by Jack Vance
Beran was not thawed by unexpected cordiality. “I would understand better had we discussed these plans over a period of time.”
Palafox chuckled genially. “Impossible, estimable Panarch. You must accept the fact that we here at Pon function as a General Staff. We have prepared dozens of programs of greater or less complexity, suitable for various situations. This is the first pattern of events to mesh with one of the plans.”
“What, then, is the pattern of events?”
“Tomorrow three million persons attend the Pamalisthen Drones. You will appear, make yourself known. Television will convey your face and your words elsewhere on Pao.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
Beran chewed his lips, angry both at his own uneasiness and at Palafox’s indomitable affability. “What exactly is the program?”
“It is of the utmost simplicity. The Drones commence at an hour after dawn and continue until noon. At this time is the pause. There will be a rumor-passing, and you will be expected. You will appear wearing Black. You will speak.” Palafox handed Beran a sheet of paper. “These few sentences should be sufficient.”
Beran dubiously glanced down the lines of script. “I hope events work out as you plan. I want no bloodshed, no violence.”
Palafox shrugged. “It is impossible to foretell the future. If things go well, no one will suffer except Bustamonte.”
“And if things go poorly?”
Palafox laughed. “The ocean bottom is the rendezvous for those who plan poorly.”
Chapter XV
Across the Hyaline Gulf from Eiljanre was Mathiole, a region of special and peculiar glamour. There were romantic dells and waterfalls, mountains which swept across the sky with dashing and delicate outlines. The trees of the land grew with a distinctive flair, the flowers glowed with prismatic light, the waters seemed derived from dew. In the folktales of early Pao, when episodes of fantasy and romance occurred, Mathiole was inevitably the locale.
To the south of Mathiole was the Pamalisthen, a verdant plain of farms and orchards arranged like pleasure-glades. Here were seven cities, forming the apices of a great heptagon; and at the very center was Festival Field, where drones took place. Among all the numerous gatherings, convocations and Grand Massings of Pao, the Pamalisthen Drones were accorded the highest prestige.
Long before dawn, on the Eighth Day of the Eighth Week of the Eighth Month, Festival Field began to fill. Small fires flickered by the thousands; a susurration rose from the plain.
With dawn came throngs more: families gravely gay, in the Paonese fashion. The small children wore clean white smocks, the adolescents school uniforms with various blazons on their shoulders, the adults in the styles and colors befitting their place in society.
The sun rose, generating the blue, white and yellow of a Paonese day. The crowds pressed into the field: millions of individuals standing shoulder to shoulder, speaking only in hushed whispers, but for the most part silent, each person testing his identification with the crowd, adding his soul to the amalgam, withdrawing a sense of rapturous strength.
The first whispers of the drone began: long sighs of sound, intervals of silence between. The sighs grew louder and the silences shorter, and presently the drones were in full pitch — a not-quite-inchoate progression, without melody or tonality: a harmony of three million parts, shifting and fluctuating, but always of definite emotional texture.
The moods shifted in a spontaneous but ordained sequence, moods stately and abstract, in the same relationship to jubilation or woe that a valley full of mist bears to a fountain of diamonds.
Hours passed, the drones grew higher in pitch, rather more insistent and urgent. When the sun was two-thirds up the sky, a long black saloon-flyer appeared from the direction of Eiljanre. It sank quietly to a low eminence at the far end of the field. Those who had taken places here were thrust down into the plain, barely escaping the descending hull. A few curious loitered, peering in through the glistening ports. A squad of neutraloids in magenta and blue debarked and drove them off with silent efficiency.
Four servants brought forth first a black and brown carpet, then a polished black wooden chair with black cushioning.
Across the plain, the drones took on a subtly different character, perceptible only to a Paonese ear.
Bustamonte, emerging from the black saloon, was Paonese. He perceived and understood. His round white face compacted into a frown, he glanced from right to left across the multitude as if seeking one to fix guilt upon.
