Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

EXPLOITER’S END this month. Terms kick in most of their salary for village maintenance. They can’t afford a part-time producer.” I could see that Term read out of the gang, leaving the company village, stoically, while his fellows played a wailing dirge of colour on their antenne. The farewell song. I could see him trudging over the windswept peak of Cobalt Mountain, staring down at his native village, and shaking with the impact of the Stammvyerstand, the tribe- mind, the ache and the longing. A wheel, shaken out of orbit. The lonely cog, searching for its lost slot. I could see that Term returning to his tribe. And how they’d tear him to pieces because he was a thing apart, now, an alien. We walked down the grey corridor, past Psych, past the conference hall, to the silver door marked Methods and Standards. Harvey’s blue eyes were remote, stubborn. I clapped him paternally on the shoulder. “‘Anyone can call one wrong, lad. Forget it.” 49 Harvey slumped down at a computor, and I walked into my private office and shut the door. Harvey’s personnel dos- sier was in my desk. I.Q. 178, fair. Stability quotient two point eight, very bad. Adapta- bility rating point seven, borderline. Those idiots in Psych! Couldn’t they indoc- trinate a new man properly? I waited. In a moment Harvey came in without knocking and said: “Mr. Eagan, I want to quit.” I took my time lighting a cigar, not raising my head. His defiant, pleading look. I blew smoke rings at the visicom and finally said: “Since you were sixteen, you've dreamed of this. Elimination tests, the weeding out, ten thousand other smart, hungry kids fighting you for this job.” I tasted the words. ““When your contract’s up you can write your own ticket any- where in the system.” He blurted: “I came here full of ideas about the won- derful work Amalgamated was doing to advance backward conmiclsooks.com