Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION stronger, and that something looked at him with hurt and pain. ““Well?’ “Well, what, Margaret?’ “You know what I’m talk- ing about,” she snapped. “I never expected to see you here and you know it. By now — you should have. been getting ready for your trip to the Moon.” She stared at him with sudden hope. ““They’ve changed the routine, is that it? You’ve got a day or so before you have to leave. John!” Suddenly she was beside him, her arms around him, gladness washing away her hurt and fear. “Oh, my dear, I’m so glad that you didn’t have to leave right away.” He didn’t answer, merely held her close, and his silence quelled her emotion so that she pulled away from his embrace and stared into his eyes. “Tt is that, isn’t it, John?” *“No,”’ he said bluntly. “I failed.” “You failed!’ She stared 54 at him as though he had uttered an obscenity. ““But how could you fail? It’s impossible! I know that it is impossible!” She was crying with the sheer impossibility of it all. Three years and he had to fail! “All right,” he said, and now there was a new tension in his voice. “I didn’t fail. I didn’t sit for the exam. I couldn’t, Margaret, I just couldn’t. I would have passed, I know it, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you. It wouldn’t have been fair, not after all you did for me.” He frowned at the expression on her face. “‘Damn it, Mar- garet, don’t look at me like that. What kind of a man do you think I am, anyway? I owe you something and I know it. You love me, you must do, and I simply couldn’t hurt you so much.” “Hurt me?’ Her lips felt numb and her hands had begun to tremble. “‘Hurt me?” “Yes.” He scowled at the floor. “I know how you feel comicloooks.com