Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION sequence like a swordstroke through empty air. It was as though a jack-in-the-box, cached down, trapped and immobile within some secret compartment of his mind, had been suddenly triggered off and released, with a great whirr and a vast springing upright to wave and bob at him and make him wonder and be amazed at the fact that such a thing could ever have escaped his notice... *“Won’t bein tilllate, Mum,” he said, making his voice as casual as possible, wanting very much to be out of the house. | Mrs. Vane looked up from reading the latest letter that had reached her from her hus- band at the boundary. Her eyes flicked, as always, from Patrick’s shoes to the top of his head, critically. He looked airily out of the window, not wanting to meet her gaze, knowing that if he did so he would have to look away, and that would only make him cross and he didn’t want to be cross. *“T really don’t see why you have to wear your oldest clothes when you’re going out, Patrick,” she said, her tones icy. ““You’ve got two per- fectly good suits upstairs, yet 24 these days you seem to like gadding about in rags as though you were a tramp.”’ The word was an archaism left over from surface days. There were no tramps in the Deep Cities. Deep City society would not tolerate them. Patrick sighed. There was no use in trying to explain to her. If he told her that he was going to spend the day up in the General Labour Level where he’d made some friends she would only be shocked and start lecturing him about the way in which a General’s son was supposed to behave * and the social dignity he was supposed to possess. And if he told her that he’d got a girlfriend who worked behind the counter at a General Labour canteen she’d have had even more to say. He wore old clothes when he went to meet her because, for one thing, he liked the feeling of comfort and the consequent lack of false dignity. Also, he didn’t want to look conspicu- ous by wearing Luxury Level suits in a General Labour Level canteen. He’d tried, once, to explain this to his mother, but all he’d got in return for his efforts was a rather sneering laugh that had been intended, he pre- sumed, to dissuade him from ¥ é COMICLHOOKS.COM ~ 4