Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

PHE MOON IS HEAVEN 19 and away before you reached him, out of the hut and laugh- ing his way towards the rocket. Atah had grasped your arm. ‘‘I know how you feel, Mike, but take it easy.” You’d swung round on him, still with the glare on your face. ‘‘ You know how I feel?”’ ‘Sure I do. I’m not all that blind or up in the clouds, you know. I’m looking to you. Mike, to keep an ‘eye on Reina—and Schnabel.”’ With that, the breakfast table was cleared and everyone went about their duties. All day while you wrote, you thought of Reina—on the Moon with five men. You find that you finished dressing some time ago. You’ve been sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out of the window. But you don’t start thinking the old stuff. You don’t tell yourself that now because you are leaving Earth, Earth never looked so beautiful. Come to think of it, the Moon won’t look so very different from this. Cotopaxi is a mixture of bright and dark as the morning sunlight slams against the rock and glides over the shadows. And there isn’t even a black sky to rest your eyes against. You can quite imagine that, compared to this arid dustbowl, the Moon will be heaven. Anyway, the breakfast bell goes and there’s no time to think about things like that. You slip off the bed and walk straight out of the bedroom on to the sand—everything’s on ground level here. A few yards along and you arrive at the refectory. The others arrive more or less at the same time, too. There’s an air of excitement about that very soon catches you as well. Atah is looking as though this is the day he’s been waiting for all his life. Which it probably is. Leeson appears a little strained now that his pilotship will shortly be put to the critical test. Clavier walks around the ‘breakfast table several times, telling everyone there’s no need to be mervous and deliberately making his own hands shake. comicbooks.com