Astounding Stories #46

In "Beware of the Giants!", an old man shares tales of towering giants with a group of wide-eyed children, his warnings met with skepticism by the village adults. Though dismissed as mad, the final panel hints at a surprising truth—his home is no ordinary village, but one hidden among leprechauns.

In the vast silence of space, a lone robot named Bruko is assigned to guard a lighthouse station, a role many doubt he can fulfill. When a rogue vessel threatens to crash into an asteroid field, Bruko makes a final, desperate choice to protect the ship—sacrificing the station and his own existence in the process. His actions earn him lasting honor on Earth, a testament to courage beyond flesh and circuit.

In "Death Waits Below!", a white man’s sudden descent from the sky stuns a group of African natives, who revere him as a bird-god. Taken to a cliff, they await his miraculous flight, unaware of the danger that lies beneath the surface of their belief.

In "Fade-Out!", a man's obsession leads him to use a time machine to sabotage his cousin's future marriage, planting a damning clue in the past to frame him. When he returns to the present, he's stunned to find the woman he desires has turned away from her fiancé—only to confess her feelings for him.

In "Back to the Lost City!", two men emerge from a desert mirage, barely alive, and are hospitalized. As one begins to recover, he discovers a necklace of glass emeralds on the bedside table—just as the doctor reveals the other man left behind a similar gift for his wife. The city they saw may have been real, or a dream, but the necklace remains, a mystery tied to a place that might not exist at all.

In "Beware the Eyes of Arch!", a young woman’s playful prank takes a dangerous turn when a man, convinced he’s gained Medusa’s petrifying gaze, attempts a bank robbery—only to be caught in his own delusion. The story spins a tense, darkly comic tale of mistaken power and paranoia, where a stone canary in a cage becomes the center of a man’s unraveling.

In "When A Planet Dies!", a young woman named Xanna defiantly plans an invasion despite warnings from Granu about an impending deluge. Before they can act, a sudden flood engulfs their world—revealing their entire planet was no larger than a speck on a microscope slide.

In "The Brain Picker!", Frederic, transformed by radiation from an H-bomb, gains telepathic powers that let him read minds and amass a fortune—then seize control of every nation on Earth. With his enemies' thoughts laid bare, he seems invincible—until a determined opponent devises a shocking counter: a robot with no mind to read.

In "Mother Knows Best," a young girl questions her mother’s belief that the man in the moon controls the tides—until a comet shatters the moon and the seas fall still. Years later, now a mother herself, she tries to share the story with her daughter, only to be met with a quiet, knowing reply that echoes across time.

In "The Abyss!", a group of political refugees fleeing oppression find unexpected aid from supernatural forces as they cross a treacherous landscape. When they finally reach safety, they discover they’ve journeyed not just through danger, but through myth—having crossed over the fabled peak of Mt. Olympus.