Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION He was walking down be- tween the chairs, the faces turned towards him like great blind flower-faces in a for- gotten garden. The scroll crisp and smooth in his fingers. The Head’s handclasp, warm and strong and com- forting. “Well done, Brown.” Walking back to the craning boys, the scroll clutched to his thin chest, wondering, sur- mising—what? A special case? _ Great Hall was as silent as a coffin. No one clapped, because no one understood. And then, a thin, haunting thread of applause. A dozen handclaps, rising from the scientists, their as- cetic faces flushed, the glitter of triumph in their eyes. The applause growing, swelling in a shame-faced, apologetic way throughout the Hall, until the hammer-beams_ resounded with the echoes. - Orfie stood, choked and silent, the scroll held like a new born baby. Noise. Talking. People leav- ing. Boys shouting and pack- 78 ing and running down stairs and running back for for- gotten items. Cars crunching away into the dusk. Lights springing up. The flavour of home-going, and departure, and the empty, dusty smell already of a school closed for the vacation. Orfie stood again in the Head’s study. This time the scientists were there as well. Whispering together, looking at him. He felt he was a specimen under a microscope. Swimming help- lessly on a slide. *‘Ah, Brown,” the Head said. “Youhave always wanted to go out into Space?’ The same-pattern on the carpet. It looked different now. Reds and blues and blacks. ¥ 68. Sit. The Head looked across at the scientists. “It was a mistake not to tell me,” he said, and there was a ring of wonder in his voice. “I could have helped him——”’ “No,” the micro-biologist said, softly. ““No. That would have been a mistake, We wanted to know if he could Survive amongst other boys. If he could be as human as conmnicloooks.conn