The Sirian Experiments

by Doris May Lessing Little Dorrit

  We met Klorathy as arranged on a high plateau of red rock and sand, the result of recent earthquakes, overlooking lower fertile plains untouched by the quakes. Our aircraft came down side by side on the burning desert: we conversed by radio, and together flew off into the shelter of a high wooded mountain. The three of us conducted our first conference under a large shade tree, sharing a meal. It was a most pleasant occasion. We were all quite frankly examining each other to see if our impressions on Colony 10 been accurate. As for myself, I was more than happy. Klorathy in himself was as lively and attractive as I remembered, but there was the additional bonus always felt in meeting with the superior ones of our Galaxy. After all, so much of one’s time is spent with the lower races, and as interesting as the work is, as likable as these races often are, to meet one’s equals is something to be looked forward to.

  Klorathy was typical of Canopean Mother Planet Type I: very tall, lightly built, strong, light bronze in colour, his eyes darker bronze, he was not dissimilar from my Ambien I. And I was conscious that my own physical difference from them both was felt by them to be an agreeable contrast.

  We still did not know why we had been invited to this meeting—both Ambiens (as we often humorously refer to ourselves) had been speculating. I for one had been thinking most of all about the mathematical cities of the pre-Disaster phase. I had even been wondering if we hadn’t imagined all that—to the extent of asking Ambien I again and again to repeat to me what he had seen of them. But he reiterated that he had never seen anything like those cities ever, anywhere. Yet on the Canopean Mother Planet they had nothing so advanced. I had asked Klorathy about this at the last conference, and he had replied that there was “no need” for this of city or building on Canopus itself. I had believed him. When with Klorathy, one had to know he did not lie. When away from him, it was a different matter, and I had been wondering why he had lied. Together again, sitting with him there under the light fragrant shade of the tree, on soft spicy grasses, I had only to look at him to know that if he said that on Canopus (the Mother Planet) they had such and such city, then it was true. He had described these to me, and they did not sound so dissimilar from those on Sirius. Agreeable, genial cities, planted with all kinds of attractive and useful trees and shrubs, they are places one experiences well-being. But they are not built as those round, or starlike or hexagonal—and so forth—cities of the old Rohanda.

  “Why not? Why not, Klorathy?”

  “It’s like this, Ambien II: cities, buildings—the situations of cities and buildings on any planet—are designed according to need.”

  Well, obviously—was what I was thinking.

  I was disappointed, and felt cheated. I felt worse than that. I had not really, before meeting Klorathy, stopped to consider the effect it would have on our being together, that I could not say anything about what was so strongly in my mind then—the horrible new race, or stock, of beast-men on S.C. II. We had not told Canopus that we had had visits from Shammat, or that we had stolen without telling them some of “their” Natives, or that C.P. 22 technicians had escaped with some Lombis and settled not far from here, or that we had so often and so thoroughly conducted espionage in their territories, or that Shammat had done the same… it seemed to me, sitting there in that delightful picnic spot, if instead of being open and generously available to this friend, as one has to be in friendship, my mind had bars around it: keep off, keep off… and there were moments when I could hardly bear to look into that open unsuspicious countenance. And yet I have to record that I was also feeling something like: You think you are so clever, you Canopeans, but you have no idea what’s in my mind, for all that!

  No, there was not going to be any easy companionship between us, not really. Or not yet.

  Soon we found out why Sirius had been invited to send representatives… when we heard, we could hardly believe it, yet what we had expected was not easy to say.

  The remnant of the degenerating Giant race had proliferated and spread everywhere—over this continent as well. They were now half the size they had been, about our size—eight to nine R-feet tall, and were not as long-lived. They had retained little memory of their great past—not much beyond knowledge of the uses of fire for cooking and warmth and some elementary craftwork. They did not grow plants for food, but gathered them wild; and they hunted. From north to south of the Isolated Northern Continent they lived in large, closely organised tribes who did not war with each other, since there plenty of territory and apparently infinite stocks of animals. The tribes near here, near this spot, were called Hoppe and Navahi, and it was Klorathy’s mission to visit them and… I missed some of what he was saying, at this point. For I could not tell him the origin of these two names, and I was afraid even of looking at Ambien I. When I was able to hear again, he was talking about some dwarves that lived in these mountains,

  and in other mountain chains, too, over the continent, and he was to visit these, for Canopus would like to know more about them. And assumed that Sirius would as well. I can only say that I recognised in a this sort of shorthand for much more… for much more I will not say at this point: certainly it turned out very differently from what I then imagined.

  Klorathy was wanting us to go with him into the mountain habitations of the dwarves. This would involve danger, since they had been hounded by the Hoppes and Navahis, and while he was known by them we would have to win their trust. He was taking it absolutely for granted that we would be ready for this: Ambien I most certainly was, for he liked challenge. As for me, I did not want any association with what were bound to be no more than squalid little half-animals—but I assented.

