Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

IT TAKES TWO “What are Sokkaths, Jarril?” “You mean to tell me you don’t know?” Jfarril was honestly bewildered. He was under the impression that everyone in the Terran sector of the Galaxy knew who the hated aliens were. Their conversation was interrupted as a voice called from outside the front door. “May I come in, Claire?” “Surely, Foss,” Claire called in her lilting voice that Jarril found disturbing. He repeated to himself that women were not for guards- men. Foster ducked in through the doorway, and said: “That young hell-raker has really been stirring it up. The men have abandoned their hunting.” “Oh!” (Claire gave a quick little bird-like twist of her head in fJarril’s direction, and then she laughed, a rich, vital flood of golden sound. Foster chuckled dryly. Jarril rose from the chair before the radio, the move- ment serving to give him back some of his lost ascendancy over any situation in which he found himself. He forced 35 his mind to blank out the weakness expressed by the necessity for physical action to exert his authority. The two settlers stopped laughing, and Jarril said woodenly, his own voice remote and reed- like in his ears : “You seem to forget that I am a Terran Space Navy guardsman. I have a duty to perform. The whole Terran sector of the Galaxy is dedicated to the winning of the war. If neces- sary I shall put this settle- ment under martial law, and I assure you that it is a hun- dred per cent. certain that I can maintain that situation alone. Don’t ever forget that I am an Academy-trained guardsman — you _ should know what that means.” Claire was looking at Jar- ril, and so missed the sudden thinning and sucking in of Foster’s cheeks. Foster looked, all in a flash, years older. “JT don’t pretend to under- stand all you say,’ Claire said. “You were telling me what are Sokkaths.” Jarril, caught momentarily off balance by this shift in the trend of ideas, delayed his reply, and in the expectant comicloooks.com