Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

; | “ | FRANCIS FLAGG The metallic voice went on. “You, must not imagine that the early Ardathians possessed a cylinder as invulnerable as the one which protects me. The first envelopes of this nature were made of a pliable substance, which the wear and tear of environment wore out within three centuries. The substance composing the envelope has - gradually been improved, perfected, until now it is immune for fifteen hun. dred years to anything ‘save a powertul explosion or some other major catas- trophe.” : “Fifteen hundred years!” I exclaimed. — “Barring accidents, that is the length of time an Ardathian lives. But to us fifteen hundred years is no longer than a hundred would be to you. Remem- ber, please, that time is relative. Twelve hours of your time is a second of ours, and a year. . . . But suffice it to say that very few Ardathians live out their allotted span. Since we are constantly engaged in hazardous experiments and ' dangerous expeditions, accidents are many. Thousands of our brave explorers have plunged into the past and never returned. They probably materialized inside solids and were annihilated. But I believe I have finally overcome this danger with my disintegrating ray.” “And how old are you?” “As you count time, five hundred and seventy years. You must understamd that there has been no change in my. body since birth. If the cylinder were everlasting, or proof against accident, I should live forever. It is the wearing out, or breaking up of the envelope, which exposes us to the dangerous forces of nature and:causes death. Some of our scientists are engaged in trying to perfect means for building up the cylinder as fast as the wear and tear of environment breaks it down; others are seeking to rear embryos to birth with nothing but rays for covering—rays incapable of harming the organism, yet immune to dissipation by environment and incapable of destruction by explo- sion. So far they have been unsuccessful; but I have every.confidence in their ultimate triumph. Then we shall be as immortal as the planet on which we leye.” I stared at the cylinder, at the creature inside the cylinder, at the ceiling, the 3 four walls of the room, and then back again at the cylinder. I pinched the soft fesh of my thigh with my fingers. I was awake all right; there could be no doubt about that. : "Are there any questions you would like to ask?” came the metallic voice. “Yes,” I said at last, half fearfully. “What joy can there be in existence for your You have no sex; you cannot mate. It seems to. me,” I hesitated, “‘it seems to me that no hell could be greater than centuries of living caged alive inside that thing you call an envelope. Now I have full command of my limbs and can go where I please. I can love . . .” Comicbhooks:co