Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

0 THE MOON IS HBAVEN Schnabel just sits and looks as if indigestion is the least that’s wrong with him. But it’s Reina you look at most. You take a chair near her and lift her coffee cup off the belt for her. ‘* Thanks, Mike. How d’you feel?’’ ‘Fine, fine. Somebody’s taken my stomach away, but that doesn’t matter. How about you?’’ She suddenly looks at you as though you’re the only person she could tell this to, the others are too busy with their own feelings. ‘‘ Oh, Mike, I’ve been looking forward to this! You can’t know what it means to me, I’m all a-tremble, but not with fear.”’ ‘* Good girl,’’ you say. ‘ ‘ Hope you won’t be disappointed when you get up there. It’s a pretty dead world, you know.” ‘Oh, I’ll love it! Not for long, of course. I'll want to come back. But just for a little while.”’ Just for a little while. Now that Reina’s coming, you know that the time will be all too short. Unless there’s difficulty in making return fuel, and Reina—but you don’t think about that. Not now. You start to speak again to Reina, but Atah begins and _everyone falls silent. _‘ Today’s the day, chaps—and Reina! We blast-off at noon. Take it easy. Rest all you can, don’t eat or, drink too much, and if you must smoke, smoke only a little. There’s nothing at all for you to do. Reina’s father has everything under control. T for one am going to lie down and read. See you here for a last cup of coffee at eleven-thirty!’’ He gets up and leaves the room, You and Reina drink the coffee, and, by unspoken agreement, you both stand up, smile at cach other and cross to the door. As you pass through it, you notice Schnabel following Reina with his piggy little eyes. You both stroll leisurely across the sand and on to the danger zone; towards the rocket. Complete and ready, the rocket stands there with her nose pointing, up at the limit- lessness above, a tall, sleek challenge to the expanding comicbooks.com