Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

REWARD FOR VALOUR automatic meteor shields in them days.” ““‘Whew!’’ I said. ““That was quite a feat.” ““Bravest, most stupendous thing a man ever done, as anybody knows who knows the Saturn rings,”’ he agreed. “But I’ve never seen any mention of it.” “Yeah,” Sam said drily. *“You never seen any mention of it. With a crippled ship and a crazy loon for a partner, he made it back to Earth. Two years of continuous, super- human strain. He got a one- paragraph mention on page thirty-four.” “But why?’ I asked in bewilderment. “Happened about that time, the World President’s young wife got caught in a scandal— a dilly of a scandal.’’ Sam chuckled gleefully at the mem- ory. ‘““Most of the newspapers were opposition owned, and the scandal didn’t get hushed up. MacNab landed on the day the news broke. As I said, he made a line mention on page thirty-four.” He walked over to the 95 doorway and let another stream of tobacco juice fly. “Been neglecting them plants over in the upper right hand corner of the yard,”’ he commented in explanation. “Wind usually is against me. For as little air as we got here on Mars, it sure does move around an uncommon lot.” I waited. ““About MacNab,” he re- sumed. ‘‘Another time he stood off a whole tribe on Callisto single-handed. Wound up making the chief sign a trade treaty with Earth. Opened up the whole daggoned moon to trade, it did. Diamonds big as your fist there. That alone was enough to make a man famous for life.” I knew of the Callisto diamonds. I could agree. “Only that time there was a pickle manufacturer’s son cut his finger. With a toy knife or something. The pickle baron saw his chance to get some fancy advertising. He spent a couple million on that boy’s cut finger. A couple of mil- lion, put down in the right places, to the boys who comiclooks.conn