Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

IT TAKES TWO entrants before him were only ereen boys, they would, one day, be officers like himself, and no officer reprimanded another in the presence of inferiors. He looked the lads over, aware with no amuse- ment at all that they refused to meet his eye. A month at the Academy and they'd stand _straight- backed before the Admiral of the Fleet in person. Five years, and they might well be standing where he was now, wearing the sash of a prefect. And by that time they might understand some- thing of what was meant by discipline and efficiency and evaluation of the probable course of immediately on- coming events. Some of them might. Looking them over, Jarril, knowing that he was working on insufficient data when dealing with the human mind and character, yet gave a forty per cent. cHance of eventual graduation to the group before him. The sun still beat on his back, but there was a chill creeping in somewhere, too. A chill and a growing aware- ness that night was swooping . down with the abrupt sinking of a swollen, oversized sun behind an ochre and desolate desert horizon. Jarril fumbled one hand to the hilt of a sword on his hip that, strangely, didn’t seem to be there. He eyed the group of apprehensive boys before him, a group of boys that in some odd way at times ap- peared to be just a pile of boulders. “You're entrants to Spatial . Academy,” he said, his still 11 young voice straining to be harsh and cold. “Always re- member this. Correct evalua- tion and action is dependent on one hundred a cent. efficiency.” He stopped speaking in surprise, and found to his annoyance—hbecause he had not yet evaluated the reasons for it—that he was face down in gritty red sand. Some grains plastered the inside of his mouth and he spat them out and worked his tongue around a few times. He pushed himself up on arms that felt like flower stems. His mind grappled with the problem and then went white- hot in anger. comiclooks.corn