by Jack Vance
The idea seemed not only logical but likely. The lighter drew alongside; Beran went aboard. The other linguists broke into an old Paonese chant, waggishly rendered into Pastiche.
The lighter eased down upon the field; the exit ports opened. The others tumbled happily forth; Beran pulled himself to his feet, warily followed. There was no one at hand but the usual attendants. He drew a great breath, looked all around the field. The time was early afternoon; fleecy clouds floated in a sky which was the very essence of blue. The sun fell warm on his face. Beran felt an almost religious happiness. He would never leave Pao again, in life or in death; if subaqueation awaited him, he preferred it to life on Breakness.
The linguists marched off the field, into the shabby old terminal. There was no one to meet them, a fact which only Beran, accustomed to the automatic efficiency of Breakness, found extraordinary. Looking around the faces of his fellows, he thought, I am changed. Palafox did his worst upon me. I love Pao, but I am no longer Paonese. I am tainted with the flavor of Breakness; I can never be truly and wholly a part of this world again — or of any other world. I am dispossessed, eclectic; I am Pastiche.
Beran separated himself from the others, went to the portal, looked down the tree-shaded boulevard toward Eiljanre. He could step forth, lose himself in a moment.
But where would he go? If he appeared at the palace, he would receive the shortest of shrift. Beran had no wish to farm, to fish, to carry loads. Thoughtfully he turned back, rejoined the linguists. It was always possible that his imposture might be discovered, but Paonese records were hardly precise enough to make this event likely.
The official welcoming committee arrived; one of the dignitaries performed a congratulatory declamation, the linguists made formal appreciation. They were then ushered aboard a bus and taken to one of the rambling Eiljanre inns.
Beran, scanning the streets, was puzzled. His imagination had depicted repression and terror; he saw only the usual Paonese ease. Naturally, this was Eiljanre, not the resettled areas of Shraimand and Vidamand — but surely the sheer reflection of Bustamonte’s tyranny must leave a mark! Yet … the faces along the avenue were placid.
The bus entered the Cantatrino, a great park with three artificial mountains and a lake, the memorial of an ancient Panarch for his dead daughter, the fabulous Can. The bus passed a moss-draped arch, where the park authority had arranged a floral portrait of Panarch Bustamonte. Someone had expressed his feelings with a handful of black slime. A small sign — but it revealed much, for the Paonese seldom made political judgments.
Ercole Paraio was assigned to the Progress School at Cloeopter, on the shores of Zelambre Bay, at the north of Vidamand. This was the area designated by Bustamonte to be the manufacturing and industrial center for all Pao. The school was located in an ancient stone monastery, built by the first settlers to a purpose long forgotten.
In the great cool halls, full of green leaf-filtered sunlight, children of all ages lived to the sound of the Technicant language, and were instructed according to a special doctrine of causality in the use of power machinery, mathematics, elementary science, engineering and manufacturing processes. The classes were conducted in well-equipped rooms and work-shops; although the students were quartered in hastily erected dormitories of poles and canvas to either side of the monastery. Girls and boys alike wore maroon coveralls and cloth caps, studied and worked with adult intensity. After hours there were no restraints upon their activities so long as they remained on school grounds.
The students were fed, clothed, housed and furnished only with the essentials. If they desired luxuries, play equipment, special tools, private rooms, these could be earned by producing articles for use elsewhere in Pao, and almost all of the student’s spare time was devoted to small industrial ventures. They produced toys, pottery, simple electrical devices, aluminum ingots reduced from nearby ore, and even periodicals printed in Technicant. A group of eight-year students had joined in a more elaborate project: a plant to extract minerals from the ocean, and to this end spent all their funds for the necessary equipment.
The instructors were for the most part young Breakness dons. From the first, Beran was perplexed by a quality he was unable to locate, let alone identify; only after he had lived at Cloeopter two months did the source of the oddness come to him. It lay in the similarity which linked these Breakness dons. Once Beran had come this far, total enlightenment followed. These youths were all sons of Palafox. The name was never spoken in Beran’s hearing, and probably — so Beran conjectured — never out of it.
