Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

THE LEVER AND THE FULCRUM fear that one day J should have my own ship, and acci- dentally stand it on its tail- blast above his palace. In my free time I think you would consider tnat J drank rather a lot, and then, since I must tell you the whole truth about myself, I had quite a number of lady friends whose interests did not lie in the direction of marriage. At about the time I bought the robot—I called him James —one evening when I was a little drunk, and having naturally enough, no sense of humour and no feelings, he announced himself by that name when he brought in my breakfast next morning, and so the name stuck. I was preparing, without much enthusiasm or hope of success, to sit an Astrogation Examination. Perhaps I should never have passed had I not overheard one of my brother cadets remark that: “Of course, they'll grad- uate our Princeling. They'll pass him through even if he gets no more than his custom- ary two or three marks per cent.”’ I thought at first that such a comment could best be discussed with the point of my sword, but on second 9 thoughts decided to prove the speaker wrong by obtaining the required standard. “James!” I said, -that evening. “Sir,” he replied, alerting himself and moving out of his recess. ““What do you know about the fundamentals of Astroga- tion?’ I would never have asked the question had I been quite sober, and in any case all I expected by way of reply was his customary: “I have no information.” In- stead, he began, gratingly: *“All Astrogation problems are problems in relative motion. Their solution is best achieved by assuming some point of reference to be at rest. The simplicity of the calculation will depend on a good choice of the point of rest 3" “Wait! Wait!’ I inter- rupted. “Really, that is an excellent introduction. What-- ever book was fed to you must be an excellent book indeed—what’s its name?” “TI have no information,” James answered. “Pity! Never mind—so long as you can quote... Carry on quoting.” ; He carried on—and on— and on: “The space-time conmmiclooolkks.com