by Jack Vance
Another subject enjoyed a furtive currency among the students: the subject of age and death. The topic was more or less taboo — especially in the presence of a dominie — for no one died of disease or corporeal degeneration on Breakness. The dominies ranged the universe; a certain number met violent ends in spite of their built-in weapons and defenses. The greater number, however, passed their years on Breakness, unchanging except for perhaps a slight gauntness and angularity of the bone structure. And then, inexorably the dominie would approach his Emeritus status: he would become less precise, more emotional; egocentricity would begin to triumph over the essential social accommodations; there would be outbursts of petulance, wrath, and a final megalomania — and then the Emeritus would disappear.
Beran, shy and lacking fluency, at first held aloof from the discussions. As he acquired facility with the language, he began to join the discussions, and after a period of polemic trouncings, found himself capable of fair success. These experiences provided him the first glow of pleasure he had known on Breakness.
Interrelationships between the students were formal, neither amiable nor contentious. Of intense interest to the youth of Breakness was the subject of procreation in every possible ramification. Beran, conditioned to Paonese standards of modesty, was at first distressed, but familiarity robbed the topic of its sting. He found that prestige on Breakness was a function not only of intellectual achievement but also of the number of females in one’s dormitory, the number of sons which passed the acceptance tests, the degree of resemblance in physique and mind with the sire, and the sons’ own achievements. Certain of the dominies were highly respected in these regards, and ever more regularly was the name of Lord Palafox heard.
When Beran entered his fifteenth year, Palafox’s repute rivalled that of Lord Karollen Vampellte, High Dominie of the Institute. Beran was unable to restrain a sense of identification and so pride.
A year or two after puberty, a youth of the Institute might expect to be presented with a girl by his sire. In expectation of this occasion, the pubescent youths spent considerable time at the space terminal where they might inspect the broods of incoming women.
In solemn groups they stood to the side, making grave appraisals, speculating on the planet of origin of some particular individual, calling to mind the sexual customs of the particular planet, and occasionally, if language permitted, verifying their speculations by putting a series of searching questions.
Beran, attaining this particular stage in his development, was a youth of pleasant appearance, rather slender, almost frail. His hair was a dark brown, his eyes gray and wide, his expression pensive. Due to his exotic origin and a certain native diffidence, he was seldom party to what small group activity existed. When he finally felt the pre-adult stirrings in his blood and began to think of the girl whom he might expect to receive from Palafox, he went alone to the space terminal.
He chose a day on which the transport from Journal was due, and arriving just as the lighter dropped down from the orbiting ship, found the terminal in apparent confusion. To one side, in quiet, almost stolid ranks, stood women at the end of their indentures, together with their girl children and those boys who had failed the Breakness tests. Their ages ranged from twenty-five to thirty-five; they would now return to their home-worlds as wealthy women, with most of their lives before them.
The lighter slid its nose under the shelter, the doors opened; young women trooped forth, looking curiously to right and left, swaying and dancing to the blast of the wind. Unlike the women at the ends of their indentures, these were volatile and nervous, parading their defiance, concealing their apprehension. Their eyes roved everywhere, curious to find what sort of man would claim them.
Beran looked on in fascination. The women in their early maturity he disregarded, but the girls seemed easy and graceful, visions of erotic delight. Almost all were older than himself; but a few were barely past the age of puberty.
The newcomers noticed the other women, those waiting to depart; the two groups examined each other in covert fascination.
A squad-leader gave a terse order; the incoming broods filed across the terminal to be registered and receipted; Beran strolled closer, sidling toward one of the younger girls. She turned wide sea-green eyes on him, then swung suddenly away. Beran moved forward — then stopped short. These women puzzled him. There was a sense of familiarity to them, the redolence of a pleasant past. He listened as they spoke among themselves. Their language was one he knew well.
He stood beside the girl. She observed him without friendliness.
“You are Paonese,” Beran exclaimed in wonder. “What do Paonese women do on Breakness?”
“The same as any other.”
“But this has never been the case!”
“You know very little of Pao,” she said bitterly.
“No no,” said Beran, anxious for the girl’s approval. “I am Paonese!”
“Then you must know what occurs on Pao.”
Beran shook his head. “I have been here since the death of Panarch Aiello.”
She spoke in a low voice, looking off across the terminal. “You chose well, for things go poorly. Bustamonte is a madman.”
“He sends women to Breakness?” Beran asked in a hushed husky voice.
“A hundred* a month — we who have been dispossessed or made orphans by the turmoil.”
* (In Paonese, 64.)
Beran’s voice failed. He tried to speak; while he was stammering a question, she began to move away. “Wait!” croaked Beran, running along beside. “What turmoil is this?”
“I cannot wait,” the girl said bitterly. “I am indentured, I must do as I am bid.”
“Where do you go? To the dormitory of what lord?”
“I am in the service of Lord Palafox.”
Beran stopped short. He stared after the retreating figure. A vehicle waited at the door. Beran ran forward, to the side of the girl who ignored him.
“What is your name?” Beran demanded. “Tell me your name!”
