Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 52 — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

JOHN BROWN’S BODY The girl with golden hair pressed herself against the wire fence, looking with eager eyes. There was an emptiness in her. He had seen her, but had shown no sign that he recognised her. She watched the men march into the distance. The band stopped playing and the sound of tramping feet died away. The crowd was hushed. The sound of her crying was the only sound in a vast silence. An older woman put her arms about the girl. “They don’t feel nuthin’,” she assured her. “Don’t think about it, dearie.”’ “Oh, John,” the girl whis- pered, “‘you can’t have for- gotten already—you can’t!” The soldiers halted, waiting in precise ranks. One by one, they mounted the ladder into the rocketship. She could not recognise him; he was a dark figure against the gleam- ing silver of the ship, climbing higher and higher. She counted the men and knew it was he. Then he disappeared from view. She waited till all the soldiers had entered the ship. The rockets fired and the ship rose on jets of brilliant flame, vanishing into the sky. ““Gone, gone for ever...’ 117 She turned away, bearing a child who would never know its father. For weeks he lay on a mattress in the main chamber of the rocketship. There was no space to move. Every twenty-four hours he placed a food tablet in his mouth and let it dissolve. His body automatically adapted to the changes of acceleration. A day came when the ship landed on Mars. Obeying orders, he went outside with the others and they formed up. It was bitterly cold. The air was thin, and even his new lungs took some time to get used to it; then he found breathing easier than he had on Earth. He became preoccupied with the in- credible expansion of his chest as he breathed the Martian atmosphere. He stood and waited for orders. The sky was blue and the flat waste of desert a rusty-red colour. Further off, he saw a sickly-green vegetation strag- gling the banks of a shallow ditch. There was no water in the ditch. ‘‘March,” came the order. Head up, chest out, arms swinging level with his shoul- ders. Left, right, /Jeft, right, left, right. The sand shifted connicloooks.comn