Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 51 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION sunlight. Swords swept through blazing arcs. The two armies locked in battle, grim and deadly, and men fell, groaning, never to rise... Forman turned away, sickened. “‘There’s another lot com- ing from the third castle,” Peters said. “And they’ve got huge wooden catapults with them!” The battle raged with a fierceness that was incredible to men unused to physical warfare. Lances and swords were bloody, maces a flutter with human skin. Horses and men died without the slightest mercy being shown by either side. Beyond the dust of battle, the army of the third group set up their catapults. The first rock landed some dis- tance off and was scarcely notices by those locked in the death-struggle. The second hurtled into the centre of the fighting men, crushing a score of them. The third came perilously near the spaceship. “Time we were leaving,” 76 Peters said. “You know, Larry, I’ve a nasty suspicion it’s us they’re fighting over. Or rather, this ship. Have you noticed how the other space- ships are drawn up about the castles ? The spoils of war...” Forman remembered a story he had once read, in which sailing ships were lost in the Sargasso Sea. It came vividly to mind as he looked at the spaceships dotted about the countryside . . . the whole scene was quite incredible, like something out of a dream. He had to remind himself that he was aboard the first ship to leave Earth... Another rock landed close by, and the ship rocked as the ground shook. “Going up,” Peters said, and fired the rockets. Earth receded. They had one last glimpse of the battle, the three castles and the spaceships; then space, sprinkled with stars. Then darkness. Forman thought of their diminishing food supplies, the nearly empty water tank. comiclooks.corm