Embarrassed and uncertain, she said nothing. Two paces more and she would be gone, lost in the anonymity of the dormitory. “Tell me your name! I shall claim you as my bride. Lord Palafox, whom I know well, who is all powerful here, will not refuse me.”
She spoke swiftly over her shoulder: “Gitan Netsko —” then passed through the door and out of his sight. The vehicle moved off the ramp, swayed in the wind, drifted down slope and was gone.
Beran walked slowly down from the terminal, a small figure on the mountainside, leaning and stumbling against the wind. He passed among the houses, and arrived at the house of Palafox.
Outside the door he hesitated, picturing the tall figure within. He summoned the whole of his resources, tapped the escutcheon plate. The door opened; he entered.
At this hour Palafox might well be in his lower study. Down the familiar steps Beran walked, past the remembered rooms of stone and valuable Breakness hardwood. At one time he had considered the house harsh and bleak; now he could see it to be subtly beautiful, perfectly suited to the environment.
As he had expected, Palafox sat in his study; and, warned by a stimulus from one of his modifications, was expecting him.
Beran came slowly forward, staring into the inquiring but unsympathetic face, and plunged immediately into the heart of his subject. It was useless to attempt deviousness with Palafox. “I was at the terminal today. I saw Paonese women, who came here unwillingly. They speak of turmoil and hardship. What is happening on Pao?”
Palafox considered Beran a moment, then nodded with faint amusement. “I see. You are old enough now to frequent the terminal. Do you find any women suitable for your personal use?”
Beran bit his lips. “I am concerned by what must be happening on Pao. Never before have our people been so degraded!”
Palafox pretended shock. “But serving a Breakness dominie is by no means degradation!”
Beran, feeling that he had scored a point on his red
oubtable opponent, took heart. “Still you have not answered my question.”
“That is true,” said Palafox. He motioned to a chair. “Sit down — I will describe to you exactly what is taking place.” Beran gingerly seated himself. Palafox surveyed him through half-closed eyes. “Your information as to turmoil and hardship on Pao is half-true. Something of this nature exists, regrettably but unavoidably.”
Beran was puzzled. “There are droughts? Plagues? Famines?”
“No,” said Palafox. “None of these. There is only social change. Bustamonte is embarked on a novel but courageous venture. You remember the invasion from Batmarsh?”
“Yes, but where …”
“Bustamonte wants to prevent any recurrence of this shameful event. He is developing a corps of warriors for the defense of Pao. For their use he has appointed the Hylanth Littoral of the continent Shraimand. The old population has been removed. A new group, trained to military ideals and speaking a new language, has taken their place. On Vidamand, Bustamonte is using similar means to create an industrial complex, in order to make Pao independent of Mercantil.”
Beran fell silent, impressed by the scope of these tremendous schemes, but there were still doubts in his mind. Palafox waited patiently. Beran frowned uncertainly, bit at his knuckle, and finally blurted out: “But the Paonese have never been warriors or mechanics — they know nothing of these things! How can Bustamonte succeed with this plan?”
“You must remember,” said Palafox drily, “that I advise Bustamonte.”
There was an unsettling corollary to Palafox’s statement — the bargain which evidently existed between himself and Bustamonte. Beran suppressed the thought of it, put it to the back of his mind. He asked in a subdued voice, “Was it necessary to drive the inhabitants from their homes?”
“Yes. There could be no tincture of the old language or the old ways.”
Beran, a native Paonese, aware that mass tragedy was a commonplace of Paonese history, was able to accept the force of Palafox’s explanation. “These new people — will they be true Paonese?”
Palafox seemed surprised. “Why should they not? They’ll be of Paonese blood, born and bred on Pao, loyal to no other source.”
Beran opened his mouth to speak, closed it again dubiously.
Palafox waited, but Beran, while patently not happy, could find no logical voice to give his emotions.
“Now tell me,” said Palafox, in a different tone of voice, “how goes it at the Institute?”
“Very well. I have completed the fourth of my theses — the provost found matter to interest him in my last independent essay.”
“And what was the subject?”
“An expansion upon the Paonese vitality-word praesens, with an effort at transposition into Breakness attitudes.”
Palafox’s voice took on something of an edge. “And how do you so easily analyze the mind of Breakness?”
Beran, surprised at the implied disapproval, nevertheless answered without diffidence. “Surely it is a person such as I, neither of Pao nor of Breakness, but part of both, who can best make comparisons.”
“Better, in this case, than one such as I?”
Beran considered carefully. “I have no basis for comparison.”
Palafox stared hard at him, then laughed. “I must call for your essay and study it. Are you determined yet upon the basic direction of your studies?”
Beran shook his head. “There are a dozen possibilities. At the moment I find myself absorbed by human history, by the possibility of pattern and its peculiar absence. But I have much to learn, many authorities to consult, and perhaps this form will eventually make itself known to me.”
“It seems that you follow the inspiration of Dominie Arbursson, the Teleologist.”
“I have studied his ideas,” said Beran.
“Ah, and they do not interest you?”
Beran made another careful reply. “Lord Arbursson is a Breakness dominie. I am Paonese.”
Palafox laughed shortly. “The form of your statement implies an equivalence between the two conditions of being.”
