Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao

“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.

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.