by Jack Vance
“I have nothing to do.”
Palafox nodded. The Paonese were not ones to undertake gratuitously any arduous intellectual program; and Palafox had intended that Beran should become utterly bored, to provide incentive for the task.
“Nothing to do?” inquired Palafox, as if surprised. “Well, we must remedy that.” He appeared to cogitate. “If you are to attend the Institute, you must learn the language of Breakness.”
Beran was suddenly aggrieved. “When do I go back to Pao?” he asked querulously.
Palafox shook his head solemnly. “I doubt if you’d wish to return at this moment.”
“But I do!”
Palafox seated himself beside Beran. “Have you heard of the Brumbos of Batmarsh?”
“Batmarsh is a small planet three stars from Pao inhabited by quarrelsome people.”
“Correct. The Batch are divided into twenty-three clans, which continually compete in valor. The Brumbos, who are one of these clans, have invaded Pao.”
Beran heard the news without total comprehension. “Do you mean …”
“Pao is now the personal province of Eban Buzbek, Hetman of the Brumbos. Ten thousand clansmen in a few painted war-ships took all Pao, and your uncle Bustamonte lives in forlorn circumstances.”
“What will happen now?”
Palafox laughed shortly. “Who knows? But it is best that you remain on Breakness. Your life would be worth nothing on Pao.”
“I don’t want to stay here. I don’t like Breakness.”
“No?” Palafox pretended surprise. “Why is that?”
“Everything is different from Pao. There isn’t any sea, no trees, no …”
“Naturally!” exclaimed Palafox. “We have no trees, but we have Breakness Institute. Now you will start learning, and then you’ll find Breakness more interesting. First, the language of Breakness! We start at once. Come!” He rose to his feet. Beran’s interest in the Breakness language was minuscule, but activity of any kind would be welcome — as Palafox had foreseen.
Palafox stalked to the escalator, with Beran behind; they rode to the top of the house — rooms heretofore barred to Beran — and entered a wide workshop exposed to the gray-white sky through a ceiling of glass. A young man in a skin-tight suit of dark brown, one of Palafox’s many sons, looked up from his work. He was thin and taut, his features hard and bold. He resembled Palafox to a marked degree, even to tricks of gesture and poise of head. Palafox could take pride in such evidence of genetic vigor, which tended to shape all of his sons into near-simulacra of himself. On Breakness, status was based on a quality best described as ‘creative and procreative efficacy’, the forcible imprinting of self upon the future. For this reason there existed between high-status dominie and their sons a paradoxical discord of empathy, which tended to draw them close — and antagonism, which thrust them apart.
Between Palafox and Fanchiel, the young man in the dark brown suit, neither empathy nor hostility evinced itself openly: indeed the emotion was so all-pervasive throughout the houses, dormitories, and halls of the Institute as to be taken for granted.
Fanchiel had been tinkering with a minute fragment of mechanism clamped in a vise. He watched a magnified three-dimensional image of the device on a stage at eye-level; he wore gauntlets controlling micro-tools, and easily manipulated components invisible to the naked eye. At the sight of Palafox, he rose from his work, subordinating himself to the more intense ego of his progenitor.
The two men spoke in the language of Breakness for several minutes. Beran began to hope that he had been forgotten — then Palafox snapped his fingers. “This is Fanchiel, thirty-third of my sons. He will teach you much that is useful. I urge you to industry, enthusiasm and application — not after the Paonese fashion, but like the student at Breakness Institute, which we hope you shall become.” He departed without further words.
Fanchiel unenthusiastically put aside his work. “Come,” he said in Paonese, and led the way into an adjoining room.
“First — a preliminary discussion.” He pointed to a desk of gray metal with a black rubber top. “Sit there, if you please.”
Beran obeyed. Fanchiel appraised him carefully, without regard for Beran’s sensibilities. Then, with the faintest of shrugs, he dropped his own taut-muscled body into a chair.
“Our first concern,” he said, “will be the language of Breakness.”
