Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

reckoning system for use in space, acreapouding roughly to the months, — ts days and hours of the Earth, | r I retired, but not to sleep. Sleep would not come. I knew, of course, that : if curious outer patrol ships from Jaron did investigate us, they would be able to detect our invisible ray code signal, and thus satisfy themselves that we were on the Council’s business. There would be no difficulty on that score. sg But what I should do after landing upon the rebellious sphere, I had not the slightest idea. : “Be stern, indifferent to their threats,” Kellen had counseled me, “but do ~ everything within your power to make them see the folly of their attitude. Do ~ not threaten them, for they are a surly people, and you might precipitate mat- _ ters. Swallow your pride if you must; remember that yours is a gigantic responsibility, and upon the information you bring us may depend the salva- tion of millions. I am convinced that they are not—you have a word in your language that fits exactly. Not pretending . . . what is the word?” “Blufing?” I had supplied in English, smiling. : “Right! Bluffing. It is a very aocionre word. I am sure they are not bluff- ing.’ I was sure of it also. They knew the power of the Alliance; they had been made to feel it more than once. A bluff would have been a foolish thing, and these people were not fools. In some lines of research they were extraordinarily brilliant. But what could their new, terrible weapon be? Rays we had; at least half a dozen rays of destruction; the terrible dehydrating ray of the Deuber Spheres, the disintegrating ray that dated back before Ame Baove and his first first voyage into space, the concentrated ultra-violet ray that struck men down in fiery torment. . . . No, it could hardly be a new ray that was their boasted weapon. What, then? Electricity had even then been exhausted of its possibilities. Atomic energy had been released, harnessed, and directed. Yet it would take _ fabulous time and expense to make these machines of destruction do what they claimed they would do. Still pondering the problem, I did fall at last into a fitful travesty of sleep. I was glad when the soft clamor of the bell aft announced the next change | of watch. I rose, cleared the cobwebs from my brain with an icy shower, and made my way directly to the navigating room. “Everything tidy, sir,” said Eitel, my second officer, and a Zenian. He was thin and very dark, like all Zenians, and had the high, effeminate voice of - that people. But he was cool and fuailiccs and had the uncanny cerebration of his kind; I trusted him as completely as I trusted Barry, my first officer, who, like myself, was a native of Earth. “Will you take over?” : “Yes,” I nodded, plancing at the twin charts beneath the ground glass top of the control table. “Get what sleep you can the next few enaros. Presently J shall want every man on duty and at his station.” He glanced at me curiously, as the observer had done, but alneed and left with only a brief, “Yes, sir!” I returned the salute and ‘turned my attention again to the charts. 3 7 fem Lad (> a |” ee eee Sy -_—-—S— <= Ow ww Tovve @ fa a 31 bookss#co 5} (@) com