Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION upright, its antenne pointing to the stars. For the fraction of a second it seemed to tremble, then it lifted and soared into the night sky. They watched it dwindle to a speck and blink out. Shaken beyond belief, Som- mers took the child in his arms and slowly went up the beach. ~ “Do you think they hurt it much?’ asked Katey after a while. She looked very solemn. **’Cause if they did, it was my fault. They were not mine really . . . so I put them back.” Algo had reacted to the code word BALLBALL a second time and had received the answer to the message he had brought. His COMMAND Cir- cuits snapped over to AUTO. Gathering his powers, he rose from the face of the small planet and headed out into space. His mission was com- plete. Taking sights on the nearest stars, he set course for home—according to the data in his memory banks. How was he to know that it was the wrong yellow star about which the third planet swung—that it was the wrong galaxy—that his home planet had been devoured in a minor nova countless mil- lions of years ago in a corner of Andromeda, and that the inter-stellar war had ceased beyond the measure of time? comiclooks.conrn