Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 56 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION The answer was shaky but sincere. Her loneliness en- gulfed him for a second, then she regained control of herself, and he felt himself surrounded by a strange . . . well, what could he call it? He was conscious of her gentleness and seriousness. Of purity. Purity. Automatically he laughed, and his cynical amusement reverberated through her mind. She responded: “‘Why are you so bitter? I thought you were coming just for some technical information.” “Sorry. I’m not used to this sort of thing.” He was uneasy. Although the idea had been merely that he should soak up from her mind the details, meaningless to her, which her husband must unconsciously have im- planted there, he realised that she could not help acquiring information from his own mind also. And he was aware of her pity. That angered him. There was no reason why anyone should pity him. Almost defiantly he let recollections of his crazy be- haviour on remote planets froth up to the forefront of 90 his mind. The back streets of Cassandra City swam up like badly-lit pictures before his eyes—or, rather, before her eyes. She thought: “‘What is the point of all that? You got no pleasure from it. What good will so much bitterness and self-contempt do you?” *‘Self-contempt ?” “Yes. 59 She did not make any deliberate effort to offset his thoughts with thoughts of her own, but he acquired from her the sense of her own clarity and cleanliness. He knew suddenly what her life with Wilson had been like; and at once he tried to thrust it away. It was warm and decent, and good .. . and sentimental. He couldn’t stand that sort of thing. It was a trap, an illusion. He repu- diated it. He wanted no part of that; he denied all know- ledge of it, refusing to accept that it could ever be true, that it could ever work out like that. She questioned: “‘Have you obtained the information you came for?’’ “[T don’t know. I won’t be comicloooks.com)