Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

around them; the three miners playing poker with Crispin, who was winning; Mary look- gng on. Black on a couch smiling coldly to himself, looking at nothing—no one would ever know his secret now, Winter thought, nor mine, either; Marjory, as calm as Mary. He raised his voice so as to take in them all. “IT wouldn’t move much more if I were you,” he said. “All right for the next twenty minutes or so. But better make sure at the end of that time you’re comfortable and relaxed.” He waited, but no one said anything. Everyone looked blankly at him, except Mary, who knew she would not see him again, and who smiled a farewell. He went out and closed the door. Outside he paused. Mary had shaken her head, but he had to tell Esther and Souness. Then he realised he didn’t have to. Souness should know as much as he did about black moss. He climbed the stairs to his eabin for the last time. 34 AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION He lit a cigarette and calculated. He could smoke three more. He would be able to drop the last from his lips on the floor. There was nothing to burn—as if tt mattered. | He wondered if he hated Barker. But as usual, his mind wouldn’t help him out. Why had Barker given him life and then taken it away? A sudden thought shook him. Was Barker right—again? If. Pam had been with him constantly, he would probably have told her the whole story. He had known Pam slightly as one of the girls, then better as a mail girl-friend, and then for two years as a wife. But then there had been the trial hanging over him, and he had been a prisoner, even if a prisoner without visible bars. Would he, back on Earth with her, have told her? He was leaving the service. His last job had been to land Barker on Ceres, wait six months, and take the ship back. Then he did—what? He had always meant to settle that with Pam. But was Barker right? conmiclsooks icon