I can do no better than to get down the main points of the agenda as it related to Rohanda, in order to illustrate points of view then and now.
1. The Canopean-Rohandan Lock had failed—the basic fact.
2. That degeneration of various kinds must be expected—which we had already experienced.
3. That Canopus intended to maintain their link with Rohanda, some sort of skeleton staff, in order to maintain the flow at a minimum level.
4. As far as could be seen, the cosmic alignments that had caused this Disaster would not reverse for several hundred thousand years, after which there would be no reason Rohanda could not revert to its flowering flourishing healthy condition.
5. That (and this was to them—to Canopus—the most important factor in this summing up) Shammat of Puttiora had discovered the nature of the Canopus-Rohandan bond, and was tapping strength from it. And was already waxing fat and prosperous on it.
I can only say that, reading these words now, remembering what I saw in them then, I have to marvel at my blindness.
Again, resentment partly the cause. And also fear: There much talk about the Shammat “spies,” which Canopus claimed they had known nothing about. We did not believe this. But could not pursue it, for fear our own spying would come to light…
It will be seen from these brief remarks that this was an uncomfortable, unsatisfactory conference. When it was dissolved, I could see nothing positive in it except my meeting with Klorathy, and since he was to stay on Colony 10 to assist the Giants in their painful period of waiting, and I was to return to Sirius, we had nothing much to hope for, at least immediately.
Sirius had not abandoned the idea of using Rohanda for experiments. It was a question of finding ways of doing this without harm to ourselves. A joint committee Canopus/Sirius was set up at the conference for this purpose. Again I was assigned to Rohanda, at my request, and with instructions by Canopus—called by us and them advice—on how to survive the new discordant Rohandan atmosphere. We were told that if we were to build settlements in exactly this way and that—measurements and proportions prescribed to the fraction of an R-unit—and wore such and such artefacts, and ate this and that (there were long lists of such prescriptions), then we might work on that unfortunate planet, at least for limited periods.
To begin with, their advice was only partly, or halfheartedly, obeyed: bad results followed. We then took to an exact obedience. Success.
This obedience was more remarkable than perhaps it will seem now. At that time it would have been difficult to find anything good being said about Canopus anywhere in our territories. Our tone was one of indifference at best, but usually derision. We were spying on them everywhere and in every way. We did not hesitate to outdo them when we could, often quite childishly, and even illegally. Any who doubt this may find what I say confirmed in any common chronicle or memoir of that time: we were not ashamed of our behavior. On the contrary. Yet we suspected Canopus of ill-feeling and delinquency towards us, and complained of it. At the same time, and while apparently having little respect for their prescriptions, for we mocked them when we thought this would earn us admiration, we nevertheless followed them, and to the point where the practices became second nature, and we were in danger of forgetting where they originated. Then we did forget—or most of us—and “the Rohandan Adjustment Technique” was talked of as if it were a discovery of our own.
For a long time, more than a hundred thousand years, we Sirians were more on Rohanda than Canopus was. So we believed then. It was because we told our spies to look for Canopean technicians by the same signs that we understood for our own necessities and behaviour. We did not know then that Canopus could come and go in any way other than by spaceship—by ordinary physical transport. Did not know that Canopean technicians could exist on Rohanda—and on other planets—by taking the outward shape of the inhabitants of a particular time and place.
For long ages Canopean individuals were at work on Rohanda and we did not know it. Even now there are those who refuse to believe it. But a few of us who worked on Rohanda came to understand. And I will come to a fuller description of this, in its place.
Meanwhile, my preoccupation with Canopus continued, and I was not by any means the only one. And this was for a specific and definite reason.
THE SITUATION IN THE SIRIAN EMPIRE
It is necessary for me now to make general statement about Sirian development—a summary of history from the end of our Dark Age until the present. It will be argued that it is not possible to sum up several hundred thousand of Empire’s history in a few words. Yet we all of us do this when describing others. For instance, how do we—and even our most lofty and respected historians—refer to Alikon, the long-lived culture that preceded our own on Sirius, before we became an Empire? “Alikon was a rigid and militaristic society, based on limited natural resources, whose ruling caste maintained power by the use of a repressive religion, keeping nine-tenths of the population as labourers, slaves, and servants. It ended because…” That is how we describe ninety thousand S-years of what we always refer to as “prehistory.” To take another example, Colony 10 of the Canopean rule was once “Senjen, a natural paradise, a pacific, easygoing matriarchal society made possible by pleasant climate and abundant vegetable and animal stocks.” Senjen lasted for two hundred thousand years before Canopus decided it needed improvement.
No: the dispassionate, disinterested eye we use for other peoples, other histories, we do not easily turn on ourselves—past or present! Yet most societies—cultures—empires—can be described by an underlying fact or truth, and this is nearly always physical, geographical. Is it possible that our reluctance to regard ourselves as we do others is because we do not like to categorise our own existence as physical… merely physical?
