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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 2, January 1942
Page 4
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4 SPACEWAYS IF I WEREWOLF (In part I, Art Widner Jr discovers a mysterious black stone with the power of turning a human into any animal he may wish, between dusk and dawn. One slight drawback is that one must confine himself to one group: fish, bird, or quadruped, although he may change about from one animal to another in his own group. Widner prefers to be a lion, and converts Louis Russell Chauvenet (who likes eagle-form) , Trudy Kuslan (who becomes a whale when enough water is available) , Doc Lowndes (who prefers to be a bat) , and Hannes Bok (who turns to a dragon) . The five plan to convert Washington fandom, but find themselves repulsed from Jack Speer's home, by an incantation he is weaving and a cloud of haze) PART II by JACK SPEER As I finished the incantations, a Form took shape outside my pentagram, and sulfurous odors eddied around. "You have a soul for sale?" he asked. "Perhaps," I answered. "But I must be sure first that I am not losing anything of possible value to me in letting it go." "I can assure you of that," he said. "On my Satanic dishonor, your soul is of no use to you. It's like your appendix and tonsils--" "I don't have my tonsils any more," I said. "The doctor held down my tongue with a glorified shoe-horn and used a long thin--" "OK, OK," he interjected, "we'll talk about your operation some other time. What do you want for your soul? and I warn you against making it too steep." "First, what good is it to you?" "I use bottles of souls for cool light to light my apartments." "Even purple ones?" "Yes, they add a nice color tone." We haggled for a while after that, and finally I agreed to let him have mine for the next twenty-four hours in exchange for the services of Slingo, of Friendly Corpse fame, for the same period, after which we'd arrange further terms. The Being departed then, and I invoked Slingo, who took a casual look around and remarked, "Nice place you got here, boss." "Yes," I replied, pleased, "very nice, I think. Notice--" He ambled over to my typewriter desk and leered at the three framed fotos on the wall over it. "Who're these?" he asked. "Mother, sist-- uh, notice that Cat-on-the-cliff Cartier from Fear; it's my pride and joy." As to see it better with his nose, Slingo went snuffling up to the picture, and a look of great amaze came over his outlandish features. He returned to sit down across the foot of the bed, arms between his knees, and presently asked, "Boss, did you ever see a small, dead-black, eight-sided jewel with a character carved on each of its faces?" I shook my head uncomprehendingly, "I thot I'd smelled it before somewhere," he continued; "now I remember. It's a stone that was cast adrift at the other end of space several milleniums ago. Persistently existent in theta lambda psi, it embodies principles quite alien to your universe, related more to the lower dimensions. It was last called the Cwael Darth. Any human who contacts it for long is basically changed to a were-creature, of which the werewolf was the most commonly adopted form." He shook his head, as tho to clear it. "Just tonight, judging by the freshness of the smell, there was a werebeast here in a shape a lot like that cat's in the picture, and possibly others.... Another one like that--" he pointed to the bat-out-of-Hell insignia of the 39th Bombardment Squadron. "Law of similarity," he
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4 SPACEWAYS IF I WEREWOLF (In part I, Art Widner Jr discovers a mysterious black stone with the power of turning a human into any animal he may wish, between dusk and dawn. One slight drawback is that one must confine himself to one group: fish, bird, or quadruped, although he may change about from one animal to another in his own group. Widner prefers to be a lion, and converts Louis Russell Chauvenet (who likes eagle-form) , Trudy Kuslan (who becomes a whale when enough water is available) , Doc Lowndes (who prefers to be a bat) , and Hannes Bok (who turns to a dragon) . The five plan to convert Washington fandom, but find themselves repulsed from Jack Speer's home, by an incantation he is weaving and a cloud of haze) PART II by JACK SPEER As I finished the incantations, a Form took shape outside my pentagram, and sulfurous odors eddied around. "You have a soul for sale?" he asked. "Perhaps," I answered. "But I must be sure first that I am not losing anything of possible value to me in letting it go." "I can assure you of that," he said. "On my Satanic dishonor, your soul is of no use to you. It's like your appendix and tonsils--" "I don't have my tonsils any more," I said. "The doctor held down my tongue with a glorified shoe-horn and used a long thin--" "OK, OK," he interjected, "we'll talk about your operation some other time. What do you want for your soul? and I warn you against making it too steep." "First, what good is it to you?" "I use bottles of souls for cool light to light my apartments." "Even purple ones?" "Yes, they add a nice color tone." We haggled for a while after that, and finally I agreed to let him have mine for the next twenty-four hours in exchange for the services of Slingo, of Friendly Corpse fame, for the same period, after which we'd arrange further terms. The Being departed then, and I invoked Slingo, who took a casual look around and remarked, "Nice place you got here, boss." "Yes," I replied, pleased, "very nice, I think. Notice--" He ambled over to my typewriter desk and leered at the three framed fotos on the wall over it. "Who're these?" he asked. "Mother, sist-- uh, notice that Cat-on-the-cliff Cartier from Fear; it's my pride and joy." As to see it better with his nose, Slingo went snuffling up to the picture, and a look of great amaze came over his outlandish features. He returned to sit down across the foot of the bed, arms between his knees, and presently asked, "Boss, did you ever see a small, dead-black, eight-sided jewel with a character carved on each of its faces?" I shook my head uncomprehendingly, "I thot I'd smelled it before somewhere," he continued; "now I remember. It's a stone that was cast adrift at the other end of space several milleniums ago. Persistently existent in theta lambda psi, it embodies principles quite alien to your universe, related more to the lower dimensions. It was last called the Cwael Darth. Any human who contacts it for long is basically changed to a were-creature, of which the werewolf was the most commonly adopted form." He shook his head, as tho to clear it. "Just tonight, judging by the freshness of the smell, there was a werebeast here in a shape a lot like that cat's in the picture, and possibly others.... Another one like that--" he pointed to the bat-out-of-Hell insignia of the 39th Bombardment Squadron. "Law of similarity," he
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