Benbarth returned to Batmarsh in a mood of mild gratitude; Bustamonte's fury induced an abdominal acerbation. 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?
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 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."
"And this price?" asked Bustamonte, 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.