Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

34 THE MOON iS HEAVEN denly, and the two men start the long crawl back to their mattresses. Atah grins at Clavier. “You must have put a voodoo on us,” he says. ‘‘ That one in ten thousand chance came off. But it was only a small meteor; it vaporised in the wall. We've lost a bit of air, but there’s no great damage done.”’ But there would have been, you think. There would have been a lot of damage to everybody apart from the ship. Every atom of air would have been torn from your lungs, leaving you pop-eyed and gaping—if Atah hadn’t allowed for that chance. The ten thousand to one chance. You hope he’s allowed for all the chances of that order. Things shouldn’t be too bad then. Leeson’s voice comes across hard. ‘‘ Got to step it up a lot now, chaps. Take the strain!’ You settle back and wait for it. It comes. Leeson’s fingers (button the boosters into operation and that hand comes back and slams you against the mattress. This is almost worse than when you were coming off the Earth. Leeson looks tense. You can see him blinking rapidly as his eyes flit from dial to dial. His lips fold themselves in so that you can’t see them any more. You realise what kind of a man he must be, to be able to carry on making precision judgments under this strain. You guess it must be training. You’re too modern to believe in breeding. Then you can see him relax. His lips come into view again and he sighs. He shifts his head and sees that every- one is looking at him. He grins. “We made it,’ he says. ‘‘ There’s no worry now. Haven’t you noticed there’s no drag any more?”’ Suddenly you realise he’s right. The ship isn’t decelerating at nearly such a rate now. There’s only a very gentle hand against you. The rocket must be nearly down. You must be practically on the Moon! “* Hell!’’ Atah exclaims. He has got up off his mattress and gone across to the tiny comicbooks.com