Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION very nasty upset, young man.” “All right,”’ said Guiscard. “Probabilities avoided can be discounted. Now what do we intend to do? The opposition has had a long time to plan. They nearly delayed this dis- covery till it was too late.” “J have a proposal,” said the newcomer. They discussed it at length. Twenty minutes later Guiscard thumbed open his desk ’phone again. “Thank heaven you're ready, Mr. Guiscard,” said his secretary, prayerfully. “Mr. Williams has been here for ten minutes driving me frantic——” When Williams pushed open the only door to the fourth floor office he found Guiscard sitting alone at his desk. That curious impulse irked Michel all afternoon. What was happening? Had the -wrongness of his dreams be- gun to extend into his waking life? The thought appalled him, especially when he rea- lised that with the excessive 22 circumstantiality of his dreams he might as well be awake as sleeping, and since he could only kick his heels until the doctor was available at five o’clock, he fell to brooding. Gradually it began working over the worn fibres of his nerves, subtly re-awakening the accustomed irritabilities and worries over which the unexpected, but seemingly an- ticipated windfall of the legacy had spread a temporary balm. By the time he was due at the psychiatrist’s he was again feeling short-tempered and overtired, and the tight ner- vousness in his chest was an exaggerated ache. He rang the bell. The grey- haired woman in starched cap and cuffs, whose voice he had heard over the ’phone, came to answer it, and showed him into a waiting room. He sat alone, nervously turning over the pages of an ancient magazine, until she returned to say: “Dr. Quonsett will see you now, Mr. Michel.” He followed her down a dim, cool corridor, lined with connicloooks.Ccomn)