Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

WITHOUT LOVE their attitude that the body is merely a physical adjunct to the mind and as such of rather low value. This attitude is derived from their experi- ences in the conquest of the lands of time, and my logic teils me that I should agree with them. However, I still regard the Team or the family as the sexual unit, whereas now it is the time-sector. Celeste came back in some close-fitting gown that hinted. After a period of comparative nudity the New Men realised that secrecy and concealment is vital to the arousing of interest. Celeste perched on the arm of my chair and said: “‘Didn’t you mention that your team had a hand in inventing us, the New Men?” **That I did.” **Tell me.”’ Just like that. A command. I would have liked to paddle her bottom. Barbarians. I HAD TO REACH FAR BACK this time, more than forty years, to the first mission of 13 Team 135. We were young- sters then. Even Max, our commander had only just turned twenty-one, the legal age for his rank. I was eighteen, Tiger half a year older, Fermin twenty, and Menilissa nineteen. A bunch of kids you would have said then, though mentally and physically as mature as ten years of intensive training could make us—they started to form the selected children into teams at the age of eight. We were returning from our first mission, which had been to El Azhar University in Cairo, where a schism had threatened to split the world of Islam into warring factions. Fermin had talked with the heads of the contending fac- tions for one hour each. Later he said that in every case fifty minutes had been merely politeness. Then he told Tiger what was wrong and Tiger spent three minutes adjusting the main torkle-coil in the administration building. After that the split, which had loomed as large as the abyss commiclooks.comn