Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

—— AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION “If you like that sort of thing,” said George, with a faint grin. We dug ourselves in with a special brew of fragrant coffee. A terrific blast shook the floor. *“What’s that!” I exclaimed, looking ruefully at my sloped saucer. “Supply freighter to Sat.4,” _ said George. “It’s right over- head at three o’clock. Golly, » just look at her ugly nose splitting the ozone!’ He and Graves leaned forward to watch the rocket, which was certainly no beauty, but was showing a nice turn of speed. It gathered momentum in a rush, thumbing its nose to gravity, and sent back a cloud of derisive sparks. Graves eyed the vanishing speck wistfully. He looked back and caught me watching him. *““Earthing comes hard,” he observed. “It was a rocket not half as sturdy as that which took six of us on the first flight to set foot on Mars. There weren’t any fancy launching platforms in those days. We took off straight up from Lunar hoped the mon- 138 atomic wouldn’t bust the = tubes, and got our beads_ ready toswapwiththenatives,” He smiled his vague, sweet smile. “Only there weren’t | any natives. I suppose we’d been conditioned by a lot of the evolutionary dogma that was current at the time about parallel evolution and sep- — | arate development, and thinly disguised propaganda for spontaneous creation. I don’t know what we expected to see—something with beetle’s legs and barrel chests and built-in telepathic whatsits, I suppose, a la science fiction. But all we found was desert, sand, rank musty air and precious little water. No natives, no fabulous ruined cities, no dying race—nothing but a vast, dead, wind-blown, deoxygenated Sahara.” “Were you terribly dis- appointed ?” I asked. ‘‘T thought it was the most beautiful place in the Uni- verse,” said Graves simply. George sniffed. ““You and every other space-crazy young fool before and since,” he remarked, but with a smile that nullified offence. “And now look at it! Free atmos- — Comicbookscom|