Joanna Russ - And Chaos Died

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And Chaos Died

Joanna Russ

Jai Vedh, Earthman.

"It's your radio," she said. "They've come."

"Well, you certainly have gone native and that's a fact," the man said

humorously.

"Yes, I have," said Jai.

"Welcome back," said the man.

"It's nice to be back," said Jai.

The man shot him.

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Published by arrangement with the author's agent

whatsoever. For information address

Berkley Publishing Corporation

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New York, New York 10016

SBN 425-04135-2

BERKLEY BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation

BERKLEY BOOK® TM 757,375

Printed in the United States of America

Berkley Edition, MAY, 1979

To Sidney J. Perelman and Vladimir Nabokov

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle

hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the

senses is a menace to its own capacity… Fuss, the god of the

Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean,

happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god of the

center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed

together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had

noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for

sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So

they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him.

Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.

—Chuang Tzu*

There is a point beyond which you can't go without the aid of

the machine… there is a limit to how loud you can shout. After

that, you have to get yourself an amplifier.

—Limiting Factor, by Theodore R. Cogswell

*translated by Arthur Waley

Part 1

^ »

His name was Jai Vedh.

There was some Hindi in the family, way back—a father, for they still

used fathers' names—but he did not look it, being yellow-haired with blue

eyes and a dark yellow beard, a streaked beard, as if stained or dyed. Since

he was a civilian, he wore turquoises, sandals, silver, leather, old charms,

rings, ear-rings, floating stones, bracelets, and the industrial jewels that

do not last. He was a desperate, quiet, cultured, and well-spoken man. He

had been in the minor arts for some years, but was still young when his

business required him to take a trip, and so for the first time he traveled

up off the surface of Old Earth—on which every place was then like every

other place—and into the vacuum that is harder than the vacuum in any

machine or toy or kitchen sink, a void not big or greedy or black (as the

literature issued to the passengers emphatically denied it was) but only

something hard and flat, absolutely hard and absolutely flat, hard through

the very walls and flattened right up against all the ship's

portholes—provided by the company for the convenience of viewing. He

played water-polo; he drank beer. Proper, healthful things were piped

through the air. He used the library and listened to modern music. Alone

among thirty-five hundred, he felt a vacuum inside himself, a spot like the

spot inside a solid-state graph that makes the lights jump around and up

and down or wink on and off or trace a dying curve to the bottom of the

page, a spot barely contained by the strong walls of his chest that were so

used to swimming, walking, wrestling, to struggling in bed. He endured

the sensation, finding it not new. Passengers, glancing in, saw him in the

library, his sandaled feet crossed, his neck muscles moving only a little. On

the seventeenth day it got worse, he felt them pulling at each other

through the walls, and he thought to go see the ship's doctor but did not;

on the nineteenth day he threw himself against one of the portholes,

flattening himself as if in immediate collapse, the little cousin he had lived

with all his life become so powerful in the vicinity of its big relative that he

could not bear it. Everything was in imminent collapse. He was found,

taken to sick bay, and shot full of sedatives. They told him, as he went

under, that the space between the stars was full of light, full of

matter—what was it someone had said, an atom in a cubic yard?—and so

not such a bad place after all. He was filled with peace, stuffed with it,

replete; the big cousin was trustworthy. Then the ship exploded.

He was lying on his back, one knee thrust up, an arm bent under him.

Diffuse, glaring brightness. In the corner of his eye an ant teeter-tottered

over something. The milky stuff was sky, and hurt; he tried to loosen his

arm, turn his head, and that hurt worse; then a sudden blow across the

back from neck to the bottom of the spine, an avalanche of blows, pains

splitting down his marrow and the green fuzz tilting; he was looking at the

side of an abyss made of grass-tangles and blades and someone was

holding him up.

"Coward," said a woman's voice. Someone pulled back his head.

"Come on now!" said his companion, "come on now, I pulled you out of

that, come on now!" and turning around with infinite care, he saw the face

of some concerned person, the Captain probably, for he had seen that

idiotic face somewhere in the past, somewhere before, somewhere on top

of something equally idiot—

"—alone," said Jai Vedh.

"Come on!"

And the person shook him.

