Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION stab of unbearably brilliant light obliterated the central monster. A steaming foun- tain shot up for a hundred feet. In the smother of its subsidence a great headless body appeared. Bobbing and wallowing, it was borne away by the current. The six survivors were already carving spreading washes as they drove back to- wards the horizon. “They sure can move when they choose,” said Raikes. “IT guess they won’t come back in anything like that hurry.” He ejected the empty cartridge case. “One-shot Joe,”’ he said, with satisfaction. “And I thought I was going to have a battl on my hands. How’s Hacking far- ing? Wed better go back and listen—maybe we’re mis- sing something.” “Just a moment. Look—the bank’s stopped crumbling.” Raikes inspected it. “So it has. Weil, there’s a coinci- dence.”’ “Is it a coincidence? Odd 80 that it stopped the moment they went.” Raikes looked at him sharply, then stared after the retreating river beasts. ““How the devil could there be any connection ?”’ he asked. “They never came nearer than two hundred yards.” “IT don’t know. But I have a feeling there is one.” “We'll think about it later. Come on.” They returned to the ship. Hacking was chattering away to the empty cabin. “.. . cruising at seventy per, but he’s overhauling me. What a spectacle, ladies and gentle- men! Far, far bigger than the biggest ocean liner you ever saw. The bow wave from his ugly snout is as high as a house. He must be hitting a hundred miles an hour— up-river, too, against this current! On his lonesome, so far as I can see, but he’s big enough, at that, to lick an army—single-finned. ‘““He’s passing just below me now. Great, shining, comicloooks.com