Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao

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?

Palafox presented himself, and the two sat down to a table with a carafe of peppery tea between them. Palafox confined himself to bland platitudes. He ignored the unpleasantness of their last meeting on Pao, and showed no interest in the reason for Bustamonte’s presence.

At last Bustamonte hitched himself forward and spoke to the point. “The late Panarch Aiello at one time sought your aid. He acted, as I see now, with foresight and wisdom. Therefore I have come in secrecy to Breakness to arrange a new contract between us.”

Palafox nodded, sipping his tea without comment.

“The situation is this,” said Bustamonte. “The accursed Brumbos exact a monthly tribute from me. I pay without pleasure—nevertheless I make no great complaint, for it comes cheaper than maintaining arms against them.”

“The worst loser appears to be Mercantil,” observed Palafox.

“Exactly!” said Bustamonte. “Recently, however, an additional extortion occurred. I fear it to be the forerunner of many more similar.” Bustamonte described the visit of Cormoran Benbarth. “My treasury will be open to endless forays—I will become no more than a paymaster for all the bravos of Batmarsh. I refuse to submit to this ignoble subservience! I will free Pao: this is my mission! For this reason I come for counsel and strategic advice.”

Palafox arranged his goblet of tea with a delicacy conveying an entire paragraph of meaning. “Advice is our only export. It is yours—at a price.”

Bustamonte frowned. “And this price?” he asked, though he well knew.

Palafox settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “As you know this is a world of men, and so has been since the founding of the Institute. But necessarily we persist, we sire offspring, we rear our sons—those whom we deem worthy of us. It is the lucky child who wins admission to Breakness Institute. For each of these, twenty depart the planet with their mothers, when the indenture expires.”

“In short,” said Bustamonte crisply, “you want women.”

Palafox nodded. “We want women—healthy young women of intelligence and beauty. This is the only commodity which we wizards of Breakness cannot fabricate—nor would we care to.”

“What of your own daughters?” Bustamonte asked curiously. “Can you not breed daughters as easily as sons?”

The words made no impression upon Palafox; it was almost as if he had not heard them. “Breakness is a world of men,” he said. “We are Wizards of the Institute.”

Bustamonte sat in pensive consideration, unaware that to a man of Breakness, a daughter was scarcely more desirable than a two-headed Mongoloid. The Breakness dominie, like the classical ascetics, lived in the present, certain only of his own ego; the past was a record, the future an amorphous blot waiting for shape. He might lay plans for a hundred years ahead; for while the Breakness wizard paid lip-service to the inevitability of death, emotionally he rejected it, convinced that in the proliferation of sons he merged himself with the future.

Bustamonte, ignorant of Breakness psychology, was only reinforced in the conviction that Palafox was slightly mad. Reluctantly he said, “We can arrive at a satisfactory contract. For your part, you must join us in crushing the Batch, and ensuring that never again …”

Palafox, smiling, shook his head. “We are not warriors. We sell the workings of our minds, no more. How can we dare otherwise? Breakness is vulnerable. A single missile could destroy the Institute. You will contract with me alone. If Eban Buzbek arrived here tomorrow he could buy counsel from another wizard, and the two of us would pit our skills.”

“Hmmph,” growled Bustamonte. “What guarantee have I that he will not do so?”

“None whatever. The policy of the Institute is passionless neutrality—the individual wizards, however, may work where they desire, the better to augment their dormitories.”

Bustamonte fretfully drummed his fingers. “What can you do for me, if you cannot protect me from the Brumbos?”

Palafox meditated, eyelids half-closed, then said, “There are a number of methods to achieve the goal you desire. I can arrange the hire of mercenaries from Hallowmede, or Polensis, or Earth. Possibly I could stimulate a coalition of Batch clans against the Brumbos. We could so debase Paonese currency that the tribute became valueless.”

Bustamonte frowned. “I prefer methods more forthright. I want you to supply us tools of war. Then we may defend ourselves, and so need be at no one’s mercy.”

Palafox raised his crooked black eyebrows. “Strange to hear such dynamic proposals from a Paonese.”

“Why not?” demanded Bustamonte. “We are not cowards.”

A hint of impatience entered Palafox’s voice. “Ten thousand Brumbos overcome fifteen billion Paonese. Your people had weapons. But no one considered resistance. They acquiesced like grass-birds.”

Bustamonte shook his head doggedly. “We are men like other men. All we need is training.”

“Training will never supply the desire to fight.”

Bustamonte scowled. “Then this desire must be supplied!”

Palafox showed his teeth in a peculiar grin. He pulled himself erect in his chair. “At last we have touched the core of the matter.”

Bustamonte glanced at him, puzzled by his sudden intensity.

Palafox continued. “We must persuade the amenable Paonese to become fighters. How can we do this? Evidently they must change their basic nature. They must discard passivity and easy adjustment to hardship. They must learn truculence and pride and competitiveness. Do you agree?”

Bustamonte hesitated. Palafox had outdistanced him, and seemed bent on a course other than he had envisioned. “You may be right.”

“This is no overnight process, you understand. A change of basic psychology is a formidable process.”

Bustamonte was touched by suspicion. There was strain in Palafox’s manner, an effort at casualness.