Surely they were aware of their common parentage. The situation was strange, provocative to the imagination. What could they gain on this alien planet? By all tradition they should be engrossed in their most intensive studies at the Institute, preparing themselves for the Authority, earning modifications. But no, here they worked at an occupation they must regard as menial. Beran found the entire situation mysterious.
His own duties were simple enough, and in terms of Paonese culture, highly rewarding. The director of the school, an appointee of Bustamonte’s, in theory, controlled the scope and policy of the school, but his responsibility was only nominal. Beran served as his interpreter, translating into Technicant such remarks that the director saw fit to make. For this service he was housed in a handsome cottage of cobbles and hand-hewn timber, a former farmhouse, paid a good salary and allowed a special uniform of gray-green with black and white trim.
A year passed. Beran took a melancholy interest in his work, and even found himself participating in the ambitions and plans of the students. He tried to compensate by describing with cautious enthusiasm the ideals of old Pao, but met blank unconcern. More interesting were the technical miracles they believed he must have witnessed in the Breakness laboratories.
During one of his holidays Beran made a dolorous pilgrimage to the old home of Gitan Netsko, a few miles inland. With some difficulty he found the old farm beside Mervan Pond. It was now deserted; the green glass windows were dusty and cracked, the timber dry, the fields of yarrow overgrown with thief-grass. He seated himself on a rotting bench under a low tree, and to his mind came sad images …
He climbed the slope of Blue Mountain, looked back over the valley. The solitude astonished him. Across all the horizon, over a fertile land once thronged with population, there was now no movement other than the flight of birds. Millions of human beings had been removed, most to other continents, but others had preferred to lie with their ancestral earth over them. And the flower of the land — the most beautiful and intelligent of the girls — had been transported to Breakness, to pay the debts of Bustamonte.
Beran despondently returned to Zelambre Bay. Theoretically it lay within his power to rectify the injustice — if he could find some means to regain his rightful authority. The difficulties seemed insuperable. He felt inept, incapable …
Driven by his dissatisfaction, he deliberately put himself in the way of danger, and journeyed north to Eiljanre. He took a room in the old Moravi Inn, on the Tidal Canal, directly opposite the walls of the Grand Palace. His hand hesitated over the register; he restrained the reckless impulse to scrawl Beran Panasper, and finally noted himself as Ercole Paraio.
The capital city seemed gay enough. Was it his imagination that detected an underlying echo of anger, uncertainty, hysteria? Perhaps not: the Paonese lived in the present, as the syntax of their language and the changeless rhythm of the Paonese day impelled them.
In a mood of cynical curiosity, he checked through the archives of the Muniment Library. Nine years back, he found the last mention of his name: “During the night the alien assassins poisoned the beloved young Medallion. Thus, tragically, the direct succession of the Panaspers ends, and the collateral line stemming from Panarch Bustamonte begins, with all auspices indicating tenure of extreme duration.”
Irresolute, unconvinced, without power to enforce any resolution or conviction he might have settled upon, Beran returned to the school on Zelambre B
ay.
Another year passed by. The Technicants grew older, more numerous, and greatly more expert. Four small fabrication systems were established, producing tools, plastic sheet, industrial chemicals, meters and gauges; a dozen others were in prospect, and it seemed as if this particular phase of Bustamonte’s dream, at least, were to prove successful.
At the end of two years Beran was transferred to Pon, on Nonamand, the bleak island continent in the southern hemisphere. The transfer came as an unpleasant surprise, for Beran had established an easy routine at Zelambre Bay. Even more unsettling was the discovery that routine had become preferable to change. At the age of twenty-one, was he already enervated? Where were his hopes, his resolutions; had he so easily discarded them? Angry at himself, furious at Bustamonte, he rode the transport southeast across the rolling farmlands of South Vidamand, over the Plarth, across the orchards and vines of Minamand’s Qurai Peninsula, across that long peculiar bight known as The Serpent, over the green island Fraevarth with its innumerable white villages, and across the Great Sea of the South. The Cliffs of Nonamand rose ahead, passed below, fell behind; they flew into the barren heart of the continent. Never before had Beran visited Nonamand, and the wind-whipped moors covered with thunder-stones, black gorse, contorted cypress seemed completely un-Paonese.
