Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION fighting automaton. And, Cannon, darling, I love you! But I want our son to be an artist, or architect———”’ ‘Artist!’ Rennison was out- raged. His burly, high- coloured face with the beaked, arrogant nose, flushed in shocked disbelief. He waved the waiter impatiently away, and the waiter’s slender, thin, angular body and legs twisted forward, bringing his six-foot long arms across the table in deft motions of filling wine glasses just to the brim. ‘Artist!’ Rennison growled again. “Scum! Parasites cling- ing to our civilisation. They produce nothing, do nothing to earn their bread. For all they care the war against Molinar might as well not be fought.’’ He grasped the freshly filled wineglass. ““Why you had to bring me to this sort of restaurant I didn’t know. But I see now. Artists! It makes me itch!” Laura was vainly trying to check her tears. ‘*Listen to me, Laura,”’ Ren- nison went on, savagely. “Be- 56 yond the Molinar cluster there are millions of other suns and planets, all waiting for the plucking. They’re rich and ripe and sitting waiting for Earth. Our son, when he’s born, will be bred a soldier. He'll have the big chest and broad shoulders of his father. And with fresh treatment, he’ ll be tougher and better than I!”’ “But, Cannon, please—— “Tomorrow, Laura, you'll be irradiated. And the Car- penter process will ensure that we have a soldier for a son.”’ 39 A shifting and a blurring. A vertigeneous sensation of fall- ing, the mirror flushing with the scattering of a million stars. A planet. Broad and Earth- like, with great rivers winding down through pleasant, fertile plains to a sparkling sea. And over the planet the stench of death and decay. A spaceport newly constructed. Like a hard china plate tossed down onto a bed of moss. Port Commander Rollins comiclbooks.conmn