'Yes. There could be no tincture of the old language or the old ways."
Beran, a native Paonese, aware that mass tragedy was a commonplace of Paonese history, was able to accept the force of Palafox's explanation. "These new people--will they be true Paonese?"
Palafox seemed surprised. "Why should they not? They'll be of Paonese blood, born and bred on Pao, loyal to no other source.
Beran opened his mouth to speak, closed it again dubiously.
Palafox waited, but Beran, while patently not happy, could not find logical voice to give his emotions.
"Now tell me," said Palafox, in a different tone of voice, "how goes it at the Institute?"
"Very well, I have completed the fourth of my theses--the provost found matter to interest him in my last independent essay."
"And what was the subject?"
"An expansion upon the Paonese vitality-word praesens, with an effort at transposition into Breakness attitudes."
Palafox's voice took on something of an edge. "And how do you so easily analyze the mind of Breakness?"
Beran, surprised at the implied disapproval, nevertheless answered without diffidence. "Surely it is a person such as I, neither of Pao nor of Breakness, but part of both, who can best make comparisons."
"Better, in this case, than one such as I?"
Beran considered carefully. "I have no basis for comparison."
Palafox stared hard at him, then laughed. "I must call for your essay and study it. Are you determined yet upon the basic direction of your studies?"
Beran shook his head. "There are a dozen possibilities. At the moment I find myself absorbed by human history, by the possibility of pattern and its peculiar absence. But I have much to learn, many authorities to consult, and perhaps this form will eventually make itself known to me."
"It seems that you follow the inspiration of Dominie Arbursson, the Teleologist"
"I have studied his ideas," said Beran.
"Ah, and they do not interest you?"
Beran made another careful reply. "Lord Arbursson is a Breakness dominie. I am Paonese."
Palafox laughed shortly. "The form of your statement implies an equivalence between the two conditions of being."
Beran, wondering at Palafox's testiness, made no comment.
"Well then," said Palafox, a trifle heavily, "it seems as if you are going your way and making progress." He eyed Beran up and down. "And you have been frequenting the terminal."
Beran, influenced by Paonese attitudes, blushed. "Yes."
"Then it becomes time that you began practicing procreation. No doubt you are well-versed in the necessary theory?"
"The students of my age talk of little else," said Beran. "If it please you, Lord Palafox, today at the terminal..."
So now we learn the source of your trouble, eh? Well then, what is her name?"
"Gitan Netsko," Beran said huskily.
"Await me here." Palafox strode from the room.
Twenty minutes later he appeared in the doorway, signaled to Beran. "Come."
A domed air-car waited outside the house. Within, a small forlorn figure sat huddled. Palafox fixed Beran with a stern gaze.
"It is customary that sire provide son with education, his first female, and a modicum of dispassionate counsel. You already are profiting by the education--in the car is the one of your choice, and you may also retain the car. Here is the counsel, and mark it well, for never will you receive more valuable! Monitor your thoughts for traces of Paonese mysticism and sentimentality. Isolate these impulses--make yourself aware of them, but do not necessarily try to expunge them, because then their influence subverts to a deeper, more basic, level." Palafox held up his hand in one of the striking Breakness gestures. "I have now acquitted myself of my responsibilities. I wish you a successful career, a hundred sons of great achievement, and the respectful envy of your peers." Palafox bowed his head formally.
"Thank you," said Beran with equal formality. He turned and walked through the howl of the wind to the car.
The girl, Gitan Netsko, looked up as he entered, then turned her eyes away and stared out across great Wind River.
Beran sat quiet, his heart too full for words. At last he reached out, took her hand. It was limp and cool; her face was quiet.
Beran tried to convey what was in his mind. "You are now in my care....I am Paonese..."
"Lord Palafox has assigned me to serve you," she said in a measured passionless voice.
Beran sighed. He felt miserable and full of qualms: the Paonese mysticism and sentimentality Palafox had expressly counseled him to suppress. He raised the car into the wind; then slid downhill to the dormitory. He conducted her to his room with conflicting emotions.
They stood in the austere little room, surveying each other uneasily. "Tomorrow," said Beran, "I will arrange for better quarters. It is too late today."
The girl's eyes had been growing fuller and fuller; now she sank upon the couch, and suddenly began to weep--slow tears of loneliness, humiliation, grief.
Beran, feeling full of guilt, went to sit beside her. He took her hand, stroked it, muttered consoling words, which she clearly never heard. It was his first intimate contact with grief; it disturbed him tremendously.
The girl was speaking in a low monotone. "My father was a kind man--never did he harm a living creature. Our home was almost a thousand years old. Its timber was black with age and all the stone grew moss. We lived beside Mervan Pond, with our yarrow field behind, and our plum orchard up the slope of Blue Mountain. When the agents came and ordered us to leave, my father was astonished. Leave our old home? A joke! Never! They spoke only three words and my father was angry and pale and silent. Still we did not move. And the next time they came..." the sad voice dwindled away; tears made soft marks on Beran's arm.
"It will be mended!" said Beran.
She shook her head. "Impossible....And I would as soon be dead too."
"No, never say that!" Beran sought to comfort her. He stroked her hair, kissed her cheek. He could not help himself--the contact aroused him, his caresses became more intimate. She made no resistance. Indeed she seemed to welcome the love-making as a distraction from her grief.
They awoke early in the morning dimness, while the sky was still the color of cast iron, the slope black and featureless as tar, Wind River a roaring darkness.
After awhile Beran said, "You know so very little about me--are you not curious?"
Gitan Netsko made a noncommittal sound, and Beran felt a trifle nettled.
"I am Paonese," he said earnestly. "I was born in Eiljanre fifteen years ago. Temporarily I live on Breakness."
He paused, expecting her to inquire the reason for his exile, but she turned her head, looking up through the high narrow window into the sky.
"Meanwhile I study at the Institute," said Beran. "Until last night I was uncertain--I knew not where I would specialize. Now I know! I will become a Dominie of Linguistics!"
Gitan Netsko turned her head, looked at him. Beran was unable to read the emotion in her eyes. They were wide eyes, sea-green, striking in her pale face. He knew her to be younger than himself by a year, but meeting her gaze, he felt unsure, ineffectual, absurd.
"What are you thinking?" he asked plaintively.
She shrugged. "Very little..."
"Oh, come!" He bent over her, kissed her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. She made neither resistance nor response. Beran began to worry. "Do you dislike me? Have I annoyed you?"