Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

THE MUTILANTS the semi-darkness; so I closed my eyes and waited, hearing nothing but the rustle of air from the lift shaft and corridor as it entered the crew room. Silence. I blinked, adjusted my pupils and saw before me a long, steel-lined room, lighted by concealed strip giving off an unearthly green- ish glow. As my eyes finally accustomed themselves, I saw before me, growing out of the foggy void, a scene of such unutterable horror that I whimpered in fear for my sanity. “My dear fellow,’? Kersch ~ was murmuring, “there is really no cause for alarm. Calm yourself, please.”’ ‘Speechless, I stared at the hellish spectacle. Row upon row of polished alloy tubes ran the length of the steel cavern. Five or six feet from the floor, these tubes curved away to sliding doors at the far end. There were perhaps thirty, and of these only one was vacant. It was marked at this end by a faintly illumi- nated plate bearing the figure seven. Suspended from the other rails, and swaying gently in 55 the light rush of air from our door, were a score or $0 objects from a lunatic’s night- mare. Near-human, with stumps for legs, and each with only one arm, these devilishly mutilated creatures stared mindlessly out of drugged eyes set in scarred and blood- drained tissue. They were alive, even alert, but their seamed and twisted features showed little sign of emotion © beyond that of ... of what? Hatred, I decided later. Not the fundamental, emotional hatred of man, but the cold, deadly hatred of a snake, perhaps; a trained, hypno- induced hatred; a suspended . emotion nurtured, sharpened, concentrated and then care- fully turned in a required direction while held in boiling, simmering check. All hell’s fury waited there for release. Horrible, more horrible even than the mass amputa- tions and the deathly empti- ness of those eyes were the twisted. and broken necks. Exactly alike, each head grew forward from a deformed chest, and from the crown of each head there arose a raw and hairless thing; a filthy, connicliooks.conniit