The Languages of Pao

by Jack Vance

  The Languages of Pao

  Jack Vance

  Copyright 1956, 2012 by Jack Vance

  Cover art by Dylan Carroll

  Published by

  Spatterlight Press

  ISBN 978-1-61947-010-1

  2012-05-15

  Visit jackvance.com for more

  Spatterlight Press releases

  This title was created from the digital archive of the Vance Integral Edition, a series of 44 books produced under the aegis of the author by a worldwide group of his readers. The VIE project gratefully acknowledges the editorial guidance of Norma Vance, as well as the cooperation of the Department of Special Collections at Boston University, whose John Holbrook Vance collection has been an important source of textual evidence. Special thanks to R.C. Lacovara, Patrick Dusoulier, Koen Vyverman, Paul Rhoads, Chuck King, Gregory Hansen, Suan Yong and Josh Geller for their invaluable assistance preparing final versions of the source files.

  Source: Norma Vance, Digitize: Richard Chandler, John Robinson Jr., Gan Uesli Starling, Richard White, Format: John A. Schwab, Diff: David Reitsema, Paul Rhoads, John Robinson Jr., Tech Proof: Rob Friefeld, Text Integrity: Patrick Dusoulier, Paul Rhoads, John Robinson Jr., Compose: John A. Schwab, Comp Review: John A. D. Foley, Marcel van Genderen, Andreas Irle, Charles King, Paul Rhoads, Robin L. Rouch, Update Verify: Charles King, Paul Rhoads, Robin L. Rouch, RTF-Diff: Charles King, Textport: Patrick Dusoulier, Suan Hsi Yong, Proofread: Enrique Alcatena, Erik Arendse, Derek W. Benson, Malcolm Bowers, Top Changwatchai, Robert Collins, Christian J. Corley, Andrew Edlin, Rob Friefeld, Rob Knight, Betty Mayfield, Joel Riedesel, Robin L. Rouch, Mike Schilling, Kelly Walker

  Ebook Creation: Arjen Broeze, Christopher Wood, Artwork (maps based on original drawings by Jack and Norma Vance): Paul Rhoads, Christopher Wood, Proofing: Arjen Broeze, Evert Jan de Groot, Gregory Hansen, Koen Vyverman, Management: John Vance, Koen Vyverman, Web: Menno van der Leden

  THE COMPLETE WORKS

  of

  Jack Vance

  The Languages of Pao

  THE VANCE DIGITAL EDITION

  Oakland

  2012

  East-Central Pao • South Pao • West-Central Pao

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Maps

  Chapter I

  In the heart of the Polymark Cluster, circling the yellow star Auriol, is the planet Pao, with the following characteristics:

  Mass: 1.73 (in standard units)

  Diameter: 1.39

  Surface Gravity: 1.04

  The plane of Pao’s diurnal rotation is the same as its plane of orbit; hence there are no seasons and the climate is uniformly mild. Eight continents range the equator at approximately equal intervals: Aimand, Shraimand, Vidamand, Minamand, Nonamand, Dronamand, Hivand and Impland, after the eight digits of the Paonese numerative system. Aimand, largest of the continents, has four times the area of Nonamand, the least. Only Nonamand, in the high southern latitudes, suffers an unpleasant climate.

  An accurate census of Pao has never been made. Eiljanre on Minamand is the largest city, with six million inhabitants. The twin cities Koroi and Sherifte on Impland share another six million between them. There are perhaps a hundred other cities of over half a million, but the great mass of the population — estimated at fifteen billion persons — lives in country villages.

  The Paonese are a homogeneous people, of medium stature, fair-skinned with hair-color ranging from tawny-brown to brown-black, with no great variations of feature or physique. They are so similar the extra-planetary visitor, traveling from continent to continent, has the peculiar sense of meeting the same persons again and again.