"You're full of the stuff," said the Captain, "full of it. Come on," and

deliberately he slapped him again and again, across the mouth.

"Called me coward," said Jai, reasonably.

"Still full of it," said the Captain; "Oh, for God's sake!" and pulling him

to his feet, he began dragging him through the grass, around in a circle

until they made their own track, sweating under his weight, for there was

no third person present.

"Who called me—" said Jai, and then he stopped, stumbling backwards

for a moment, but on his own feet; around were trees, a lake through

them, a path, hills on the left. The lake shimmered a little in the afternoon

sun.

"Where's the—thing?" he said. "The thing we escaped in, the—in

the—brochure. I read about it. Where are we?"

"On the ground," said the Captain, "so you needn't worry, damn you!

The motor blew out in the woods. And I hope the man who put us two

together makes it to the—"

"What ground?" said Jai Vedh.

"Where we can stay until we die of old age. March!"

"Damned civilian coward," he added under his breath. But his voice was

not the first voice.

The path led nowhere. It went around the lake and then stopped where

they were, as if inviting them. They tried it several times the first day, then

again on the second, even on the third, until the Captain declared in

stupefied fury that it could not have been made by anything human.

"Human beings are not particularly rational," said Jai Vedh

apologetically, his back to a tree-trunk and his knees under his chin. "I've

made many paths like that myself; I'm a decorator. Paths around ponds,

through gardens, under waterfalls. People like to look at things."

"A pleasure garden?" said the other man, and he strode off down the

path again, only to reappear an hour later. The sun shone low through the

trees; afternoon shadows stretched across the ground. The lake itself

glittered brilliantly through the tree-trunks: pale dazzle, bars and ripples

of fire.

"A professional job," said Jai.

"I can't see," said his companion. He groped forward a few steps, then

sank to his knees and rocked back powerfully until he was squatting on his

heels. "Bloody sun," he said.

"It's a good view all the way around the lake," said Jai. "Too good."

"Placeaworship," said the other.

"Yes, calculated," said Jai. "I'd stake my life on it."

"You are staking your life on it, buddy."

"I know my job."

"What a job! Civilian job."

"I make a living; do I ask you—"

"Shitless!"

A barefoot woman appeared on the path leading to the lake. Jai, first to

see her, scrambled to his feet; but the Captain launched himself down the

path with a roar. The woman waited and then stepped aside. She said:

"I am not going any."

Jai saw fingers flashing among cards, for some reason, someone picking

out words, lips moving, looking over her shoulder and laughing: yes, that's

it—

"I am not going any where," corrected the woman. She shook hands

abruptly with the Captain. She said "Galactica, yes?" Again the words

were perfect, slightly separated. "Ja?" she said, then shook her head.

"Sorry. I am not used." She made a face. She stepped toward Jai,

twitching down the skirt of her short, sleeveless shift, brown. (Russet, he

thought professionally. Spice, chocolate, sand, taupe, Morocco. What

nonsense.) She sat down abruptly on the grass, crossing her knees. "I'm

not used to talking this at all," she finally said, rather quickly. "My hobby.

You fit well, yes?"

"Galactica!" said the Captain.

(Ordinary, thought Jai, unobtrusive, hair hacked off, dark hair, never

make a model, of course, no effort to do anything to herself, impossible

girl, nothing but part of a crowd. Anonymous and uninteresting.)

"Listen," the Captain was saying, "this is very important. I want you to

tell me—"

But that's impossible. Anonymous, here?

"You," she said to Jai, laying a hand on his arm, "you, I like the way you

fit together, mm?" raising her voice in a little chirrup at the end, like a

bird's tail, impudent, sleek, leaning towards him with eyes half shut, lazy,

silky hair blown across her mouth, her skull and beating veins showing

somehow through her face, all the bones wired together and moving under

the skin of her woman's limbs and body. His mind closed instantly. "I

understand," she said, nodding; "yes. All right. Come on," and rising to her

feet, quite serious, she said "I am very sorry you had to wait."

"It must have taken you some time to get here," said the Captain as they

walked back to the path, the sun now sinking, their flesh turning orange,

shadows crossing the path entirely and rising between the trees on each

side. They started around the lake, where the light remained as if in a well,

under the light in the sky; the Captain said, "Where are the others?"

