Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION In fact, he must have foreseen just such a situation. Keep an eye on that scanner, Lubkov. We should not have to wait long.” Takato looked at the bleak, rugged plain in which the cupola and its ancillary build- ings were set. In the distance mountains stood, tall and jagged. They formed the rim of the large crater which cupped the plain. “Any moment now,” warned Lubkov, peering into the scanner. The first ship struck. It re- bounded many metres above the strip of levelled ground which it had hit. Then it dropped down again and bounced aimlessly along the strip until it came to rest against a retaining wall. Noiselessly the ship had fallen; noiselessly it had risen and fallen again; noiselessly the retaining wall ruptured and crumbled, as if it were a wafer. Two other ships spun into ~ view almost immediately. 56 They looked like pieces of some ungainly mechanism which had fallen apart hun- dreds of kilometres above the surface of the planet. The cartwheeling binaries tumbled to destruction, a destruction so robbed of sound and of fire as to be almost comic. Like petals the ships were falling on the horizon. Like leaves they’ fell in the middle distance. Like boulders they struck the ground near the cupola. They appeared sud- denly and silently, but they sent quivers through the ground. The _ seismograph fidgeted nervously, and one Constructor swore as_ the plano-indicator on his cine- theodolite was jogged out of true. But the Constructors said little. An occasional exclama- tion broke from them; that was all. Every being had in- voluntarily tucked his head as low on his shoulders as pos- sible. Some had even adopted a crouching attitude. They feared the sudden arrival of a space ship on top of the comiclbooks.com