Accumulated resentments suddenly merged inside Beran: the neglect, the boredom, the homesickness, and now this last cavalier disregard for his personal individuality. All contributed to a spasm of sullen Paonese obstinacy. He lowered his head, tightened his mouth.
“I don’t care to learn Breakness. I want to return to Pao.”
Fanchiel seemed vaguely amused. “In time you certainly will return to Pao — perhaps as Panarch. If you returned at this moment you would be killed.”
Beran’s eyes stung with loneliness and misery. “When can I go back?”
“I don’t know,” said Fanchiel. “Lord Palafox is undertaking some great plan in connection with Pao — you will undoubtedly return when he thinks best. In the meanwhile, you would do well to accept such advantages as are offered you.”
Beran’s reason and native willingness to oblige struggled with the obstinacy of his race. “Why must I go to the Institute?”
Fanchiel replied with ingenuous candor. “Lord Palafox apparently intends that you should identify with Breakness and so feel sympathetic to his goals.”
Beran could not grasp this; however, he was impressed by Fanchiel’s manner. “What will I learn at the Institute?”
“A thousand things — more than I can describe to you. In the College of Comparative Culture — where Lord Palafox is Dominie — you will study the races of the universe, their similarities and differences, their languages and basic urges, the specific symbols by which you can influence them.
“In the College of Mathematics you learn the manipulation of abstract ideas, various systems of rationality — likewise you are trained to make quick mental calculations.
“In the College of Human Anatomy you learn geriatry and death prevention, pharmacology, the technique of human modification and augmentation — and possibly you will be allowed one or two modifications.”
Beran’s imagination was stimulated. “Could I be modified like Palafox?”
“Ha hah!” exclaimed Fanchiel. “This is an amusing idea. Are you aware that Lord Palafox is one of the most powerfully modified men of Breakness? He controls nine sensitivities, four energies, three projections, two nullifications, three lethal emanations, in addition to miscellaneous powers such as the mental slide-rule, the ability to survive in a de-oxygenated atmosphere, anti-fatigue glands, a sub-clavicle blood chamber which automatically counteracts any poison he may have ingested. No, my ambitious young friend!” For an instant the jutting features became soft with amusement. “But if ever you rule Pao, you will control a world full of fecund girls, and thus you may command every modification known to the surgeons and anatomists of Breakness Institute.”
Beran looked blankly at Fanchiel, quite at a loss. Modification, even under these incomprehensible but questionable terms, seemed a long way in the future.
Fanchiel paused an instant, then said briskly, “And now, to our first concern, the language of Breakness.”
With the prospect of modification removed to the far future, Beran’s obstinacy returned. “Why can’t we speak Paonese?”
Fanchiel explained patiently. “You will be required to learn a great deal that you could not understand if I taught in Paonese.”
“I understand you now,” muttered Beran.
“Because we are discussing the most general ideas. Each language is a special tool, with a particular capability. It is more than a means of communication, it is a system of thought. Do you understand what I mean?”
Fanchiel found his answer in Beran’s expression.
“Think of a language as the contour of a watershed, stopping flow in ce
rtain directions, channeling it into others. Language controls the mechanism of your mind. When people speak different languages, their minds work differently and they act differently. For instance: you know of the planet Vale?”
“Yes. The world where all the people are insane.”
“Better to say, their actions give the impression of insanity. Actually they are complete anarchists. Now if we examine the speech of Vale we find, if not a reason for the behavior, at least a parallelism. Language on Vale is personal improvisation, with the fewest possible conventions. Each individual selects a speech as you or I might choose the color of our garments.”
Beran frowned. “We Paonese are not careless in such matters. Our dress is established, and no one would wear a costume unfamiliar to him, or one which might cause misunderstanding.”
A smile broke the austere cast of Fanchiel’s face. “True, true; I forgot. The Paonese make no virtue of conspicuous dress. And — possibly as a corollary — mental abnormality is rare. The Paonese, fifteen billion of them, are pleasantly sane. Not so the people of Vale. They live to complete spontaneity — in clothes, in conduct, in language. The question arises: does the language provoke or merely reflect the eccentricity? Which came first: the language or the conduct?”
