Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION plation that brought such rapture. “They are insigni- ficant. They cannot touch us.”’ “I am not too sure. They have imagination and initia- tive. Without the cumula- tive reasoning of a corporate mind, they nevertheless estab- lished interplanetary travel, and they already have their eyes on the stars.” “We could eliminate that, for their own good.” “We could.” There was a strange, sad reluctance in the High Predictor’s mind. “We have held them back from so many things... for their own good, as I have assured myself. Yet the more I know of them, the more I wonder whether they are not the potential masters of the cosmos.”* “They are barbarian ad- venturers who would devastate all our carefully maintained world systems.” “Yes. And yet they would bring a certain sense of ad- venture... freshness ... SIOTY.. <> The concepts tailed away into uncertainty. The High Predictor was old. Far, far too old, thought 104 the Acolyte. His values were warped and his critical facul- ties no longer clear. “Look at that unfortunate man,” the High Predictor commanded once more. His interest reached out to that figure apparently frozen on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting to step off towards death. “I have glanced at him before. He was a man with great talents that he did not use. There were so many possibilities for him. Now he is tired, weary, because of his wife and his own failure; and he is going to die. Ob- viously he is going to die, is | he not?” “It could have been fore- seen’’—the Acolyte was re- signed and almost disrespect- ful—“‘if we had taken the trouble to evolve the appro- priate intersections. But it is not our custom to evaluate all individual life-lines.” “T feel it is wrong that a man of that calibre should die, while his worthless mate continues on the Earth. I believe I should alter the course of events.” Shock boiled up in their consciousness. The Acolyte COMMCHOCKS.COm —