Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION a rocket of the old Z.M.6 line, one of the pirate rocket companies that sprang up like mushrooms forty or so years back, before Inter- national Control took over. Less than six months after the incident, the whole lot went up in one of the most glorious atom accidents of the late twentieth. Plant, rock- ets, staff, offices, records, even the spacemen’s pets, all vanished in an instant and left nothing but a glass-lined crater more than a mile wide.” The smile came off George’s face. “Surely you’re not im- plying...” “Oh, good gracious, it wasn’t proved,” said Graves again ambiguously. “‘In fact, I should say you are probably the first person that ever associated the two incidents.” There was a sober pause. “Sounds like a hot tale,” said George, at last. Graves shrugged. “It was, as you say, a very long time ago ... You might as well hear it, I suppose.” He turned to me. ““That is, unless Merton would rather not.” 142 “But of course,” I assented. Still he hesitated. “I don’t want to upset you...” “You mean,” I said steadily, “because Paul died in space? Is it something to do with Venus? I thought Paul’s ex- pedition was the only one to date?” ““Oh, no, nothing to do with Venus,” he corrected. “I thought I had better ask. . .” “Seven years is a long time, too,” I said, with a touch of unwarrantable selfishness. ‘And a good tale is a good tale, so long as it happens to somebody else’s son.” His blue eyes laved me for an instant, but he let it go. He said: “It wasn’t much of . a rocket, even for those days. It was an early model two-stage straight up from Luna on a Mars observation trip. That didn’t mean it would get to Mars to observe anything. Most of them didn’t. But every tinpot rocket com- pany was out for the honour of sending the first fully- equipped manned rocket to land there, and, as I told you, I was one of the lucky ones CoMmicooOokxSsconn