Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

THE GIVE-AWAY WORLDS her immediately. The couple, at first, seemed to make up for the others. They were young, intelligent and apparently sin- cere. They had read the pre- liminary folders, studied the murals and wanted more information. “It’s like this, Mr. and Mrs. Conway,” said Mark. ““Almost every sun has planets, and in most cases at least one of those planets is what we call an Earth-type world. That means that the air, water, gravitation and general en- vironment is suitable for human life and that, as far as we know, there is no harmful bacteria. Those planets are waiting to be colonized.” “Sounds interesting,” said Sam Conway. “‘What’s the catch ?”’ “There is no catch.” Privately, Mark wondered why on earth these people had bothered to read the preliminary literature. All the information they wanted was in them. “‘Naturally, we don’t want to transport unsuitable persons to these new worlds, but thatis the only restriction.” “Sounds good,” said Julia Conway. ““How many colonies are there?” “Three at the present time. Deneb Five, Sirius Two and Mirab Eight. We have about two dozen other worlds suit- able for colonization, and we hope to get them going as soon as possible.”’ Mark toyed with his stylo. “I need hardly stress the advantages of going to a virgin world.” ‘““Why virgin?’ asked Julia shrewdly. ““Why not just build up the established colonies ?’’ “A good point,” admitted Mark. He hesitated, knowing that he was treading on thin ice. ““We do take people to established colonies if they are small and if they need building up. But our main object is to colonise as many worlds as quickly as possible. So we send out complete units of colonists, seeds, tools, everything they need to start a settlement. The rest is up to them. They buckle down, build houses, farms, raise stock and, naturally, increase.” He smiled at the couple. “Children come naturally to young people in such cir- cumstances.”’ “Do they?’ Julia wasn’t comiclooks.corn