Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION The General Labour Level contained both residential and entertainment areas, and it sprawled over a very wide region. Since all power came from the vast atomic genera- tors on the Lowest Level there was no smoke and no haze, and you could see for great distances. He made his way swiftly to the canteen, which he knew would be almost empty at this early hour of the afternoon. He’d gone there first some weeks before, at the start of the holidays. He’d been wanderinground all the Levels, looking at places and people, and the way life went on on Levels other than his own. And he’d gone into the canteen for a cup of coffee—or for a cup of the chemical brew that was called coffee in this age of synthetic foods—and he’d seen Margaret. He’d been in there sitting up at the counter, drinking countless coffees, for an hour and a half before he’d plucked up courage to talk to her. Since then he’d come up once or twice, or perhaps more, every week, to talk to her. And he could talk to her. Not since he’d known Harry Lake, years and years before, had he been really able to 3 talk to anyone until he’d met her. He pushed open the doors of the canteen and went inside, his eyes darting at once to the counter in their auto- matic search for Margaret. She was there, in her white uniform, her hands busy with urns and plates and plastic cups. The bright banks of ceiling lights streamed down their rays especially—or so it seemed to Patrick—to catch in the gold of her hair and make it flash and softly glimmer in the way that perhaps the real sun might glimmer miles above. “*T’ve got the afternoon off,” she told him when he reached the counter. ‘““Doreen—that’s the other girl—wanted to- morrow afternoon off, and as that was due to be mine and I knew you’d be coming today, I changed with her.”’ He hadn’t bargained for that. He’d imagined he’d be in the canteen for most of the day and had only brought out enough credits to pay for coffees and perhaps a meal later on, so he couldn’t very well take her out to anything expensive. He explained his position to her, awkwardly and with many pauses. It was difficult, when you were a student with a meagre allow- comiclooks.conn