Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION “Sounds as if you might know one end of a ship from the other, then. What model’s your job?” There seemed to be a crack in the oystershell. _ “Rebuilt Mark VIII— Navy disposals from the Last War. She wants new tube linings, but she’s a decent old tub.” “* Mine’s older—Mark VII. Gyro’s bung; that’s what I’m going to fix today, with any luck. The stores super says some new stuff’s just in on the last supply ship, and I’ve a few ducats saved up. Say, can you hear the beam? I must be a bit deaf or some- thing I broke off in sudden alarm. You know how it is with a constant noise like that; you don’t hear it after a while, unless your atten- tion’s drawn to it—but when it disappears you realise some- thing’s wrong. The stranger looked blank for a moment. ‘Can you hear the beam?” I repeated tightly. “No. No, I haven’t heard it for about the last three or 98 four minutes.” He didn’t seem to realise it was im- portant. I exploded: “Then why the hell didn’t you say some- thing? We might be a hun- dred yards to a quarter of a mile off-track by now. Here, stop; there’s no point in wan- ~ dering farther out.” We stood still, looking around. Pretty useless, unless someone else happened to loom up, since all we could see was yellowish-red mist, cutting out vision at about ten yards. The sun’s position wasn’t definite — just a luminous patch a bit yellower than the rest, giving a hardly perceptible shadow. The dust is fine as talc, and what isn’t flying around is about six to eight inches deep on_ the ground. It never packs hard, is always shifting—there just isn’t any track. There’s only one good point about Mars dust—it isn’t very abrasive, perhaps because it’s knocked round so long and_ got ground down so fine. Because it is fine, practically no seal comicloooks.conm