Vermilion Sands

by James Graham Ballard

  She was asleep. Around her the room was almost in darkness. The pool lights had faded, the crystal columns that had shone around us were dull and extinguished, like trunks of opaque glass. The only light came from the flower-like jewel between her sleeping breasts.

  I stood up and walked softly across to her, looked down at her strange face, its skin smooth and grey, like some pharaonic bride in a basalt dream. Then, beside me at the door I noticed the hunched figure of the chauffeur. His peaked cap hid his face, but the two watchful eyes were fixed on me like small coals.

  As we left, hundreds of sleeping sand-rays were dotted about the moonlit floor of the desert. We stepped between them and moved away silently in the Cadillac.

  When I reached the villa I went straight into the study, ready to start work on assembling the next issue. During the return ride I had quickly decided on the principal cue-themes and key-images which I would play into the VT sets. All programmed for maximum repetition, within twenty-four hours I would have a folio of moon-sick, muse-mad dithyrambs which would stagger Aurora Day by their heartfelt simplicity and inspiration.

  As I entered the study my shoe caught on something sharp. I bent down in the darkness, and found a torn strip of computer circuitry embedded in the white leather flooring.

  When I switched on the light I saw that someone had smashed the three VT sets, pounding them to a twisted pulp in a savage excess of violence.

  Mine had not been the only targets. Next morning, as I sat at my desk contemplating the three wrecked computers, the telephone rang with news of similar outrages all the way down the Stars. Tony Sapphire’s 50-watt IBM had been hammered to pieces, and Raymond Mayo’s four new Philco Versomatics had been smashed beyond hope of repair. As far as I could gather, not a single VT set had been left untouched. The previous evening, between the hours of six and midnight, someone had moved rapidly down the Stars, slipped into the studios and apartments and singlemindedly wrecked every VT set.

  I had a good idea who. As I climbed out of the Cadillac on my return from Aurora I had noticed two heavy wrenches on the seat beside the chauffeur. However, I decided not to call the police and prefer charges. For one thing, the problem of filling Wave IX now looked almost insoluble. When I telephoned Graphis Press I found, more or less as expected, that all Aurora’s copy had been mysteriously mislaid.

  The problem remained – what would I put in the issue? I couldn’t afford to miss an edition or my subscribers would fade away like ghosts.

  I telephoned Aurora and pointed this out.

  ‘We should go to press again within a week, otherwise our contract expires and I’ll never get another. And reimbursing a year’s advance subscriptions would bankrupt me. We’ve simply got to find some copy. As the new managing editor have you any suggestions?’

  Aurora chuckled. ‘I suppose you’re thinking that I might mysteriously reassemble all those smashed machines?’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ I agreed, waving at Tony Sapphire who had just called in. ‘Otherwise I’m afraid we’re never going to get any copy.’

  ‘I can’t understand you,’ Aurora replied: ‘Surely there’s one very simple method.’

  ‘Is there? What’s that?’

  ‘Write some yourself!’

  Before I could protest she burst into a peal of high laughter. ‘I gather there are some twenty-three able-bodied versifiers and so-called poets in Vermilion Sands’ – this was exactly the number of places broken into the previous evening – ‘well, let’s see some of them versify.’

  ‘Aurora!’ I snapped. ‘You can’t be serious. Listen, for heaven’s sake, this is no joking –’

  But she had put the phone down. I turned to Tony Sapphire, then sat back limply and contemplated an intact tape spool I had recovered from one of the sets. ‘It looks as if I’ve had it. Did you hear that – “Write some yourself”?’

  ‘She must be insane,’ Tony agreed.

  ‘It’s all part of this tragic obsession of hers,’ I explained, lowering my voice. ‘She genuinely believes she’s the Muse of Poetry, returned to earth to re-inspire the dying race of poets. Last night she referred to the myth of Melander and Corydon. I think she’s seriously waiting for some young poet to give his life for her.’

  Tony nodded. ‘She’s missing the point, though. Fifty years ago a few people wrote poetry, but no one read it. Now no one writes it either. The VT set merely simplifies the whole process.’

