Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION They made a_ colourful picture, being dressed in flimsy rainbow-hued garments that swirled about them, now revealing, now concealing slim arms and legs. But I noticed with consternation that they were armed. Each carried a dagger with a triangular one- inch blade, a weapon that would hurt and maim but not kill, except by an accidental lucky thrust. At the end of the dance the girls gathered in a loose group, about twenty-five wide and eight deep, in the middle of the Arena. A door opened at the far end and from it emerged a string of tall shaggy creatures, twenty in all. I focused a handy glass on them and discovered that they were men—men dressed from head to foot in synthetic reddish brown fur, their faces covered with hideous masks. They were supposed to be gorillas. Yes, the Dianotrix had taken my suggestion. It is painful to a proud race when it finds itself aped by a lower 26 one. That was the reason why the second and third genera- tion of the New Men so hated the first. Now the Dianotrix had knocked the accent off the “aping,’ by heightening the difference, by making “apes” out of the first generation. Now they could safely laugh without fear of laughing at themselves. According to the printed programme the “gorillas” were supposed to charge the girls and aitempt to carry them off. The girls were to defend themselves with their short daggers. But a hitch occurred, Instead of charging, the “gorillas” gathered ‘in a huddle on their side of the Arena. When they emerged they assumed a rigid forma- tion. First came one man, then at close intervals behind him two, then three, then four. Behind this first group, still closely packed, came the rest in a column of twos. The effect was that of a broad blunt spear with a short sturdy haft. The plan was evidently to charge the comiclooks.conn