Further Adventures of Nadan, cont.

Alice Turner · 11 Sep 1997, 06:43 · from urth-v0004.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <al at interport.net>
Subject: (urth) Further Adventures of Nadan, cont.
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 06:43:47
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

Sgt. Rock,

As per Madam Jaffarzardeh's instructions, I continue my report. We have
recovered certain papers which almost certainly belong to the party in
question. Pending payment, I cannot, you will understand, release these,
but I have no objection to telling you their gist.

It appears that, leaving Washington D.C., Nadan traveled north, arriving at
Montreal, though he does not name the city. There, apparently still
suffering from the effects of the hallucinogen, he seems to have mistaken
the intransigent French-speakers of the region for an alien race, and the
ragged remnants of the surviving Anglophones as, of all things, cannibals.
(It is possible that he came across members of a lycanthropic cult,
including the M. Garou of whom he speaks.)

He escaped from the city, traveling west, on a conveyance he calls the
Great Sleigh. There is a gap in his report, but he apparently became
steadily more delusional, and somewhere in Canada's Northwest Territory, he
either leaped from or was flung from this vehicle, at which point his diary
continues, though not, I fear, in a rational way. He characterizes the
native tribe who found him, lying unconscious, as further lycanthrops, and
records their murderous raids against their neighbors (or course, savagery
in the Americas is nothing new), though they seem to have treated him with
courtesy. A further native tribe, he characterizes as swine; Muslim code
for a debasement beyond description. Curiously, considering his prejudices
regarding deformity or mutation in women, he appears to have fallen in with
a woman of a somewhat---shall we say furry?---nature, and to have traveled
with her for some distance.

At this point, his diary becomes feverish, and he goes on to describe
underground cities, machine-men, and adventures which could exist only in
the dreams of a sick man. Eventually he recovered, it seems, and once again
boarded the Great Sleigh, traveling south to a place called Cassonville
under the name of Peter Palmer, or Palmieri, it is unclear which. Here, the
diary ends.

I understand that payment is authorized through yourself, copyrighted
though a certain Wombat, and look forward to paying my respects to Madam.

Hassan Kerbelai (c/o alga) =20

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