Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION simple truth. It hadn’t mat- tered at the time. I’d only insisted that he leave it for the hell of it, but, if he wanted to get nasty, I was in a spot. He wanted to get nasty. I tried to convince him that what he was doing was unethical, unbusinesslike, and dishonest. I even went so far as to threaten to call in the police, but he met that one with information which startled me. Skelton was a shrewd operator, too shrewd for the good of an honest man like me. It seems that the agencies worked in a nice tight little ring in order to keep selling prices up and buying prices down. I hadn’t bothered about that; details such as price rings belong to a long-term policy, and I’d had my own ideas. Anyway, Skel- ton had kept an eye on things and had had his suspicions. The pay-off came when he told me that my last customer had been a paid spy, seeking proof to have me thrown out of business and into jail. And guess who he’d been paid by? Skelton, the rat! Even at that I wasn’t worried. I’d kept strictly within the letter of the law. I hadn’t sold any claim twice; in fact, I'd hardly sold any claims at 76 all. All I'd really sold was my personal permission to go out and look at the speci- fied Asteroid. That was the part in very small print. The compositor had worn magnify- ing spectacles to set the type. The rest of my forms contained a lot of double-talk which sounded good, but boiled down to nothing. Skelton admitted that, as far as that went, I was in the clear, and that was why he was after his claim certificate. Not because he wanted it, but because he wanted money. If ’'d have had it I would have given it to him, but I didn’t have it. I’d sold it, and that, on Mars, was a criminal offence carrying a ten-year penalty. And Skelton knew it. “Look,” I said cautiously. “ve mislaid it somewhere. Itvll turn up again I’m sure, but, just to keep the books straight, how about me buying it from you for say ...a hundred credits ?”’ He cupped his hand to his ear as though he were deaf. “Five hundred,” I said. ‘“‘And you know very well that it isn’t worth half of that.” He made his stupid gesture again and grinned like the fool he had taken me for. comiclbooks.corn