Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

SLEEVE OF CARE Normal to them, but abnormal to men who needed to sleep a third of their time. Sam felt sick. He remembered his home and his boy and what they kept. That fish looks ill, dad. Were men ‘fish’? That one isn’t moving, could it be ill? A planting stick, a sudden flurry of motion, a soundless gasping of protest. Better have that one out; it may spoil the rest. A wriggling little body, wide eyes, a gaping mouth, a coldly merciful ending to what had appeared suffering. A taking from the tank, a vanishing? Had that fish been tired or merely asleep? Pain slashed at him, a nerve-wrenching, mind-twist- ing stab of pure agony, and with his scream came a muscular reaction which sent him staggering across the floor. Sam gasped, noting that the pain vanished as soon as he moved, and grimly kept on 69 moving as he wandered about the brightly lit room. That brightly lit wall, a window through which alien eyes watched the antics of strange creatures with silent amusement? A worried youth wondering why his pets didn’t move? A merciful being de- ciding that extended, and, therefore, abnormal motion- lessness was a sign of sickness and death? Sam didn’t know. He didn’t want to think about it, but, as he moved slowly about the room, curs- ing himself for not sleeping when he’d had the chance, already feeling the strength- sapping fatigue which he knew waited for him, per- haps tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, he knew that he couldn’t escape. A collection. In a tank. With death waiting for any man or woman who didn’t appear healthy. How long could he manage to stay awake? comicloooks.conn