Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

THIRD HAND soon he’d get too weak to go after them, and then he’d have had it. Lessinger thought about it. He liked the idea. It gave him a great kick. So you couldn’t kill these creatures, eh ? So the State wouldn’t let you, no matter what they did ? No mat- ter how they disrupted your life. And you couldn’t kill them because they were prac- tically immortal. Were they? You could kill them by starv- ing them to death, and if you hid them deep enough no one would ever know. Man’s eyes looked upwards these days. He was so busy gazing at the stars that he never got around to having the time to look at some old hole in the ground. The scheme was fool-proof. Better than that. It was Adaptant-proof. Lessinger laughed quietly to himself. He’d invented a word. Adaptant-proof! That was good. Very good indeed! He was kissing her. Kisses like he’d been away a long time. The right kind of kisses for the right kind of wife. The time was now... 103 He said: “I’ve quit Space- ways. For good. I’m going to settle down. Farm maybe...” He looked at her. Holding her out from him to see how she took the news. He said: “I’ve had my eye on a place for quite a while.” “Do you think you could?” She was doubtful. You could see it running through her pretty head. The same thought that bothered them all. ““Are you tough enough ?”’ was what it boiled down to, but they didn’t say it like that. They were shy of putting it that way. So they looked un- certain and unsure. They looked like Molly. *“Wouldn’t you like it?” “Why yes, darling! Of course! It’s just that I thought it might be too big a change for you... all at once...” “You thought Id got a little soft maybe?” He was grinning at her. That was what she'd been thinking, and she hadn’t wanted to say it, not until she’d known how he would react. It’s one thing to think that your husband mightn’t be the type to take on a rough, tough job. It’s another comiclooks.comn