Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

SAVIOUR men since—oh, since Noah, I should think.” She moved over to him, her face losing some of its harsh- ness. “‘I suppose it sounds as though I’m a callous bitch,” she said, gently, “but I’m honestly trying to think of the best answer. And psycho- surgery seems to me to be that answer. Perhaps something did happen in Pat’s childhood that’s made him like this. If so then analysis would un- cover it, and the psychosur- geons could probably put it right.” He didn’t say anything. ‘Well?’ she pressed. “I’m scared.” “That Pat’s a mutant or something freakish? Oh, Steve!” He shook his head. “‘No, not that. But this psychosurgery business has things about it I don’t like. The mutant scare is one thing, but there’s more to it than that. I don’t know an awful lot about it, as I’ve said, but I’ve heard odd things...” “Such as?” she wanted to _know. He took a breath and looked at her askance. “‘Well, psycho- surgery itself, apparently, isn’t really surgery as we think of it. It’s the process whereby the psychos can somehow send 13 their patient’s mind back to whatever happened to affect his life. They send him back to before the incident occurred and implant some sort of false memory which tells him that whatever had happened really didn’t happen at all. If some- thing like that is the trouble in Pat’s case all well and good, I suppose, but . Perhaps the hatchway moved the tiniest fraction. If it did they didn’t see it. ‘Don’t keep breaking off in the middle of what you’re seying, Steve, for heaven’s sake,”’ said the General’s wife. “Well then, Pll try to ex- plain. This mutant tracing scare, I’m told, is really a scare. Understandable in a way.” He nodded quickly, as though to convince himself, more than his wife, that what he was saying was very true indeed. “But the point is that the balance of power in the Deep Cities has been shifting over the last ten years. Once the Military were the bosses, but now the psychos have de- veloped this psychdsurgery to such a degree that they, and not us, are really cracking the whips, since they can adjust practically anyone from what- ever he was before into what- ever is most necessary to the well-being of society. And comicloooks.con