Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

TABARNI DOCUMENT cupola. Breathing globes stood within easy reach. If the cupola were to be fractured and the artificial atmosphere inside it lost, they could still survive. The very absence of noise seemed ominous to them. ox The first of the crews were falling towards the Moon. Staff officers, communication and supply technicians, robot supervisors—they had all escaped from their ships. Now they approached the planet gingerly, rushing towards it for some metres, then halting themselves like dandling spiders, then falling again. At first it was not easy to see how they achieved this motion, rather like that of puppets being jerked at the ends of strings. Then the Constructors saw the Fighters’ hand weapons. Each Fighter was using his compressed-gas hand weapon as a brake. The little figures were aiming blasts of gas at the plain. The hand weapons formed clumsy brakes, but they did serve to fight the acceleration 57 fand reduce the velocity of approach. Fach little figure jerked to a stop momentarily as he pulled the trigger. Then he fell again. Some Fighters fell behind outcrops and were lost to sight. Others fell in the open. But they leaped for cover as soon as they had recovered their senses. A few broke limbs as they struck the plain. They either lay still or dragged themselves painfully to shelter. Many of the Fighters hid behind shattered gyro-bearings, sections of re- inforced hull, and _ other scraps of wrecked space craft. Soon a little army had scurried behind the debris of Marshal Takato’s fleet. The plain was no longer littered with dead pieces of odalisium, for every fragment had be- come a barricade and a rally- ing point of vengeful Fighters. But soon the ships ceased to fall and the Fighters ceased to flutter down. The plain lay bleak, rugged = and menacing about the glossy bubble of the cupola. comiclooks.cormn