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

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION the chrono on his belt and got a little satisfaction when he noted that he was in the last hour of his watch. He looked up into a pair of steely eyes set beneath a cap with the familiar skyblue- and-silver braid. Automatic- ally he stiffened to attention -and flicked on his chest mike. “Sir!” he acknowledged. The commodore’s return salute was sloppy, as if his very arm was heavy with sadness. He read Duffy’s tapes and said: “‘Reactor man, eh? With Captain Forde long?” “Five years, sir. Three com- plete round flights between the Wheel and Mars.” “Wonderful man, Captain Forde. Seventeen years in the service—seventeen years, mark you! And only once home to Earth in all that time. Did you know that?” Duffy knew all about Forde’s fanatical devotion to the service. The entire crew knew and failed to understand it. They suspected their cap- tain of trying to set up some vain record, of a secret crime committed on Earth years ago, of madness even. In- sanity was the favourite ver- dict. Any man who actually preferred to spend his leaves at one or other end of the 66 ferry instead of on terra firma was mad. Any man so stub- bornly intent on never homing on Earth again, even to save the life of the youngest mem- ber of his crew, deserved to be lying where he was now. *‘And to think,” the com- modore was saying. ““To think that he barely made the grade medically. I was on the selection board when he was admitted to the service. It was touch and go whether he got in, you know. Yet he justified our decision, over- came his physical deficiencies and became the best of them all.”’ Duffy grunted something appropriate and hoped the commodore wasn’t going to keep up the biography much longer. But the commodore wasn’t finished yet. ‘“Took off on his first flight when he was ill. Defiéd us! Fearful blisters, he had, but he said it was only nettlerash; locked himseif in the ship and refused to come out. It was rockets at that time, of course, and every- thing was primed. Nothing we could do but let him blast off. Damn his magnificent soul! Remember him, my boy. You'll never serve under anyone like him.” comiclooks.com