The Sirian Empire has been preoccupied by one basic physical fact and the questions caused thereby since its inception: technology: our technical achievements that no other empire has ever approached… I write that statement without the benefit of “hindsight.” That is how we have seen it until very recently. It is because of how we define (and many of us still do) technology. The subtle, infinitely varied, hard-to-see technology of Canopus was invisible to us, and therefore for all these millennia, these long ages, we have counted ourselves supreme.
We now mark the end of our Dark Age at the point where “we got rid of our excess populations.” As I saw it expressed in a somewhat robustly worded history. At the point, then, when “population balanced necessity.” Ah yes, there are a hundred ways of putting our basic dilemma! And each one of these formulations, evasive or frank, can only mask something we have never come to terms with! To sum up our culture, then, as we so arbitrarily encapsulate others: “The Sirian Empire, with its fifty-three colonies, almost infinitely rich, well-endowed, fruitful, variegated, and with its exemplary technology has never been able to decide how many people should be allowed to live in it.”
There you have it. I touched on this before: how could I not? There is no way of even mentioning Sirius without bringing up this our basic, our burning, problem…
The Dark Age over, we saw to it that our populations everywhere were reduced to the minimum necessary for… for what? In our enthusiasm over our new concept, our new capacities of control, we set fairly arbitrary limits to population on our fifty-three colonies. Very low numbers were permitted to be.
What happened to those teeming millions upon millions upon millions? Well, they were not exterminated. They were not ill treated. On the contrary, as I have hinted—to do more than lightly sketch these developments would come outside my scope—all kinds of special schemes and projects were set up to soften their tragic fate. They died, it is generally agreed now—now that so much time has passed and we can look at those days more calmly—of broken hearts, broken will. They died because they had no purpose, of illnesses, of epidemics that seemed to have other causes, and during mass outbreaks of madness. But they died. It took fifty thousand of our bad—o
ur very bad—time, but at the end of it, we were left with empty planets, with everything open for us—ready for a magnificent purpose, a new plan.
But, in fact, nothing changed: we still did not know how to look at ourselves. Our technology was such that our entire Empire could be run with something like ten million people. That was what was needed. If to run our Empire was our purpose, and nothing else…
I shall not go on. Some people will say I have already said enough about this; others that, if I were to pay proper and due respect to our terrible basic dilemma, I should devote not a few paragraphs but several volumes to it.
Well, myriads of volumes and whole ages been devoted to it—when our stage was, as it were, swept empty, waiting for its appropriate dramas. What happened was that schools of philosophy sprang up everywhere, and nothing was heard but their debates, their arguments… What was our purpose? they enquired of themselves, of us, pursuing “the fundamental Sirian existential problem.”
So violent, lowering, unpleasant, became these debates that it made illegal to even mention this “existential problem”—and that epoch lasted for millennia. Of course, there were all kinds of underground movements and subversive sects devoted to “maintaining knowledge of the truth.”
Then, as these became so powerful and influential they could not be ignored, public expression of our preoccupation was made legal again. At one time several of our planets were set aside as universities and colleges, for the sole purpose of discussions of our existential problems. This is how “the Thinkers” of 23 originated.
Meanwhile, sometimes our populations grew larger and sometimes smaller, and these fluctuations did not relate to individuals needed in order to operate our technologies, but according to how tides of opinion flowed… if we wanted to, we could have crammed our planets with billions of genera, species, races—as they once had been. When we wanted, they could be left empty. We could—and did—maintain some planets, for special purposes, at high levels of population, and leave others virtually unpopulated.
While all these variations on our basic problem were attempted, our space drive had been stabilised. We had discovered that no matter how forcefully we swept out into space, gathering in suitable planets as we found them, incorporating them into our general plan, we took our problems—or rather, our problem—with us. What did we need all these new colonies for? What was their purpose? If they had special conditions of climate, then we could tell ourselves they were useful—for something or other; if they had new minerals, or large deposits of those already known to us—they were used. But suppose we went on acquiring colonies and reached the number of a hundred… a thousand… what then?
As our philosophers asked, and argued.
We, the administrators, had been watching Canopus: she was not acquiring ever more colonies. She was stabilised on what she had. She had far fewer than we… she was developing and advancing them… But that was not how we saw it then: I have to record that we despised Canopus, that great neighbour of ours, our competitor, our rival, for being satisfied with such a low level of material development and acquisition.
I now return to our preoccupation with Canopus.
CANOPUS-SIRIUS. KLORATHY
At the time of the ending of our Dark Age, which was not long after the Rohandan Disaster, Canopus had as large a population as we—proportional to the fact that they had fewer planets. That was one fact: and they showed no disquiet at all about it. Yet their technology, though apparently inferior to ours, was certainly near enough to ours to pose the questions that beset us. When we raised these questions, our “existential problem,” they were simply not interested. But at the time we saw this—as usual—as an example of their deviousness. When they were asked how they adjusted their population levels, the reply always was: “according to need” or “according to necessity,” and it was a very long time—only recently—that we were able to hear “according to the Need. According to the Necessity.”
