Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

SOME OTHER TIME getting along pretty well over the past couple of hundred years. Once we’d got around to a culture that accepted planetary colonisation, the war concept faded. But there’s still some more—call it steam, war-fever, lust for conquest— there to come out. God help anybody living on the outer satellites if Man bumps into them.” “But they're empty of life-———”’ “TI know, I know,”’ Carpen- ter said, brusquely. “I only meant that if there did happen to be anybody else in our solar system I’d feel mighty sorry for them by the time the folks from Earth were through with them.”’ “Well, surely, Carpenter,” Doctor Hamlin said, “feeling like that, why shouldn’t you go ahead and eradicate with your system of eugenic control all the war-fever inherent in man? You could do it, I suppose ?” “Could I? I suppose so. The question is, should I? What right have I got to take away 33 from mankind the power that enabled him to dig a pit fora mammoth, light a fire in a cave and keep himself and his mates alive through the tail- end of the glacial period ?” Hamlin finished his coffee, pulled out a battered pipe, looked across at Carpenter, grunted mournfully, and put the pipe back. His deep-set © eyes twinkled in the chubby face. “T think youre right,” Hamlin said, rising from the table. ““Don’t take away man- kind’s guts.’’ He gestured to the far door. “I’m all ready when you are, Carpenter.” Going into the room be- hind the confident back of Hamlin, Carpenter had a doubt creep into his conscious- ness. ““Aren’t digging pits for mammoths and lighting fires in caves a little dated? Anti- quated? No longer necessary?” He shrugged and began to take off his collar and tie. Let all that ride for now, anyway. What was more important was what Hamlin was going to see in his infernal machine. conmicloooks.com