Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

LEAVE A photograph in a plastic frame caught his eye. A girl’s head, not a portrait study, but a casual snapshot, with Eve scrawled across it in a flowing hand. Burke had probably taken it himself. The face was not that of a beauty, but still there was a quality in the eyes and the set of the chin that held Ward’s attention. Burke’s sister. He slipped the picture into his pocket and left the cabin. Control was efficient. He handed in the ship’s papers and stood by while the crew were paid off. There was still the report on Burke to make... Johnson, Spaceflight’s manager, frowned. *‘Another death,”’ he com- mented. “‘Another twenty- thousand wasted. Another twelve-months training down the drain! I’m not blaming you, captain, but it’s hard to show a profit when crews have to be replaced every other trip. Spacemen are not expendable —they cost too much in time and money.” “Burke was a good man,” Jerry Ward said. “‘I’m going to miss him.” “it’s difficult to get re- 63 placements,” Johnson com- plained. “‘Even though we offer as much per month as the average man would make in a year, it’s still difficult. And there’s rejects, of course. We need young men, the cream— and the death-rate is high.” “Being a spaceman is a vocation,” Ward explained patiently. ““Like an artist or a parson. You have to be born with it in your blood.”’ “But it still costs twenty thousand and takes twelve months to train a man for the ships.” Johnson would never understand, Ward thought. Not one of these desk-squatters had any idea of what it took to beaspaceman. They thought only in terms of money and time, replacements and profit. Out there, Burke had been a man... “I’m taking his things to his sister,” he said suddenly. “‘I suppose there’s no objection ?”’ Johnson looked surprised. “No need of that, captain —we’ll send the usual notification.” “*I’d like to, all the same.” Ward was astonished by the firmness in his own voice. comiclbooks.corn