Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

would be nothing out of the usual. Perhaps you would stand and watch the smooth, unfamiliar shape settle in a nearby field. It would come to rest and then, as you watched it, the first inclination of what it was would strike you! For spaceships cannot resemble aircraft. There might be no need of wings; the body would be large and completely sealed, the method of propulsion would be other than jets or propellers. Perhaps there would be venturis or some form of electro- magnetic-gravity controlling force. You don’t know, but, watching the strange ship land, you could guess that it had been built by no terrestrial hand. And here is where you, as a reader of science fiction, will have a tremendous advantage over the rest of the popula- tion. For you will have exercised your imagination and, faced with reality, you will not deny it merely because it is unfamiliar, impossible, or out of your immediate experience. The saucer has landed and now you are faced with what to do next. You could freeze, just stand there like a stricken rabbit; you could run away from the scene, desperate with fear of the unknown. Or you could com- promise, take cover and watch the visitor and so combine the best of two alternatives. So you would hide, shelter behind a tree or some other cover, and watch to see what happened next. Having landed, the obvious thing is that the crew member would emerge. A port would open, perhaps a ramp descend, and our extra-terrestrial visitor would step on—to him—alien soil. And the next move is up to you. For a long time, perhaps, you would watch him. You would see that he is much like yourself in outward ap- pearance, that he has a head, two eyes, hands, walks upright, wears some form of clothing and, perhaps, is carrying some form of weapon. You can assume that since he has landed he desires contact and, as this is the first time a saucer has landed, he is natur- ally wary and on his guard. You could leave him there, and, using utmost caution, you could retreat and run away. Or you could advance and present yourself to your visitor. It would have to be done carefully, of course. No sudden moves or sharp gestures. You must always remember that you are on familiar ground but to him everything is strange and poten- tially dangerous. So you would step from shelter, stand for a while until you were certain that he had seen you, and then move slowly forward. It would not be a good thing to smile! A smile is basically a muscular contortion which bares the teeth—and baring the teeth in the animal kingdom is rarely indicative of amusement. You must always bear in mind that the common assumptions we are always making in our dealings with others of our own’ kind do not now apply. You can take nothing for granted. You dare not! So you advance, hands held away from your body to show their empti- ness, and you halt a few paces from the alien. For a moment you would stare at each other, each frankly interested in what you see, and then comicbocdReconn