  Paonese history previous to the reign of Panarch Aiello Panasper is uneventful. The first settlers, finding the planet hospitable, multiplied to an unprecedented density of population. Their system of life minimized social friction; there were no large wars, no plagues, no disasters except recurrent famine, which was endured with fortitude. A simple uncomplicated people were the Paonese, without religion or cult. They demanded small material rewards from life, but gave a correspondingly large importance to shifts of caste and status. They knew no competitive sports, but enjoyed gathering in enormous clots of ten or twenty million persons to chant the ancient drones. The typical Paonese farmed a small acreage, augmenting his income with a home craft or special trade. He showed small interest in politics; his hereditary ruler, the Panarch, exercised an absolute personal rule which reached out, through a vast civil service, into the most remote village. The word ‘career’ in Paonese was synonymous to employment with the civil service.

  In general, the government was sufficiently efficient, the Panarch not too flagrantly corrupt. In the event of unusual abuse the people countered with passive resistance, a vast surly inanition which neither threat, penalty nor blandishment could dissolve. It was a weapon used only seldom, but the fact of its existence held the normal human peccancy of the ruling caste within reasonable bounds.

  The language of Pao was derived from Waydalic but molded into peculiar forms. The Paonese sentence did not so much describe an act as it presented a picture of a situation. The language might be said to consist of nouns, suffixed post-positions, and temporal indexes; there were no verbs, no adjectives; no formal word comparison such as good, better, best. There were no words for ‘prestige’, ‘integrity’, ‘individuality’, ‘honor’, or ‘justice’; for the typical Paonese saw himself as a cork on a sea of a million waves, lofted, lowered, thrust aside by incomprehensible forces — if he thought of himself as a discrete personality at all. He was one of a uniform mass, a crowd of men distinguished only by the color, cut and weave of their clothes — highly significant symbols on Pao.

  He held his ruler in awe, but felt neither admiration, envy, loyalty nor reverence. He gave unquestioning obedience, and asked in return only dynastic continuity, for on Pao nothing must vary, nothing must change. The Panarch occupied a paradoxical position. He ruled, he made decisions, he loomed over the population like a mountain over the plain, and for this reason excited fearful respect. The average man faced only the most trivial choices: ritual and precedent shaped his every act. He prospered and suffered with the mass of his fellows, and could not help but feel that a person who lived unsupported, who dealt death and bestowed life, must be a man apart, with ice in his veins and a special fire burning inside his skull.

  But the Panarch, absolute tyrant though he might be, was also forced to conform. Here lay the paradox: the single inner-directed individual of Pao was allowed vices unthinkable and abhorrent to the average man. But he might not appear gay or frivolous; he must hold himself aloof from friendship; he must show himself seldom in public places. Most important of all, he must never seem indecisive or uncertain. To do so would break the archetype.

  Chapter II

  Pergolai, an islet in the Jhelianse Sea between Minamand and Dronamand, had been pre-empted and converted into an Arcadian retreat by Panarch Aiello Panasper. Every trace of former habitancy had been removed; forests had been transplanted into the old paddies, wildflowers seeded, a stream diverted to form a chain of ponds. At the head of a meadow bordered by Paonese bamboo and tall myrrh trees stood
Aiello’s lodge, an airy structure of white glass, carved stone and polished wood. The plan was simple: a residential tower, a service wing, and an octagonal pavilion with a pink marble dome. Here in the pavilion, at a carved ivory table, sat Aiello to his midday repast, wearing the Utter Black of his position. He was a large man, small-boned, well-fleshed. His silver-gray hair shone fine as a baby’s; he had a baby’s clear skin and wide unwinking stare. His mouth drooped, his eyebrows arched high, conveying a perpetual sense of sardonic and skeptical inquiry.

  To the right sat his brother Bustamonte, bearing the title Ayudor — a smaller man, with a shock of coarse dark hair, quick black eyes, knobs of muscles in his cheeks. Bustamonte was energetic beyond the usual Paonese norm. He had toured two or three nearby worlds, returning with a number of alien enthusiasms which had gained him the dislike and distrust of the Paonese population.

  On Aiello’s other side sat his son, Beran Panasper, the Medallion. He was a thin child, hesitant and diffident, with fragile features and long black hair, resembling Aiello only in his clear skin and wide eyes.

