Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

Bea ind & x ay Le a ie Yet AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION loathsome growth of red- soaked flesh, terminating at the top in what appeared to be a neat, plastic screw-cap. Untended hair straggled over each short neck to a hunched back, and buried in the gristly pad of this warped hump there was a silver hook, _ providing a method of suspen- sion for each fearful object from its rail. “Our crew room,” Kersch murmured, conversationally. As he spoke the room bright- ened momentarily with the opening of a door at the far end. A faint rumbling dis- S tarbed the sudden hush, and through the green mist of the dispensers, through the semi- darkness of this nightmare building, there came towards us a glistening, sweat-soaked object of deathly pallor and horrifying aspect. Tinted by the lighting to a ghoulish green, it advanced. Drawn by electro-magnets along its alloy rail, it settled, loosely swaying, with eyes closed and intense agony clearly expressed upon haggard flesh, beneath the plate marked seven. “Would you care to watch them have their protein in- 56 jections?” Kersch asked, suavely. “‘Or do you prefer to absorb a little nourishment yourself?” Looking at him as he spoke casually of food, I began to feel physically sick. The room was swimming before me. I couldn’t keep my mind from the blazing hydrogen and the agony of my first weeks in hospital. I felt faint, sick, empty. “Inhuman,” I managed to gasp at last. “I never knew... would never have believed... in England!” With a casual movement of his meticulously manicured hand he silenced me. ““My dear fellow, you allow emo- tion to overshadow logic. Think of it like this; in a month you lost how many Sabre pilots during the early part of the war? Twenty on your squadron? Thirty? More? And why did you lose them, eh? Not because our scientists lacked the technical knowledge required to pro- duce unbeatable projectiles, but because they ignored the weaknesses of man. We were beaten by ourselves. Machines advanced but man remained comicloooks.corn