  I agreed with him, but of course Tony was somewhat pre-judiced there, being one of those people who believed that literature was in essence both unreadable and unwritable. The automatic novel he had been “writing” was over ten million words long, intended to be one of those gigantic grotesques that tower over the highways of literary history, terrifying the unwary traveller. Unfortunately he had never bothered to get it printed, and the memory drum which carried the electronic coding had been wrecked in the previous night’s pogrom.

  I was equally annoyed. One of my VT sets had been steadily producing a transliteration of James Joyce’s Ulysses in terms of a Hellenic Greek setting, a pleasant academic exercise which would have provided an objective test of Joyce’s masterpiece by the degree of exactness with which the transliteration matched the original Odyssey. This too had been destroyed.

  We watched Studio 5 in the bright morning light. The cerise Cadillac had disappeared somewhere, so presumably Aurora was driving around Vermilion Sands, astounding the café crowds.

  I picked up the terrace telephone and sat on the rail. ‘I suppose I might as well call everyone up and see what they can do.’

  I dialled the first number.

  Raymond Mayo said: ‘Write some myself? Paul, you’re insane.’

  Xero Paris said: ‘Myself? Of course, Paul, with my toes.’

  Fairchild de Mille said: ‘It would be rather chic, but…’

  Kurt Butterworth said, sourly: ‘Ever tried to? How?’

  Marlene McClintic said: ‘Darling, I wouldn’t dare. It might develop the wrong muscles or something.’

  Sigismund Lutitsch said. ‘No, no. Siggy now in new zone. Electronic sculpture, plasma in super-cosmic collisions. Listen –’

  Robin Saunders, Macmillan Freebody and Angel Petit said : ‘No.’

  Tony brought me a drink and I pressed on down the list. ‘It’s no good,’ I said at last. ‘No one writes verse any more. Let’s face it. After all, do you or I?’

  Tony pointed to the notebook. ‘There’s one name left – we might as well sweep the decks clean before we take off for Red Beach.’

  ‘Tristram Caldwell,’ I read. ‘That’s the shy young fellow with the footballer’s build. Something is always wrong with his set. Might as well try him.’

  A soft honey-voiced girl answered the phone.

  ‘Tristram?’ she purred. ‘Er, yes, I think he’s here.’

  There were sounds of wrestling around on a bed, during which the telephone bounced on the floor a few times, and then Caldwell answered.

  ‘Hello, Ransom, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Tristram,’ I said, ‘I take it you were paid the usual surprise call last night. Or didn’t you notice? How’s your VT set?’

  ‘VT set?’ he repeated. ‘It’s fine, just fine.’

  ‘What?’ I shouted. ‘You mean yours is undamaged? Tristram, pull yourself together and listen to me!’ Quickly I explained our problem, but Tristram suddenly began to laugh.

  ‘Well, I think that’s just damn funny, don’t you? Really rich. I think she’s right. Let’s get back to the old crafts –’

  ‘Never mind the old crafts,’ I told him irritably. ‘All I’m interested in is getting some copy together for the next issue. If your set is working we’re saved.’

  ‘Well there, wait a minute, Paul. I’ve been slightly preoccupied recently, haven’t had a chance to see the set.’

  I waited while he wandered off. From the sounds of his footsteps and an impatient shout of the girl’s, to which he replied distantly, it seemed he had g
one outside into the yard. A door slammed open somewhere and there was a vague rummaging. A curious place to keep a VT set, I thought. Then there was a loud hammering noise.

  Finally Tristram picked up the phone again. ‘Sorry, Paul, but it looks as if she paid me a visit too. The set’s a total wreck.’ He paused while I cursed the air, then said: ‘Look, though, is she really serious about the hand-made material? I take it that’s what you were calling about?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Believe me, I’ll print anything. It has to get past Aurora, though. Have you got any old copy lying around?’

  Tristram chuckled again. ‘You know, Paul, old boy, I believe I have. Rather despaired of ever getting it into print but I’m glad now I held on to it. Tell you what, I’ll tidy it up and let you have it tomorrow. Few sonnets, a ballad or two, you should find it interesting.’

  He was right. Five minutes after I opened his parcel the next morning I knew he was trying to fool us.

