Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

Bad luck with the— ASTEROIDS by E. C. TUBB ON’T EVER TALK TO ME 1) about the Asteroids. You know the things I mean, all those little pieces of rock circling the Sun in a rough orbit beyond Mars. Some of them are pretty big, and a few, like Ceres and Eros, even have domes fitted and repair yards for the rocket scooters the miners use to travel about on. But most of them are very small, a few hundred tons of stone and minerals, jagged and splin- tered, and to all intents and purposes, quite useless. Well, almost. Some of them have veins of minerals, and a few are really worth-while because of the radioactives buried in them, but the major- ity are about as valuable as a bucket of sand on Mars, which is worth just a little less than a block of ice at the Arctic. They are so plentiful and valueless that no one owns them, and no one bothers about them until someone has landed and set up a radio marker. Then they can claim the rock as their 70 property and file a claim in the regular way but, until that happens, the Asteroids are anyone’s property. Which is why I was selling them at Shyller, the second largest city on Mars. I didn’t want to sell them— realestate isn’t really my line— but I’d met the owner of the joint and he’d pitched me a hard-luck story which almost touched my heart. “It’s my little girl, Dusty,” he said, and took time out to dab his eyes. “I’m all she’s got left, and you know how ft 18."° I didn’t, but I was looking for a pitch and, as things were, the Asteroid selling racket seemed as good as any. I looked sympathetic and mentally cut his asking price down by at least a half. “Mr. Dribble,” he said, when I mentioned what I thought was a fair figure, “you are a hard man, sir.” “Mr. Skelton,” I said. ““You’ve heard my price. Take it or leave it and, just to remind you, I can open my comiclooks.com