by Jack Vance
Wanish deactivated the instrument. “That is that. He retains his reflexes, his language and his motor skills, but his primary memory is gone. A wisp or two remain; they may bring him random images—no more than glimpses, enough to unsettle him, but nothing to give him trouble.”
The three released the boy from the metal sleeves, bands and hemispheres.
As they watched, the boy opened his eyes. He studied the men with a sober expression.
Wanish asked: “How do you feel?”
“There are pains when I move.” The boy’s voice was thin and clear, carefully enunciated.
“That is to be expected; in fact, it is a good sign. Soon you will be well. What is your name?”
The boy looked up blankly. “It is—” He hesitated, then said, “I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes. Up from his throat came a low growling sound, soft but harsh, as if produced by extreme effort. The sound formed words: “His name is Jaro.”
Wanish leaned forward, startled. “Who are you?”
The boy sighed a long sad sigh, then slept.
The three therapists watched until the boy’s breathing became regular. Solek asked Wanish: “How much of this will you report to the Faths?”
Wanish grimaced. “It is queer—if not uncanny. Still—” he reflected “—it probably amounts to nothing. I think that, so far as I am concerned, I heard the boy give his name as ‘Jaro,’ and nothing more.”
Solek and Fexel nodded. “I think that is what we heard too,” Fexel said.
Doctor Wanish went out to the reception area where the Faths awaited him.
“Rest easy,” said Wanish. “The worst is over and he should recover quite soon, with no complications other than gaps in his memory.”
The Faths pondered the news. Althea asked, “How extreme is the loss?”
“That is hard to predict. Something remarkably terrible caused his distress. We were forced to blot out several nodes, with all the side linkages. He’ll never know what happened to him, or who he is, other than that his name is ‘Jaro.’ ”
Hilyer Fath said weightily: “You are telling us that his memory is entirely gone?”
Wanish thought of the voice which had spoken Jaro’s name. “I wouldn’t dare predict anything. His schematic now shows isolated points and sparks, which suggest the shape of old matrices; they may provide a few random glimpses and hints, but probably nothing coherent.”
3
Hilyer and Althea Fath made inquiries at places along the Poisie River valley, but learned nothing either of Jaro or his origin. Everywhere they encountered the same shrugs of indifference, the same perplexity that anyone should ask such bootless questions.
Upon the Fath’s return to Sronk, they complained to Wanish of their experiences. He told them: “There are only a few organized societies here, and many small groups, clans, and districts: all independent, all suspicious. They have learned that if they mind their own business no one makes trouble for them, and so goes the world Camberwell.”
Jaro’s shoes and clothing suggested an off-world source, and with Tanzig, an important space terminal, close by the river, the Faths came to believe that Jaro had been brought to Camberwell from another world.
At the first opportunity Althea attempted a few timid questions but, as Doctor Wanish had predicted, Jaro’s memory was blank, except for an occasional shadowy glimpse, which was gone almost before it arrived. One of these images was exceptional: so intense as to cause Jaro a great fright.
The image, or vision, came to Jaro without warning late one afternoon. Shutters screened the low sunlight and the room was comfortably dim. Althea sat by the bed, exploring as best she could the bounds of Jaro’s mental landscape. Presently he became drowsy; the conversation, such as it was, lapsed. Jaro lay with his face to the ceiling, eyes half-closed. He made a sudden soft gasping sound. His hands clenched and his mouth sagged open.
Althea noticed at once. She jumped to her feet and peered down into his face. “Jaro! Jaro! What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong?”
Jaro made no response, but gradually relaxed. Althea tried to keep her voice steady. “Jaro? Say something! Are you well?”
Jaro looked at her doubtfully, then closed his eyes. He muttered, “I saw something which frightened me.” Althea tried to control her voice. “Tell me what you saw.”
After a moment Jaro began to speak, in a voice so soft that Althea was forced to bend low to hear him. “I was standing in front of a house; I think it was where I lived. The sun was gone, so that it was almost dark. Behind the front fence a man was standing. I could see only his shape, black against the sky.” Jaro paused, and lay quiet.
