Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

REPLY DEFERRED them, they broke into a shambling run, the wind- blown sand slippery under their feet. They had nearly come to the point of the bank when they saw her bend down and lay the object carefully at her feet. Then, smoothing her frock as if to gain added courage, she stepped off the top of the bank and disappeared. Sommers let out a cry of dismay, visualising the child already hurt and sprawling beneath the low cliff beyond. He bounded forward and rounded the point at top speed. What he saw brought him to an immediate halt. The little girl was standing on a great boulder half buried in the face of the cliff. She was clinging to what looked like a sapling growing out of the top of the oddly smooth and curving rock. It was not relief only at the child’s safety that caused him to stop so suddenly—it was the fact that, for as long as he had known that little cove, there had been no boulder beneath the cliff. There was no explanation for its pres- 145 ence at all. Sommers just stared at it stupidly. Schultz caught up with him and stopped. *“Where is she? Oh, there.”’ He answered his own ques- tion and waved at the little girl. “‘Hi, there, Katey.” “The rock. Never seen it there before.”’ Sommers was still struggling with the un- familiar. “Rock? Sure, she’s stand- ing on it. Must have... Rock? Ba. ocattenet ie oe rock.”’ His voice had taken on a note of horror. “It’s the... thing.” Stunned by the implica- tions, neither moved for a full three seconds. Then Som- mers gathered his scattered wits sufficiently to say, in an unsteady voice: ““Don’t move, honey. You're right on top of .. .” He-checked himself and changed it to “you might slip off. We'll come and get you.” Katey evidently had no idea what the thing was and seemed delighted with her discovery. “‘Look,”’ she cried, “big ball-ball. I found it. All by myself. It’s nice.” She comiclbooks.conn