Beran admitted himself at a loss.
“In any event,” said Fanchiel, “now that you have been shown the connection between language and conduct, you will be anxious to learn the language of Breakness.”
Beran was unflatteringly dubious. “Would I then become like you?”
Fanchiel asked sardonically, “A fate to be avoided at all costs? I can relieve your anxiety. All of us change as we learn, but you can never become a true man of Breakness. Long ago you were shaped into the Paonese style. But speaking our language, you will understand us — and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him. Now, if you are ready, we commence.”
Chapter IX
On Pao there was peace and the easy flow of life. The population tilled their farms, fished the oceans, and in certain districts sieved great wads of pollen from the air, to make a pleasant honey-tasting cake. Every eighth day was market day; on the eight-times-eighth day, the people gathered for the drones; on the eight-times-eight-times-eighth day, occurred the continental fairs.
The people had abandoned all opposition to Bustamonte. Defeat at the hands of the Brumbos was forgotten; Bustamonte’s taxes were easier than those of Aiello, and he ruled with a lack of ostentation befitting his ambiguous accession to the Black.
But Bustamonte’s satisfaction at the attainment of his ambition was not complete. A dozen aspects of his new life exasperated him; fears he had never suspected affected him with an intense disquiet. An impulsive man, his reaction to these unpleasant stimuli was often more violent than the occasion demanded. He was by no means a coward, but personal safety became an obsession; a dozen casual visitors who chanced to make abrupt motions were exploded by Mamarone hammer-guns. Bustamonte likewise imagined himself the subject of contemptuous jest, and other dozens lost their lives for displaying a merry expression when Bustamonte’s eye happened to fall upon them. The bitterest circumstance of all was the tribute to Eban Buzbek, Hetman of the Brumbos.
Each month Bustamonte framed a stinging defiance to send Eban Buzbek in lieu of the million marks, but each month caution prevailed; Bustamonte, in helpless rage, despatched the tribute.
Four years passed; then one morning a red, black and yellow courier ship arrived at the Eiljanre spaceport, to discharge Cormoran Benbarth, scion of a junior branch of the Buzbeks. He presented himself at the Grand Palace as an absentee landlord might visit an outlying farm and greeted Bustamonte with casual amiability.
Bustamonte, wearing the Utter Black, maintained an expressionless face with great effort. He made the ceremonial inquiry: “What fortunate wind casts you upon our shores?”
Cormoran Benbarth, a tall young bravo with braided blond hair and magnificent blond mustaches, studied Bustamonte through eyes blue as cornflowers, wide and innocent as the Paonese sky.
“My mission is simple,” he said. “I have come into possession of the North Faden Barony, which as you may or may not know is hard against the south countries of the Griffin Clan. I require funds for fortification and recruitment of followers.”
“Ah,” said Bustamonte. Cormoran Benbarth tugged at the drooping blond mustache.
“Eban Buzbek suggested that you might spare a million marks from your plenty, in order to incur my gratitude.”
Bustamonte sat like an image of stone. His eyes held the innocent blue gaze for thirty seconds while his mind raced furiously. Submission to the extortion might entice an endless series of needy clansmen to the palace. The idea was intolerable. But could he deny this young brigand without fear of retaliation?
To Bustamonte’s devious Paonese mind, it was inconceivable that the request could be anything other than a demand backed by an implicit threat of violence, to which he could offer no resistance. He threw up his arms in frustration, ordered forth the required sum and received Cormoran Benbarth’s thanks in baleful silence.
Benbarth returned to Batmarsh in a mood of mild gratitude; Bustamonte’s fury induced an abdominal acerbation, and his resolve to defy the Brumbos became the guiding force of his life.
Bustamonte spent moody weeks in reflection. It presently became clear that he must swallow his pride and petition those whose offices he had once rejected: the dominies of Breakness Institute.
