Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

34 | : | FRANCIS FLAGG cast forth by means of another ray which carries it back into the surrounding air. Have you noticed the transparent substance enclosing me?” “The cylinder of glass, you mean?” “Glass! What do you mean by glass?” ; “Why, that there,” I said, pointing at one of the panes of glass in the window. | The Ardathian directed a metal tube at the spot indicated. A purple streak flashed out, hovered a moment on the pane, and then withdrew. “No,” came the metallic voice, “not that. The cylinder, as you call it, is made of a transparent ‘substance, very strong and practically unbreakable. Nothing can penetrate it but the trays which you see, and the two whose action I have described above, which are invisible. Know then that we Ar- dathians are not delivered of the flesh; nor are we introduced into incubators as ova taken from female bodies, as were the Bi-Chanics. Among the Ar- dathians there are no males or females. The cell from which we are to de- velop is created synthetically. It is fertilized by means of a ray and then put into a cylinder such as you observe surrounding me. As the embryo develops, the various tubes and mechanical devices are introduced into the body by our mechanics and become an integral part of it. When the young Ardathian is born, he does not leave the case in which he has developed. That case—or cylinder, as you call it,—protects him from the action of a hostile environ- ment. If it were to break and expose him to the elements, he would perish miserably. Do you follow me?” “Not quite,” I confessed® “You say that you have evolved from men like | us, and then go on to state that you are synthetically conceived and machine oe made, I do not see how this evolution was possible.” “And you may never understand! Nevertheless, I shall try to explain. Did you not tell me you had wise ones among you who are experimenting with mechanical hearts and ecto-genetic incubators? Tell me, have you not others engaged in tests tending to show that it is the action of environment, and not the passing of time, which accounts for the aging of organisms?” . a “Well,” I. said hesitatingly, “I have heard tell of chicken hearts being kept alive in=special containers which protect them: from their normal environ- ment.” : ~ Ah,” exclaimed the metallic voice, “but Hoomi will be astounded when he learns that such experiments were carried on by pre-historic men fifteen thousand years before the Bi-Chanics! Listen closely, for what you have stated about chicken hearts provides a starting point from which you may be able to follow my explanation of man’s evolution from your time to mine. Of 3 the thousands of years separating your day from that of the BiChanics T have no authentic knowledge. My exact» knowledge begins with the Bi-Chanics. They were the first among men to realize that man’s bodily advancement lay on and through the machine. They perceived that man only became human - ¥ PRs me os. ~