Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

THIRD HAND things better, make things quicker, than humans. There was Lessinger’s brother. A steeple-jack. Said it was as near the space frontier as he ever wanted to be. Used to laugh about it, and call himself an Earth-man. He used to say that he was the only one in the family with his two feet on the ground. And that’s where they were right now. Comes one morning, and he goes to the job as usual. He finds that an Adaptant has taken over. He complains to the foreman. **Let me see you grow three feet, and you’re back on the job!” That’s what he was told. And it wouldn’t be so bad if their versatility ended there, if all that they could do was to extrude limbs as and when required. But it was more than that. It was more than just a party trick. They adapted themselves mentally as well. They fitted in, like mental chameleons, to thecompany and thesurround- ings in which they were placed. Women adored them. And they were sterile. 99 Women adored them, and you never could tell. You never could be sure. Like Molly, for instance, Okay, so he’d been a fool. When it all began he couldn’t see the end of it. He’d thought that it would be fun to have one of these boys around. So he’d taken Mike home with him at the end of a trip. He looked normal—when he wanted to. He acted normal. He fitted himself into the family so well that you’d have thought he’d been born Molly’s brother. Or would you? Lessinger could never be sure. Women were queer. First off they wanted men to go out and conquer Space. They wanted their beau to be in the uniform of a space pilot. If you didn’t wear that badge of the interlocking spheres you didn’t get a look in any- where. Then, after a while, women seemed to cool off a little. They weren’t so keen. They said that space did things to their men-folk. That they went away happy, and came back strained and quiet. Some of the men, on the longer runs, comcloooks.conm