Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

- AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION we a whisper. agent——”’ “Dearest, I am not of your race or Civilisation, but I am your husband, and I love you.” Susan bent over the seat in front of her, sobbing her heart out, and Dinton spent precious minutes whispering to her, trying to make her understand, while the machine hurtled on through the un- known. Vaguely, through the mist and pain of heartbreak, she heard him pleading, try- ing to explain. “Darling, I know I should not have done it, but I had been at Quillon’s for three years when I met you, and I looked like being there for the remainder of my life. I know I shouldn’t have married you under false pretences, but I wanted you, and I was prepared to settle down for life with you. If I returned to the band it would only have meant a lifetime, possibly, of wandering with them till we were either killed or captured. Do you blame me for trying to make a new life with you? Susan, don’t cry so. Susan!” Eventually, with the fear that he had married her merely ——you are an 32 for the purpose of giving verisimilitude to the part he had been playing partially removed from her mind, she calmed down sufficiently for him to be able to leave her and inspect the machine. She watched him dully, with little interest in what he was doing, notwithstanding the fact that her own life as well as his depended on his being able to discover just what Benner had done to the control leads at the back of the panel. The knowledge that he had married her because he loved her had done something to quieten her overstrained nerves, but her mind was quite literally crawling. Never before in her life had she felt so utterly and appal- lingly naked; and with it was an unutterable feeling, too, of loneliness. The desolation which she had faintly glimpsed back at the camp, when she had wondered how she would fare if she had to face life in the future without Ted, now had taken complete possession of her. Even if they returned safely, what would there be for her? A lifetime of trying to live comicloooks.conn