Ahead loomed the Sgolaph Mountains, the highest of all Pao. And suddenly they were over ice-crusted crags of basalt, in a land of glaciers, barren valleys, rushing white rivers. The transport circled the shattered cusp of Mount Droghead, swung quickly down upon a bare plateau, and Beran had arrived at Pon.
The settlement was reminiscent in spirit, if not in appearance, of Breakness Institute. A number of dwellings spread haphazardly to the contour of the terrain, surrounding a central clot of more massive buildings. These, so Beran learned, comprised laboratories, classrooms, a library, dormitories, refectories and an administration building.
Almost immediately Beran conceived a vast dislike for the settlement. Cogitant, the language spoken by the Paonese indoctrinees, was a simplified Breakness, shorn of several quasi-conditional word-orders, and with considerably looser use of pronouns. Nonetheless the atmosphere of the settlement was pure Breakness, even to the costumes affected by the ‘dominies’ — actually high-ranking dons. The countryside, while by no means as fierce as that of Breakness, was nevertheless forbidding. A dozen times Beran contemplated requesting a transfer, but each time restrained himself. He had no wish to call attention to himself, with the possibility of exposing his true identity.
The teaching staff, like that of the Zelambre schools, consisted primarily of young Breakness dons, and, again, they were all sons of Palafox. In residence were a dozen Paonese sub-ministers, representatives of Bustamonte, and Beran’s function was to maintain coordination between the two groups.
A situation which aroused considerable uneasiness in Beran was the fact that Finisterle, the Breakness don who knew Beran’s true identity, also worked at Pon. Three times Beran, with pounding heart, managed to slip aside before Finisterle could notice him, but on the fourth occasion the meeting could not be avoided. Finisterle made only the most casual of acknowledgements and passed on, leaving Beran staring after him.
In the next few weeks Beran saw Finisterle a number of times, and at last entered into guarded conversation. Finisterle’s comments were the very definition of indirection.
Beran divined that Finisterle was anxious to continue his studies at the Institute, but remained at Pon for three reasons: first, it was the wish of his sire, Lord Palafox. Second, Finisterle felt that opportunity to breed sons of his own was easier on Pao than on Breakness. With so much, he was comparatively candid; the third reason was told more by his silences than his words. He seemed to regard Pao as a world in flux, a place of vast potentialities, where great power and prestige might be had by a person sufficiently deft and decisive.
What of Palafox? Beran wondered.
What of Palafox indeed, Finisterle seemed to say, and looking off across the plateau, apparently changed the subject. “Strange to think that even these crags, the Sgolaph, will some day be eroded to peneplain. And on the other hand, the most innocent hillock may erupt into a volcano.”
These concepts were beyond dispute, said Beran.
Finisterle propounded another apparently paradoxical law of nature: “The more forceful and capacious the brain of a dominie, the more wild and violent its impulses when it succumbs to sclerosis and its owner becomes an Emeritus.”
But it was not Finisterle who gave Beran the greatest jolt. Several months later, Beran, leaving the administration headquarters, came face to face with Palafox.
Beran froze in his tracks; Palafox stared down from his greater height.
Summoning his composure, Beran performed the Paonese gesture of greeting. Palafox returned a sardonic acknowledgement. “I am surprised to see you here,” said Palafox. “I had assumed that you were diligently pursuing your education on Breakness.”
“I learned a great deal,” said Beran. “And then I lost all heart for further learning.”
Palafox’s eyes glinted. “Education is not achieved through the heart — it is a systematization of the mental processes.”