"Oh, they didn't want to bother," she said.

"Not important, eh?" said the Captain. "I suppose you have refugees

every day of the week, is that it?"

"No," said she. And she stopped to scratch one foot with the other.

"Who made your dress?" said Jai suddenly, breaking the silence.

"If you don't mind—" the Captain began.

"It's cut on the bias," said Jai Vedh, "did you know that? Did the person

who made it know that? It's lined, too; that's not exactly a primitive way

of proceeding. Or perhaps you didn't make it; perhaps someone else wore

it before you did. Someone on a wrecked ship!"

"No ship is wrecked," said the woman. "It was made for me. Turn here,

this is my house," and she walked off the path into the trees.

"Where?" said the Captain, squinting in the gloom.

"Here," she said, lying down on the almost invisible grass. "This is my

home. I live here."

"In the morning," she said equably, "I'll take you to that machine you

came in. But it's broke."

And before their astonished eyes, on the count of two, she had fallen

asleep.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to say that. You know," said the officer, first words

of the next day. He was doing a ballet: zipping his fly, settling trousers,

polishing boots with the side of his arm, shrugging everything into place

and making faces. Jai Vedh, whose eyelids the gray light had penetrated

several hours before, who had, between sleeping and waking, jerked

himself up and sunk down a hundred times since then, mumbled

something and lifted himself on one arm. He was shaking from the lack of

sleep. "Warm all night," said the other; "asked her. Always warm," and he

began to run around the clearing, an ordinary clearing amid ordinary

trees, with a light sprinkle of dead leaves on the grass. Deciduous?

Impossible! said Jai Vedh's other self, the commenting self; and the first

self sat up and said coolly, "We all make mistakes." The Captain stopped,

his mouth open. Their hostess appeared between two trees and stepped on

to the grass with the air of one quite at home, tracing a path across her

living-room rug and peering out between the branches, crossing the rest of

the room and sitting down with her skirt hiked over her knees; "Well

now!" said the Captain.

"Somebody went to call somebody," said the woman.

"We'll get a little action now!" said the Captain.

"Action on what?" said Jai. He turned suddenly, seeing movement at

the corner of his eye: the woman was slowly plucking blades of grass out of

the ground and putting them in her mouth. She looked dumb and blind.

The Captain leaned toward Jai, whispered, "Not bad, not bad really; and

they speak Galactica. The devil, the way she sits—!" Her eyelids fell,

stupidly; the Captain walked over and tentatively pulled the brown skirt

up a little higher. She sat like a statue, scarcely breathing, her legs crossed

and her palms on her knees. "They're idiots," said the Captain uncertainly.

"Maybe they don't wear clothes." He laughed suddenly. "Beyond the

carnality of the flesh," he said, "take a look," and almost unwillingly he put

out both hands and hiked the skirt roughly to her waist. The dress split

open in his hands. "Ah, look!" he said breathlessly, "Ah, look at that!"

trying to turn away and simultaneously taking the dead doll by its

shoulders. The breasts bobbed.

"I don't like women," said Jai Vedh's second self, the cool one, "and I

like you less. I'll split your head open." It seemed to him that the clearing

echoed with a terrific roar of good humor. The Captain, whose face said I

must stop, stop me, put one terrified hand under the doll's breast and

another on its belly; Jai hooked one leg under the man's knee and brought

him down three yards to the side; he knelt efficiently on the bigger man's

back and twisted both his arms.

Ah, good! Lovely! said the clearing, full of eyes. He let the Captain go.

The big man stood up, brushed himself off, ran one hand over his hair and

folded his arms severely. "What's the matter with you! you don't look well,"

said the Captain simply, and then his eyebrows went up a fraction as the

meditating woman opened her eyes, got up abruptly, and casually stripped

herself. She hung the violated dress on the branch of a tree. "I'm tired of

this dress," she announced off-handedly. "I'm going to get a new one."

"My friend will make me a real Coco Chanel," she said.

"—eel oh oh ah Nell"

"veil as well," she said. "Come on," and, nude, she stepped easily out of

the clearing, all moving buttocks and knees, each side a balancing line to

the armpit, feet like hands or limpets holding on to the turf, and swaying

ankles.

