MASTER RACE
By Richard Ashby
The Invaders sent a scout to Earth to find out
what kind of life inhabited it. But what sort of a
conclusion could they draw from comic book heroes?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
One moment he was piloting a fast plane over dangerous green jungles ... and the next Eddie was wide awake and peering through the gloom. Across the room Rags was whining softly and sniffing the damp night air that rolled in through the open window. The Scotty was excited, Eddie saw, and it must be something out of the ordinary for Rags' whimpering carried an undercurrent of perplexity and fear ... and the dog wasn't a coward.
The boy called softly to him, but Rags, after tossing back a swift glance of recognition, put his forefeet up on the sill and peered, muttering, out across the pastures.
Eddie slipped from his bed and padded over to the window. As he comfortingly ruffed the fur behind the Scottie's ears, he listened intently at the night. At first he heard only the ordinary country sounds—roosters crowing over at the next farm, the muffled thumping of stock shifting about in the barn and against the corral fence; the flittering and high chirping of birds in the cottonwoods and pepper trees. He took the dog in his arms and was about to go back to bed with him when he became aware of a sound that was very much out of the ordinary. A sound, Eddie decided, something like standing outside the Baptist church in Riverside when the organist was playing low, vibrant notes inside.