Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION they live on metal and, like eoral again, the structures were fashioned from their dead bodies.” : *“Yes,’’ said Thorne. ““We picked them up, they slipped through our pores, and sur- rounded by food, began to breed. The human body con- tains iron and other minerals which they could use. The strange part, to me, is that the process is painless. They must secrete some fluid which deadens the nerves and tissues around them and, of course, they are very small. Finally, they cause death and final breakdown.”’ He shuddered. ““Hemridge’s body literally collapsed into liquescentjelly.” “So we’re all going to die.” It was a statement, not a question, and Stanley knew the answer before Thorne nodded. ““Yes. They are everywhere in the ship by now. The metal alone must be rotten with them. In time they will con- vert the ship into a shapeless blop of sponge-like alloy. We can’t get rid of them, and should we land, they will spread and spread, and spread. 86 They aren’t a virus, you see, and there can be no immunity. The only safeguard is to volatise the ship or isolation.” Thorne stared at the captain. *“Complete isolation.” — And that was that. Stanley entered the engine room and looked for a long time at the humming bulk of the hyper-drive. The built-up field would last for a long, long time. Far longer than it would take to drive the ship and all within it right out of the known galaxy. It took force to generate the field and force to collapse it. And if the force wasn’t there... Stanley made sure that no one could ever collapse the field. That done, he walked slowly back to the control room and sat staring at the swirling rainbow patterns on the screens. It was going to be a long journey. It was going to be the longest journey any man could ever make. It was going to last all his life. comicloooks.conm