Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

MARY Two hours later Corporal Brewster was free, Mary’s place had reopened for busi- ness and Lieutenant Cole was on his way to the C.O.’s carpet to give an explanation of his conduct. LANIA AND JOANN were polish- ing glasses behind the bar. The dull afternoon sun, re- flected from the desert sands, was glinting through the win- dows. There were no custo- mers in the place, and Mary was out back superintending the delivery of a liquor shipment. **Joe’s out of the stockade,”’ Lania said, happily. ‘““They’ve dropped the charges that psychotic, Jeffrey Cole, tried to frame him with. And I hear - the colonel’s going to give his son a real tough bivouac to take out into the desert.” “IT wouldn’t call Jeffrey psychotic,” JoAnn said. “I don’t think that’s a very nice way to talk about a person you hardly know.” “Listen, sweet girl, I’ve been around these Earth guys HELL'S for a long time. I don’t know how they are back home, but up here they fall into two categories. There’s the good egg who doesn’t think that just because he’s off on Mars he can act like an animal, and there’s the kind that thinks he can forget everything he ever learned about decency, just because Earth is a little green star now, and because he’s among different people. And Lieutenant Jeffrey Cole de- finitely falls in the last category.” *“You have no right to talk that way,” JoAnn protested. Lania laughed shortly “Who has a better right? And I will talk that way because I think you’ve got a crush on the guy. Why, I don’t know. I can’t imagine a decent person like you fall- ing for a no-good piece of trash like that.” JoAnn’s eyes snapped and her southern blood boiled. “You just keep you opinions to yourself, you—you Martian snip. What do you know about it? What do you know 121 connicloooks.com