Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION paper as Director Takato transmitted : “ I am breaking off this conversation.” In the binary’s control room the colonel nodded his head. He scribbled figures on a sheet of paper as the mar- shal sat, pondering, before the silent receiver. “IT wonder why he broke off transmission so abruptly,” he mused. “The sooner we set our course and jettison those motors the better. Give me the bearing of Director Takato’s operations centre.” The colonel, a gaunt and hollow-cheeked man, went about the business of feeding the computator with the necessary figures. The answer, in the form of a radial devia- tion, was transmitted auto- matically to the other ships. “ Right,” said the marshal. “Tell all ships to set on that course. Immediately they have done so, they are to jettison their equipment. This is urgent, colonel, because those neutralisers will be used again, and soon.” 54 The plano-indicator rattled busily as the binary yawed and canted. The stabilising jets spurted for the last time and then stopped. The binary shuddered slightly as the first motor housing floated free and the motor followed. The ships began to settle in the direction of the Moon as a wake of discarded motors drifted up and away from the fleet. The colonel gripped the chart table. He was losing his sense of weight as the gyro-field faded out. The marshal wedged himself in his chair. Then the binary gave a sudden lurch. The astrodome glared with a fierce green light. Metal groaned as the Plus spheroid was forced out of alignment with the Minus spheroid. The marshal was lifted bodily and flung against the wall. A robot slithered along the connecting corridor which was distorted with torque, and gasped: “The motors, my lord. The motors.” Then the robot’s comiclooks.cormn