  Across the table sat a score of other men: functionaries of the government, petitioners, three commercial representatives from Mercantil, and a hawk-faced man in brown and gray who spoke to no one. With greater or less appetite they devoted themselves to food served in mother-of-pearl tureens by small sober-faced girls. Aiello was attended by special maids wearing long gowns striped with black and gold. Each dish served him was first tasted by Bustamonte — a custom residual from times when assassination was the rule rather than the exception. Another manifestation of this ancient caution could be found in the three Mamarone standing vigilant behind Aiello. These were enormous creatures tattooed dead-black — neutraloids with reservoirs of synthetic hormones in place of their procreative glands. They wore magnificent turbans of cerise and green, tight pantaloons of the same colors, chest emblems of white silk and silver, and carried shields of refrax to be locked in front of the Panarch in the event of danger.

  Aiello morosely nibbled his way through the prolonged meal and finally indicated that he was ready to conduct the business of the day.

  Vilnis Therobon, wearing the ocher and purple of Public Welfare, arose and came to stand before the Panarch. He stated his problem: the cereal farmers of the South Impland savannahs were beset by drought; he, Therobon, wished to bring water from across the Central Impland watershed, but had been unable to work out a satisfactory arrangement with the Minister of Irrigation. Aiello listened, asked a question or two, then, in a brief sentence, authorized a water-purification plant at the Koroi-Sherifte Isthmus, with a ten-thousand mile pipe-line network to take the water where needed.

  The Minister of Public Health spoke next. The population of Dronamand’s central plain had expanded past available housing. To build new dwellings would encroach upon land assigned to food production, and would hasten the famine already threatening. Aiello, munching a crescent of pickled melon, advised transportation of a million persons weekly to Nonamand, the bleak southern continent. In addition, all infants arriving to parents with more than two children should be subaqueated. These were the classical methods of population control; they would be accepted without resentment.

  Young Beran watched with fascination, awed by the vastness of his father’s power. He was seldom allowed to witness state business, for Aiello disliked children and showed only small concern for the upbringing of his son. Recently the Ayudor Bustamonte had interested himself in Beran, talking for hours on end, until Beran’s head grew heavy and his eyes drooped. They played odd games which bewildered Beran and left with him a peculiar uneasiness. And of late there had been blank spaces in his mind, lapses of memory.

  As Beran sat now at the ivory table in the pavilion, he held a small unfamiliar object in his hand. He could not recall where he had found it, but it seemed as if there were something he must do. He looked at his father, and felt a sudden hot panic. He gasped, clamped his teeth on his lower lip. He whispered feverishly to himself, Why should I do that, why do I feel this way? He found no answer. There was a roiling inside his head, a series of strains which left him dizzy. Bustamonte was looking at him, frowning. Beran felt awkward and guilty. He made a great effort, pulled himself erect in his chair. He must watch and listen, as Bustamonte had instructed him. Furtively he inspected the object he held in his hand. It was at once familiar and strange. As if in recollection from a dream, he knew he had use for this object — and again came the wave of panic.

  Beran tasted a bit of toasted fish-tail, but as usual lacked appetite. He felt the brush of eyes; someone was watching him. Turning his head, he met the gaze of the hawk-faced stranger in brown and gray. The man had an arresting face, long and thin with a high forehead, a wisp of mustache, a nose like the prow of a ship. His hair was glossy black, thick and short as fur. His eyes were set deep; his gaze, dark and magnetic, awoke all of Beran’s uneasiness. The object in his hand felt heavy and hot. He wanted to fling it down, but could not. His fingers refused to relax their grip. He sat sweating and miserable.

  The last man to be heard was Sigil Paniche, business representative from Mercantil, the planet of a nearby sun. Paniche was a thin man, quick and clever, with copper-colored skin and burnished hair, which he wore wound into knobs and fastened with turquoise clasps. He was a typical Mercantil, a salesman and trader, as essentially urban as the Paonese were people of soil and sea. His world sold to the entire cluster; Mercantil space-barges roved everywhere, delivering machinery, vehicles, air-craft, communication equipment, tools, weapons, power-generators, returning to Mercantil with food-stuffs, luxury hand-crafts and whatever raw material might be cheaper to import than to synthesize.

