Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION the same ship that brought your two other visitors.” “Oh, well, a man doesn’t spend that sort of money from his own pocket without good reason. Show him in, will you, Louise ?”’ “Tidy yourself up first, Doctor. And put that whisky bottle away.” “Sure. Sure. Little Miss Perfection.” Carpenter looked up ' abruptly and caught the hurt, sick look of an_ unjustly chastised child on Louise’s face. His heart gave a lurch. Goddam him! What sort of clumsy brute was he turning neo 75 636 “Louise! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—that is—things I can’t explain have been happening and—oh, never mind. I’m sorry.” *‘That’s all right, Doctor.” She went out the door and Carpenter put the whisky bottle obediently into the drawer. The filing cabinet stood dark and ominous in the edge of his vision. Beneath him, as he sat down, the chair 26 was hard and warm. Louise came back, grinned at him and made a grimace. *“He’s gone. Couldn’t wait, I suppose. Just as well. Now Pll call the coptercar.” ‘Hold on,” Carpenter said carefully, anxious not to say the wrong thing. “I think [ll take a walk over to Armstrong at the Nursery. I’m still con- cerned about Katrin. Perhaps you'd care to come along?” The Carpenter Eugenics Research Station was a ramb- ling collection of transparent distended domes, huddled round the small, central bal- loon of Laboratory Number One. Off to one side the cleared area where the copter- cars operated was the only other man-made thing in all the wide red sweep of land that stretched out blankly on all sides. Just gritty, choking ochre sand and dust in ail this world. A flurry of that sand blos- somed under the vanes of a coptercar and the vehicle rose into the thin air. The rockets coughed smoke and flame, conmicloooks.comn