The Virgin of Zesh
Encyclopedia
The Virgin of Zesh is a science fiction
novella
written by L. Sprague de Camp
, the fourth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias
series and the third of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the fifth Krishna novel.It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories for February 1953. It was first published in book form together with The Wheels of If
in the paperback collection The Virgin & the Wheels
by Popular Library
in 1976. For the later standard edition of Krishna novels it was published together with The Tower of Zanid
in the paperback collection The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid
by Ace Books
in 1983. The first stand-alone edition was published as an E-book
by Gollancz
's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.
As with all of the "Krishna" novels, the title of The Virgin of Zesh has a "Z" in it, a practice de Camp claimed to have devised to keep track of them. Short stories in the series do not follow the practice, nor do Viagens Interplanetarias works not set on Krishna.
Althea awakens in Gorchakov's apartment to discover that she consented to marry him while drunk, and is now hitched. Panicking, she rejects him and tries to escape. Enraged, he strips and whips her until she breaks free and brains him with an alarm clock. Slipping out, she seeks Kirwan and Barr, who agree to spirit her out of Novorecife with Castanhoso's help and take her with them to Zesh. She is to be Barr's assistant in his project of measuring the intelligence of the primitive tailed Krishnans of Zá, the island adjacent to Zesh, whose culture has recently made startling advances. The three take flight by buggy down the Pichide River to the coastal fishing village of Qadr, whence they cross by ferry to the Free City of Majbur. There they seek the aid of Krishnan Gorbovast Bad-Sár, resident commissioner of the king of Gozashtand and well-known benefactor of Terran travelers. He gets them on the next ship out to Zesh, the Labághti, captained by Memzadá of Darya.
During the voyage, Althea is nearly raped by a sailor, who is keelhauled by Memzadá as punishment. Emerging with his lungs full of water, the sailor is revived by Althea via artificial respiration. He is perplexed by her benevolence. Later he brings her a note, asking that she not read it until after she and her companions are landed on Zesh. She complies, only to find it contains a warning—the Dasht of Darya intends to conquer both Zesh and the neighboring island of Zá, and they should leave the island. They realize the threat is serious, as Kirwan had previously discovered the Labághti is carrying a large load of weapons. But by this time the ship has sailed, and they are stranded.
The trio is greeted by a welcoming party from the utopian colony of Elysion, including its leader, Diogo Kuroki, who calls himself, Zeus. The colonists, a group of Roussellian naturalists, have all taken new names from Classical myth, legend or history. Kuroki redubs Kirwan, who has come to join the colony, Orpheus. The others are told they can work for their keep until they gain permission to continue on to Zá. Althea tells Kuroki of the coming attack, but he refuses either to leave Zesh, take any defensive measures, or even to warn the Záva from whom the colony rents its land, citing his group's principles of pacifism and neutrality. In the days that follow all three grow increasingly disenchanted with the colony, and decide to inform the Záva of the impending invasion themselves in return for passage out of the war zone. To do so they secretly visit the Záva oracle the Virgin of Zesh, but she takes off precipitously on hearing their news, without responding to their request.
The next morning the island is visited by Yuruzh, chief of the Záva, ostensibly to visit the oracle, but actually to contest the Daryava invasion, of which he has been informed by the Virgin of Zesh. He reprimands Kuroki for having withheld the intelligence. Yuruzh is much more human-looking than the rest of the apelike Záva, and Althea finds herself attracted to him. The invasion fleet is sighted, and she is recruited to set a trap for the enemy. At Yuruzh's direction, she swims out to the flagship pretending to have escaped the chief and claiming that he is on Zesh with just a few followers. Sofkar, the Dasht of Darya, has her bound to the mast with orders that she be killed if her story proves false, and takes his ships into the harbor. They founder on a line of submerged stakes set by Záva hiding in the water, who then swarm aboard. Yuruzh takes the Dasht captive and rescues Althea as his main fleet issues forth from Zá to take the Daryava from behind. After the battle the people of Elysion, having overthrown Kuroki, deliver him to Yuruzh to assuage his displeasure with the colony.
At this point a merchant ship appears and lands two unwelcome interlopers—Bishop Raman and Afanasi Gorchakov. The latter claims Althea; she appeals to Raman but he declines to defend her on the grounds that she is married to the security chief and has compromised her reputation by running off with Kirwan and Barr. Gorchakov abducts her at gunpoint, killing Kirwan when he tries to intervene. Barr has already fled. Abandoning Raman, Gorchakov forces Althea aboard his ship, the Ta'zu, and puts out to sea. In his cabin he prepares to torture and murder her for abandoning him, but is interrupted by a thrown knife and then Yuruzh, who swings in through the porthole. The Terran and Krishnan fight, struggling for the knife. Yuruzh prevails and kills Gorchakov.
