Fugitives of Chaos

I said, 'That's not really a fair question. An eyeball cannot see itself. No mind, by definition, can be aware of the subconscious foundation of its own thought; nor can any mind exist without such a foundation.

How can I de-scribe a process when I am part of that process, and the act of making up a description changes the process? I have limbs and organs and energy-manipulation systems in the fourth dimension.

They do things. I am not a biologist; I cannot tell you the mechanism.'

Victor said, 'I am a biologist. It takes a child months or years to learn to develop nerve paths to control a limb or organ. If you discovered a new hand grafted to you tomorrow, it would take you months or years to learn how to use it, because you would have to develop the nerve structures and reflexes one at a time, like a child.'

I said, 'So what are you saying?'

Victor said, 'Those nerve paths must have been impressed upon you without your knowledge.'

Quentin said, 'Or you have always had them, you and every member of your race. Or maybe I should say, everyone who follows your metaphor of the universe.' To Victor, he said, 'Amelia is basically agnostic; she has theories about the limitations of human knowledge, she believes in the uncertainty principle. All knowledge is relative to a frame of reference. For her, 'Chaos' is that which by definition is unknown and unknowable. The fourth dimension is her metaphor for it.'

I said, 'It's not a metaphor. I've seen the fourth dimension.'

Quentin spread his hands. 'And I have seen aetheric spirits dancing in palest raiment by the light of the moon around a mushroom ring, and I've heard the harps the Four Living Beings play who ward the dancers sacred to Endymion. Where those light feet had passed, I drew up a residuum through a wand of willow-wood, into an alembic, and sealed those vapors there by virtue of the key of Solomon. Explain my experience.'

I said, 'I can't. What cannot be explained is a given, like a premise.'

Victor said to Quentin, 'Undeveloped sections of your nervous system were reacting to energies around you, and presenting childlike images to your cortex in response. A sufficiently detailed examination of the motions of the atoms in your brain would reveal what causes these images to arise.'

Colin said, 'Examinate, exschmaminate. You saw what you wanted to see, Big Q. It was magic.'

Quentin raised his finger. 'And that is my point! Amelia, Vanity, and Colin operate without conscious thought..'

I sat on the divan, murmuring, 'I could have told you that about Colin years ago…'

'But what you and I do, Victor, requires specific knowledge and liberal arts. Natural sciences, knowledge of the correspondences between herb and constellation, phases of the moon, and their angelic governors and principles. And these molecules and atoms and void and what-not you believe in. Specific knowledge.'

Victor said, 'Is this comment leading to something?'

'Note the symmetry in the table of oppositions. The Phaeacians tie together you and Colin: one intellectual with one nonintellectual paradigm. The Olympians, likewise, with me and Amelia. But the Phaeacians, or at least Vanity, operates without conscious knowledge. She does not know how she creates secret passages. She does not even believe it is she herself doing it!'

'So?'

'So, assuming the symmetry is maintained throughout the whole table, the Olympians must operate by a specific science or body of law. Once we know the law, the specifics, we can stop them. A technology can be foundered on the rocks of detail, in a way that emanations from a nonintellectual force cannot be.'

Colin stretched his arms and yawned. 'I prefer the terms esprit de finesse and esprit de geometrie. I'll just wish our foes into oblivion! I really, really want that. By the way, has a busty cat burglar in skintight black with a whip shown up yet, or Seven Year Itch girl? Amelia and Vanity in their underwear don't count.'

Quentin said, 'According to the book, your power doesn't work that way.'

Colin straightened up. 'Since when? Amelia said…'

Quentin came across the salon from where he had been sitting and settled in the chair opposite me, saying, 'Ah! Listening to Amelia in this one case was a mistake.'

'Hey!' I said, feeling a little put out.

'Oh, don't misunderstand me, Amelia!' Quentin said. 'But what is going on is— Ah, wait, I will show you. Colin! Ready for a question?'

Colin shrugged, looking curious. 'Ask away.'

'Do you understand what it is I do? My 'magic,' as you call it?'

'Sure. You wish for things to happen, and they do. You go through a lot of rigmarole with wands and chalk and candles and junk because it impresses the ladies. Or maybe you need it as a crutch.'

'What could I do to do it better?'

'That's obvious, Big Q. If I were you, I'd throw all that mumbo-jumbo away and just do it by concentrating. I mean, it is obvious you already have the power, but you are wasting energy by putting power—putting belief— into things like wands.'

Quentin grinned and turned toward me. 'Did Colin give me good advice?'

I said, 'I don't think he knows what it is you do. Not that I do, either…'

'He gave me the worst advice imaginable. Do you know what they call a practitioner of the Art without his wand?'

'What?'

'Unemployed.' Quentin turned and hooked one arm back over the chair. 'Just out of curiosity, Victor, what