Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION discreet, quiet, well-serviced, softly-sprung, and filled with shining alloyed furniture. It managed to combine some of the cigar-laden ease of its London counterpart with the restrained and dignified ef- ficiency of its New York parent. Membership for the non-flying community was limited, but all astronauts, past and present, were auto- matic members. As a trio we were representative of the type of membership when, one afternoon recently, we met there in a small smoke room for an after-lunch siesta. It wasn’t a pre-arranged meeting. George Davis and I had met by chance to take a late lunch and decided to share a table. And Graves was the only other diner, sitting away to our left, looking, as always, rather remote and grizzled, his ““space-blue” eyes examining with kindly and absent inter- est the choice smoked salmon on his plate. I nudged George when I saw him. “Distin- guished company,” I whis- pered. George stole a_ sidelong glance at the old astronaut. 134 “The old buffer wears well,” he remarked enviously, squint- ing down at his own waistline, which was not quite so trim as it had been ten years earlier. George is chief jet designer for the I.L.C.L. He couldn’t help designing jets, as he explained once to me, but he was a man with no desire to leave the Earth. His only space journey had been one trip to No. 3 satellite, a stomach-shattering experience he had never repeated. You could call me the wealthy banker type, I suppose. | am an associate member solely because my only son had died on the first and only ill-fated Venus Observation trip, chok- ing his young life out with the survivors near the buckled air tanks of the crashed rocket. I never see the words “‘carbon- dioxide” without an inward shudder, remembering Paul and his bright dreams of colonising Venus. George’s boy is luckier, co-pilot on the Moon-Mars run, and piling up a fantastic number of credits for his retirement. I admired all astronauts, but, like George, I didn’t envy them. Apart from a couple of CONNIE OOSOLa: :