Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION colony began to run smoothly and there were the beginnings of comfort.” Ferguson walked round his desk. “‘As soon as the colon- ists began to have leisure,” he continued, “they began to notice their loneliness.” “There are five hundred of them,”’ Drew said enquiringly. “True. Yet how little the colony is among all the millions of square miles of Mars. You were always the nose-to-the-grindstone type and it affected you less than the others. They didn’t have your. temperament. They felt insecure, afraid, insignificant life in a desert of death.” *“How do you know?” “From Janie. It was as deep inside her as in the rest. It had to be dredged up. And it clinched the guess we had made from earlier analyses. There was a subconscious sus- picion in every colonist that Mars was unsafe. It was bare of inhabitants of its own, therefore it was never de- signed to support life. I’m sure you can follow the reasoning.” Drew nodded. “‘To a point, yes. But Janie, she’s always 122 been the pioneering type. At least, I’ve always thought so.” ““That’s no guarantee of im- munity from fear. And if you introduce fear into any closed community of animals, human or otherwise, they always begin to tear at each other’s throats. In the present case, there was the additional motive that a sin would merit punishment— which would, of course, be banishment to Earth, good old Mother Earth, who would comfort and shelter her off- spring.” Ferguson gestured Drew to follow him out of the room. As they walked along the corridor, he went on: ““That was the problem as we figured it. You can see how successful our solution was. You have the satisfaction of knowing you were in at the start.” It took Drew a moment to connect. ““That faked weather report! That sandstorm was just north of the equator!” “And,” said Ferguson, ““we had a crew working near there. The supposed sand- storm conveniently diverted them to a spot where we had a fossil planted—some old bone none of the museums comiclbooks.conn