Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHRYSALIDS I1§ “Be good, now. If you’re not, Ill fetch Hairy Jack from the Fringes to you. He’s got four eyes to watch you with, and four arms to smack you with. So you be careful.”’ Even when one had outgrown the tales and inquired what the Fringes were really like, the answers were usually unsatisfactory. My father’s, for example, “‘ The Fringes, my boy? An evil place, a place of abominations; a region of sin where the Devil struts his wide estates, and the laws of God are mocked! ” was impressive, rather than informative. Michael began to tell Petra how the Fringes weren’t really the bogy place that people talked about. Most of the people who lived there had been turned out of their homes and sent away just because they didn’t look like ordinary people. We might ourselves have had extra fingers or toes by mistake, and if we had, we should have been sent to the Fringes—although we should be just the same people inside as we were now . . But at this stage Petra interrupted ‘him. “Who is the other one? ”’ she asked. ‘What other one? What do you mean? ” he asked. ** Somebody else making think-pictures mixed up with yours,” she told him. There was a pause. I couldn’t detect any thought-shapes at all; then, “I don’t get anything,” came from Michael. There was a sharp, strong sign from Petra. In words, it would have been an impatient ‘“‘ Shut up!’”’ We subsided, and waited. I glanced across at the other pannier. Rosalind had one arm round Petra, and was looking down at her attentively. Petra herself had her eyes open, but unseeing, as though all her attention were on listening. Presently she relaxed a little. ** What is it?’ Rosalind asked her. Petra’s reply was puzzled, and not very clearly shaped. ** Somebody asking. She’s a long, long way away, I think. She says she’s had my afraid-thought before. She wants to know who I am, and where I am. Shall I tell her? ” There was a moment’s consideration, then Michael inquired whether we were all agreed that Petra should try. His touch of excitement must have been shared by us all. ** All right, Petra. Go ahead and tell her.”’ ‘**T shall have to be very loud,”’ Petra warned us. ‘‘ She’s such a long way away.” It was as well she told us that. If she had gone ahead while our minds were still wide open, she’d have blistered them. I closed mine, and tried to concentrate my attention on the way ahead of us. It was not an effective defence, though it helped. Petra’s thought-shapes were simple, as one would expect at her age, but they came with such violence and brilliance that they left me feeling dazzled and deafened. When it was over, Michael inquired, ‘‘ Where is she? ”’ ‘** Over there,” replied Petra. ““ She’s pointing south-west,” I explained. ‘Did you ask her the name of the place? ”’ inquired Rosalind. comiclooks.comn