Althea asked, “Who was this man? Do you know him?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
In a halting voice, assisted by Althea’s promptings, Jaro described a tall spare figure silhouetted against the gray sky of dusk, wearing a tight coat, a low-crowned black hat with a stiff brim. Jaro had been frightened, though he could not remember why. The figure was austere, majestic; it turned to stare at Jaro. The eyes were like four-pointed stars gleaming with rays of silver light.
Fascinated, Althea asked: “What happened next?”
“I don’t remember.” Jaro’s voice drifted away and Althea let him sleep.
4
Jaro was lucky that the memory had been blanked from his mind. What happened next was terrible.
Jaro went into the house and told his mother of the man standing beyond the fence. She froze for an instant, then made a sound so stern and dismal as to transcend fear. She moved with decision, taking a metal box from a shelf and thrusting it into Jaro’s hands. “Take this box; hide it where no one can find it. Then go down to the river and get into the boat. I’ll come if I can, but be ready to push off alone if anyone else comes near. Hurry now!”
Jaro ran out the back door. He hid the box in a secret place, then stood indecisive, sick with foreboding. At last he ran to the river, made the boat ready and waited. The wind blew in his ears. He ventured a few steps back toward the house, stopped and strained to listen. What was that? A wail, barely heard over the wind-noise? He gave a desperate little moan and, despite his mother’s orders, ran back to the house. He peered through the side window, and for a moment could not understand what was happening. His mother lay on the floor, face up, arms outspread, with a black satchel to the side and some sort of apparatus at her head. Odd! A musical instrument? Her limbs were tense; she made no sound. The man knelt beside her, busy, as if playing the instrument. It looked to be a small glockenspiel, or something similar. From time to time the man paused to put questions, as if asking how she liked the tune. The woman lay stony and still, indicating no preferences.
Jaro shifted his position and saw the instrument in fall detail. After a single startled instant his mind seemed to move aside, while another, more impersonal if less logical, being took control. He ran to the kitchen porch and took a long-handled hatchet from the tool box, then ran light-footed through the kitchen and paused in the doorway, where he appraised the situation. The man knelt with his back to Jaro. His mother’s arms had been fixed to the floor by staples through her palms, while heavier bands clamped down her ankles. At each ear a metal tube entered the orifice, curved down through the sinal passages to emerge into the back of the mouth and out through the lips to form a horseshoe-shaped hook which pulled her lips into a grotesque rictus. The horseshoes were connected to the tympanum of the sound-bars; they tinkled and jingled as the man hit them with a silver wand, apparently sending sound into the woman’s brain.
The man paused in his playing and asked a terse question. The woman lay inert. He hit a single note, delicately. The woman twisted, arched her back, subsided. Jaro crept forward and struck down at the man’s head. Warned by a vibration, he turned; the blow grazed the side of his face and crushed into his shoulder. He uttered not a sound, but rose to his feet. He stumbled upon his black bag and fell. Jaro ran through
the kitchen, out into the yard, around the house to the front door, which he cautiously opened. The man was gone. Jaro entered the room. His mother looked up at him. She whispered through contorted lips: “Jaro, be brave now, as never before. I am dying. Kill me before he returns.”
“And the box?”
“Come back when it is safe. I have put a guidance upon your mind. Kill me now; I can tolerate no more gongs. Be quick; he is coming!”
Jaro turned his head. The man stood looking through the window. The oblong opening framed his upper torso as if he were the subject of a formal portrait. The design and chiaroscuro were exact. The face was stern and rigorous, hard and white, as if carved from bone. Below the brim of the black hat was a philosopher’s brow, a long thin nose and burning black eyes. The jaw angled sharply; the cheeks slanted down to a small pointed chin. He stared at Jaro with an expression of brooding dissatisfaction.
