Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

IT TAKES TWO the shrill of the wind and the scuttling hiss of the driven sand filled the belly of the night with madness. How long he lay there, Jarril never really knew. He remembered _fragmentarily that he had wanted to sleep; but every time he was about to drift off, his senses warmed and carried him away on a shining cloud of forgetful- ness, the stranger dug a hard and unromantic.elbow into his ribs. The coming of dawn and the dropping of the wind coincided. Jarril refused to accept what his senses told him; the roar and crash of the storm was still battering at his ear drums, and the slither of sand from the crest of the ridge was still a ner- vous overtone to the general bedlam. He heard Foster say something, and _ shook his head, dislodging a shroud of dust which made him choke. “All right, son. She’s blown herself out. We'll just take a little breakfast and then get straight back. You can do with a long session of shut- eye.” The fact that Jarril could 17 hear Foster's words quite clearly convinced him that the storm must be over. He licked caked lips and pushed the sheet back. ‘There were tremblings from his stomach, a vacuous gulf that weakened him and against which he had to fight. Jarril said abruptly: “You haven’t asked me who I am and what I’m doing here.” “That’s right, son.” “Well.” Jarril was non- plussed. “Do you usually find strangers wandering around out here ‘in the desert?” “Nope. I saw that fire- cracker of yours come down yesterday, so I kinda thought I’d mosey around and have a looksee.”’ “It’s just as well you did, Mister Foster. If you hadn’t found me it was a ninety-nine per cent. certainty that I would have died out here.” “Could be.” Foster stood up and shooed his camel away from the banked slope of sand that stretched beyond what had been the ridge. “What sort of talk is this ninety-nine per cent. stuff? Id say you hadn’t got much of a chance at all.” comiclooks.com