Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION had found. You know how Ferguson is with his morale- lifting messages to the little woman whose spouse is far from home.” Drew laughed at her accur- ate insight into one of the colony director’s little devices. “‘When did this happen?’’ he asked. “Today. I must be one of the first to know. Don’t you think it’s wonderful ?”’ “Tf it’s true,” he admitted. The sighting of the Martian appeared to be just that. Next day, the colony buzzed with the news. The day after that, the men who had seen the creature flew in from the equator and put an end to all the speculations about the nature of the Martian. It was bigger than a man, they said, and wider. It was deeper in the chest and longer in the arm. They had been about fifty yards away when it scuttled from one mound to another. From that distance its features were not clearly discernible. But from its size, there was no doubt that the fossil femur was a bone from a creature similar to the one sighted. 120 Janie picked on one minor piece of information to clinch her argument with Drew. ‘“‘It was naked,” she said. ‘“‘That proves they must be eking!”’ Ferguson sent word can- celling his previous instruc- tions and postponing his meet- ing with Drew for a week. In that week, Drew felt better than he had at any time since joining the colony. He was back at work. And while his work had lost none of its appeal to him, he saw it in a new perspective. He saw it as something which occu- pied a certain part of his life and a certain part of his time—but no more. When his stint was finished, he was able to lay his work aside, forget it completely, and en- joy a full social life. He didn’t notice any change in himself and he wasn’t sufficiently introspective to wonder why the colony seemed a better place than he had- thought before. He just no- ticed that life was good and people were nice. The first thing Ferguson did when the meeting came off was to slide the mortality comiclbooks.con §