Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION “‘What!’’ Renold half rose, then slowly sat down again. “I don’t understand.” “If you are human then you have cause for fear. Every human has and, ob- viously, you are human. Do I make myself clear?” **T think so, yes.” “So you must have some- thing to worry about, some- thing to make you afraid.” Henderly toyed with a pencil. “It is one of our attributes that the human race is never, at any time, wholly free from fear. A murderer, for example, is afraid of execution; a thief of discovery; a criminal of punishment. A man in love with his wife is afraid that she may leave him, or that she will not return his affection. A man with money is afraid of losing it; with possessions afraid of losing them. A man with a good job is afraid of losing it and, with it, the security it repre- sents. If he has a poor job he is afraid that he may not be able to get a better. If healthy, a man is afraid of sickness; if young, of age; if old, of senility. And every- one is afraid of war, of per- sonal disfigurement, of being maimed and, of course, of death itself. If you are human you share these fears; you simply cannot help yourself. They are part of your herit- age.”’ Henderly paused. “So you see, you must have a reason for your fear. I’m not suggesting that you have murdered someone, but fear is not proportionate to the cause of that fear. It is possible for a man to be just as terrified at the prospect of an invasion from space as it is for him to fear the far higher probability of being killed in a street accident. Imaginative fears are just as real and as serious to the individual as ‘actual ones. In some cases they are worse because a man’s imagination is the strongest thing he has. So your fear need not be caused by something real at all. It could be caused by a supposi- tion, a figment of your imagination, a possibility 116 conicbooks. conn