Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

II4 JOHN WYNDHAM The sun was lowering, and we were beginning to pack up when Michael made contact again. *“ Now, listen to me,” he told us, “ this really is serious. They are badly alarmed over us. Usually if a Deviation gets clear of a district they let him go—-he can’t settle anywhere else without proofs of identity and an inspection, so he’s pretty well bound to end up in the Fringes. But what they particularly don’t like about us is that nothing shows. We could pass for normal anywhere. So a proclamation’s gone out, describing the three of you and announcing that you have officially been posted as blasphemous deviations. Therefore you are non-human and not entitled to any of the rights or protections of human society. ““In effect, you are outlaws. Anyone may shoot you on sight, without penalty. There’s a small reward if your deaths are reported and confirmed; but there is a much larger reward if you are taken alive. “'They’re afraid of us. It isn’t just a question of the true image—though they put it that way. We could be superior to them, dangerous to them—that’s what they’ve seen. Imagine a number of us able to think-together and plan and co-ordinate without all their machinery of words and messages: we could outwit them all. They’ve seen that. So we are to be stamped out before there can be any more of us. It is what I told you: a war between our kind and theirs.” ** Are they going to kill Sally and Katherine? ” That was an incautious question from Rosalind. We waited for any response from either. There was none. We couldn’t tell what that meant; they might have closed their minds again, or be exhausted, or perhaps dead already... Presently Michael asked, ‘‘ Which way are you going? ”’ ** South-west,” I told him. ‘‘ We thought of stopping in Wild Country, but if any hunter is licensed to shoot us, we must go on into the Fringes, I think.”’ *'That’d be best. When the first panic is over we must see if we can’t fake your deaths. I'll try to think of a way of doing that. ‘Tomorrow I shall be with a search-party moving south-east. [ll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, be sure that you shoot ficst.”’ On that, we broke off. Rosalind finished packing up the gear, and made the panniers more comfortable than before. We climbed up, I on the left, the other two together on the right. Rosalind reached out and gave a thump on the huge flank, and we moved ponderously on again. At once, Petra, who had been unusually subdued during the preparations, burst into tears, and radiated distress-thoughts again. She did not, it emerged through her snuffles, want to go to the Fringes. Nor did we. It is hard to lose childhood associations, and it becomes harder still when you have nothing to put in their place. The children in Waknuk are brought up in nervous awe of the Fringes. Mothers silence troublesome infants by threatening, ‘ ue o> Sek comiclooks.conn