Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

AGAIN feet, a wild creature in this semi-tropical parkland. The sun’s caress on his pale skin was lusty. He parted the bushes and stood near where the water ran deep into the pool, where large ferns swept over the limpid green. A fat little bird with an outsize head of a brilliant blue made a sudden dart from its branch when it saw him, and shot off into the woodland with a noise like small demons. He knelt at the edge, where the sunlight dappled— the noises of birds and insects joined to say, soft and coaxing: ‘““What is the hurry, new one? You have long to stay with us—what is the hurry?” But he knew that he must obey the right, the stronger impulse. To find out. He looked down at the water, and he did not know what to think. He was not the short man he thought he was—instead, he was lean, and strong of face, young, with light brown hair which grew thick and shining—his mouth was firm, his eyes were dark, and his body was made for swift movement, and for fighting and—killing? His 93 chest was flat and broad, his hips narrow, and his hands, five-fingered, strong, spatu- late, were capable of doing all manner of good things. He raised up, and looked over the water to where the bright little bird had returned to its perch and was watching with steady interest. When the man stood up, the bird did not fly away a second time. ‘Bird,’ he said—and hesi- tated in delight at the sound of his own voice—‘“‘bird, we are good things, you and J.” He strode away through the_ singing woodland, liking the feel of the sun on his fiesh, doing what he had to do. Since he had awakened that morning he had been doing what he had todo. Thestraight- sided hut, the narrow bed where he had slept so well, had not seemed out of place here, and he had not questioned it. He walked on, and the trees were not so big nor so dense, and soon the noise of running water, of the green and pleas- ant places, was left behind. When the grass became sparse, and sand pressed under his feet, he did not slacken speed, conmcloooks.conm