The drones continued. The mode changed once more as if Bustamonte’s arrival were no more than a transient trifle — a slight more pungent, even, than the original chord of dislike and mockery.
Down the ordained progression of changes went the drones. Shortly before noon the sound ceased. The crowd quivered and moved; a sigh of satisfied achievement rose and died. The crowd changed color and texture, as all who could do so squatted to the ground.
Bustamonte grasped the arms of his chair to rise. The crowd was in its most receptive state, sensitized and aware. He clicked on his shoulder microphone, stepped forward to speak.
A great gasp came from the plain, a sound of vast astonishment and delight.
All eyes were fixed on the sky over Bustamonte’s head, where a great rectangle of rippling black velvet had appeared, bearing the blazon of the Panasper Dynasty. Below, in mid-air, stood a solitary figure. He wore short black trousers, black boots, and a rakish black cape clipped over one shoulder. He spoke; the sound echoed over all Festival Field.
“Paonese: I am your Panarch. I am Beran, son to Aiello, scion of the ancient Panasper Dynasty. Many years I have lived in exile, growing to my maturity. Bustamonte has served as Ayudor. He has made mistakes — now I have come to supersede him. I hereby call on Bustamonte to acknowledge me, to make an orderly transfer of authority. Bustamonte, speak!”
Bustamonte had already spoken. A dozen neutraloids ran forward with rifles, knelt, aimed. Lances of white fire raced up to converge on the figure in black. The figure seemed to shatter, to explode; the crowd gasped in shock.
The fire-lances turned against the black rectangle, but this appeared impervious to the energy. Bustamonte swaggered truculently forward. “This is the fate meted to idiots, charlatans and all those who would violate the justice of the government. The impostor, as you have seen …”
Beran’s voice came down from the sky. “You shattered only my image, Bustamonte. You must acknowledge me: I am Beran, Panarch of Pao.”
“Beran does not exist!” roared Bustamonte. “Beran died with Aiello!”
“I am Beran. I am alive. Here and now you and I will take truth-drug, and any who wishes may question us and bring forth the truth. Do you agree?”
Bustamonte hesitated. The crowd roared. Bustamonte turned, spoke terse orders to one of his ministers. He had neglected to turn off his microphone; the words were heard by three million people. “Call for police-craft. Seal this area. He must be killed.”
The crowd-noise rose and fell, and rose again, at the implicit acknowledgement. Bustamonte tore off the microphone, barked further orders. The minister hesitated, seemed to demur. Bustamonte turned, marched to the black saloon. Behind came his retinue, crowding into the craft.
The crowd murmured, and then as if by a single thought, decided to leave Festival Field. In the center, at the most concentrated node, the sense of constriction was strongest. Faces twisted and turned; from a distance the effect was rapid pale twinkling.
A milling motion began. Families were wedged apart, pushed away from each other. Then shouts and calls were the components of a growing hoarse sound. The fear became palpable; the pleasant field grew acrid with the scent.
Overhead the black rectangle disappeared, the sky was clear. The crowd felt exposed; the shoving became trampling; the trampling became panic. Screaming began to sound; the noise bred hysteria; Paonese men and women climbed over each other, walking on squirming flesh.
&nb
sp; Overhead appeared the police craft. They cruised back and forth like sharks; the panic became madness; screams became a continuous shrieking. But the crowd at the periphery was fleeing, swarming along the various roads and lanes, dispersing across the fields. The police craft swept back and forth indecisively; then turned and departed the scene. For moments the panic persisted; then the crowd came to its senses. The screams became moans, and the fear became grief …
Beran seemed to have shrunk, collapsed in on himself. He was pallid, bright-eyed with horror. “Why could we not have foreseen such an event? We are as guilty as Bustamonte!”
“It serves no purpose to become infected with emotion,” said Palafox.
Beran made no response. He sat crouched, staring into space.
