Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

: ‘ > er i . ® 7 a . J . . ** “fom. 4 ” = @ Tl < - _ THE CHRYSALIDS- BY JOHN WYNDHAM Fa As a boy, David Strorm had made a very exciting discovery— he was able to send thoughts and thought-pictures to Rosalind and some of his friends, and receive a thought- reply flashed back instantly from wherever they might be. Soon he found that Petra, his six-year-old sister, possessed this extraordinary thought-power in a shattering degree. Suspicion must be avoided at all costs. Death or banish- ment to the Fringes would await each of them if their new power was even guessed at. David’s father was a stern destroyer of the abnormal forms of life that had come into being after the Tribulation of the atomic age. Children, cattle, and crops that did not conform to their true natural image were done away with. For Petra and the others, their new abnormal telepathic power was fraught with danger... as they were soon to realize. In acute distress at an attack on her pony, Petra had flashed out a blinding thought-summons to them all, com- pelling them to go at once to the woods to her help—where a strange horseman bears down suspiciously to question David... And now begin the Second (and last) Part of this intriguing new sf story by the brilliant author of *‘ The Day of the Triffids.’’ It is to be published as a full-length novel by Michael Joseph. * LARGE man on a bay mare thrust out of the trees into the glade. He reined in and sat looking at us. *“ What’s going on here? ”’ he asked suspiciously. I explained that my sister Petra’s pony had been attacked, and that we had answered her calls for help. He did not take that at its face value. He looked sharply at Sally and Katherine, the two girls who had just galloped up and were staring incredulously at Petra. ** Well, you two didn’t come here for that,” he said. ** But we did,” one of them told him. comiclooks.conn