Time moved slowly. Jaro turned to his mother. He raised the hatchet high. From behind him came a harsh command, which he ignored. He struck down and split his mother’s forehead, burying the hatchet in an instant welter of brains and gore. Behind him he heard steps. He dropped the hatchet, ran from the kitchen, down through the night to the river. He pushed off the boat, jumped aboard and was carried out upon the water. From the shore came a cry, harsh, yet somehow soft and melodious. Jaro cringed low into the boat, even though the shore could not be seen.
The wind blew in gusts; waves surged around the drifting boat and from time to time washed up and over the gunwhales. Water began to slop heavily back and forth across the bilges. Jaro, at last bestirring himself, bailed out the boat.
Night seemed interminable. Jaro sat hunched, feeling the gusts of wind, the wallow of the boat, the splash and wetness of the water. This was proper and helped him in his perilous balance. He must not think; he must manage his mind as if it were a brooding black fish, suspended in the water deep below the boat.
Night passed and the sky became gray. The broad Foisie curved, sweeping away to the north beside the Wyching Hills. With the sun’s first glare of orange-crimson light, the wind pushed the boat up on the beach. Directly at the back of the foreshore the landscape sloped up in bumps and hollows to become the Wyching Hills. At first glance they seemed mottled or even scabrous, overgrown as they were with a hundred varieties of vegetation, many exotic but most indigenous: blue scruffs of tickety-thicket, copses of black artichoke-tree, bumblebee-plant. Along the ridges stood rows of orange-russet scudhorn, glowing like flame in the low sunlight.
For several days, or perhaps a week, Jaro wandered the hills, eating thornberries, grass seeds, the tubers of a furry-leaved plant which smelled neither bitter nor sharp, and which, fortuitously, failed to poison him. He moved listlessly, in a state of detachment, aware of no conscious thoughts.
One day he came down from the hills to gather fruit from trees growing beside the road. A group of peasant boys from along the Wyching Belts took note of him. They were an unlovely lot, squat, sturdy, with long arms, thick legs and round pugnacious faces. They wore black felt scuttle-hats, with tufts of auburn hair protruding through holes above the ears, tight trousers and brown coats: proud formal garments, suitable for the weekly Cataxis, which was their immediate destination. Still, they had time for good deeds along the way. With hoots and whoops they set out to exterminate this nibbler of roadside fruit. Jaro fought as well as he could, and quite amusingly, so that the boys were encouraged to invent variations upon their methods. Eventually it was decided to break every bone in Jaro’s body, in order to teach him a smart lesson.
At this point the Faths arrived on the scene.
5
In the hospital at Sronk Jaro’s hurts had mended and the protective devices had been detached from his frame. He now lay easy on his bed, wearing the soft blue pajamas the Faths had brought him.
Althea sat beside the bed, surreptitiously studying Jaro’s face. The cap of black hair, washed, trimmed and brushed, lay sleek and soft. The bruises had faded, leaving clear dark olive skin, long dark lashes shrouded his eyes, the wide mouth drooped at the corners as if in wistful reverie. It was a face, thought Althea, of poetic charm, and she fought the impulse to snatch him up, hold him close, pet him and kiss him. It would not do, of course; first, Jaro would be shocked by the outrage. Second, his bones, still fragile, might not withstand the kind of hugging she would like to give him. For the thousandth time she wondered at the events which had brought Jaro to Pagg Road, and how distressed his parents must feel. He lay quiet, eyes half-closed: perhaps drowsy, perhaps preoccupied with his own thoughts. He had described the silhouette as best he could; there was no more to be learned in this quarter. She asked, “Do you remember anything about the house?”
“No. It was just there.”
“Were there no other houses nearby?”
“No.” Jaro lay with jaw set and hands clenched.
Althea stroked the back of his hand and the fist gradually relaxed. “Rest now,” she told him. “You are safe and soon you will be well.”
A minute passed. Then, in a dreary voice Jaro asked, “What will happen to me now?”
Althea was taken by surprise, and responded with the hint of a stutter, which she hoped Jaro might not notice. “That depends on the authorities. They will do what is best.”
“They will lock me away in the dark, down where no one knows.”
