Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

ERRAND OF MERCY He was quite wrong. The great black fish wasn’t jump- ing for joy, and it was near dead. Even as they watched, a last convulsive leap stranded it across a rocky spit. It struggled weakly for a while, then suddenly rolled on its side and lay still. The one visible fin, on the near side, hung down like a dead leaf. Raikes focused on_ the monster, brought it out in clear detail. Ugly, shrivelled patches spoilt the_ sleekness of its skin. “Seems to have been in a fight,” said Hacking. “It was immediately beneath our jets when we looked like going for a burton,” said Raikes. “‘Didn’t you see it? Those patches are burns.” ~ Lewes tottered across and looked at it blearily, holding his head. “Poor beastie!’ he muttered. ‘“‘Poor beastie!” Raikes stubbed out his cigarette. “‘Not our fault,”’ he said, and forgot it im- mediately. On Earth he had tickled trout a thousand times, 73 betrayed them into slow death, and without remorse. Fish were only fish. He put out the sample jar, on its arm, for atmospheric analysis. The atmosphere turned out to be an unlikely mixture of a number of things. Oxygen was in it— and the mystery of its im- prisonment under the higher layers of the heavier carbon dioxide remained a mystery. So was ammonia, and it was a safe guess that the river contained plenty of am- monium hydroxide, whatever else. Fish oughtn’t to live in it, but this was Venus, and the chemistry of life would have to be studied afre h. As was to be expected under the heat-retaining blanket of carbon dioxide, the atmos- phere was tropically hot and humid. So much for the ‘dust-bowl pictures the astron- omers—even the post-space astronomers—had painted. Theories changed like fashions . in dress, and often first thoughts proved to be the truest. comicloooks.comn