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Unique Tales, v. 1, issue 1, June 1937
Page 16
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16 UNIQUE TALES this that he had bashed his head in on a rock when he fell into the pit, but then I recalled that he had gotten up and had walked with me to the air-lock; and how could he walk on the airless surface of the moon with that gaping aperture in his helmet? I fainted! When I recovered from my swoon I immediately turned to my brother's body and to my absolute horror saw that only half of it remained! I nearly fainted again, but determined to find what fiendish thing was going on, steeled myself and stepped close to the grisly thing. In the raw, bloody surface I could see a disc-shaped creature voraciously consuming the flesh and bone. In desperate determination I blasted it with my heat gun, and to my surprise it rolled to the floor. From the top it looked like a large gray pancake, a pancake covered with mold about eight inches across and two in thickness. The bottom was covered with tiny suckers which I took to be mouths. I turned off the gun and the thing advanced toward me, I tried to trap it by placing my brother's helmet over it, but it bored through in a few minutes. I tossed a book at the oncoming thing-why, I don't know-but it made a rush to it and attaching its suckers on it the book was quickly reduced to dust. Then I realized what it was-the creature devoured moisture! When Otto had fallen into the pit the leech-like thing attached itself to the back of his helmet. By the time we had reached the air-lock the thing had bored through the metal and into his head, and because I was in the lead I had noticed nothing at all wrong. In horror I rayed the thing full power and fused it into the floor of the cabin. I felt that I should prove my hypothesis, so donning the remaining helmet and taking a closed water flask I went into the air-lock and opened the outside door. Then I flung the water-flask out into the airless wastes of coming dawn, refilled the chamber with air and went into the ship proper. I removed my helmet and watched through one of the quartz windows. The glass had shattered some hundred and fifty feet from the ship and there was a mass of clear
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16 UNIQUE TALES this that he had bashed his head in on a rock when he fell into the pit, but then I recalled that he had gotten up and had walked with me to the air-lock; and how could he walk on the airless surface of the moon with that gaping aperture in his helmet? I fainted! When I recovered from my swoon I immediately turned to my brother's body and to my absolute horror saw that only half of it remained! I nearly fainted again, but determined to find what fiendish thing was going on, steeled myself and stepped close to the grisly thing. In the raw, bloody surface I could see a disc-shaped creature voraciously consuming the flesh and bone. In desperate determination I blasted it with my heat gun, and to my surprise it rolled to the floor. From the top it looked like a large gray pancake, a pancake covered with mold about eight inches across and two in thickness. The bottom was covered with tiny suckers which I took to be mouths. I turned off the gun and the thing advanced toward me, I tried to trap it by placing my brother's helmet over it, but it bored through in a few minutes. I tossed a book at the oncoming thing-why, I don't know-but it made a rush to it and attaching its suckers on it the book was quickly reduced to dust. Then I realized what it was-the creature devoured moisture! When Otto had fallen into the pit the leech-like thing attached itself to the back of his helmet. By the time we had reached the air-lock the thing had bored through the metal and into his head, and because I was in the lead I had noticed nothing at all wrong. In horror I rayed the thing full power and fused it into the floor of the cabin. I felt that I should prove my hypothesis, so donning the remaining helmet and taking a closed water flask I went into the air-lock and opened the outside door. Then I flung the water-flask out into the airless wastes of coming dawn, refilled the chamber with air and went into the ship proper. I removed my helmet and watched through one of the quartz windows. The glass had shattered some hundred and fifty feet from the ship and there was a mass of clear
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