Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

dl AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION fore the cynical mirror. Tired eyes, tired skin, tired muscles ° and tired brain-all stared at her from the smooth surface and mocked at her pretentions to youth. A shower helped, and coffee helped more. Clothes, the great morale builder of one half of the human race, helped still more, and by the time she was ready for business she felt as assured and as smart as she ever did in the morning. Work was the usual round of passing out potted adven- tures and emasculated romances to a thrill-hungry public satisfied with vicarious pleasures hired from the library. They were as unreal as the books they read, pale men and nerve-wracked women, all heavy with the conscious knowledge of their wasted lives, none of them either knowing how or having the courage to do anything about it. Lunch came and the temp- tation to phone the Academy and contact John. She resisted it, and later in the day, when 52 the rush had died and there was time for thought, she knew that she had been right. Later, too, came the time when her headaches began, and the dull ache of frustration made her doubt even her own values. Had she been a fool? Was she being a fool to dedicate herself so whole-heartedly to an ideal? Did she, unattrac- tive, nearing forty, myopic and too-inclined to share the bur- dens of others, hope to be a second Helen of Troy? She . fought down the self-doubts as she had done so often before. Perhaps she would never be able to launch a thousand ships, but via John she would be able to launch one, a spaceship, and with that she would be satisfied. And she knew that John could not fail. Could not! Not after her guidance and tuition, her knowledge and coaching, her insistence and submission during the past three years. She did not think of it as sacrifice, to her John’s success would be gain, not loss, comicloooks.con