Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 51 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION advantage. I have learnt that the sun and the wind and human love are far more important and mean more to the mind than all the philo- sophical speculations and theories.” Warren gaped. He thought suddenly of Deborah, and she seemed very real. Judith, here before him, was unreal. Suddenly her words quick- ened. While the voice was still mechanical, produced by a thousand little vibrations of a delicate, finely-mounted diaphragm within the letter- box mouth, it became swifter and more urgent. She said: “Why did you never talk to me the way you talk to that Deborah woman, War- ren?” “What do you know about Deborah?” “I know that you’ve held her in your arms and mur- mured in her ear, saying things you never said to me. I know now that I never even began to live. You persuaded me that we were kindred spirits—that was your phrase, 54 wasn’t it?—and so we were above all the sentimental nonsense that other young couples indulged in. And I believed you. I thought so much of you that I was sure you must be right. Books and literatapes and general- isations were all that we ever shared.” “But you weren’t the sort of girl who——” “How did you know what sort of girl I was? Did you ever try to find out anything about me? You took it for granted that I wanted only to listen to you and encour- age you in your petty grum- blings against the Greys. I never had the chance of learning how sweet life could be. But you haven’t been so dispassionate with this Deborah, have you ? Now that it’s too late, I know what I might have been to you. Now that it’s too late.” Warren felt a cold dread. This was something he had never expected. The thought that a machine could frame such remarks, driving them comiclooks.com