Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 51 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION uprising was scheduled to take place. We talked to the ringleaders, who were all intelligent men — scientists, idealists, thinkers of the first grade—and showed them just what life here was like. We convinced them. We con- vinced them too well : a large number of them committed suicide in such a way that their brains were irrecover- able. Others simply dis- appeared. They didn’t want to join us when their bodies died !” “And if you made every- one see what it was like——” “Then we should lose all the highly-developed minds. Only the unthinking, the heedless, the unintelligent, would be available. Our work for the human race would be hampered enor- mously. For their own good we keep ourselves aloof and secretive. We do their work for them, watch over them...” “And still,” said Judith, “they will never be happy.” “We must just do what we can. Things are better than they were five hundred years ago. They continue to im- prove.” “Materially, yes,” said Judith. “But in what other way? If men lose their initiative and leave their destinies in the hands of dis- embodied brains that have really ceased to be human, what dignity is left to the human race? Is material comfort enough?” There was another pause. It was as though the Instruc- tor were turning over what she had said; but it could hardly be because the idea was new to him. He said: “You wonder about that, do you?” “Of course I do. It all comes back to the same thing: what makes life—our sort of life, as we are now— worth living?” She received no answer. To her surprise, the Instruc- tor asked her to report for a lecture on Venusian colony conditions the next day. In a mood of indecision, comiclooks.com