Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

THE MOON IS HEAVEN 105° surface and then turn into the air-lock. Then you go up alongside the fuel tank and into the control room. Clavier, Leeson and Reina are already there. Already clamping themselves down onto their mattresses. - You go across to your own, take off your suit and hang it on the rack. You won’t. be needing it any more. Then you lie down on the sponginess and clip the clamps over your wrists. Atah comes in and goes across to Leeson in the pilot’s mattress, ‘‘ Okay?’’ he asks. Leeson looks up with a grin. ‘‘I guess so, Atah. How long have we got?’’ Atah glances at the London Circle chronometer and men- tally calculates, ‘‘ Between eight and ten minutes,’’ he says at last. ‘‘ Time enough?”’ “Oh, sure,’’ Leeson replies. ‘‘ I can’t do anything about it anyway. I just like to know.” So you all lie there, waiting. The chronometer doesn’t tick, so you've no idea how fast time is passing. But Atah can see the face of it. He'll call out when time gets near. Nobody says anything. You reckon everybody has a sense of apprehension. Unconsciously, perhaps, you are all think- ing that this isn’t a bit like it was on Earth where the launch- ing was a big thing, attended by all sorts of experts, subject to all sorts of last minute checks. On the face of it, it seems: all right, But you never can tell. ““ Two minutes,’’ says Atah. . Automatically, you try to settle yourself more comfortably. It’s like being in a dentist’s waiting room. You know the -kind of thing that’s going to happen. You hate it, but you’ve got to go through with it. Memories from past. experience of the same thing come crowding in and you relive the agony of the past—all to no purpose at all. ““ One minute.’’ There’s that mad desire to undo the clamps and rush away from it. You know it’s too late, that you can’t do anything, about it, but still you want to try. ‘* Thirty seconds.’’ comicbooks.com