Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), April 1944 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

26 men, too—oldsters, one youth and a middle- aged businessman type. Staring at them, he felt no reir at all; and after a moment he shrugged with the knowledge that he couldn’t shirk what had to be done here. First this, then seek out the cool environs of his hotel room. He hurried back to his hotel, took his two masks out of his suitcase, and put them on—first the masks that had been made of his face before the surgery, and then the mask of his face as it was now. It seemed hotter inside the church, or maybe it was just that the masks closed his pores and stifled him; and besides there was the vest he was wearing. The speaker was in full frenzied voice when Hoskins slid into a seat near the front: “__And I say to you that we are the un- godly, the cruel, the merciless, we who have supported this atrocity against fellow human beings—”’ He was a small, well-built man with a husky, rather appealing voice that yet had a penetarting resonance: “We have won the war; we must now win the peace. The Captain Shaposhenko punishment is the vilest ever spawned by a hell-inspired, hate-inspired—” At last the violent gestures slowed, the throaty voice sank to a skillful beseeching note: “IT have a petition form here—as soon as the question period is over. Any questions?” Hoskins stood up. As he turned to face the audience he saw the doors of the church open slightly and the snout of a machine gun poke through. “And they’ve got me cornered here in this little town,” he thought. The first burst of bullets caught him squarely on the chest. The blows were heart-wrenching, like hammers smashing at him. Hoskins had the brief, terrible fear that he was going to faint, but with a body-twisting jerk he managed to fling himself down between the benches. The second burst of bullets sprayed where he had been. From somewhere near came a woman’s high-pitched scream. Grasping his armor- lined bowler hat in a sweating hand, Hos- kins rolled over and over beneath the benches. With frantic effort he kept tugging at the gun in the shoulder holster that was attached to his bulletproof vest. Suddenly, the firing inside the church ceased. But there was firing now outside. Cautiously, Hoskins scrambled to his feet. shrugged grimly: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION One lightning glance showed the machine gun was gone from the door. Instantly he raced along the aisle. The outside shooting had stopped, too, but there was in its place the deep-throated roar of many engines. As Hoskins teetered to a halt at the top of the church steps he saw— A half dozen black cars were drawn up blocking the road that led past the railway station. A long gray machine was swerving sharply, trying to turn; it succeeded and came careening back down toward the church—just as other black cars pulled out of a side street and bore down upon it from the opposite direction. The gray car slowed, hesitated, and for the first time Hoskins grew aware that its engine was making no noise. With a hiss of indrawn breath he realized what was going to happen. The gray sedan rose, like a thistledown it rose into the air and climbed straight up like a shooting star in reverse. It became a dot in the sky and headed into the blue mists of immense heights. Just before it vanished, Hoskins had the curious impression that a long torpedo-shaped structure was waiting up there. It was there; and then it wasn’t. Gone, too, was the car. Hoskins shook his head, thinking hazily : It could have been a trick of his vision. But he knew better. A torpedo- shaped spaceship was not at all out of place in the tremendous game that was being played here. Abruptly, there was no time to think further. Shouts and cries were coming from the interior of the church behind him. Someone was screaming: “She’s dead— her face shot away!” Hoskins felt cold and immune. He thought steadily: “I lost my soul in the war. I watched too many good men die to worry now about a LETSTOP sympathizer.” He stood staring moodily at the men who were: debouching from the black cars. One of them, a knob-jawed giant, came «acing up the steps. ‘“‘Hoskins!”’ he breathed, “you are Hos- kins. And you're alive.” Hoskins said in a monotone: “You un- imaginative fools! Why didn’t you have planes overhead? Coming here like a bunch of ground hogs! If you could have shot down that auto with its engine—” He stopped himself with an _ effort, “Not that planes would comiclooks (©)