Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

THE OLD FIRM Calshot was beginning to tie things in now. And the more he did so, the more important became the dis- covery of the exact world of origin of the weeds. “Seeds behave differently on other worlds from those nature designed them to work on,” Vaun said. ““That’s com- mon knowledge. You have to select and breed and reject very carefully before agricul- ture can decide to use any crop off its native planet. But, as we are agronomic experts, we know perhaps a little more than even the best of other experts.’’ He chuckled. “The weed seeds had an accelerated time scale after they reached acertain growth,” Calshot said slowly, puffing his pipe. ““And you couldn’t tell them apart from the regular crop. When you could, it was too late.” “Precisely, Cal,’ Vaun said. “The people who organised this had taken this seed, and had moulded it by evolution- ary and mutational forces into a complete chameleon of 27 other seeds, so that it could be fed into your bins and sown onto your fields without any- one ever realising what they were sowing. Call it adaption, a super-syndrome, call it what you like. It’s known in the animal kingdom as a common attribute—this time it was artificially introduced to a plant. And I’m pretty sure that the seeds came from Preston——”’ *“‘Aldebara——”’ Calshot cut in, in turn to be interrupted. “But I had the weed checked on Earth,” Rahming said. ““Y ou call it Michelmas Daisy. Quite common there. Jorgen —and don’t worry about him, we'll find him—must have been receiving instructions from the Terran Mining Syn- dicate.” Vaun and Calshot looked blank. Then they looked shocked. “Earth?” Vaun stammered. “Us?” Calshot echoed. ““Yes.”” Rahming’s fat face was grim. “Earth has been trying to get concessions to conmmicloooks.com)