Loss ‘Atah takes a last look round. You look round with him and feel that it’s all a bit of a mess. The dome looks neat enough, but the bits of trailer rocket and odd items of equip- ment make the crater seem a fair-ground after a Bank holiday crowd has pushed off. That can’t be helped, though, Things’ll look a lot worse when the next expedition gets under way with a bigger dome and one or two tunnels and ‘a launching site. On the whole, you feel you've all done a pretty good job, You’ve got to the Moon and you’ve laid the foundations for the lunar base. The rest is up to others. ““ think that’s all,’ says Atah. ‘‘ We can climb aboard now. Chmbing the ladder, you look back and see that Atah is Setting the clockwork mechanism. Fifteen minutes he said he was allowing you. Then the great roar and off into spacey You start feeling nervous again. Atah runs across the plain and starts to climb, the laddey! ** Hurry up!’ he calls. ‘‘ Don’t admire the scenery.” |) That’s all very well, but this may be the last time you ever look at the Moon. The next few trips probably won’t need an observer as a special member. And anyway, you’ 76 not too sure you want to come back for quite a while,| You're not getting younger and there’s an age limit on spacemen. No, you reckon this is your last view of a world composed of black and white, and hardness, always hardn Except the dust, which is soft and silky. So you send one long raking glance across the Moon's Io4 comicbooks.com