Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION his back toward her. There- after he ignored her. The girl went pale and steadied herself on the edge of the bar. She went on with her work, but every once in a while Mary would look up to see JoAnn pause, midway in something she was doing, to stare at him as if from a trance. Cole was sitting at his usual table, with his usual drink made from his own bottle, and had the notebook open in front of him, as usual. There was another new waitress in the place that night, a Martian girl named Lania, pert and violet-skinned, and with an eye for the men. Her arms and legs were long and slender, tapering into exquisitely-wrought hands and feet. Her skin had the delicate semi-opacity of violet jade, and her finely- drawn lips were barely rosy. Her brows were neat, sen- sitive black lines, her eyes wide-set and clear blue. Her hair, like that of Earth Asi- atics, was silken, straight and ink-black. She was by no means a typical Martian woman. The colonial descendants tended to be drab. Lania might have been considered the ideal among her sex, and it was no wonder that the lieutenant noticed her. Mary didn’t know who started the flirtation and she didn’t care. She had only one rule about that sort of thing. If one of her girls made a date with a customer, she had to keep it. Mary didn’t hold with the business of jollying a customer along just to keep him buying drinks. Any of her girls who stood up a man found herself fired. But this time the girl was stood up. Lania told Mary about it the next day. Lieu- tenant Cole had promised to meet her, in his sand car, outside the Hotel Mars in downtown Iopa at such-and- such a time. He didn’t show up, although the girl had 114 conmmicloooks.comnn