Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION youths who yearn so much for home that they can’t think straight? Get back to your posts at once. You'll achieve nothing by mutiny. Kenwood must take his chance. A few hours won’t make that much difference.” There was some truth in Forde’s accusation. Every man in the crew was fed up of space. They wanted to see home again. Let the captain do what he liked with his record numberof flights—they wanted their feet on Earth for a while. Kenwood’s illness had come conveniently. But at the time they refused to see it like that. The kid was dying and the captain was a cold- hearted love-child, prepared to murder the navigator for his principles. With their own new-found principle, the crew stuck to their resolve. And they won their point. Without the charts and radar, the captain couldn’t hope to find the Wheel. There was nothing he could do but capitulate and head for Earth. From the minute he fired the torque jets, Forde was a changed man. He grew older hour by hour. His fire and self-reliance drained out of him. He asked for things to be done instead of ordering. 70 His reluctance to see Earth again became more and more a pathological phobia, mani- festing itself by reducing him to a worried, uncertain old man. Somewhere near the point- of-no-return he made a final plea. ““Give me directions for the Wheel and I’ll overlook your actions,”’ he asked. The crew’s reply was terse, rude and in the negative. *“But the spare oxygen tanks are empty,” Forde said. ‘““They can’t be recharged between here and Earth. How can we wear suits without oxygen?” To this the crewmen merely looked at each other and tapped their heads meaningly. And that was the last time Duffy had heard Forde speak. When they had touched down the captain had personally escorted Kenwood to the spacefield hospital. As far as Duffy knew, Kenwood was still there, but Forde had come out the same afternoon —feet first. His eyes crawled over the captain’s corpse. There was no emotion in his gaze. Forde hadn’t been a man to evoke pity or sorrow for his passing; and if he had been a louse, he was a dead louse now and no longer worth comicloooks.con