Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

88 THE MOON 18 HEAVEN But all that’s got nothing to do with the matter in hand, and yeu’d be the first to deplore it. So you listen to Schnabel and all the while you are sizing up the situation, wondering how you are going to take the offensive and put a stop to this boulder-hurling business. “Yes, you are going to die,’’ Schnabel says. “‘ It’s true that we “b are sometime, but you will die very soon now. I just wanted you to know that I have tricked everybody on this trip—yes, even the indomitable Atah Kark. ‘You see, Mike, I did not come here just to be part of an historic experiment. Man’s conquest of space does not interest me —except as an opportunity to make myself independent for the rest of my life.’’ You wonder what the blazes he’s getting at, how the hell coming to the Moon can make a man independent. True, you expect to make a litile out of your books and articles on the subject, but that wouldn’t make you independent for more than a year. Independence for a lifetime means a lot of: money. Schnabel seems to read your thoughts. ‘‘ You don’t know how I can do that? No. Because you and all the others were so fired with the potentialities of Moon flight in regard to the rest of space that you were blind to the other pos- sibilities. The Moon is full of diamonds, Mike. Look.’’ He slips his free hand into the suit’s wide pocket and fetches out a number of things that gleam brightly in the sunlight. They are diamonds all right. -Nothing else could possibly give off such beautiful rays. “See?” he goes on. ‘‘ Here is my independence. A fortune in diamonds for me when I return to Earth, That is why I came here, Mike. That is what I was looking for when you all thought I was working on the air-lock and you all took a quiet rest while the queer technologist got on. with the work!’’ ; “*So?’’ you say. ‘‘ And what happens when everybody else comes up here and gets a fistful of diamonds apiece? Won’t the diamond market collapse?’’ comicbooks.com