The countryside of South Minamand fell astern. They crossed the long narrow Serpent and the island Fraevarth with its bone-white villages, and swept out over the Great Sea of the South. There was a period when nothing could be seen but rolling gray water; then the ramparts of Nonamand rose into view, with the eternal white surf crashing at the base. Then on to the moors and the Sgolaph crags, then around Mount Droghead to settle on the desolate plateau.
In Palafox’s rooms they drank spiced tea, Palafox sitting in a tall-backed chair before a desk, Beran standing glumly by a window.
“You must steel yourself to unpleasant deeds,” said Palafox. “There will be many more before the issues are resolved.”
“What advantage to resolve issues, if half the people of Pao are dead?” asked Beran bitterly.
“All persons die. A thousand deaths represent, qualitatively, no more than one. Emotion increases merely in one dimension, that of intensity, but not of multiplicity. We must fix our minds on the final …” Palafox stopped short, tilted his head, listened to the speaker concealed inside his aural passages. He spoke in a tongue unknown to Beran; there was the inner reply, to which Palafox responded curtly. Then he sat back, regarding Beran with a kind of contemptuous amusement. “Bustamonte is settling your qualms for you. He has thrown a blockade around Pon. Mamarone are advancing across the plateau.”
Beran asked in puzzlement, “How does he know that I am here?”
Palafox shrugged. “Bustamonte’s spy service is efficient enough, but he vitiates it by his arrogant stupidity. His tactics are inexcusable. He attacks when clearly his best policy is compromise.”
“Compromise? On what basis?”
“He might undertake a new contract with me, in return for the delivery of your person to the Grand Palace. He could thereby prolong his reign.”
Beran was astounded. “And you would accede to this bargain?”
Palafox displayed wonder of his own. “Certainly. How could you think otherwise?”
“But your commitment to me — that means nothing?”
“A commitment is good only so long as it is advantageous.”
“This is not always true,” said Beran in a stronger voice than he had heretofore employed. “A person who fails one commitment is not often entrusted with a second.”
“‘Trust’? What is that? The interdependence of the hive; a mutual parasitism of the weak and incomplete.”
“It is likewise a weakness,” retorted Beran in fury, “to take advantage of trust in another — to accept loyalty, then fail to return it.”
Palafox laughed in real amusement. “Be that as it may, the Paonese concepts of ‘trust’, ‘loyalty’, ‘good faith’ are not a part of my mental equipment. We dominie of Breakness Institute are individuals, each his own personal citadel. We expect no sentimental services derived from clan loyalty or group dependence; nor do we render any. You would do well to remember this.”
Beran made no reply. Palafox looked at him curiously. Beran had stiffened, seemed lost in thought. In fact, a curious event had occurred inside his mind; there had been a sudden instant of dizziness, a whirl and a jerk which seemed to bypass an entire era of time, and he was a new Beran, like a snake sloughed of an old skin.
The new Beran turned slowly, inspected Palafox with dispassionate appraisal. Behind the semblance of agelessness, he saw a man of great age, with both the strengths and weaknesses of age.
“Very well,” said Beran. “I necessarily must deal with you on this same basis.”
“Naturally,” said Palafox, but nonetheless with a trace of irritation. Then once more his eyes went vague; he tilted his head, listening to the inaudible message.
He rose to his feet, beckoned. “Come. Bustamonte attacks us.”
They went out on a roof-top, under a transparent dome.
“There …” Palafox pointed to the sky “… Bustamonte’s miserable gesture of ill-will.”
A dozen of the Mamarone sky-sleds showed as black rectangles on the streaked gray sky. Two miles away a transport had settled and was exuding a magenta clot of neutraloid troops.
“It is well that this episode occurred,” said Palafox. “It may dissuade Bustamonte from another like impertinence.” He tilted his head, listening to the inner sound. “Now — observe our deterrent against molestation!”
Beran felt, or perhaps heard, a pulsating whine, so shrill as to be only partially in perception.
