Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION had soured her capacity for belief. ; “We do it quite simply,” he continued. “‘As things are, and if you will pardon me for referring to the matter, you are not attractive to the men of Earth. You are forty- two years of age, single, without a boy-friend and...” he glanced at the questionnaire, *‘without experience. In short, you are a failure in your own culture. If you weren’t, then you would never have felt need of our services.” He hesitated. “‘I take it that you have patronised the cosmeti- cians ?”’ “I have,” said Sarah grimly. Even now she didn’t like to think of all the time, money, pain and inconvenience she had wasted on the futile chase of an ideal. Fenshaw nodded. “Exactly, and they failed to satisfy you. We shall not fail.” “Ts that why I must travel?” “Yes. You see, Miss Good, we must attack your problem from the logical standpoint. If you are not attractive to the men of Earth, then we must send you to a planet where you will be considered to.represent the height of beauty. Trying to find you .a suitable mate here on Earth would be a 102 waste of time. We could possibly find you a prospec- tive husband here, but, to be frank, he would be no catch. That’s obvious when you think about it, isn’t it? Also, even if you did manage to get suited, you would still be suffering from the compari- sons he would be making with other women.” “Yd risk that,” she said. ““My trouble isn’t keeping a husband, it’s getting one.” “A poor solution to a problem is no solution at all,” he said severely. ““We can do far better than that by attack- ing the problem at its roots.” He became pedantic. “You see, we operate on the truism that beauty is purely in the eye of the beholder. What one section of humanity finds attractive another may find repugnant. Avoirdupois, for example, is appreciated far more in the tropics than in the temperate zone. A dark- skinned woman with an arti- ficially elongated neck, while not a marriageable prospect in Iceland, would be eagerly sought after in the Congo. You follow me?” “T think so,’ she said slowly. “It’s all a matter of local preferences and tastes.”’ She glanced down at her comiclooks.conn