Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION “Amuri!”’ “Why not? You and your wretched mechanical science! Ob, the way you're going life’s becoming no good e “Just a minute. You don’t need to get hysterical—just because you’re pregnant. That’s the kind of thing I’m freeing you from!” She clenched her fists, fight- ing tears. So now I’m hys- terical. Hysterical and senti- mentally old-fashioned. Yet this is only a symbol, one part of a terrible whole... the one place where I can say: Stop, this is for women to. decide. .:: “Look, Mike! If it meant a chance to be creative in other ways, all right. But things aren’t like that any more. This is the one chance I’ve had to feel in harmony with natural processes.” Mike said, soothingly: “I’ve got to get over to the lab now. Take a walk and calm down. Then come and look at the machines. You'll see I’m right. And look—try to think objectively for once. Okay?” He was gone. But I can’t think like that, she thought. I can’t. I can’t feel like a scientist, blindly driving ahead, not caring how new discoveries are used. I’ve got a blind drive of my own... A very satisfying one. Yes- terday she’d sat in the sun under a tree, her hands limp in her lap. She had thought with a rush of joy: “I’m creating—even when sitting still!” Well—no more. Not much more, now that Mike had given her the stuff. Then the machine would do the creating... Two weeks later it hap- | pened, as he planned. She didn’t want to see it, and Mike agreed with her. “Best not,” he said. ““To me it’s beautiful already. It’s the most ex- citing thing in the universe! But you’re twentieth century, darling. [ll tell you when he’s cute enough for you.” But she did see it—in her mind’s eye. Snatches of Mike’s lab talk came back to her. Thetank, the bubbling fluids... the cell-thick membranes, the pulsing redness, the grape- 118 connicloooks.comn) | * ey | |