To Live Forever PDF
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JACK VANCE TO LIVE FOREVER JACK VANCE was born in 1916 and studied mining engineering, physics and journalism at the University of California. During World War II he served in the merchant navy and was torpedoed twice. He started contributing stories to the pulp magazines in the mid-1940s; his first book, The Dying Earth, was published in 1950. Among his best-known books are To Live Forever, The Dragon Masters—for which he won his first Hugo—The Blue World, Emphyrio, The Anome, and the Lyonesse sequence. THE JACK VANCE COLLECTION The Dragon Masters Maske: Thaery The Gray Prince To Live Forever Coming August 2004 The Languages of Pao ABOUT THE MAKING OF THIS BOOK ibooks, inc. wishes to express its gratitude to the VIE Project, for the assistance they provided in the making of this book. The VIE Project is a virtual gathering of enthusiasts from all over the world, working together via Internet, and dedicated to the creation of a complete and correct Vance edition in 44 volumes; a permanent, physical archive of Vance's work, doubled by digital texts. Texts are restored to their pristine condition, reviewed and corrected under the aegis of the author, his wife Norma and his son John. The text that they supplied for the present edition is therefore the definitive, authorized version. For more information about this unique, original group of people, the Reader can visit the VIE website at: www.vanceintegral.com. TO LIVE FOREVER JACK VANCE new york www.ibooksinc.com A Publication of ibooks, inc. Copyright © 1956 by Jack Vance; renewed 1990 by Jack Vance An ibooks, inc. Book All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Distributed by Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ibooks, inc. 24 West 25th Street New York, NY 10010 The ibooks World Wide Web Site Address is: http://www.ibooks.net ISBN 1-5917-6710-5 Chapter I 1 C larges, the last metropolis of the world, stretched thirty miles along the north shore of the Chant River, not far above the broadening of the Chant into its estuary. Clarges was an ancient city; structures, monuments, manors, old taverns, docks and warehouses two or even three thousand years old were common. The citizens of the Reach cherished these links with the past, drawing from them an unconscious comfort, a mystical sense of identification with the continuity of the city. The unique variation of the free-enterprise system by which they lived, however, urged them to innovation; as a result Clarges was a curious medley of the hoary and the novel, and the citizens—in this as in other ways—suffered the pull of opposing emotions. There never had been such a city as Clarges for grandeur and somber beauty. From the Mercery rose towers like tourmaline crystals, tall enough to intercept passing clouds; surrounding were great shops, theaters and apartment blocks; then came the suburbs, the industrial purlieus, the nondescript backlands extending out past the range of vision. The best residential areas—Balliasse, Eardiston, Vandoon, Temple Cloud—occupied hillsides north and south overlooking the river. Everywhere was motion, the quiver of vitality, the sense of human effort. A million windows flickered in the sunlight, vehicles darkened of human effort. A million windows flickered in the sunlight, vehicles darkened the boulevards, shoals of aircraft meshed along the avenues of the air. Men and women walked briskly along the streets to their destinations, wasting no time. Across the river lay Glade County, a wasteland, drab, flat and dreary, without use or habitation, where nothing grew except stunted willows and rust- colored rushes. Glade County had no reason for being except the fact that it included the six hundred acres of Carnevalle. Against the dismal background of Glade County, Carnevalle blazed like a flower on a slag-heap. Its six hundred acres held a treasure of color, of pageantry, of spectacular devices for diversion and thrill and catharsis. In Clarges itself life was confined to the activity of men. Carnevalle knew a life of its own. In the morning there was silence. At noon the swish of cleaning equipment and an occasional footstep might be heard. In the afternoon Carnevalle came to life, preening and shuddering like a new butterfly. When the sun sank there was a momentary lull, then a swift surge into such vitality and emotion as to deny the very concept of oblivion. Around the periphery swung the comet-cars of the Grand Pyroteck: the Sangreal Rubloon, the Golden Gloriana, the Mystic Emeraud, the Melancthon and the Ultra Lazuli, each a different color, each casting a different glow from its flaming train. The pavilions gave off prismatic refractions; the pagodas dripped molten liquid; a myriad lumes floated like a haze of fireflies. Along the avenues, through the alleys and lanes, the crowds streamed and shifted. To the sounds of the thrill-rides, to the hiss and thwashh when the cars of the Grand Pyroteck passed over, to the calls of barkers and hucksters, to the tones of plangent zither, hoarse accordion, chiming zovelle, plaintive lemurka, bright ectreen, were added the shuffle of a hundred thousand feet, the undertone of excitement, cries of shock and surprise and delight. As the night went on, the intoxication of Carnevalle became a thing in itself. The celebrants pressed through the noise, the hundred horns and musics; they breathed aromatic dusts and pastel fogs; they wore costumes and headgear and masks; restraints were brittle films, to be broken with pleasure. They explored the strange and the curious, toyed with vertigo and paroxysm, tested the versatility of the human nerve. versatility of the human nerve. Midnight at Carnevalle saw the peak of tumult. Compunction no longer existed; virtue and vice had no meaning. At times the outbursts of laughter became wild weeping, but this quickly subsided and was in the nature of a spiritual orgasm. As the night grew dim, the crowds became slower, more hesitant; costumes were in disorder, masks were discarded. Men and women, sleepy, wan, stupefied, stumbled into the drops of the tube-system to be whisked home, everywhere from Balliasse to Brayertown, from manse to one-room apartment. All five phyle came to Carnevalle: Brood, Wedge, Third, Verge and Amaranth, as well as the glarks. They mingled without calculation or envy; they came to Carnevalle to forget the rigors and strains of existence. They came, they spent their money, and—much more precious than money—they spent the moments of their lives. 2 A man in a brass mask stood in a booth before the House of Life, calling out to the crowd. Lumes the shape of infinity symbols drifted around his head; above him towered an ideal version of the life-chart, the bright lifeline rising through the phyle levels in a perfect half-parabola. The man in the brass mask spoke in a voice of great urgency. “Friends, whatever your phyle, attend me! Do you value life a florin’s worth? Will endless years be yours? Enter the House of Life! You will bless Didactor Moncure and his remarkable methods!” He touched a relay; a low sound issued from a hidden source, hoarse and throbbing, rising in pitch and intensity. “Slope! Slope! Come into the House of Life, up with your slope! Let Didactor Moncure analyze your future! Learn the methods, the techniques! Only a florin for the House of Life!” The sound rose through the octaves, building a sense of uneasiness and instability, and shrilled at last into inaudibility. The man in the booth spoke in a
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