Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

FIRST DOWN Curry said, viciously. ‘“‘All you want. You’re too damned late. That old V-2 got in first.” Steve’s rat face went white and he gulped twice. Then his lips twisted and he pulled himself closer to Curry along the rail. “So okay. So I don’t smash your kneecaps. But there’s other things I can do. I’ve always won, ever since I was old enough to know what it was all about. You’d better do as I say, Curry, otherwise Pil get real nasty.” *““Haven’t you got it through that thick skull of yours yet that you just don’t enter into my scheme at all? I’m going to the moon, and I’m going to be the first man there. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing at all, that you can do to make me alter that decision. I’ve grown used to taking pain. All my life I’ve sweated in agony because of what that rocket did. You and your damn pip-squeaking little gun make me sick.” “Wait a minute——” Steve began, and a line of moisture glinted across his forehead. “Wait hell. You can kill me. Then you'll drift on to eter- nity, or drop into the sun, which one I don’t know right 63 this minute. And, anyway, I don’t care what happens to you. I[ don’t give a single damn for your stinking hide.” “Listen, Curry *“‘And as for your headlines —there won’t be any, because no one will ever know.” Bitte “Shut up!” Curry turned his back on the stricken reporter and ~ pulled his pencil out on its spring. Twin spots of white indented the sides of his nostrils. “‘P’ve some calcula- ting to do, finding out just what that filthy little body of yours means to me in terms of fuel. Something that you know nothing about.” In the familiar world of mathematics, of fuel versus gravity, of acceleration and required thrust, Curry forgot completely the existence of the stowaway. More fuel had been burnt than was healthy. It would mean a greater ex- penditure to set down on the moon than had been calculated for. More fuel used taking off with the extra weight of Steve and his spacesuit, which now figured to Curry only as another symbol on his paper. And gradually the symbol added up—to an unpleasant result. There would not be comicloooks.con