Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

SOME OTHER TIME an off-key note, here, in the domed, sand-blasted home of a Martian G.P. ‘Listen, Carpenter. I like you, see? I don’t want you to be put down a shallow scraped hole in that ruddy sand out there. So give your work a rest and come into the sana- torium at Carson City. You'll have to have a resection, of course, but———”’ “I can’t rest!’ Carpenter had his collar and tie back on and now went awkwardly to the door, his legs feeling as though someone had just beaten them with a lathi. “Ina month’s time I face a Con- gressional Investigation Com- mittee and fight to continue my work. Already they’ve been at me to pack it in, cease the project, retire. My God! What do you think would hap- pen to the children?” Hamlin just mumbled something. “T’ve fought too hard for this thing, all along, to finish now.’ Carpenter went out the door and Hamlin closed it behind them. Wheeker rose 35 from a chair as they entered, his wide mouth firmed down over a pipe. He quickly re- moved it and knocked it out in the ash tray. Carpenter clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I left my tie-pin by the machine, after all,” he said, wryly. “Sorry, Jack, guess ?m not concentrating very well.” He went towards the door leading off into the darkened room where the X-ray machine humped like a primeval mon- ster of the swamps. From the shadows in the room, as the widening wedge of light splashed yellow across them, came a scrabbling, furtive scutter of sound. Carpenter paused, tense, one hand on the switch. All was silent, now, yet, when he had entered, there had been a noise... He flicked the lights on. His gaze roved the room, sorting, cataloguing, trying to find, primarily, just why he should be acting like this. Were even the soft sounds of mice, say, to frighten him now? Was his nerve that commiclooolkks.com