Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION jerked with a surge of ac- celeration, its venturis glow- ing with betraying fire, spin- ning and lunging directly towards the approaching ves- sels. Harding swore, slapped at the controls, then relaxed as flame blossomed in blue-white incandescence behind them. “See? It spotted the sneak- torps and dodged. Could you have done that, Longstrom?” *“Maybe.” The computor man frowned at the screen. “Why doesn’t it fire?” Again the ship jerked, slam- ming soft flesh against un- yielding metal; then, as it _ steadied, the muffled roar of the firing tubes pulsed through the control room. ~s.. eight... nine... ten. Ten! Can it handle that many?” Carter looked at the idiot-features, then hastily stared away. From then on the Head took full command. It was efficient—even Long- strom had to admit that. It stared at them with its vacant features, while, in the com- putor areas of its mind, data flowed and was correlated, velocities checked against range, spacial co-ordinates and missile fuse factors as- sessed and determined, ship acceleration aligned to evasive action; and always, as the 124 screens became thick with crawling flecks of light, the idiot voice droned the co- ordinates of the enemy vessels. It destroyed the first one within the. first hour. It almost destroyed itself five minutes later. Longstrom saw it in time, a creeping speck carrying within itself the pure flame of atomic destruction, and even as he saw it, he had knocked’ Harding from the pilot’s chair and had grabbed the manual controls. Death missed them by ten miles and, even as he re- laxed, a second missile probed towards them. Tensely he waited for the Head to recog- nise the danger and take over. It didn’t. Harding swore then, words which he had learned a long time ago, and which none of them had ever heard him use. He sat at the manuals, his hands white-knuckled as they gripped the slow, too slow, levers, and desperately he tried to blast the ship away and free of the probing tor- pedoes. With computors they could have done it. With the equipment he had discarded Longstrom could have as- sessed the co-ordinates and determined the escape route, but without them there wasn’t a hope. comiclooks.corn