  Bustamonte whispered to Aiello, who shook his head. Bustamonte whispered more urgently; Aiello turned him a slow caustic side-glance. Bustamonte sat back sullenly.

  At a signal from Aiello, the captain of the Mamarone guard addressed the table in his soft scraped-steel voice. “By the Panarch’s order, all those who have completed their business will depart.” Chairs slid softly on the marble floor. The ministers arose, spread their arms in the Paonese gesture of respect, and departed.

  Across the table, only Sigil Paniche, his two aides, and the stranger in brown and gray remained.

  The Mercantil moved to a chair opposite Aiello; he bowed, seated himself, his aides coming to stand at his back.

  Panarch Aiello spoke an off-hand greeting; the Mercantil responded in broken Paonese.

  Aiello toyed with a bowl of brandied fruit, appraising the Mercantil. “Pao and Mercantil have traded for many centuries, Sigil Paniche.”

  The Mercantil bowed. “We fulfill the exact letter of our contracts — this is our creed.”

  Aiello laughed shortly. The Mercantil looked at him in surprise, but said nothing. “Trade with Pao has enriched you.”

  “We trade with twenty-eight worlds, Supremacy.”

  Aiello leaned back in his chair. “There are two matters I wish to discuss with you. You have just heard our need for water on Impland. We require an installation to demineralize an appropriate quantity of ocean-water. You may refer this matter to your engineers.”

  “I am at your orders, sir.”*

  * The Paonese and Mercantil languages were as disparate as the two ways of living. The Panarch, making the statement, ‘There are two matters I wish to discuss with you’, used words which, accurately rendered, would read: Statement-of-importance (a single word in Paonese) — in a state of readiness — two; ear — of Mercantil — in a state of readiness; mouth — of this person here — in a state of volition. The italicized words represent suffixes of condition.

  The necessary paraphrasing makes the way of speaking seem cumbersome. But the Paonese sentence, ‘Rhomel-en-shrai bogal-Mercantil-nli-en mous-es-nli-ro.’ requires only three more phonemes than, “There are two matters I wish to discuss with you.”

  The Mercantil express themselves in neat quanta of precise information. ‘I am at your orders, s
ir.’ Literally translated this is: I — Ambassador — here-now gladly-obey the just-spoken-orders of-you — Supreme Royalty — here-now heard and understood.

  Aiello spoke in a level emotionless voice, almost casual. “We have ordered from you, and you have delivered, large quantities of military equipment.”

  Sigil Paniche bowed agreement. With no outward sign or change he suddenly seemed uneasy. “We fulfilled the exact requirements of your order.”

  “I cannot agree with you,” Aiello responded.

  Sigil Paniche became stiff; his words were even more formal than before. “I assure Your Supremacy that I personally checked delivery. The equipment was exactly as described in order and invoice.”

  Aiello went on in his coldest tones. “You delivered sixty-four* barrage monitors, 512 patrol flitters, a large number of multiple resonators, energetics, wasps and hand-weapons. These accord with the original order.”

  * The Paonese number system is based on the number 8. Hence, a Paonese 100 is 64, 1000 is 512, etc.

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “However, you knew the purpose behind this order.”

  Sigil Paniche bowed his copper-bright head. “You refer to conditions on the planet Batmarsh.”

  “Just so. The Dolberg dynasty has been eliminated. A new dynasty, the Brumbos, have assumed power. New Batch rulers customarily undertake military ventures.”

  “Such is the tradition,” agreed the Mercantil.

  “You have supplied these adventurers with armament.”

  Sigil Paniche once again agreed. “We sell to any who will buy. We have done so for many years — you must not reproach us for this.”

  Aiello raised his eyebrows. “I do not do so. I reproach you for selling us standard models while offering the Brumbo Clan equipment against which you guarantee we will be powerless.”