  ‘This is the same old thing,’ I explained to Tony. ‘That cunning Adonis. Look at these assonances and feminine rhymes, the drifting caesura – the unmistakable Caldwell signature, worn tapes on the rectifier circuits and a leaking condenser. I’ve been having to re-tread these for years to smooth them out. He’s got his set there working away after all.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Tony asked. ‘He’ll just deny it.’

  ‘Obviously. Anyway, I can use the material. Who cares if the whole issue is by Tristram Caldwell.’

  I started to slip the pages into an envelope before taking them round to Aurora, when an idea occurred to me.

  ‘Tony, I’ve just had another of my brilliancies. The perfect method of curing this witch of her obsession and exacting sweet revenge at the same time. Suppose we play along with Tristram and tell Aurora that these poems were hand-written by him. His style is thoroughly retrograde and his themes are everything Aurora could ask for – listen to these – “Homage to Cleo,” “Minerva 231,” “Silence becomes Electra.” She’ll pass them for press, we’ll print this weekend and then, lo and behond, we reveal that these poems apparently born out of the burning breast of Tristram Caldwell are nothing more than a collection of cliché-ridden transcripts from a derelict VT set, the worst possible automatic maunderings.’

  Tony whooped. ‘Tremendous! She’d never live it down. But do you think she’ll be taken in?’

  ‘Why not? Haven’t you realized that she sincerely expects us all to sit down and produce a series of model classical exercises on “Night and Day”, “Summer and Winter”, and so on. When only Caldwell produces anything she’ll be only too glad to give him her imprimatur. Remember, our agreement only refers to this issue, and the onus is on her. She’s got to find material somewhere.’

  So we launched our scheme. All afternoon I pestered Tristram, telling him that Aurora had adored his first consignment and was eager to see more. Duly the next day a second batch arrived, all, as luck would have it, in longhand, although remarkably faded for material fresh from his VT set the previous day. However, I was only too glad for anything that would reinforce the illusion. Aurora was more and more pleased, and showed no suspicions whatever. Here and there she made a minor criticism but refused to have anything altered or rewritten.

  ‘But we always rewrite. Aurora,’ I told her. ‘One can’t expect an infallible selection of images. The number of synonyms is too great.’ Wondering whether I had gone too far, I added hastily: ‘It doesn’t matter whether the author is man or robot, the principle is the same.’

  ‘Really?’ Aurora said archly. ‘However, I think we’ll leave these just as Mr Caldwell wrote them.’

  I didn’t bother to point out the hopeless fallacy in her attitude, and merely collected the initialled manuscripts and hurried home with them. Tony was at my desk, deep in the phone, pumping Tristram for more copy.

  He capped the mouthpiece and gestured to me. ‘He’s playing coy, probably trying to raise us to two cents a thousand. Pretends he’s out of material. Is it worth calling his bluff?’

  I shook my head. ‘Dangerous. If Aurora discovers we’re involved in this fraud of Tristram’s she might do anything. Let me talk to him.’ I took the phone. ‘What’s the matter Tristram, production’s way down. We need more material, old boy. Shorten the line, why are you wasting tapes with all these alexandrines?’

  ‘Ransom, what the hell are you talking about? I’m not a damned factory, I’m a poet, I write when I have something to say in the only suitable way to say it.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I rejoined, ‘but I have fifty pages to fill and only a few days in which to do it. You’ve given me about ten so you’ve just got to keep up the flow. What have you produced today?’

  ‘Well, I’m working on another sonnet, some nice things in it – to Aurora herself, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Great,’ I told him, ‘but careful with those vocabulary selectors. Remember the golden rule: the ideal sentence is one word long. What else have you got?’

  ‘What else? Nothing. This is likely to take all week, perhaps all year.’

  I nearly swallowed the phone. ‘Tristram, what’s the matter? For heaven’s sake, haven’t you paid the power bill or something? Have they cut you off?’

  Before I could find out, however, he had rung off.

  ‘One sonnet a day,’ I said to Tony. ‘Good God, he must be on manual. Crazy idiot, he probably doesn’t realize how complicated those circuits are.’

