Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

THE DAY OF ALL ELSE eonnection with the control room. The screen cleared to reveal the face of. the first- lieutenant. “Get me the cap- tain,” he said, urgently. “‘What’s the meaning of this, Kane?’ bellowed Cap- tain Sanders as soon as he saw who was calling. ““Why has our power been cut off?” “Because if I’d allowed the fission motors to run for another ten minutes we would have gone offlikean A-bomb.” “Oh ... How long will it take to repair?” “I’m not sure, sir. It will take about a week for the chamber to cool.” “What! Don’t you realise that we are in an orbit for Earth and should reach it in three days? If you haven’t got the drive working by then we'll go right through the ruddy planet.” The captain’s complexion grew noticeably darker upon the screen and his voice rasped harshly on the already taut nerves of the engineer. “Tm _ perfectly aware of that, sir,”’ Bill said, angrily. “Then do something and report to me in an hour.” 107 “Well, Mr. Shirlow,’’ Bill said sarcastically, after the screen had gone blank. “‘Per- haps you can give me a suggestion, seeing as how you got me into this mess,” “It’s the pile isn’t it?” “Yes, it’s the pile.” “Tt’ll have to be re-set in the shield so that the electron flow can be adjusted ?” “Brilliant, Mr. Shirlow. What powers of perception you do have. But in case you don’t know yet, one has to enter the fission chamber to re-set a pile, and with the radiation at the level it is now there isn’t liable to be much left of one when one comes out. “If you’d been on the job,” continued Bill, fiercely, “‘in- stead of playing about with that Stewart girl, you’d have noticed the increase in radia- tion and shut off the motors. Then we could have put suits on and gone into the chamber, but now... with all that radiation in there...” John frowned. “It’s obvious that the pile must be re-set before tomorrow in order to give us time to decelerate, so Yl go into the chamber tonight.” COMMEIOOKSIEOM)