Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

126 quick. I don’t think he done it on purpose. But that’s all I remember for a while. When I woke up again, it was good and light. I must’ve been out at least an hour, could have been two. I put my hand up to my head and groaned and then, sudden, I remembered that balloon. I staggered up to my feet and looked over at it. That balloon wasn’t no balloon. I seen one balloon back in Missouri at a fair and I seen pictures of other ones, and this thing, whatever it was, wasn’t any balloon. Pll guarantee you that. Besides, whoever heard of anybody being inside a balloon? Maybe I shouldn’t say anybody, I should say anything, on account of the critters that was dartin’ in and out of a door in the side of that thing sure wasn’t ordinary folks. First thing that come to my mind was maybe it was something from a circus; they have the darndest freaks and animals— and contraptions, too—at a circus. Only I couldn’t decide whether these things was freaks or animals. They was somewhere in between. Anyhow, these critters was dartin’ in and out of the big ball that I’d taken for a balloon, sometimes on their back legs sometimes on all fours. On two legs, they was about four feet high, and on four they was only knee- high to a heifer, on account of their legs—and arms, if their front legs was arms—was so short. They was carryin’ all sorts of funny devices which they was settin’ up on the desert just about halfway between me and that ball-contraption they went in and out of. And three of ’em swarmed around puttin’ together what the others brought ’em. Then I noticed Flapjack. He was standin’ right near *em and didn’t ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION look afraid at all. Just curious, like any burro is. Well, I got up my courage and meandered over that way and took a look at the thing they was workin’ on, but I couldn’t make nothing of it. I said, “Hullo,” and they didn’t answer me and didn’t pay no more attention to me than if I was a prairie dog. : So I went around ’em, keepin’ my distance, and went up to the side of this ball and reached up and touched it. Holy Hominy! It was made out of metal as smooth and hard as the barrel of a Colt and it was as big as a two-story house. One of the funny-lookin’ little crit- ters came along and shooed me away, kinda waving a thing in his hand that looked something like a flashlight. I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t no flashlight and I wasn’t too Curious, just then, to find out what would happen if he did more than wave it at me, so I got. I went back about twenty feet or so and watched. Pretty soon they seemed to have finished putting together whatever it was they’d been working on. Flapjack was standing only a few feet away from it by now, and I started to wan- der up closer but one of ’em waved a flashlight at me again and I got back. Two of ’em stood there on their hind legs pulling levers and twisting knobs. There was a kind of loud- speaker on top of it, like you used to see on old-fashioned phonographs. Suddenly the loud-speaker said: “It should be correctly adjusted now, Mandu.” You could have knocked me down with a pebble. Here were these things looking like they’d escaped from a zoo and they had a talking machine of some kind or other. I sat down ona rock and stared at the loud-speaker. EComichbooks.co m-