Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION kath scouts and plunged to- wards this system, there had been no time to run the ident cards on planets, and so Jarril and Garfon had shot away in their lifeboat and crashed here with no knowledge of what conditions would ’ be like. But Jarril had expected a humanoid culture. He allowed a tenseness to hold his body taut and steady his gun hand. Peering through narrowed eyes, to fine the focus, he lay very still as the thing approached. A shambling, half - seen monstrosity that swayed and dipped through the flying sand. Four-legged—of that he was sure. Long legs, with large knee joints. A thin neck and a head like an obtuse spade. An excrescence on the back, which might well house the brain and therefore be the prime target. The thing was obscured most of the time by sheets of sand and dust: but Jarril sighted his weapon and waited coolly until the very last second. The Academy had very soon drummed into the entrants the truth that the 14 man who fired first lived to tell about it. The swelling behind the head shifted now, as though endowed with some obscene independent life of its own, and flowed and ran. Jarril remained calm. He had been led to believe that whilst most of the explored sections of the © Galaxy were known to be in- habited by humanoid peoples, any outre form of life was theoretically possible. ~ And since the ship had_ been operating outside the known limits of Terran expansion— he was facing his first real alien. Then the impossible truth of the situation forced itself on his tired mind. His mentalarm had operated on the humanoid level! This thing, whatever it was, had a mind pattern comparable with a Terran’s! Jarril eased the pressure on the trigger. The obscenely - flowing lump on the alien had shifted now, had swung forward and down, and Jarril involun- tarily drew back the gun again under the last fraction of pressure before explosion. comicloooks.com