Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

KIDS’ GAME Other races are watching. Terra is not alone among the Stars in providing a home place for life and sentience. There are other systems around other stars. There are better in- telligences... How well he knew that! In the great loneliness he felt now—and always—how he longed for communion with those intelligences! How he longed for maturity and peace —peace from the contradic- tion that periodically raged within him. The contradiction of an alien intellect implanted in a slow, Terran body... How would it be when They came? None of them knew in detail. But they all knew-that it would be an end to the loneliness... He passed the spot where the tramp had challenged him. He almost regretted the un- disturbed silence there. This time he would have killed... What was he thinking? It was not necessary to kill or destroy anything. It never would be. They had been assured of that. You just immobilised ignorance, stupidity, immaturity. Took away its power. And that was what they would be doing when those who were coming arrived... His poor parents! If only he could tell them about that. If only he could convey to them ' the utter importance of what he was doing and what he would be doing... But, of course, he could not. Even now, far away from his parents, physically, he felt that peculiar constriction of mind that always came when he considered telling them anything at all... It would be almost like being a normal kid his age— like Gregory... “Listen very carefully and don’t interrupt,” said the leader. “This is a matter of unique urgency.” The usual nervous sounds in the room ceased im- mediately. The six youthful faces stared intently. A boy gently, but firmly, quieted a squirming puppy that was ~ licking at his fingers. The leader paused to pro- duce a dirty newspaper clip- ping from his pocket. “Do any of you remember the boy that Philip White 135 comiclooks.com