Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

The two who rebelled did not make any great trouble after they were found, and their folly had been fully explained to them. It is said that they took their turns like lambs, as the saying is. (I am not clear as to what a lamb was, but these sayings outlast the meaning, which was doubtless clear to those by whom they were first used.) They are dead by now, and our time is not more than a few hours ahead, It is done. And we are alone in an empty world. There was an incident at the last which I did not like, but it cannot be altered now. The time came when there were only six to whom the fatal injection had not been given. And then five—and then four. Rida, who was the last except ourselves, drove the needle into the neck of the one who came before her, and I saw her hand shake as she did it. He lay down in his own place, and it was my turn to deal with her. I picked up the syringe and refilled it and as I did so I had a feeling of revulsion at what I was expected to do. Why should I not let her live? Why not at least give her the choice—the chance? She looked frightened. She might be glad. a The fact that we were not accepting the law—that we were not intending 4 to kill ourselves—seemed to make it different for me from what it had been for the others. Of course Stella would have no such difficulty. There would be nothing for her to do. But I felt that I should be a murderer if I did not at least ask Rida if she would be willing to live. And she was one whom I liked in some ways better than Stella. Anyone would. As I filled the syringe Stella was watching me with alert impatient eyes. They met mine and I was sure that she read my thoughts. Rida had turned her back to me now. I could see her trembling. She said: r “I don’t like waiting. Be quick.” 3 I lifted the syringe, hesitating. Stella’s eyes were on me, bright, hard, a insistent. : I said: “I think you ought to know that there’s another course you can take if—” I didn’t get further than that. | Stella reached over, and grasped my hand. The fatal pressure came from her, not from me. It was done in a second. : She said: “Cerdic had it an inch too low.” I don’t know whether Rida heard. She went to lie down without looking round. What could anything, after that, matter to her? [ haven't quarrelled with Stella. What use would it be? And when you're © alone in the world, and got to be very quick to find means to live— Should we survive, and found a new race, we ought to make a better world than it was before. But it seemed to me that it was a bad start. ne 4 a —s comiclbooks com