But—these men who excelled, who out-traded, out-fought, out-produced, out-thought their planetary neighbors—were they Paonese? The Cogitants now numbered close to ten thousand and all had Palafox either for sire or grandsire. Palafoxians: a better name for these people!
The Valiants and the Technicants, what of them? Their blood was pure Paonese, but they lived as far from the stream of Paonese tradition as the Brumbos of Batmarsh or the Mercantil.
Beran jumped to his feet. How could he have been so blind, so negligent? These men were not Paonese, no matter how well they served Pao: they were aliens, and it was questionable where their ultimate loyalties lay.
The divergence between Valiant, Technicant and basic Paonese had gone too far. The trend must be reversed, the new groups assimilated.
Now that he had defined his ends, it was necessary to formulate the means. The problem was complex; he must move cautiously. First of all—to establish the agency where women could present themselves for indenture. He would give Palafox no ‘cause for complaint’.
Chapter XIX
At the eastern outskirts of Eiljanre, across the old Rovenone Canal, lay a wide commons, used principally for the flying of kites and festival mass-dancing. Here Beran ordered the erection of a large tent-pavilion, where women wishing to hire themselves to the Cogitants might exhibit themselves. Wide publicity had been given the new agency, and also to the edict that all private contracts between women and Cogitant would henceforth be illegal and felonious.
The opening day arrived. At noon Beran went to inspect the pavilion. Construction was in the best tradition of Paonese craftsmanship. Pillars plaited of glass ropes supported a red velvet parasol, the floor was clean shell crushed into a matrix of blue gel. Around the wall were benches and booths of blackwood, comprising accommodation for four hundred applicants and sixty Cogitants.
On the benches sat a scattered handful of women, a miserable group by any standards, unlovely, harassed, peaked—perhaps thirty in all.
Beran stared in surprise. “Is this the lot of them?”
“That is all, Panarch!”
Beran rubbed his chin ruefully. He looked around to see the man he wished least to see: Palafox.
Beran spoke first, with some effort. “Choose, Lord Palafox. Thirty of Pao’s most charming women await your whim.”
Palafox replied in a light voice. “Slaughtered and buried, they might make acceptable fertilizer. Other than that, I see no possible use for them.” He peered to left and right. “Where are the hundreds of prime maidens you promised to display? I see only these charwomen and empty benches.”
Implicit in the remark was a challenge: failure to recognize and answer it was to abandon the initiative. “It appears, Lord Palafox,” said Beran, “that indenture to the Cogitants is as objectionable to the women of Pao as I had supposed. The very dearth of persons vindicates my decision.” And Beran contemplated the lonely pavilion.
There was no sound from Palafox, but some intuition flashed a warning to Beran’s mind. He turned his head, and his startled eyes saw Palafox, face like a death-mask, raising his hand. The forefinger pointed; Beran flung himself flat. A blue streak sizzled overhead. He pointed his hand; his own finger-fire spat forward, ran up Palafox’s arm, through the elbow, the humerus and out the shoulder.
Palafox jerked his head up, mouth clenched, eyes rolled back like a maddened horse. Blood sizzled and steamed where the mangled circuits in his arm had heated, fused and broken.
Beran pointed his finger once more; it was urgent and advisable to kill Palafox; more than this, it was his duty. Palafox stood watching, the look in his eyes no longer that of a human being; he stood waiting for death.
Beran hesitated, and in this instant, Palafox once more became a man. He flung up his left hand; now Beran acted and again the blue fire-pencil leapt forth; but it impinged on an essence which the left hand of Palafox had flung forth, and dissolved.
Beran drew back. The thirty women had flung themselves quaking and whimpering to the floor; Beran’s attendants stood lax and limp. There was no word spoken. Palafox backed away, out the door of the pavilion; he turned and was gone.
Beran could find no energy to pursue. He returned to the palace, closed himself in his private rooms. Morning became the gold Paonese afternoon, day faded into evening.
Beran roused himself. He went to his wardrobe, dressed in a suit of skin-tight black. He armed himself with knife, hammer-beam, mind-blinder, swallowed a pellet of nerve-tonic, then unobtrusively made his way to the roof-deck.
He slipped into an air car, wafted high into the night and flew south.
The dreary cliffs of Nonamand rose from the sea with phosphorescent surf at the base and a few wan lights flickering along the top. Beran adjusted his course over the dark upland moors toward Pon. Grim and tense he sat, riding with the conviction that doom lay before him. Far from making him uneasy, the prospect filled him with a ghastly exhilaration. Flying over the bleak moors, he felt like a man already dead, a ghost, a fleeting wraith.
There: Mount Droghead, and beyond, the Institute! Every building, every terrace, walk, out-building and dormitory, was familiar to Beran: the years he had served here as Interpreter would now stand him in good stead.
He landed the car out on the moor, away from the field, then activating the anti-gravity mesh in his feet, he floated into the air and leaning forward, drifted over the Institute.
He hovered high in the chill night wind, surveying the buildings below. There—Palafox’s dormitory, and there, through the triangular translux panels, a glow of light.
Beran alighted on the pale rock-melt of the dormitory roof. The wind swept past, droning and whistling; there was no other sound.
Beran ran for the roof door. He burnt out the seal with a flicker of finger-fire, slid the door back, entered the hall.
The dormitory was silent; he could hear neither voice nor movement. He set out down the corridor with long swift steps.
The top floor was given over to the day rooms, and was deserted. He descended a ramp, turned to the right, toward the source of the light he had seen from above. He stopped outside a door, listened. No voices—but a faint sense of motion within: a stir, a shuffle.
He touched the latch. The door was sealed.
Beran readied himself. All must go swiftly. Now! Flick of fire, door free, door aside—stride forward! And there in the chair beside the table, a man.
The man looked up, Beran stopped short. It was not Palafox; it was Finisterle.
Finisterle looked at the pointed finger, then up to Beran’s face. “What do you do here?” His exclamation was in Pastiche, and in this tongue Beran replied.
“Where is Palafox?”
Finisterle laughed weakly, let himself sink back into the chair. “It seems as if I nearly met the fate of my sire.”
Beran came a step closer. “Where is Palafox?”
“You are too late. Palafox is gone to Breakness.”
“Breakness!” Beran felt limp and tired.
“He is broken, his arm is a shred. No one here can repair him.” Finisterle appraised Beran with cautious interest. “And this the unobtrusive Beran—a demon in black!”
Beran clenched his fists, beat them together. “Who could do it but I?” He glanced suddenly at Finisterle. “You are not deceiving me?”