“But I am something other than a mental process,” said Beran. “I am a man. I must reckon with the whole of myself.”
Palafox was thinking, his eyes first contemplating Beran, then sliding along the line of the Sgolaph crags. When he spoke his voice was amiable, although the sense of his words was obscure. “There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.”
Beran understood the meaning latent in Palafox’s rather general remarks. “Since you had assured me that you took no further interest in my future, it was necessary that I act for myself. I did so, and returned to Pao.”
Palafox nodded. “Beyond question, events took place outside the radius of my control. Still these rogue circumstances are often as advantageous as the most carefully nurtured plans.”
“Please continue to neglect me in your calculations,” said Beran in a carefully passionless voice. “I have learned to enjoy the sense of free action.”
Palafox laughed with an untypical geniality. “Well said! And what do you think of new Pao?”
“I am puzzled. I have formed no single conviction.”
“Understandable. There are a million facts at a thousand different levels to be assessed and reconciled. Confusion is inevitable unless you are driven by a basic ambition, as I am and as is Panarch Bustamonte. For us, these facts can be separated into categories: favorable and unfavorable.”
He stepped back a pace, inspected Beran from head to foot. “Evidently you occupy yourself as a linguist.”
Beran made a rather reluctant admission that this was so.
“If for no other reason,” said Palafox, “you should feel gratitude to me and Breakness Institute.”
“Gratitude would be a misleading oversimplification.”
“Possibly so,” agreed Palafox. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must hurry to my appointment with the Director.”
“One moment,” said Beran. “I am perplexed. You seem not at all disturbed by my presence on Pao. Do you plan to inform Bustamonte?”
Palafox showed restiveness at the direct question; it was one which a Breakness dominie would never have deigned to make. “I plan no interference in your affairs.” He hesitated a moment, then spoke in a new and confidential manner. “If you must know, circumstances have altered. Panarch Bustamonte becomes more headstrong as the years go by, and your presence may serve a useful purpose.”
Beran angrily started to speak, but observing Palafox’s faintly amused expression held his tongue. After all, Palafox need speak but a single sentence to bring about his death.
“I must be on to my business,” said Palafox. “Events proceed at an ever accelerating tempo. The next year or two will resolve a number of uncertain
ties.”
Three weeks after his encounter with Palafox, Beran was transferred to Deirombona on Shraimand, where a multitude of infants, heirs to five thousand years of Paonese placidity, had been immersed in a plasm of competitiveness. Many of these were now only a few years short of manhood.
Deirombona was the oldest inhabited site on Pao, a sprawling low city of coral block in a forest of phaltorhyncus. For some reason not readily apparent, the city had been evacuated of its two million inhabitants. Deirombona Harbor remained in use; a few administrative offices had been given over to Valiant affairs; otherwise the old buildings lay stark as skeletons, bleaching under the tall trees. In the Colonial Sector, a few furtive vagrants lurked among the apartment blocks, venturing forth at night to scavenge and loot. They risked subaqueation, but since the authorities would hardly comb the maze of streets, alleys, cellars, houses, stores, warehouses, apartments and public buildings, the vagrants considered themselves secure.
Ten Valiant cantonments had been established at intervals up the coast, each headquarters to a legion of Myrmidons, as the Valiant warriors called themselves.
Beran had been assigned to the Deirombona Legion, and had at his disposal all the abandoned city in which to find living quarters. He selected an airy cottage on the old Lido, and was able to make himself extremely comfortable.
In many ways the Valiants were the most interesting of all the new Paonese societies. They were easily the most dramatic. Like the Technicants of Zelambre Bay and the Cogitants of Pon, the Valiants were a race of youths, the oldest not yet Beran’s age. They made a strange glittering spectacle as they strode through the Paonese sunlight, arms swinging, eyes fixed straight ahead in mystical exaltation. Their garments were intricate and of many colors, but each wore a personal device on his chest, legion insignia on his back.
