Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

fair face of my planet was growing pock-marked and ugly from the cruel disease called war. 7 : “You are a clever whelp,” continued my captor, watching my features closely, “but not clever enough for Lido Kan. Your ships destroyed two hun- dred of my magnetic wave stations, but it will not take long to rebuild them, and in the meantime the others are functioning quite successfully, as you will observe. At least half of the population of Magong has already been destroyed by my projectiles.” ~ | . | “Don’t be too sure of victory,” I replied. “By the time you have destroyed Magong, you may find yourself without an atmosphere.” : “Hardly. It will take many days for your father to destroy our atmosphere. One week is all I require to silence all of his ray projectors and exterminate his people. But enough of this idle talk. I must to the grim work before me. I leave you to the pleasant contemplation of the dissolution of your heritage— the empire of Magong.” NN a i Left quite alone in the small, bare observatory room, I lay on my back and watched the progress of the battle. High above me the Martians were form- ing an enormous cluster of meteoric material. Already it was at least ten times as large as any they had projected at Magong, and they continued to add to it. Presently I saw that it was ready to be projected. There was a terrific roar from the machinery in the building around me, and the huge globe shot outward, but not in the direction of Magong. It described a short curve and began to fall directly upon Mars. Once more there was a roar from the pro- jector machinery, and once again the sphere shot outward, only to return, drawn by the terrific pull of Mars’ gravity on its great mass. A feeling of exultation came over me, as I saw that my enemies failed, again and again, in their efforts to project the sphere. It appeared to me that they had brought destruction on their own heads. But Lido Kan was not without resource. Suddenly I heard a.more terrific roar from the machinery than had occurred before. A great section was split from the mighty sphere, and simultaneously, the larger and smaller pieces were projected obliquely out into space. This time they did not fall back, but continued to travel in curved paths. The smaller, moving much more swiftly than the larger, soon disappeared from view, but it reappeared again in a few hours. The larger, moving more majestically across the sky, appeared to travel in a direction opposite to that taken by the smaller, because of its slower motion and the axial rotation of the planet. I had’ witnessed the formation of the moons of Mars. ae : 3 Foiled in his attempt to hurl so huge a projectile, Lido Kan once more turned his attention to the firing of smaller ones. Hour after hour I watched, my lens presently turning to a mirror as Mars turned her face away from Magong, and each hour added to my sorrow as I saw the surface of my planet turning to enormous ringed pits. Presently an attendant brought me food and drink. Afterward, I slept at Hos intervals. 6 er On Oey eee eee : ae Pe a | + be | CRE eee eRe ae eee ee ae ee eS ee ee ‘ - . pt Oe = ~~ 2 eee® a Comicdbooks.co