Beran, wondering at Palafox’s testiness, made no comment.
“Well then,” said Palafox, a trifle heavily, “it seems as if you are going your way and making progress.” He eyed Beran up and down. “And you have been frequenting the terminal.”
Beran, influenced by Paonese attitudes, blushed. “Yes.”
“Then it becomes time that you began practicing procreation. No doubt you are well-versed in the necessary theory?”
“The students of my age talk of little else,” said Beran. “If it please you, Lord Palafox, today at the terminal …”
“So now we learn the source of your trouble, eh? Well then, what is her name?”
“Gitan Netsko,” Beran said huskily.
“Await me here.” Palafox strode from the room.
Twenty minutes later he appeared in the doorway, signaled to Beran. “Come.”
A domed air-car waited outside the house. Within, a small forlorn figure sat huddled. Palafox fixed Beran with a stern gaze.
“It is customary that sire provide son with education, his first female, and a modicum of dispassionate counsel. You already are profiting by the education — in the car is the one of your choice, and you may also retain the car. Here is the counsel, and mark it well, for never will you receive more valuable! Monitor your thoughts for traces of Paonese mysticism and sentimentality. Isolate these impulses — make yourself aware of them, but do not necessarily try to expunge them, because then their influence subverts to a deeper, more basic, level.” Palafox held up his hand in one of the striking Breakness gestures. “I have now acquitted myself of my responsibilities. I wish you a successful career, a hundred sons of great achievement, and the respectful envy of your peers.” Palafox bowed his head formally.
“Thank you,” said Beran with equal formality. He turned and walked through the howl of the wind to the car.
The girl, Gitan Netsko, looked up as he entered, then turned her eyes away and stared out across great Wind River.
Beran sat quiet, his heart too full for words. At last he reached out, took her hand. It was limp and cool; her face was quiet.
Beran tried to convey what was in his mind. “You are now in my care … I am Paonese …”
“Lord Palafox has assigned me to serve you,” she said in a measured passionless voice.
Beran sighed. He felt miserable and full of qualms: the Paonese mysticism and sentimentality Palafox had expressly counseled him to suppress. He raised the car into the wind; then slid downhill to the dormitory. He conducted her to his room with conflicting emotions.
They stood in the austere little room, surveying each other uneasily. “Tomorrow,” said Beran, “I will arrange for better quarters. It is too late today.”
The girl’s eyes had been growing fuller and fuller; now she sank upon the couch, and suddenly began to weep — slow tears of loneliness, humiliation, grief.
Beran, feeling full of guilt, went to sit beside her. He took her hand, stroked it, muttered consoling words, which she clearly never heard. It was his first intimate contact with grief; it disturbed him tremendously.
The girl was speaking in a low monotone. “My father was a kind man — never did he harm a living creature. Our home was almost a thousand years old. Its timber was black with age and all the stone grew moss. We lived beside Mervan Pond, with our yarrow field behind, and our plum orchard up the slope of Blue Mountain. When the agents came and ordered us to leave, my father was astonished. Leave our old home? A joke! Never! They spoke only three words and my father was angry and pale and silent. Still we did not move. And the next time they came …” the sad voice dwindled away; tears made soft marks on Beran’s arm.
“It will be mended!” said Beran, his abstract humanitarianism forgot, his mind fired with fury.
She shook her head. “Impossible … And I would as soon be dead too.”
“No, never say
that!” Beran sought to comfort her. He stroked her hair, kissed her cheek. He could not help himself — the contact aroused him, his caresses became more intimate. She made no resistance. Indeed she seemed to welcome the love-making as a distraction from her grief. Presently, in their various ways exhausted, they fell asleep.
They awoke early in the morning dimness, while the sky was still the color of cast iron, the slope black and featureless as tar, Wind River a roaring darkness.
After a while Beran said, “You know so very little about me — are you not curious?”
Gitan Netsko made a noncommittal sound, and Beran felt a trifle nettled.
“I am Paonese,” he said earnestly. “I was born in Eiljanre fifteen years ago. Temporarily I live on Breakness.”
He paused, expecting her to inquire the reason for his exile, but she turned her head, looking up through the high narrow window into the sky.
“Meanwhile I study at the Institute,” said Beran. “Until last night I was uncertain — I knew not where I would specialize. Now I know! I will become a Dominie of Linguistics!”
Gitan Netsko turned her head, looked at him. Beran was unable to read the emotion in her eyes. They were wide eyes, sea-green, striking in her pale face. He knew her to be younger than himself by a year, but meeting her gaze, he felt unsure, ineffectual, absurd.
“What are you thinking?” he asked plaintively.
She shrugged. “Very little …”
“Oh, come!” He bent over her, kissed her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. She made neither resistance nor response. Beran began to worry. “Do you dislike me? Have I annoyed you?”
“No,” she said in a soft voice. “How could you? So long as I am under indenture to a man of Breakness, my feelings mean nothing.”
Beran jerked upright. “But I am no man of Breakness! It is as I told you! I am Paonese!”
Gitan Netsko made no response and seemed to lapse into a private world.
