Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

DEATH WISH “The usual reason. Their computors are too good, ours not good enough.” Longstrom shrugged. “If we could carry another five tons of computor equipment maybe we’d be able to do better, but until then we’ve got to rely on luck or two ships to their one.” He felt too tired to be formal. “Our computors are the best we can carry,’’ reminded Harding. “‘“And sometimes we can wreck them; we’ve just come from a ship so wrecked. How do you account for that?” Lock.” “An unknown quantity. I want a better answer than that.” “IT can’t give you a better answer—sir.”’ “I see.”” Harding frowned at the ranked dials. ““Don’t mis- understand me, Longstrom. I’m not holding you person- ally responsible, but these conflicts seem to form a pattern. I want to know what determines that pattern. Just why aren’t we equally matched ?” *““Reaction time.’ As always after a battle, Longstrom felt a little light headed from too much concentration for too long. “‘The way things are I have to collect data, judge it, collate it, and act upon it. If 115 I’m good, then we live, and sometimes we even manage to win. If I’m bad, then we die. The most anyone can hope for is that I’m average, and that no harm will be done. That applies to allcomputor men on all Terrestrial ships. It will continue to apply until such time as we get wholly auto- matic computors aligned with the ship controls, and by that time human crews will be unnecessary anyway.” “Don’t the enemy have re- action time trouble, too?” “No. Not as we do.”’ Long- strom glanced at the Head, knowing that the captain already knew the answers and vaguely wondering why he was asking the questions. “They have solved the prob- lem of weight in a very effi- cient manner. The human brain is probably the most compact computor ever de- vised; they know it, and they use it.”” He looked away as the Head rolled its eyes towards him. “They take a man, a prisoner or a captured colon- ist, and they operate on him. They retain the brain, merely keeping the skull, eyes and ears, throat and tongue for convenience, and they fit the severed neck with a glorified Lindenburg-Carrel pump. Then they sever the cells comiclbooks.corn