Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

AGAIN He sniffed the tainted air once more, and walked on. They saw him coming. From somewhere he heard a warning, a high pip, pip, pip like the note of a joyless bird, and he saw dark figures. Some of them came from open doors, others came swinging down on a hoist from above the straddling fins. They stood in the sun- light a short distance away from the base of the fin that was like the half-buried wing of a gigantic bee, and they were silent, watching. And he knew that they needed him and that he needed them, and what had to be done was not yet complete. Before he had left them—he could not tell how long ago that was—it had been ordered that he would return thus. They who waited were bi- peds, even as he was. They shone black, but the blackness was not flesh like his flesh— their hands were thin and strongly made, but not hands like his, neither did their faces have two eyes that turned swiftly, and their feet were without toes. 95 This he expected. These were his friends. The robots. One of them made a move towards the man, and was stopped by a command from another, one who had a red circle on his chest. ““No! Let it be as Farak said, from the start to the very finish.” The robot thus addressed stepped back and said: “I obey.”” The voices they had were not unpleasant, but they had few tones. The man came up to them and said, as though the words were all his: “So you knew of me.” They grouped around him, these ten man-made things— they bent close, and their scanners conned every texture of hair and skin. *‘“Farak-Ay,”’ said another robot to the leader, “‘it is very good.” “He is good,” corrected Farak-Ay. ““Remember—HE. That is of prime value.” : One more said: ‘“‘The whole process was so right.” Another commented: **Farak was great.” comicloooks.com