Yuruzh explains to Althea that he had followed the Ta'zu and quietly taken the ship. After sounding her out on her current plans and prospects, he proposes marriage, stating he has admired her since first laying eyes on her. He also reveals the secret of the Záva's intelligence; when younger, he had been taken to Earth and given the experimental "Pannoëtic treatment," which turns lower primates into geniuses while driving human beings mad. (The rationale behind the treatment spoofs pseudo-scientific
ideas current in the 1950s, particularly those of L. Ron Hubbard
.) As a Krishnan and a hybrid between the advanced tailless and the primitive tailed races, Yuruzh might have gone either way, but in the event gained super-intelligence. Feigning that the treatment wore off, he was permitted to return to Krishna, where he has been uplifting
his tailed compatriots by giving them the same treatment. He offers Althea partnership in his civilizing mission.
Althea, after some thought, accepts both of Yuruzh's offers, and the two proceed out to the captive ship's captain to be married.
genre, representing both a tribute to the Barsoom
novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
and an attempt to "get it right", reconstructing the concept logically, without what he regarded as Burroughs' biological and technological absurdities.
As dated in the 1959 version of de Camp's essay "The Krishna Stories" and James Cambias's GURPS Planet Krishna (a 1997 gaming guide to the Viagens series authorized by de Camp), the action of The Virgin of Zesh takes place in the year 2150 AD., falling between The Prisoner of Zhamanak
and The Bones of Zora
, and making it the ninth story set on Krishna in terms of chronology. Internal evidence in The Bones of Zora confirms the relative sequence of the stories.
Yuruzh may have been the unnamed tailed Krishnan resident at an Earthly scientific institute in de Camp's earlier Viagens story "The Colorful Character
."
's famous novel Flowers for Algernon
, though Yuruzh, unlike Keyes's protagonist Charlie Gordon, merely feigns losing his newly-gained intelligence. "The Virgin of Zesh" predates Keyes's story.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
written by L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
, the fourth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias
Viagens Interplanetarias
The Viagens Interplanetarias series is a sequence of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp, begun in the late 1940s and written under the influence of contemporary space opera and sword and planet stories, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian novels...
series and the third of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the fifth Krishna novel.It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories for February 1953. It was first published in book form together with The Wheels of If
The Wheels of If
"The Wheels of If" is a classic alternate history science fiction story by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Unknown Fantasy Fiction for October, 1940, and first appeared in book form in de Camp's collection The Wheels of If and Other Science Fiction...
in the paperback collection The Virgin & the Wheels
The Virgin & the Wheels
The Virgin & the Wheels is a 1976 collection of two short science fiction novels by L. Sprague de Camp, published in paperback by Popular Library...
by Popular Library
Popular Library
Popular Library was a New York paperback book company established in 1942 by Leo Margulies and Ned Pines, who at the time was a major pulp magazine, newspapers and magazine publishers...
in 1976. For the later standard edition of Krishna novels it was published together with The Tower of Zanid
The Tower of Zanid
The Tower of Zanid is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, the sixth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and the fourth of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the seventh Krishna novel. It was first published in the magazine...
in the paperback collection The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid
The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid
The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid is a 1982 collection of two science fiction novels by L. Sprague de Camp. Both works are part of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. The collection was first published in paperback by Ace...
by Ace Books
Ace Books
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
in 1983. The first stand-alone edition was published as an E-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
by Gollancz
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.
As with all of the "Krishna" novels, the title of The Virgin of Zesh has a "Z" in it, a practice de Camp claimed to have devised to keep track of them. Short stories in the series do not follow the practice, nor do Viagens Interplanetarias works not set on Krishna.
Plot and storyline
Herculeu Castanhoso, assistant security officer at the Terran spaceport of Novorecife, looks on disapprovingly as his detested boss, security chief Afanasi Gorchakov, fraternizes in the spaceport bar with three new arrivals to the backward planet Krishna, the vainglorious amateur poet Brian Kirwan, psychologist Gottfried Barr, and missionary Althea Merrick. Althea has been left stranded and without resources because the unreliable Bishop Harichand Raman, her superior in the Ecumenical Monotheist Church, has failed to meet and provide her with her first assignment. Kirwan, bound with Barr for a utopian Terran colony on the island of Zesh, is trying to persuade her to join them, while Gorchakov is pressuring her to marry him. Trying to prevent a fight between the two, Althea is caught between them and knocked out, whereupon the security chief fells Kirwan and peremptorilly orders Castanhoso to get the other men out of the bar. He is last seen pouring kvad down teatotaler Althea's throat in an effort to revive her.During the voyage, Althea is nearly raped by a sailor, who is keelhauled by Memzadá as punishment. Emerging with his lungs full of water, the sailor is revived by Althea via artificial respiration. He is perplexed by her benevolence. Later he brings her a note, asking that she not read it until after she and her companions are landed on Zesh. She complies, only to find it contains a warning—the Dasht of Darya intends to conquer both Zesh and the neighboring island of Zá, and they should leave the island. They realize the threat is serious, as Kirwan had previously discovered the Labághti is carrying a large load of weapons. But by this time the ship has sailed, and they are stranded.
