Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

THE LITTLE CORPORAL It wasn’t theatrical, that was the horror of it. When Barker said it, Winter could ‘see it happen. The only way to stop it was to make Barker change his mind or kill him, and one was no easier than the other. It was indescribable luxury to sit alone and light one cigarette from the end of the last and look into a blank wall. Winter had always had a weak throat, and he had always been a nicotine slave. Every time he smoked steadily it was fine while it lasted, but it caught up with him next day. He would cough, fight for breath, smoke a cigarette and be sick. It would be a week before he was right again, more if he didn’t keep his smoking well down. It wasn’t worth it. He kept himself to ten cigarettes a day and had no more trouble with his throat and lungs than anyone else. But now he knew he could smoke steadily for thirteen hours and never suffer for it. Just at the end, perhaps, his throat would begin to get ragged. But by that time he 17 would have other things on his mind, if he still had a mind. There was a tap he knew on his door. : ‘““Comein, Mary!’ he called. She came in and shut the door, but remained leaning on it, not intending to stay long. “I’m afraid one of the girls is going to crack later,” she said. “It won’t be nice.” *“Marjory ?” ‘“‘No. Esther. She’s like a lot of those self-sufficient characters. She'll go on being calm and independent, draw- ing on her reserves until suddenly there’s nothing left. Marjory will be all right.” Mary said it; it would be so. All his life Winter had relied on the judgment of others on others. First his brother, then Pam, then Barker, then Pam again, and now Mary. They’d always been far nearer the truth, all four of them, than he would have been in his judgments. “Is there anything we can do?’ he asked. “T don’t think so. She'll upset the others if we leave her with them. But it would be horribly cruel to her to shut her up. I think she wants to conniclsooks.com |