"Joanna Russ - And Chaos Died" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russ Joanna)

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 capacityтАж 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.


тАФChuang Tzu*



There is a point beyond which you can't go without the aid of
the machineтАж there is a limit to how loud you can shout. After
that, you have to get yourself an amplifier.
 тАФLimiting Factor, by Theodore R. Cogswell



*translated by Arthur Waley




Part 1
^┬╗

His name was Jai Vedh.
There was some Hindi in the family, way backтАФa father, for they still
used fathers' namesтАФbut 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 EarthтАФon which every place was then like every
other placeтАФand 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
portholesтАФprovided 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