The Languages of Pao

Chapter VIII

Beran’s first weeks on Breakness were dismal and unhappy. There was no variety, inside or out; all was rock-color, in varying tones and intensities, and the look of distance. The wind roared incessantly, but air was thin, and the effort of breathing left an acrid burn in Beran’s throat. Like a small pale house-sprite, he wandered the chilly corridors of Palafox’s mansion, hoping for diversion, finding little.

The typical residence of a Breakness dominie, Palafox’s house hung down the slope on the spine of an escalator. At the top were workrooms not permitted to Beran, but where he glimpsed marvellously intricate mechanisms. Below were rooms of general function panelled in dark board, with floors of russet rock-melt, generally unoccupied except for Beran. At the bottom, separated from the main chain of rooms was a large circular structure, which Beran eventually discovered to be Palafox’s private dormitory.

The house was austere and chilly, without devices of amusement or ornament. No one heeded Beran; it was as if his very existence were forgotten. He ate from a buffet in the central hall, he slept where and when it suited him. He learned to recognize half a dozen men who seemed to make Palafox’s house their headquarters. Once or twice in the lower part of the house he glimpsed a woman. No one spoke to him except Palafox, but Beran saw him only rarely.

On Pao there was small distinction between the sexes; both wore similar garments and enjoyed identical privileges. Here the differences were emphasized. Men wore dark suits of close-fitting fabric and black skull-caps with pointed bills. Those women whom Beran had glimpsed wore flouncing skirts of gay colors—the only color to be seen on Breakness—tight vests which left the midriff uncovered, slippers tinkling with bells. Their heads were uncovered, their hair was artfully dressed; all were young and handsome.

When he could tolerate the house no longer, Beran bundled himself into warm garments and ventured out on the mountainside. He bent his head into the wind and pushed to the east until he reached the verge of the settlement, where the Wind River dwindled in mighty perspective. A mile below were a half dozen large structures: automatic fabrication plants. Above reared the rock slope, far up to the gray sky, where the wild little white sun swerved like a tin disc on the wind. Beran retraced his steps.

A week later he ventured forth again, and this time turned west with the wind at his back. A lane melted from the rock wound and twisted among dozens of long houses like that of Palafox, and other lanes veered off at angles, until Beran became concerned lest he lose his way.

He halted within sight of Breakness Institute, a group of bleak buildings stepped down the slope. They were several stories high, taller than other buildings of the settlement, and received the full force of the wind. Streaks of sooty gray and black-green ran across the gray rock-melt, where years of driven rime and sleet had left their marks.

As he stood, a group of boys several years older than himself came up the road from the Institute; they swerved up the hill, marching in a solemn line, apparently bound for the space-port.

Curious! thought Beran. How unsmiling and silent they seemed. Paonese lads would have been skipping and skylarking.

He found his way back to Palafox’s manse, puzzling over the lack of social intercourse on Breakness.

The novelty of life on the new planet had worn smooth; the pangs of homesickness stabbed Beran hard. He sat on the settee in the hall tying aimless knots in a bit of string. There was the sound of footsteps; Beran looked up. Palafox entered the hall, began to pass through, then noticed Beran and came to a halt. “Well, the young Panarch of Pao—why do you sit so quietly?”

“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 certain 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.”