You may know of a magazine named Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Analog was, once upon a time, named Astounding . . . and within the covers of the issues bearing those names, through the years, were to be found an amazing number of important stories. Stanley G. Weinbaum, Clifford D. Simak, A.E. van Vogt, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were some of the major writers publishing major works there. Cyril Kornbluth’s amazing “The Little Black Bag” appeared there. Judy Merril’s “That Only a Mother,” too.
When I was growing up, a few old issues were sitting around the house. They were from the magazine’s brief bedsheet-size years, with gorgeous John Schoenherr illustrations and Frank Herbert Dune installments in them. New issues, in digest size, kept arriving monthly – so that now my memories of Frank Kelly Freas cover paintings and the Telzey Amberdon stories by James H. Schmitz seem to have the dusty opacity of a window onto a past age over them. Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson . . . then Roger Zelazny and George R.R. Martin appeared there, among many others . . . all writing wonderful, amazing works.
When I started selling science fiction professionally it gave me extreme pleasure to find a place in the pages of Analog.
“Across the Sky” was my fourth short story to appear there — just one month more than a year after my first appearance within its pages.
It remains among my favorites.