Sirius knew far less about Canopus—and this on a purely material level—than Canopus did us. I had noticed this long before: mentioning any one of our planets, Canopus always seemed informed about it: and we accordingly admired their espionage system.
We were always waiting for the time when we could catch one of their spies and say: “Look, you have broken your agreement, now we demand information in return.” But we never did catch any of their spies. For the good reason that they did not have any.
And when we asked for information, it was given, and we did not trust in it… did not believe what we were told.
Shortly after the Conference on Colony 10, the one to consider the results of the Catastrophe, I was called by my Head of Department and was asked to develop my relationship with Klorathy: our liking for each other had been noted.
I was of course not reluctant. I did not have then, nor have now, any feeling that it is wrong to use a personal relationship in this way. I am a Sirian. This is what I am first and foremost. I am proud to be a public servant of Sirius. If there were ever to come a moment of conflict between my duty to Sirius, to our Colonial Service, and my personal feelings, I should never hesitate. But why should there be conflict? I have always put first what I conceive to be the real interests, long-term interests, of Sirius. And of course I took it for granted that Klorathy must been approached by his superiors, about me—and about Ambien I as well.
I was asked to return to Rohanda, where Klorathy was shortly to pay a visit: so we had been informed by them. The fact that we had been informed told us that Klorathy was allotted the same role as I had been: we could regard ourselves as spies if we wished.
My whole nature was involved in my preparations for this meeting with Klorathy. I cannot separate the “personal” from the public aspects of myself here—not easily. There are times in one’s life when it seems as if everything that happens streams together, each event, or person, or even an overheard remark becoming an aspect of a whole—a confluence whose sources go back into the past, reach forward into the future. Personally, there was a gap in my life because a boon-companion had recently died. Death is not something we think much about, we of the superior Sirian mother-stock, since we do not expect to die except from accident or a rare disease.
But this old friend had been struck by a meteorite while travelling on the Inter-Planetary Service. While we saw each other rarely, since his service was on C.P. 3, we were in a rare balance of sympathies and even knowing that the other was there was a support to both. I hoped that Klorathy might take the place of this boonfriend. Not least because he was from Canopus: there had been cases of real friendship between Sirians and Canopeans, but they were legendary: heroic tales were made of them and used to support in our youngsters the comparatively new idea that Canopus was an ally, not to be seen only as an old enemy.
But there something about Canopus itself that… is the word attracted? me. No. Obsessed? No, there was too much else in my life to allow one-sided preoccupation. I felt about Canopus that inward, brooding questioning, wondering, that one may sometimes feel about a person whose sources of action, of being, seem distant and other—as if understanding this being may open doors in oneself whose existence one does not do more than suspect. Yet they are there… one knows it… one cannot—may not?—open them… but other people have opened similar doors in themselves… operate on altogether different—higher?—levels of themselves… if one understood how, one could come close not only to them but to that area of oneself that matches their higher otherness… so one broods, ponders, questions, sometimes for long ages, about some individual who—one is convinced—is only part-glimpsed, certainly only part-understood.
It will be seen that Klorathy for me was much more than just himself. Ambien I was to travel with me and I was glad of it, for he shared something of my feeling for Canopus.
Before going north, we descended at our old headquarters to see what possibilities there might be for future experiments. The discovery that concerns this account was a change in t
he colony of natives whom we had left on their hillside. We had expected degeneration, but found something we had not expected and could not at first interpret. The natives had become two distinct species. Some remained the same, though more quarrelsome, and divisive, no longer living in a large and easygoing tribe, but in small family groups, or individuals, each defending patches of territory, hunting grounds, caves, or rough shelters. They had sunk from proper building, the cultivation of crops, the use of animals. The other kind, living close, using the original stock and continually preying on them in every way, snatching from them their kills in the hunt and their females or their children whom they might eat or use as servants, had changed to a position between Modified Two and Modified Three. They were upright, but occasionally rested their weight on the knuckles of their long arms; they were tailless; they had fur on their heads and shoulders but were otherwise quite hairless, which gave them a sickeningly lewd and obscene look—and they seemed motivated by an avid cunning that was in everything they did. It was this characteristic that made Ambien I and I exclaim at the same moment: “Shammat!” What had happened was that the Shammat spies had mated with the natives and this was the result. It seemed to us that we were unlikely to see the remnant of the poor natives again, belligerent and suspicious though they had become; the stock banded together in a large, obviously efficient tribe, superior in intelligence and in strength. The old natives had a look about them that we knew only too well: the subdued, almost furtive look of species would who soon die out from discouragement.
We took note that this new stock could be used us, possibly, in our experiments, and flew north. Passing over the isthmus that joins the Isolated Northern Continent with the Isolated Southern Continent, we saw that the land-bridge had sunk, leaving a gap of 50 or so R-miles. Sometimes this bridge was there, at some epochs, and at others not, and we were to deduce that the gap had been there for a long time, because the stocks on the Northern Continent had not infiltrated southwards.
The Sirian Experiments Page 8