  THE DWARVES. THE HOPPES. THE NAVAHIS

  We concealed the two machines as well as could in a canyon and walked forth boldly towards the mountains. These had not been devastated by the quake, though some rock falls had taken place, giving the mountainsides a raw disturbed look. Standing close against a precipitous surface we could hear kinds of murmurings and knockings and runnings-about, and I was reminded of the termite dwellings on Isolated S.C. II—putting one’s ear to the walls of one of these, having knocked on its surface or broken a part off, one heard just such a scurrying, rustling murmur. Coming round the edge of this precipice, there was a low dark cave entrance, Klorathy walked at once towards it, lifting up both his hands and calling out words I did not know. We, too, lifted our hands in what was obviously a gesture of peace. There was a sudden total silence, from which we were able to gauge the degree of the background of noise to which we had adjusted ourselves approaching the mountain. Silence—the sun blazing down uncomfortably from the warm Rohanda skies—heat striking out from the raw and unhealed rocks—heat dizzying up from the soil.

  Suddenly there was a rush of movement from the cave, so swift it was impossible to distinguish details, and we three were enclosed in a swarm of squat little people who were hustling us inside the cave, which we tall ones—they came up to our knee level—had to go on all fours to enter. We were in a vast cavern, lit everywhere by small flames, which we later found were outlets of natural gas, controlled and kept perpetually burning. Yet they were not enough to create more than a soft twilight. The cavern was floored with white sand that glimmered, and in crystals in the rock twinkled, and a river that rushed along the cavern’s edge flung up sparkling showers of spray. I had not expected to find this soft exuberance of light inside the dark mountain, and my spirits rose, and as I was rushed along by the pressure of the little people I was able to examine them. They were certainly less animal than the horrid new beast-men of the Southern Continent, but quite seemly and decent creatures, wearing trousers and jackets of dressed skins. Very broad they were, almost as broad as tall: and I was easily able to recognise in the stock the powerful arms and shoulders of the Lombis, and the yellow skins of the technicians. Their faces were bare of hair, under close caps of tight rough dark curls, and were keen and sharp and intelligent.

  We were taken through several of such caverns, alwa
ys with the river rushing along beside us, until we were deep inside the mountain—yet it did not feel oppressive, for the air was sweet and fresh. We were in a cave so enormous the roof went up above us into impenetrable black, and the illuminations around the rocky verges were pinpoints of innumerable light. There was a cleared space in the centre, quite large enough to take a horde of these little people and ourselves, but small in proportion to the enormousness of the place. We were sat down on piles of skins, and given some food—hardly to the palates of such as we—though it was not without interest to be reminded of what was—what had to be—the food of all the lowly evolved planets of our Galaxy. Meat. A sort of cheese. A kind of beer. All this time Klorathy was keeping up talk with them: he seemed to know their language at least adequately. It was Ambien I and myself who puzzled them, though they were civil enough—for we were both obviously of different kinds from Klorathy. They eyed us, yet not unpleasantly, and one of the females, a quite attractive little thing in her robust heavy way, begged to touch my hair, and in a moment several females had crowded up, smiling and apologetic, but unable to resist handling my blonde locks. Yet I, for my part, was looking around into the faces packed and massed all around, and remembering the Lombis—who had never set eyes on me or anything like me—and the Colony 22 techs, who had… a long, long time ago, far out of personal memory, in their time reckoning, but such a short time ago in ours. Did they have any sort of race or gene memory? We examined each other, in a scene of which I have been a part so very often in my long service: members of differing races meeting, not in enmity but in genial curiosity.

  How were we able to do this—see each other so close and well, when the twinkling walls of the cave were so distant? It was by—electricity. Yes. Everywhere stood strong bright lights, wooden containers that housed batteries: it is never possible to foresee what part of a former technology a fallen-off race will retain.

  And they were that—reduced, I mean; under pressure, beset… I able to recognise it at once, by a hundred little signs that perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to consciously describe. These were a people in danger, endangered—desperate. It showed in the sombre consciousness of their eyes, fastening on Klorathy, who for his part was leaning forward, urgent, concentrated on this task of his…

  Later we were led off, I by the women, the men separately, and we slept in small but airy rock chambers. And next day the discussions with Klorathy went on, while I and Ambien I were taken, on our request, to see this underground kingdom. Which I shall now briefly describe.

  First of all, it not the only one: Klorathy said that not only all over this continent but in most parts now of Rohanda spread these underearth races. But they not taken to the caves and caverns by nature, only from need, as they found themselves hunted and persecuted by races so much larger than themselves. Though not more skilled.

  These caverns were by no means the habitations of brutes. They had been adapted from holes and caves, often the old tunnels of former underground rivers and lakes. Sometimes they been excavated. Many were carefully panelled with well-tailored smoothed planking. All were lit either by natural gas or by electricity. There were meeting places and eating places, sleeping places, and storage caves and workshops. Animals had been captured from the surface world and brought down to breed and increase in this below-earth realm. There were birds, some flying freely about, as if they had been in the air. These were underground cities, underearth realms. And they were all based on the oddest and saddest contradictions or predicaments.

