Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

circle of decay three miles deep. Meantime the smaller, younger Yeast Men were advancing into Eupenia, through the woods and meadows, tumbling into ravines, catching fast in trees and bushes, falling into streams and being swept away with the current, and yet ever with a sound like soft snow falling, the little ones, new born, were floating through the air like goose down, and on and on the machines along the border of Moronia kept up their gentle thump-thump-thump and with each thump was created one more new life, one more soldier, brainless, fearless, bloodless, filled with the urge to keep © on moving ull dissolution came. And they all moved downhill, from the mountains of Moronia, into the enemies’ more level country. They were per- fect soldiers, All the Eupenian outposts had experienced the same novel sensations and made the same report that was made by Lieutenant Kraut as soon as he was able to talk. None of the officers who reported to Headquarters could produce any proof that they had really seen such massive monstrosities. Every officer had to periodically stop his verbal report till another onset of vomiting had passed. The Commander-in-Chief thoroughly believed that they had gone drunk and insane through the effects of cheap whiskey and put them all under arrest. At the same time he sent several spies on motorcycles to make a thorough investigation. ‘These returned babbling hysterically of an army of creatures of all sizes, and every spy was vomiting with the same enthusi- astic persistency that the ofhcers had shown. The Commander-in-Chief began to curse the morals of his army and decided to get drunk himself. Even then Eupenia might have saved herself, though it is a question as to just how efficacious any campaign of shrapnel, or any building of fences or digging of ditches, would have proved. What really happened was no doubt inevitable, yet the fact remains, and it is of historical importance, that twenty- four hours passed before any offensive was started. Data was gathered and observations and lengthy reports were made. Otherwise nothing was done. These reports, especially from the border regions, were of such a varied and fantastic nature that little value could be placed on them. . Finally Premier Plautz decided to personally investigate the situation. He took with him the Chief-of-Staff and a group of scientists from the University. They found the new creatures by the hundreds of thousands and of all sizes. They also came as near as they could to several of the puddles of end-slime. An effort to observe these carefully with the aid of gas masks was useless. Even when some of the foetid material was gathered at the end of a long pole, it could not be brought close enough to make observations of value. Several of the things were carefully studied, both chemically and anatom- wally, but not a single observer connected the moving oddities with the pools of decay. It must be remembered that after the first hour of the offensive no more Yeast Men had died, and the reports of the rapid dissolution of the Hirst wave were entirely discredited. For the lirst time in his life, Premier Plautz was at a loss to know what to do. To him the entire situation was incomprehensible. At one side of his automobile a five-foot abortion was slowly moving, its featureless face seem- 90 comiclsooks.com