Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

A MASTERPIECE IN MINIATURE BY TWO WELL-KNOWN AMERICAN AUTHORS KATHERINE MACLEAN and MICHAEL PORJES THE PRIZE HE SHIP FROM MARS CAME DOWN in a natural clearing. For a time after it landed there was silence as the wind of its onrush settled and the grass which had been flattened by that blow of air straight- ened again. Slowly a section of the ship swung open and down, and touched the ground. From its topside slid a long smooth ramp leading from an open gaping door, where the ramp had fitted. In the doorway a blue car, with silvered windows, appeared, or what looked, on first glance, to be an expensive but ordinary car, such as was to be found on the roads in any part of the world. On second glance it would have puzzled a normal observer, for the body of the car was an odd conglomeration of sections, some of which looked like a jeep station wagon, some that looked like a commercial truck, and others that looked like an expensive convertible. The windows were silvered for one way vision, so that the interior was not visible from the outside, and the wheels were the wrong diameter— oddly too small. However, only the birds were there to observe, and they were indifferent to the shape of automobiles. The car rolled down the ramp and across the grass and disappeared into the forest in the direction of the nearest highway. The ramp closed. “This is Max Stein, your on-the-spot reporter for that great cigarette, Throteze. This is a great day, folks, and there is a huge crowd out on the highways, trying to win that great prize and be the ten thousandth car to pass the line on the Continental highway on the second day of its opening. They all want that free eight months without working, to circle the globe and visit the deserts where man and science work together to launch the ships that will explore the depths of space. The lure of far places has drawn them here, and mankind’s unconquerable urge to find what lies beyond the known. The scientists of the rocket installations will welcome them and let them participate in the great launching. What more could anyone ask than to be known in history as the one personally to see the great leap of science through the void in search of the strange and new? Man, the potential ruler of the uni- verse, takes his next step from infancy !”’ As he spoke, the camera eye circled the panorama of cars, jammed to- gether in a long, eager line, crawling over the painted stripe in the concrete, while an elctronic device slowly counted toward ten thousand. “Only twenty more to go,” Max Stein explained in a hushed, tense voice. ‘““Barely a minute. The cars are travelling very slowly, every one crowding the one ahead, trying to be comichoo se conn