Assuming the identity of an itinerant engineer, Bustamonte took passage to the depot planet Journal and there boarded a packet for the voyage through the outer Marklaides.
Presently he arrived at Breakness. A lighter came up to meet the packet. Bustamonte gratefully departed the cramped hull, and was conveyed down through gigantic crags to the Institute.
At the terminus he encountered none of the formalities which gave occupation to a numerous branch of the Paonese civil service; in fact he was given no notice whatever.
Bustamonte became vexed. He went to the portal, looked down across the city. To the left were factories and workshops, to the right the austere mass of the Institute, in between the various houses, manors and lodges, each with its appended dormitory.
A stern-faced young man — hardly more than a lad — tapped him on the arm, motioned him to the side. Bustamonte stepped back as a draft of twenty young women with hair pale as cream moved past him. They entered a scarab-shaped car, which slid away down-slope.
No other vehicle could be seen, and the terminal was now almost empty. Bustamonte, white with anger, the knobs of muscles twitching in his cheeks, at last admitted that either he was not expected, or that no one had thought to meet him. It was intolerable! He would command attention; it was his due!
He strode to the center of the terminus, and made imperious motions. One or two persons paused curiously, but when he commanded them in Paonese to fetch a responsible authority, they looked at him blankly and continued on their way.
Bustamonte ceased his efforts; the terminus was vacant except for himself. He recited one of the rolling Paonese curses, and went once more to the portal.
The settlement was naturally unfamiliar; the nearest house was a half-mile distant. Bustamonte glanced in alarm toward the sky. The little white sun had fallen behind the crag; a murky fog was flowing down Wind River; light was failing over the settlement.
Bustamonte heaved a deep breath. There was no help for it; the Panarch of Pao must tramp his way to shelter like a vagabond. Grimly he pushed open the door, and stepped forth.
The wind caught him, wheeled him down the lane; the cold ate through his thin Paonese garments. He turned, ran on his short thick legs down the lane.
Chilled to the bone, his lungs aching, he arrived at the first house. The rock-melt walls rose above him, bare of opening. He trudged along the face of the building, but could find no entrance; and so crying out in anguish and rage, he continued down the road.
The sky
was dark; small pellets of sleet began to sting the back of his neck. He ran to another house, and this time found a door, but no one responded to his pounding. He turned away, shivering and shaking, feet numb, fingers aching. The gloom was now so thick he could barely distinguish the way.
Lights shone from windows of the third house; again no one responded to his pounding at the door. In fury Bustamonte seized a rock, threw it at the nearest window. The glass clanged: a satisfying noise. Bustamonte threw another rock, and at last attracted attention. The door opened; Bustamonte fell inside stiff as a toppling tree.
The young man caught him, dragged him to a seat. Bustamonte sat rigid, feet sprawled, eyes bulging, breath coming in sobs.
The man spoke; Bustamonte could not understand. “I am Bustamonte, Panarch of Pao,” he said, the words coming blurred and fuzzy through his stiff lips. “This is an ill reception — someone shall pay dearly.”
The young man, a son of the resident Dominie, had no acquaintance with Paonese. He shook his head, and seemed rather bored. He looked toward the door and back to Bustamonte, as if preparing to eject the unintelligible intruder.
“I am Panarch of Pao!” screamed Bustamonte. “Take me to Palafox, Lord Palafox, do you hear? Palafox!”
The name evoked a response. The man signaled Bustamonte to remain in his seat and disappeared into another room.
Ten minutes passed. The door opened, Palafox appeared. He bowed with bland punctilio. “Ayudor Bustamonte, it is a pleasure to see you. I was unable to meet you at the terminal, but I see that you have managed very well. My house is close at hand, and I would be pleased to offer you hospitality. Are you ready?”
The next morning Bustamonte took a tight check-rein on himself. Indignation could accomplish nothing, and might place him at embarrassing odds with his host, although — he looked contemptuously around the room — the hospitality was poor quality indeed. Why would men so knowledgeable build with such austerity? In point of fact, why would they inhabit so harsh a planet?