Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

THE GIVE-AWAY WORLDS **T’d agree with you even more if I knew what it was all about.” **An election is due,” ex- plained Mark. ““Colburn made the Senate the last time by beating the colonial drum. He wants facts and figures to prove to the people that he’s worth his keep. Unfortunately, we haven’t got a nice set of facts and figures for him to show. Not that it matters. With the present interest in the colonies, he could say anything and get away with it. His main trouble is with the approbations committee; they are the ones who keep us in business. Follow?” *“There’s to be an election,” said Susan carefully. ‘“‘Col- burn is our man and, I assume, more or less our boss. His boss is the approbations com- mittee. If he can’t convince them we are doing our job then he will stop our funds. Right?” “Right.” Mark lit a cigar- ette. ““Now Colburn knows that he’s on a limb. He backed ColTerm and we haven’t pro- duced. At the moment he thinks that he still has to back us. ColTerm, in a way, is his baby. But if he should learn of what happened on Deneb Five, he’ll see the chance to make a _ switch. He'll kick us overboard and come out as a champion of the poor unfortunate colon- ists stranded light years from home. With good publicity, he’ll appear as a shining knight attacking the dragon of Col- Term. He’ll win, we get no money, the colonies are evacu- ated and the big dream goes down the drain.” “And Jelks 2’ *“‘He’ll blame me for the failure, turn his coat, weather the storm and probably wind up as head of the repatriation organisation.”’ Mark pointed with his cigarette. ““But me, you, the others, will all be out of work and looking for relief.” “IT get it,” said Susan. “‘At least, I think I do. But why has Jelks kept the Deneb business a secret?” | “‘Jelks is in a soft job and he wants to keep it. It would pay him more for ColTerm to succeed than to fail. Political shake-ups are always to be avoided if possible, and Jelks - knows it. So he’s keeping his conicloooks.com