  We sat tight and waited. Nothing came the next morning, and nothing the morning after that. Luckily, however, Aurora wasn’t in the least surprised; in fact, if anything she was pleased that Tristram’s rate of progress was slowing.

  ‘One poem is enough,’ she told me, ‘a complete statement. Nothing more needs to be said, an interval of eternity closes for ever.’

  Reflectively, she straightened the petals of a hyacinth. ‘Perhaps he needs a little encouragement,’ she decided.

  I could see she wanted to meet him.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him over for dinner?’ I suggested.

  She brightened immediately. ‘I will.’ She picked up the telephone and handed it to me.

  As I dialled Tristram’s number I felt a sudden pang of envy and disappointment. Around me the friezes told the story of Melander and Corydon, but I was too preoccupied to anticipate the tragedy the next week would bring.

  During the days that followed Tristram and Aurora Day were always together. In the morning they would usually drive out to the film sets at Lagoon West, the chauffeur at the wheel of the huge Cadillac. In the evenings, as I sat out alone on the terrace, watching the lights of Studio 5 shine out into the warm darkness, I could hear their fragmented voices carried across the sand, the faint sounds of crystal music.

  I would like to think that I resented their relationship, but to be truthful I cared very little after the initial disappointment had worn off. The beach fatigue from which I suffered numbed the senses insidiously, blunting despair and hope alike.

  When, three days after their first meeting, Aurora and Tristram suggested that we all go ray-fishing at Lagoon West, I accepted gladly, eager to observe their affair at closer quarters.

  As we set off down the Stars there was no hint of what was to come. Tristram and Aurora were together in the Cadillac while Tony Sapphire, Raymond Mayo and I brought up the rear in Tony’s Chevrolet. We could see them through the blue rear window of the Cadillac, Tristram reading the sonnet to Aurora which he had just completed. When we climbed out of the cars at Lagoon West and made our way over to the old abstract film sets near the sand reefs, they were walking hand in hand. Tristram in his white beach shoes and suit looked very much like an Edwardian dandy at a boating party.

  The chauffeur carried the picnic hampers, and Raymond Mayo and Tony the spear-guns and nets. Down the reefs below we could see the rays nesting by the thousands, scores of double mambas sleek with off-season hibernation.

  After we had settled ourselves under the awnings Raymond and T
ristram decided on the course and then gathered everyone together. Strung out in a loose line we began to make our way down into one of the reefs, Aurora on Tristram’s arm.

  ‘Ever done any ray-fishing?’ Tristram asked me as we entered one of the lower galleries.

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I’ll just watch this time. I hear you’re quite an expert.’

  ‘Well, with luck I won’t be killed.’ He pointed to the rays clinging to the cornices above us, wheeling up into the sky as we approached, whistling and screeching. In the dim light the white tips of their stings flexed in their sheaths. ‘Unless they’re really frightened they’ll stay well away from you,’ he told us. ‘The art is to prevent them from becoming frightened, select one and approach it so slowly that it sits staring at you until you’re close enough to shoot it.’

  Raymond Mayo had found a large purple mamba resting in a narrow crevice about ten yards on our right. He moved up to it quietly, watching the sting protrude from its sheath and weave menacingly, waiting just long enough for it to retract, lulling the ray with a low humming sound. Finally, when he was five feet away, he raised the gun and took careful aim.

  ‘There may seem little to it,’ Tristram whispered to Aurora and me, ‘but in fact he’s completely at the ray’s mercy now. If it chose to attack he’d be defenceless.’ The bolt snapped from Raymond’s gun and struck the ray on its spinal crest, stunning it instantly. Quickly he stepped over and scooped it into the net, where it revived after a few seconds, threshed its black triangular wings helplessly and then lay inertly.

  We moved through the groins and galleries, the sky a narrow winding interval overhead, following the pathways that curved down into the bed of the reef. Now and then the wheeling rays rising out of our way would brush against the reef and drifts of fine sand would cascade over us. Raymond and Tristram shot several more rays, leaving the chauffeur to carry the nets. Gradually our party split into two, Tony and Raymond taking one pathway with the chauffeur, while I stayed with Aurora and Tristram.