The sky-sleds began to act peculiarly, sinking, rising, jostling. They turned and fled precipitously. At the same time, there was excitement among the troops. They were in disarray, flourishing their arms, bobbing and hopping. The pulsating whine died; the Mamarone collapsed on the ground.
Palafox smiled faintly. “They are unlikely to annoy us further.”
“Bustamonte might try to bomb us.”
“If he is wise,” said Palafox negligently, “he will attempt nothing so drastic. And he is wise at least to that extent.”
“Then what will he do!”
“Oh — the usual futilities of a ruler who sees his regnum dwindling …”
Bustamonte’s measures in truth were stupid and harsh. The news of Beran’s appearance flew around the eight continents, in spite of Bustamonte’s efforts to discredit the occurrence. The Paonese, on the one hand drawn by their yearning for the traditional, on the other repelled by Bustamonte’s sociological novelties, reacted in the customary style. Work slowed, halted. Cooperation with civil authority ceased.
Bustamonte attempted persuasion, grandiose promises and amnesties. The disinterest of the population was more insulting than a series of angry demonstrations. Transportation came to a standstill, power and communications died, Bustamonte’s personal servants failed to report for work.
A Mamarone, impressed into domestic service, scalded Bustamonte’s arms with a hot towel: this was the trigger which exploded Bustamonte’s suppressed fury. “I have sung to them! They shall now sing in their turn!”
At random he picked half a hundred villages. Mamarone descended upon these communities and were allowed complete license. Sadism was a prominent facet of the neutraloid nature, a substitute for creativity. They were sufficiently ingenious, and they hated natural men and women. The combination produced the most hideous events yet known on Pao.
Atrocity failed to move the population — already an established principle of Paonese history. Beran, learning of the events, felt all the anguish of the victims. He turned on Palafox, reviled him.
Palafox, unmoved, commented that all men die, that pain is transitory and in any event the result of faulty mental discipline. To demonstrate, he held his hand in a flame; the flesh burnt and crackled; Palafox watched without concern.
“These people lack this discipline — they feel pain!” cried Beran.
“It is indeed unfortunate,” said Palafox. “I wish pain to no man, but until Bustamonte is deposed — or until he is dead — these episodes will continue. There is no way we can prevent them.”
“Why do you not restrain these monsters?” raged Beran. “You have the means. You are as guilty as he is!”
“The word ‘guilt’ implies uncertainty,” said Palafox. “I cannot profess to omniscience; but I can plan as well as I can, and r
egard these plans as definite. I am not uncertain; I am not guilty. And in any event you can restrain Bustamonte as readily as I.”
Beran replied with fury and scorn. “I understand you now. You want me to kill him. Perhaps you have planned this entire series of events. I will kill him gladly! Arm me, tell me his whereabouts — if I die, at least there shall be an end to all.”
“Come,” said Palafox, “you receive your second modification.”
Bustamonte was shrunken and haggard. He paced the black carpet of the foyer, holding his arms stiff, fluttering his fingers as if to shake off bits of grit.
The glass door was closed, locked, sealed. Outside stood four black Mamarone.
Bustamonte shivered. Where would it end? He went to the window, looked out into the night. Eiljanre spread ghostly white to all sides. Three points on the horizon glowed angry maroon where three villages and those who had dwelt there felt the weight of his vengeance.
Bustamonte groaned, chewed his lip, fluttered his fingers spasmodically. He turned away from the window, resumed his pacing. At the window there was a faint hiss which Bustamonte failed to notice.
There was a thud, a draft of air.
Bustamonte turned, froze in his tracks. In the window stood a glaring-eyed young man, wearing black.
“Beran,” croaked Bustamonte. “Beran!”
Beran jumped down to the black carpet, came quietly forward. Bustamonte tried to turn, tried to scuttle and dodge. But his time had come; he knew it, he could not move. His knees went limp, his bowels churned, relaxed.
Beran raised his hand. From his finger darted blue energy.
The affair was accomplished. Beran stepped over the corpse, unsealed the glass doors, flung them aside.