For a moment Althea was too astonished to speak. “What an odd thing to say! Who put such a wicked idea into your head?”
Jaro’s pale face twitched. He closed his eyes and restlessly turned away.
Althea asked again, “Who told you such an awful thing?”
Jaro muttered, “I don’t know.”
Althea frowned. “Try to remember, Jaro.”
Jaro’s lips moved; Althea bent to hear, but Jaro’s explanation, if such it had been, went past her ears unheard.
Althea spoke fervently: “I can’t imagine who put such a notion in your head! It’s utter nonsense, of course.”
Jaro nodded, smiled and seemed to fall asleep. Althea sat watching him, pondering, wondering. It seemed as if the surprises would never end! Someday, mused Althea, Jaro’s fragmented memory might again be made whole—quite possibly a sad day for Jaro.
Doctor Wanish, however, had indicated that the baneful recollections had been destroyed, which, if true, would be good news. Otherwise, Jaro’s prognosis was favorable, and he seemed to have suffered no permanent damage other than what Wanish had called “a mnemonic void.”
The Faths were childless. When they came to visit Jaro at the hospital, he greeted them with obvious pleasure which tugged at their hearts. Arriving at a decision, they filled out a few documents, paid as many fees, and when they returned to Thanet on Gallingale, Jaro accompanied them. Presently he was legally adopted, and began to use the name Jaro Fath.
Two
1
Society without ritual is like music played on a single string with one finger.” Such was the dictum of Unspiek, Baron Bodissey in his monumental LIFE. He pointed out further: “Whenever human beings join to pursue a common objective—that is, to form a society—each member of the group will ultimately command a certain status. As all of us know, these status levels are never totally rigid.”
At Thanet on the world Gallingale, the quest for status was the dominant social force. Social levels, or “ledges,” were exactly defined, and distinguished by the social clubs which occupied and gave character to that particular ledge. Most prestigious of all the clubs were the so-called Sempiternals: the Tattermen, the Clam Muffins, the Quantorsi; membership in such clubs was tantamount to the prestige of high aristocracy.
The stuff of social advancement—“comporture”—could not easily be defined. Its main components were aggressive striving up the ledges, gentility, wealth and personal mana. Everyone was a social arbiter; eyes watched for uncouth behavior; ears listened to hear what should not have been said. A moment’s lapse, a tactless remark, an absentminde
d glance might negate months of striving. To presume to a status one had not earned was met with instant rebuff. The perpetrator would incur wondering contempt, and might well be branded a “schmeltzer.”[5]
Hilyer and Althea Fath, though well respected at the Institute, were “nimps,” and lived without knowing either the joys of “comporture” or the even more intense pangs of rejection.[6]
2
The Faths lived four miles north of Thanet, in Merriehew, a rambling old farmhouse situated on five hundred acres of rough countryside, where Althea’s grandfather had once engaged in experimental horticulture. The tract was now considered wilderness, and included a pair of forested knolls, a river, a high pasture, a water meadow and a copse of dense woods. All evidence of the horticultural experiments had been lost under the forest mold.
Jaro was assigned living quarters at the top of the high-ceilinged old house. His early troubles faded from memory. Hilyer and Althea were affectionate and tolerant: the best of parents. Jaro, in his turn, brought them pride and fulfillment; before long they could not imagine life without him, and they were haunted by an insidious worry: was Jaro truly happy at Merriehew?
For a time Jaro showed a tendency toward introversion, which accentuated their worry, but which they finally ascribed to his frightening early experiences. They were reluctant to ask questions for fear of intruding upon his privacy, though Jaro was not naturally secretive and would have answered their questions without restraint, had they asked.
The Faths had supposed correctly. The moods derived from Jaro’s past. As Doctor Wanish had predicted, a few shreds of the shattered mnemonic clots had rearranged themselves along the old matrices, to generate an occasional image, which swirled away before Jaro could focus upon it. The two most vivid of these images were of quite different sorts. Both were heavy with emotion. One or the other might appear whenever Jaro’s mind was passive, or tired, or half asleep.
