Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

SAVIOUR might be able to add whatever gifts he’d got to her own. There might be a way of forcing her to bring into play whatever ability she had. He’d done it before. At school, mostly. Like that time he’d hero-worshipped Claydon, the cricket captain, and made him score that century against the Third Level first eleven. He’d done it by willing the boy to use his eyes and his muscles, and his judgment. Perhaps he could do it with Margaret. He had to do it with Margaret. “That spoon?’ Margaret asked, nodding at it. ““That one,”’ he agreed. “Try it, will you? Just to see if we can do it?’ “Just an inch?” she asked, her eyes flicking round the nearby tables as though ex- pecting all eyes to be upon her, watchful and questioning. “One inch,” Patrick Vane agreed. “Ready?” She nodded. Patrick thrust out his thoughts and his powers to- wards the golden-haired girl who sat opposite him. He was not occupied with thoughts of the spoon at all, but only with the fact that the girl should be able to move it and that he - himself could make her move it. The spoon lifted, wavered, 39 remained suspended and held as though resting on some in- visible surface one inch above the plastoid table. “Down,” breathed Patrick Vane into Margaret’s mind. *“Down.”’ The spoon settled with a very faint sound. They looked at each other for a long moment, not speak- ing. From the. counter, be- hind them, came the rattle of plates and cups, the murmur of voices, the hissing of the urns. From somewhere to their left came the squeak of a chair on the plastoid floor. Stull they were silent, the memory of what they had accomplished vast and burn- ing, and notalittle frightening, within their minds. **“Excuse me.’ The voice came suddenly to their ears, and the dark bulk of the voice’s owner loomed, equally suddenly, over their table. He was an elderly man with a grey growth on his chin that was neither entirely a beard, nor yet just the result of not shaving, but was something indeterminate between the two. He was tall and gaunt, and dressed in ancient cover- alls that were both greasy and tattered. ‘‘Excuse me,” he repeated, softly. “Hope you comiclbooks.com