  This race had become skilled miners and metallurgists. Beginning with iron, they had made all kinds of utensils and then—finding themselves hunted—weapons. For time, and in some places, they had made approaches out into the world to offer trade, and trade had often been effective. They exchanged iron products for roots and fruits and fresh supplies of animals for their chthonic herds. Then they found gold. They had seen it was beautiful and did not rust and crumble as iron did, but found it too soft for tools and vessels—yet it was so beautiful, and they made ornaments and decorations with it. Taking it out to the tribes now forming everywhere above ground—for these were more likely to be their neighbours than the people of the advanced cities, at first gold was a curiosity, and then, suddenly, was something for which murder could be committed, and slaves captured—the dwarves were chased into the mountains and whole communities wiped out. They fled deeper into the mountains, or went into further ranges, always going further, retreating, becoming invisible except for rare careful excursions to see if trade was possible again. Sometimes it was. Often, coming out with their vessels spears and arrowheads, their glistening gleaming ornaments, they would be ambushed and all killed.

  Yet they always mined, since it was now in their blood… the skill of it in their hands and minds.

  Yet, this was the sad paradox that they did not fully see until Klorathy pointed it out to them: suppose they had never mined at all, would they have missed so much: Did their food depend on it? Their clothing? Even their electricity? Their clay vessels were beautiful and strong and in every way as good as their iron ones. Suppose they had never learned how to melt iron from rocks, and gold from rocks—what then? But it was too late for thinking in this way. Finding themselves harried and hunted, these poor creatures had sent Klorathy a message. Had sent a message “all the way to the stars.”

  How?

  Coming together in a great conclave, from every part of this continent, creeping along a thousand underground channels and roads, they had cried out that “Canopus would help them.”

  Two of them had made a dangerous journey to the middle seas. There, so the news was, were great cities. This journey had taken many R-years. The two, a male and a female, having crept and crawled and lurked and sneaked their way across a continent and then from island to island across the great sea, and then across land again, had found that upheavals and earthquakes had vanished the great cities, which were now only a memory among half-savages. The two had gone northwards, hearing of “a place where kindness and women rule.”

  There they were directed to Adalantaland, where there was kindness and a wise female ruler, who had said that “Canopus had not visited for a long time, not in her memory or in that of her mothers.” The two had left their messages, obstinately believing that what Canopus had promised—for promises were in their memories—Canopus would perform. And though they had died as soon as they had delivered their reports of that epic and terrible journey, soon Canopus did perform, for Klorathy came to them.

  He had come first on an investigational trip from one end of this continent to the other. He had heard, then, of the “little people” in the other continents, for oddly—or perhaps not oddly at all—emissaries from the “little people,” hunted and persecuted everywhere, had made their brave and faithful journeys to places where they believed “Canopus” might have ears to hear their cries for help.

  Klorathy had then summed up all this information he had garnered, and pondered over it and concluded that there was another factor here, there was an element of beastliness, more and above what could be expected. It was the work of Shammat, of course, who Canopus had believed to be still far away half across the globe—not that its influence wasn’t everywhere… but on the subject of that “influence” Klorathy was either not able or not willing to enlarge.

  “What do you mean, Klorathy?—when you talk of Shammat-nature?”—and as I asked the question I thought of those avid greedy faces, those glittering avaricious eyes. “A savage is a savage. A civilised race behaves like one.” At which he smiled, sadly, and in a way that did not encourage me to press him.

  What Klorathy hoped to achieve by this present excursion into the realm of the dwarves was first of all to encourage them, saying that Canopus was doing what it could. Secondly, he said he would now go out to meet with the Hoppes and the Navahis and put it to them that to harry these most excellent craftsmen of the mountains was folly—better rather to become allies with them, to trade, and
to stand together with them against the vicious children of Shammat who were the enemies of both, the enemies of everyone. Therefore, Klorathy asked them—sitting in the vast cavern under its canopy of twinkling lights, on the warm white sand that the dwarves carried from the outside rivers to make clean, shining floors for themselves—leaning forward into the low and immediate light of the electric handlamps: be patient. When—if—the tribesmen come offering treaties and trade, then see if ways cannot be found to do this without laying themselves open to traps and treason. For his part, he, Klorathy, pledged himself to do what he could. And so we left that hidden and fantastic realm, with its race of earthy craftsmen, being escorted into the outer air and the blue skies towards which the dwarves lifted their longing and exiled eyes before fleeing away into the earth again.

  Now we had to make contact with the tribesmen.

  Their lookouts soon saw us as across the rocky and raw landscape, with no aim except to he captured. Which we were, and taken to their camp. This was the usual functional unit of the Modified Two stage. Their skills were less than those of the dwarves, so soon to be extinct. They hunted, lived off the results of their hunting, and had developed a close harmonious bond with the terrain on which they lived. In which they had their being—as their religion saw it.

  They did us no harm, because they recognised in us something of the stuff of certain legends—all about Canopus. Always of that Empire, never of ours. I drew the attention of my colleagues in the Service when I returned home to the fact that even in territories close to our allotted portion of Rohanda, which might be expected to owe some sort of allegiance to us, to Sirius, it was to Canopus that their higher allegiances were pledged, were given. Why was this? Surely there was a fault here in our presentation of ourselves?