



Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









THE AUTUMN AFTER NEXT

By MARGARET ST. CLAIR

_Being a wizard missionary to
the Free'l needed more than
magic--it called for a miracle!_

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The spell the Free'l were casting ought to have drawn the moon down
from the heavens, made water run uphill, and inverted the order of the
seasons. But, since they had got broor's blood instead of newt's, were
using alganon instead of vervet juice, and were three days later than
the solstice anyhow, nothing happened.

Neeshan watched their antics with a bitter smile.

He'd tried hard with them. The Free'l were really a challenge to
evangelical wizardry. They had some natural talent for magic, as was
evinced by the frequent attempts they 