Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

it bau fia! POINT OF VIEW them carried weapons, spears, clubs or heavy stones. Their hair hung behind them in a lank, verminous-looking mass, and their teeth, as they parted their lips, showed as a row of sharp white points. Malchin let them advance to within a dozen yards then held up his hand. They halted, staring at the two men with bloodshot eyes. “Ugly lot of devils, aren’t they?’ Malchin stared at the natives, leaning on the pro- jector at his side. “How do you like your worshippers, Carter ?”’ “I don’t.” The little man sweated with fear. “I don’t like them a bit. They look too savage for my liking.” “Primitive,” corrected Mal- chin. “You can’t really call them savage, just primitive.” He chuckled. “Still we're lucky at that. If they weren’t sO primitive they would recog- nise us for what we really are, a couple of stranded travellers. Instead of that, they obviously look on us as gods.” “You keep saying that,” protested Carter _ nervously. “T’m not so sure.’ 43 a ee en — Ce eS _— oe ee ee ee —_ “Why not?” “Well, look at all those spears and things. Would they be carrying them if they thought we were what you say?” “Of course they would. To a primitive man the carrying of his spear is as naturalasa modern man carrying a brief- © case.” Malchin snorted his impatience at Carter’s ob- jection. “The trouble with you, Carter, is that you’ve no imagination. You just can’t accept a different point of view. You wouldn’t think of an interstellar traveller as — being a god because you know too much about it, but these people have never heard of spaceships; they probably haven’t even heard of metal or plastic. We arrived from the sky, we are three times their height and we dress and look totally differ- ent. To the primitive mind there can be only one possible explanation to all that. We are gods. Simple.” “Perhaps.” Carter still didn’t seem happy. ‘Well, _assuming all that, what do we do now?” “Teach these monkeys to = conmicixaolkss com" a ArT OM dy it mete t,he eS ve