Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 71 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

HARVEST He stands up, swaying. *““What have you done? This —thistesting you mentioned... I don’t . . . Where are the others? The crew! Where are they ?”’ Bitterness rages in him at the thought that the others may be in the ship, near the Moon, safe, while he—Smith- son—is here. “‘Where are they ? Tell me!”’ “Your reactions confirm our decision, Smithson. We have freed your former com- panions. For you, we came too late. You have for too long been imprisoned and poisoned—your judgment is permanently warped. There are many like you.” “What—what do you mean ?”’ “We can take only the finest. Many have been wasted —Newton, Einstein, others... We cannot watch your world unceasingly to pick out the fit—we can but pause briefly at each planet while passing from one system to another throughout this galaxy. When our numbers have grown 73 sufficiently we will be able to post watchers to guide each species on each planet on each system in each galaxy. Thus, the regrettable waste of the past will never be re- peated.” “But what have you done to my friends?” Horror sick- ens him. Where are the men who felt the many sweet and sour pulses of the world, whose fingers moulded per- fection, whose eyes saw the colours and the sombreness of the place that gave them birth? “Where are they?” he re- peats desperately. “They are free, Smithson. Truth is all that they will require now, for they have been severed from the ming- ling of good and evil influ- ences that hampered them before. They are beyond hurt and death.” “You brutes,” he cries in misunderstanding. “‘Cruel, in- human brutes.” More and more of them hover around him. conmiclsooks.conm