"She's not bad-looking," said the Captain impersonally, following her.

"They're well-nourished, apparently."

"Oh, it's real enough!" said someone out loud and then into his ear,

intimately, making his head swim, in a rapture of mischief, But what a

drama, what a drama! You eye people, you're unbelievable!

"I don't like women," said Jai Vedh suddenly and dryly. "I never have.

I'm a homosexual."

"Oh?" said the Captain, taken aback for a moment, giving a repelled

jerk of the head, something flickering in his eyes for an instant and then

gone. "Well—that's life, I suppose."

I beg your pardon! added the clearing like an of-fended schoolgirl and

then it kept touching him on the back with hysterical joy until they were

half-way around the lake.

There were people around the escape capsule, some sitting near it, one

sitting on it. Some stood around it, on the grass or under the trees; no one

turned; no one spoke. A man lay flat on his face on the ground. Jai saw

children in the branches of trees, squatting or hanging by their knees as if

there were no up or down—when the woman, who had drifted behind the

Captain, suddenly ran ahead of him and called out something clearly, with

that little chirrup or laugh, the children began chattering excitedly, like

parrots. They hung, squatted, ran along the branches, as before. They

talked upside down. The adults did not move, except for the man sitting

on the capsule, who got off it, said something slowly to no one in

particular with a singularly impressive earnestness of accent, turned on

heel like a ballet dancer, facing Jai Vedh and the Captain, scratched his

crotch, and gazed at them with perfect composure. No one wore clothes.

Bits of looks, glances, shoulders moving, a little sigh. They all looked,

attentively but with a certain civilized reserve, at the two men, from boots

to hair and down again, up for a further look and another travel down

until the Captain, who had been standing with his legs apart and his arms

folded, smiling grimly, began to redden. Everyone looked away.

"I've been gawked at before," said the Captain.

"They're not gawking," said Jai.

"Primitives," said the Captain.

These people, thought Jai, have the most expressive backs in the world

and from the grass at his feet there sprang a shiver of twitching, as if

somebody or something were shrugging back into his clothes, the bearded

young man who had sat on the escape machine, for example; shrugging

back into a leather jacket, a toga, a djellabah, a cape, a sheet, a gaberdine,

a bathing suit, shin guards, a bathrobe, complete and fretted coat-armor.

Someone was sneering, too. A few tan, pink, brown, black, pale or

otherwise intershaded people remained. The woman came out of the

escape-capsule—half in, half out, carrying a load of books; she dumped the

armload out and smiled a dazzling smile; she came out again with another

load, dressed in her shift again. She announced:

"Do you know how much time I have spent in here? I have spent days in

here. I am perfectly exhausted."

"Where the—" began the Captain.

"My friend made me two dresses," she said, shrugging. "Besides, I came

here last night; that is what I mean by spending days in here. Besides, I

don't mean days; I mean a long time. Never mind. I haven't got it all down

yet, you know."

"Hours are not days," said Jai Vedh.

"Oh no, they're not, are they?" said she. "You're clever; of course," and

with another delightful smile, she settled to the ground and began sorting

out the books, her hands still working busily, she still looking Jai straight

in the face.

"Do you mean that you learned to speak—" said the Captain.

"I—only got better," she said, turning to the Captain a face empty of

anything but sincerity, a face presented on outstretched neck, as simple a

look as that with which she had first met them. "I told you it was my

hobby," she continued abruptly, diving down into the books, "and so it

was; it was my avocation. I'm a doctor; what do you think of that?" She

smiled strangely to herself, running her tongue along her upper lip; then

she repeated twice, with exactly the same cadence, "I'm a doctor; what do

you think of that?" and with a little letting-out of breath, she fastened her

gaze on one book in her hand, gave a kind of shiver of delight, scratched

her head furiously with her free hand, giggled, and tossed the book on a

pile. She bent down and gathered them all in her arms.

"Someone was remarkably foresighted in putting all these in with you,

don't you think?" she said. "There is nothing like an arbitrary set of

symbols to fix the operations of the mind." A few dropped out of her arms

and three children (they might have been dropped from the trees

Joanna Russ - And Chaos Died

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