Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION viewer plate, producing a dull explosion inside the instru- ment. Finally they subdued the old woman and pinned her arms behind her. She sobbed helplessly. as they tore the bed sheet into thongs and bound and gagged her. “Let’s go,” said George Three when they had finished. *““Wait,”’ said the girl, quietly. “Do you want this ?”’ It was the landlady’s en- velope of Tab. It was still wet with the old woman’s saliva. “No,” said George Three. “*No more.” “Where can we go?” he asked when they were in the alley. “The harbour.”’ “But... but you said your father and mother...” “There are others,’’ said the nimble footed girl, leading the way. George Three stopped to jam the small loaf of cheese and the synbread he had been carrying into his pockets. He caught sight of the dead rat nearby. He felt almost thankful. They made their way be- 2 122 tween, around, and over the heaps of refuse. They used lice-ridden and sodden mattresses for runways, animal carcases for footholds, the rusted product of another industrial age for handholds. They ran and tripped and fell through the cast-off stuff of a hard-bitten people. They sought escape through that which even the wretched society of that district found wretched. Finally they came to an old street and stopped in the late afternoon shadows to observe it. At first it appeared deserted, but as they watched George Three began to see the street’s inhabitants. Pro- jecting from the dingy shadows of doorways and the spaces between buildings were parts of human bodies. Here there was a foot. There a hand. Once in a while the hulk of a bent back, clothed in shredded rags. “IT know this place,” said George Three. “It was on the viewer once. It’s Bug- town!” gh a “But it’s supposed to be illegal...” comiclooks.corn