Argosy, September 1955 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

ol Se ew ee ee. go wEeyuia a) rte tae ‘ : worse oe, ; a ; me — ; ‘ e 7 i vere OT ORNS Le .f eee THE CHRYSALIDS 127 There was no way of telling how many generations had lived in near savagery between the coming of Tribulation and the start of recorded history. Out of that dim wilderness period only Repent- ances survived to tell of the struggle against barbarism, and that only because it had lain safely sealed in a stone coffer for a long time—perhaps centuries—before it had been rediscovered. ‘The past, then, except for the last three recorded centuries, was a long state of oblivion. But if the long line of tongues had relayed some of the truth about Labrador, it must have changed greatly, for it was no longer cold except in a couple of the winter months, and, though there was plenty of forest country about Waknuk, the farther east one went the smaller the woods became, and the more the land was covered with pastures and arable fields. How- ever, that was no reason to suppose that tradition lied—a mere change of climate was only one of the lesser things that ‘Tribulation could have caused. The world was thought by most people to be a pretty big place. It was probably round and, in all parts other than Labrador and Newf, quite godless. It was, therefore, somewhat shocking, as well as exciting, for me to hear the account which my Uncle Axel opposed to this con- ventional view. In Rigo (said my Uncle Axel) the sailors tell a lot of stories, but mostly they tell them among themselves, or they’re liable to get into trouble with the preachers. ‘They say that if you sail due east the sea goes on for ever: or else it comes to an end suddenly, and you sail over the edge. To the north you can keep along the coast, and then turn west, and then south, and reach the other side of Labrador—or, if you keep straight on northwards, where it is colder, you come to a great many islands with not much living on them. ‘To the north-east there is said to be a great land which is very godless and impure. There are Deviations there which look just like human women... But the only way I know is south. ‘Three times I’ve been south. You sail down the river from Rigo, and keep along with the shore to starboard. After a couple of hundred miles or so you come to the Strait of Newf. Forty miles or more farther on, the Strait widens right out; you lose Newf to port, and soon after that the Labrador coast to starboard turns into Badlands. When you sail close inshore, you can see that there’s plenty growing there. Nearly all of it is deviational. Some of the animals are so different that it’d be hard to classify them as Offences against any known species. The fact that they are there at all makes some people think that the Badlands line may have receded thereabouts and that it has actuaily become habitable Fringes country now, but nobody has risked landing there to find out. When you get a day or two’s sail farther on, there’s plenty of Badlands coast, with no doubt about it; and soon there aren’t comiclbooks.conn