Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

tr qs By ALAN E. NOURSE “NIGHTMARE BROTHER The ultimate test of a man, actually, is the test whether or not he has the strength, courage, and sheer guts to face and overcome the toughest of all opponents—his own ideas! E was walking down a tunnel. At first it didn’t even occur to him to wonder why he was walking down the tunnel, nor how he had got there, nor just what tunnel it was. He was walking quickly, with short, even steps, and it seemed, suddenly, as if he had been walk- ing for hours. It -wasn’t the darkness that bothered him at first. The tunnel wasn’t bright, but it was quite light enough, for the walls glowed faintly with a bluish luminescence. Ahead of him the glowing walls stretched as far as he could see. The tunnel was about ten feet wide, and ten feet high, with smooth walls arching into a per- fectly smooth curve over his head. Under his feet the floor seemed cushiony, yield- ing slightly to the pressure as he walked, and giving off a soft, muffled sound in perfect measure to his tread. It was a pleasant, soothing sound, and he hardly thought to wonder at all just what he was doing. It was quite obvious, after all. As simple as simple could be. He was walking down a tunnel. But then little tendrils of caution and question crept into his mind, and a puz- zled frown crossed his quiet face. He stopped abruptly, standing stock-still in the tunnel as he squinted at the glowing walls in growing confusion. What a very odd place to be, he thought. A tunnel! He glanced about him, and cocked his head, listening for a long moment, until the stark silence of the place chilled him, forced him to sniff audibly, and scratch his head, and turn around. My name is Robert Cox, he thought, and I am walking down a tunnel. He pondered for a moment, trying to remem- ber. How Jong had he been walking? An hour? He shook his head. It must have ‘been longer than that. Oddly, he couldn’t remember when he had started walking. How had he got here? What had he been 4] doing before he came into the tunnel? A chill of alarm crept up his spine as-his mind groped. What had happened to his memory? Little doors in his mind seemed to snap quickly shut even as his memory approached them. Ridiculous, he thought, to be walking down a tunnel without even knowing where it was leading— He peered forward in the silence. Quite suddenly he realized that he was absolutely alone. There was not a sound around him, not a stir, no sign of another human being, not even a flicker of life of any kind. The chill deepened, and he walked cautiously over to one wall, tapped it with his knuckles. Only a dull knock. For the merest fraction of a second an alarm rang in his mind, a cold, sharp intimation of deadly danger. He chuckled, uneasily. There was really no reason to be alarmed. A tunnel had to have an end, somewhere. And then he heard the sound, and stared wide-eyed down the tunnel. It came to his ears very faintly, at first, the most curious sort of airy whistling, like a shrill pipe in the distance. It cut through the stillness cleanly, like a razor, leaving a strange tingle of dread in his mind. He listened, hardly breathing. Was the light growing fainter? Or were his eyes not behaving? He blinked, and sensed the light dimming even as the whistling sound grew louder and nearer, mingling with y\/ another, deeper sound. A throbbing roar — came to his ears, overpowering the shrill- ness of the whistle, and then he saw the light, far down the tunnel, a single, round, yellow light, directly in the center of the passage, growing larger and larger as the roar intensified. A sharp wind suddenly stirred his dark hair as he stared fascin- ated by the yellow light bearing down on him. In a horrible flash, an image crossed his mind—the image of a man trapped on a railroad track as a dark engine approached with whistle scream- GComicboo (E “S (EO) es