Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao

Beran began to sputter a furious refutal, but Palafox cut him off with a gesture. “Naturally you accept my help—why should you not? It is only right to strive for your goals. But, after accepting my help, you must choose one of two courses: serve me or fight me. Forward my aims or attempt to deny me. These are positive courses. But to expect me to continue serving you from a policy of abnegation is negative and absurd.”

“I cannot consider mass misery absurd,” snapped Beran. “My aims are …”

Palafox held up his hand. “There is nothing more to say. The scope of my plans you must deduce for yourself. Submit or oppose, whichever you wish. I am unconcerned, since you are powerless to deflect me.”

Day after day Beran practiced the use of his modification, and gradually became adjusted to the sensation of falling head-first away from the ground.

He learned how to move through the air, by leaning in the direction he wished to travel; he learned how to descend, falling so fast the air sang past his ears, then braking with deft timing to land without a jar.

On the eleventh day, a boy in a smart gray cape, no more than eight years old, with the typical Palafox cast to his features, invited Beran to Palafox’s apartments.

Crossing the concrete quadrangle, Beran armed his mind and arranged his emotions for the interview. He marched through the portal stiff with resolution.

Palafox was sitting at his desk, idly arranging polished trapezoids of rock crystal. His manner was almost affable as he directed Beran to a chair.

Beran warily seated himself.

“Tomorrow,” said Palafox, “we enter the second phase of the program. The emotional environment is suitably sensitive: there is a general sense of expectation. Tomorrow, the quick stroke, the accomplishment! In a suitable manner we affirm the existence of the traditional Panarch. And then —” Palafox rose to his feet “—and then, who knows? Bustamonte may resign himself to the situation, or he may resist. We will be prepared for either contingency.”

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.”

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.