Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 56 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION young Wilson; and, in addi- tion to the boy’s solemnity, was aware of the shock of sympathy from his. wife’s mind. He was married? she silently asked. He confi-med that yes, Wilson had been married. Children? No, no children. The wife had been notified. Her thoughts now were confused, but he interpreted them without difficulty. The old fear came bubbling up through her mind—fear that he, coo, would one day have an accident with his oxygen supply on some craggy aster- oid, or that his ship would blow up out in space as others had done ... that he would not return. He tried to reassure her. “TI haven’t got long’’—he directed her eyes towards the clock so that he could check on the time he had set himself for this visit—‘“‘so don’t let’s be morbid.”’ “Of course not. I’m sorry. Well, then... Are you bring- ing us a lot of nice presents from the stars?’ *““You’re just greedy,” he said. 82 He could feel her probing affectionately about in his mind, trying to guess what he had bought for her, or what new and fantastic thing he had wrested from some un- known world. She was baffled. “You’re awfully good at hiding thoughts,” she pro- tested. “‘How do you do it? How can you shut things off like that?” “It’s a trade secret,” he said. The ten minutes was quickly up. He left himself enough time to say goodbye to Stephen and to exchange with his wife a brief, light thought that was the equivalent of a kiss; and then that room at home was fading, and the walls of his ship closed in around him once more. Noise swooped in on him again. The perpetual reson- ance of the ship shuddered through him, and the thump of the boosters reminded him that power was being built up so that he could set the new course in a few minutes’ time. He sighed, removed the clips from his temples and comicloooks.corn