The trio is greeted by a welcoming party from the utopian colony of Elysion, including its leader, Diogo Kuroki, who calls himself, Zeus. The colonists, a group of Roussellian naturalists, have all taken new names from Classical myth, legend or history. Kuroki redubs Kirwan, who has come to join the colony, Orpheus. The others are told they can work for their keep until they gain permission to continue on to Zá. Althea tells Kuroki of the coming attack, but he refuses either to leave Zesh, take any defensive measures, or even to warn the Záva from whom the colony rents its land, citing his group's principles of pacifism and neutrality. In the days that follow all three grow increasingly disenchanted with the colony, and decide to inform the Záva of the impending invasion themselves in return for passage out of the war zone. To do so they secretly visit the Záva oracle the Virgin of Zesh, but she takes off precipitously on hearing their news, without responding to their request.
At this point a merchant ship appears and lands two unwelcome interlopers—Bishop Raman and Afanasi Gorchakov. The latter claims Althea; she appeals to Raman but he declines to defend her on the grounds that she is married to the security chief and has compromised her reputation by running off with Kirwan and Barr. Gorchakov abducts her at gunpoint, killing Kirwan when he tries to intervene. Barr has already fled. Abandoning Raman, Gorchakov forces Althea aboard his ship, the Ta'zu, and puts out to sea. In his cabin he prepares to torture and murder her for abandoning him, but is interrupted by a thrown knife and then Yuruzh, who swings in through the porthole. The Terran and Krishnan fight, struggling for the knife. Yuruzh prevails and kills Gorchakov.
Yuruzh explains to Althea that he had followed the Ta'zu and quietly taken the ship. After sounding her out on her current plans and prospects, he proposes marriage, stating he has admired her since first laying eyes on her. He also reveals the secret of the Záva's intelligence; when younger, he had been taken to Earth and given the experimental "Pannoëtic treatment," which turns lower primates into geniuses while driving human beings mad. (The rationale behind the treatment spoofs pseudo-scientific
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
ideas current in the 1950s, particularly those of L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
.) As a Krishnan and a hybrid between the advanced tailless and the primitive tailed races, Yuruzh might have gone either way, but in the event gained super-intelligence. Feigning that the treatment wore off, he was permitted to return to Krishna, where he has been uplifting
Biological uplift
In science fiction, uplift is the development or transformation of animals into an intelligent race by other, already-intelligent beings. The concept appears in David Brin's Uplift series and other science fiction works.-History of the concept:...
his tailed compatriots by giving them the same treatment. He offers Althea partnership in his civilizing mission.
Althea, after some thought, accepts both of Yuruzh's offers, and the two proceed out to the captive ship's captain to be married.
Setting
The planet Krishna is de Camp's premier creation in the Sword and PlanetSword and planet
Sword and Planet is a subgenre of science fantasy that features rousing adventure stories set on other planets, and usually featuring Earthmen as protagonists. The name derives from the heroes of the genre engaging their adversaries in hand to hand combat primarily with simple melee weapons such as...
genre, representing both a tribute to the Barsoom
Barsoom
Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote close to 100 action adventure stories in various genres in the first half of the 20th century, and is now best known as the creator of the character Tarzan...
novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
and an attempt to "get it right", reconstructing the concept logically, without what he regarded as Burroughs' biological and technological absurdities.
As dated in the 1959 version of de Camp's essay "The Krishna Stories" and James Cambias's GURPS Planet Krishna (a 1997 gaming guide to the Viagens series authorized by de Camp), the action of The Virgin of Zesh takes place in the year 2150 AD., falling between The Prisoner of Zhamanak
The Prisoner of Zhamanak
The Prisoner of Zhamanak is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, the eighth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and the sixth of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the fourth Krishna novel...
and The Bones of Zora
The Bones of Zora
The Bones of Zora is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, the ninth book of the former's Viagens Interplanetarias series and the seventh of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the sixth Krishna novel...
, and making it the ninth story set on Krishna in terms of chronology. Internal evidence in The Bones of Zora confirms the relative sequence of the stories.
Yuruzh may have been the unnamed tailed Krishnan resident at an Earthly scientific institute in de Camp's earlier Viagens story "The Colorful Character
The Colorful Character
"The Colorful Character" is a science fiction short story written by L. Sprague de Camp, a story in his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in the issue for December, 1949...
."
Parallels to Flowers for Algernon
Yuruzh's back story bears a striking resemblance to the basic plot of Daniel KeyesDaniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes is an American author best known for his Hugo award-winning short story and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000.-Early life and career:Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New...
's famous novel Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960...
, though Yuruzh, unlike Keyes's protagonist Charlie Gordon, merely feigns losing his newly-gained intelligence. "The Virgin of Zesh" predates Keyes's story.