Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

yo ge - In visual splendor he beheld a vivid panorama of Mechanical Companions dancing, racing and swimming for the edification of tired and despondent ° husbands. Their lithe, graceful bodies glistened in the screen-filtered sunlight — -on the flower-garlanded roof-tops of Cosmopolis. Another vision flashed across his mind. He saw the Divorce Bureaus in the Fifth Level kiosks, saw the crowded booths and the rapidly growing mountains of writs and petitions. He saw the long, long files of hopeless women, the wan clerks, and—chief objects of pity—the bored and dispirited husbands. It was a vision of the past. As V67 sped downward in the darkness the gloomy and depressing picture was replaced by a verbal hallucination. V67 distinctly heard the Dictator of Emotional Arts affirm: “The normal male will at times fervently crave the solace of a new face, and mysterious, unknown hands upon his brow. “The wonder and enticement of a strange woman. You are all familiar with the phrase. But if this antisocial urge could be surmounted as soon as it arises, in a way that would not provoke jealousy, and that would ” The voice droned on, became confused and indistinct. V67 had another blinding vision of the sky gardens and their lithe-limbed and rhythmically moving dispensers of solace. It was a joy to reflect that Mechanical Companions were already in attendance in thirty-three of Cos- mopolis sky gardens. The vogue, introduced at the beginning of the year 5678, was spreading like wildfire, and would undoubtedly tend to preserve and glorify the time-honored institution of monogamous marriage. No sensible wife could be jealous of a mechanical, pneumatic leisure-hour _companion. It was the beginning of a new dawn in the emotional lives of thousands of husbands, and V67 had no misgivings as slowly from amidst the congeries of racing, dancing forms a lovely face wreathed in silver talc emerged, and usurped his vision. He saw again the enticing pneumatic lips of his own dear Mechanical Companion GH8, and heard her - whisper: “Tt is glorious here in the sun. Are you happy, my darling?” Metallic arms crept about him in the darkness, and the droning became a roar as of cyclopean dynamos. The white-aproned street sanitationists of Level TG assisted him from the basal slide at the circular lower exit to Vacuum Chute H65. As he arose in © the incandescent light the jointed basal slide shot upward. It would contact his associate J78 a “thousand feet above the exit, and carry him downward ‘in its mechanical arms. V67 did not wait for his associate to arrive. He did not like 78. The man was a prig and a hypocrite. Striding rapidly along the pressed resovin pave- ment of Level TG he drew the spice-scented air deep into his lungs and exhaled with zest. Ordinarily he shunned drugs. The mild intoxication prance by the health-air which circulated freely on Level TG, and the other non-recreational levels, was all the stimulation he needed. On this occasion, however, he extracted a small bluish vial from his upper tunic pocket, and poured upon his palm six grains of astravasin. Astravasin deadened and dissipated the softer emotions, and stimulated — Conmiclsoolks, (E(0) al FE EEF Ee Bee Rae iF aa, A th cian Rag ER as eT PUNY Ly Wie g RP UNA Gy Gy bells py I 28 pela