Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

°'‘Stormy Weather * Sophisticated Lady. Qana Vrunn and hie QOvrehevctrn Santurina Anita &'’Rawe With infinite tenderness he bent and lifted the fragile rubber form of Mechanical Companion GH8 from the gleaming, metallic margin of the pool. He had been compelled to time his questions so that they would accord with the answer intervals on the disk, but now he could talk to her more freely, and still preserve an illusion of reality. Murmuring endearments he carried her across the sky garden and set her gently down in one of the racks which the Supervisor of Emotion had pro- vided for exhausted companions. For a moment he stood gazing down at her with glowing eyes. Then, abruptly, he turned, and strode to the vacuum chute. Three other men were waiting to enter the chute. One of them, a thin, ascetic-looking individual in striped swimming-shorts, was an associate of V67’s at the Gland Surgery. V67 greeted him with upraised palm. “Mechanical Companion GH8 was glorious,” he said. “No man would want to divorce his wife these days. I was getting frightfully bored and oo but GH8 has corrected all that. Don’t you like the Companions, J78?” : The man in shorts shook his head. “If I had my way these recreational gardens would be abolished,” he said. “We are becoming a race of self-indul- gent flat-fish. I like the pools here, and the squash-ball courts, but the Com- panions are utterly pernicious.” : V67 frowned. “You need a gland injection, J78,” he said. “A shot of adrenalin and perhaps a little thyroid. You talk like a Twentieth Century puritan.” J78 grunted. “And you behave like a perfect sybarite,” he said. “It is a good thing we are not living in the Twentieth Century. Or even in the Twenty- . first. The ancient moralists would have put you in a lethal chamber.” _V67 laughed. “I’m not as bad as you think, J78,” he said. J78 grunted again. | One of the waiting men heaved himself up to the aluminum slide at the pinnacle of the vacuum chute and relaxed with a contented sigh. His weight caused the slide to tilt slightly. As he vanished from sight V67 said: “Do you mind if I go next? I’m ten minutes overdue at the surgery.” J78 and the other man nodded. — | With a brisk, athletic leap V67 surmounted the slide and settled his long limbs in a reposeful attitude. Immediately the slide tilted, and released him. For an instant the soft blue sky above the sky garden was visible to his upturned gaze. Then it dimmed and vanished. A faint droning arose from the depths beneath, and a thick blanket of darkness settled about him. He was soon speeding with a terrific velocity in a vertical direction. The chute was an almost perfect vacuum and he was compelled to hold his breath as the miles beneath him telescoped into a thrumming spatial porridge. The thrumming came from the pounding blood in his ears. : As he fell, his mind became a kaleidoscopic canvas. Something in the swift rhythms of the descent generated a mental attitude akin to slumber. As in a dream of infinite magnitude and brief duration his mind surged in the black- ness. | 4 cComilcboo cS (é Onin, B-Z514 | MMS Wwe y ws ony a\ ~ 1S Bob Wills: San Antonio Rose @¢ Tr