Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION the power and the law. The Romans were masters. It is hard to serve a proud master. My post as chief research man to the Dianotrix of the Central Union, yes, the Em- press of the World, as I have called her, it was a sinecure. The Dianotrix was young, second generation, barely twenty-five. There were many books that she didn’t have the time to read. I had read them, and I gave her and her government the information they required. Alisoun was the name of the Dianotrix; Ferroman the name of her co-ruler, the Dianotor. They were not married, of course; they had merely gone to the top to- gether, and she quite eclipsed him. A small, stately creature with creamy golden skin, purple-black hair and golden, almost yellow eyes. Her Team- ster grandfather had been a Polynesian. She was a deep water, yet quick-running and sparkling. Her favourite pas- time was to invent and watch new games and sports. I was 20 called in consultation on many occasions to provide some new slant. I used to dig deep down into primitive lore to get new ideas and one day I came up with a fantasy about a gorilla abducting girls. Her Highness liked the twist and I could tell by the gleam in hér eye that she was cooking up something extra fiendish for some poor first-generation New Men who had incurred her displeasure. No, I shouldn’t say “‘fiend- ish.” If you yourself feel no pain, and value life and body less than a good meal, you cannot conceive that others might think differently. As they said in the days of that grand book the Bible: ““What is sacred to the Egyptian is unclean to the Jew. What is sacred to the Jew is unclean to the Egyptian.’”’ Ethics and morality is merely a matter of orientation, I know that now. Who was I to criticise the intentions of a race that entered the land of time as freely as I went from room to room? Still, after I had made conmmicloooks.conn