Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

ESR a el ge - 122 JOHN WYNDHAM to be white balls of fungi set as close as they could grow. There were some trees with trunks too soft to stand upright, so that they grew along the ground, and quite often there were patches of miniature trees, shrunk and gnarled, and looking centuries old. I glanced cautiously at the man in the other pannier, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with him except that he was very dirty, as were the ragged clothes and battered hat that he wore. - He caught my look quite amiably. “You've never been in the Fringes before, boy?” he asked. “No,” I told him. “ Is it all like this? ”’ He grinned, and shook his head. ‘‘ None of it’s like any other part,” he said. ‘‘ Nothing grows true to stock yet.” * Yet?” I repeated. “Sure. It'll settle down in time. The Wild Country was Fringes once, but it’s settling down, and some of your parts were once Wild Country, but they’ve settled down more. I reckon God has a pattern for it all, but He does take His time.”’ “God?” I said. ‘‘ They’ve always taught me that the Devil rules the Fringes.” He shook his head. ‘“ That’s what they would tell you, of course. But it isn’t so, boy. It’s your parts where the Devil is. Where men are arrogant and self-satisfied. "That’s why God sent Tribulation.” ‘““ Oh,” I said cautiously. It did not seem wise in the circum- stances to argue. Besides, with everybody else always knowing so much about God’s intentions, I was at a disadvantage. Luckily Rosalind woke up just then, and came in asking what had happened. I handed on what Michael had told me, and asked whether she thought we should tell the two men about the intended pursuit. We decided we would. The man in the other pannier was quite unsurprised. “* Sure,” he said. ‘‘ ’That’s what we want.’ But he did not explain further, and we plodded steadily on. Petra began to converse with her mysterious friend again, and there was no doubt that she was closer. For the first time I began to catch the other side of their exchange, and Petra herself did not have to use such disturbing force to reach her. Rosalind caught it, too. She put out a question as strongly as she could. The answer came back clearly; pleased to have made contact, and anxious to know more than Petra could tell. Between us, we explained what we could of our present situation. The answer came cautiously, “‘ Be careful. Be emphatic about the danger you are in from your own people. Some deviational tribes detest anyone without visible deviations.” We could only tell her that the men with us looked normal. ‘* Be careful,” she repeated. ‘‘ The really important thing is the little girl. Keep her safe at all costs. We have never known such a power of projection in one so young. What is her name?” Rosalind spelt it out in letter-forms. ‘Then she added, “ But who are you? What is this Zealand? ”’ comiclooks.conn