Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER THREE Blast-off A great cheer goes up from the mobs who have by now assembled on the other side of the’ police cordon. The sight of you all walking across the danger zone must have done something to them. Their shouts and yells are the kind of thing you find at football matches and boxing bouts, very similar to the mass response to a dictator’s exposition or the last night at the Proms. From the service huts on the other side of the danger zone, another procession starts out. It is the London Circle, led by Sed Linnell and the site manager. There’s drama in the air, an electrical tension that makes your nerves quiver. Not for the first time, you think that maybe you were a fool to come in on this crazy scheme. Flying to the Moon! Trusting yourself to a rocket that hasn’t even been tested. Going a quarter million miles out into space—for what? So that you can be the first reporter on the Moon? So that you can be with Reina? So that you won’t let Atah Kark down? You don’t know. It doesn’t matter. You're going and that’s all there is to it. Both processions arrive at the rocket about the same time. The London Circle are all on edge now that the critical moment has come. For years they've dreamed about seeing the first manned rocket take off for the Moon. And now they’re going to do just that. It’s too much for one or two of the ladies. They just can’t stand it, and are having a quiet, unobtrusive cry. Atah Kark and Sed Linnell shake hands, jovially and smiling. Then everybody else shakes hands, some not so jovially, some not smiling. The site manager, gives Reina 23 comicbooks.com