At any rate, Tafta illustrated the social law—so often seen, and of course causing me, because of my own position, much private alarm in case I might fall victim to it—that to the extent an individual has been a deviant from a group, a set of ideas, a “received opinion” of some sort, and then his own deviant opinions becoming “respectable,” ousting or questioning the former standards, so that he as an individual has ceased to be threat, but on the contrary has become stabilised in the new orthodoxy, then to the same degree he may be expected to misuse, scorn, and ridicule the new uprising generation of nonconformists.
I shall not detail the set of attitudes that on this occasion he was defending, but they were all to do with the despoiling of the planet, the damage being done by technology, poisoning, fouling, wastage, death. He was reassuring his questioners, and this easy, affable, smiling, democratic fellow, the very embodiment of successful adaptation, was deeply reassuring to them, or at least to most. And of course that this was so was not an accident.
There he sat, informally posed on the edge of the table, one leg pleasantly swinging, as if his exuberant vitality could not help expressing the sheer invincible joy of life in this way, the bright candid blue eyes beaming over his full healthy beard, and it occurred to me that he did not look all that different from the pirate whom I had watched plundering the continent south of this one. And he smiled. How he smiled! His smile was a most powerful instrument…
As a question was put to him from below, in the hall, the smile was adjusted: he adjusted, minutely, ridicule, scorn, contempt; but it was the mildest and almost careless ridicule that he was using to demonstrate the questioner’s foolishness or stupidity.
And he was, similarly, mildly and almost carelessly sarcastic. An individual stood up to demand reassurance about something or other, and he would, as he listened, adjust that smile and adjust the tone of his voice—exactly. Perfectly. What a performance Tafta was giving! I could not help but admire it. The social mechanism he was using so well was that social law that most Rohandans could not bear to be ridiculed, to be “out of step.” It was too uncomfortable to them to be outside the current group mind, and they were easily manipulated back into it.
Ten years before, the questions being asked had been different: in the meantime, many of the possibilities dismissed by Tafta or a similar spokesman as absurd had become fact. In ten years’ time, the questions being asked being ask today, and being so subtly ridiculed, would have been answered by events…
By the end of that “conference” and the “discussion period,” Tafta’s bland well-mannered contempt had succeeded in making his audience seem absurd and silly-minded little people, and most had a crestfallen look. But others, a few, had an air of stubborn self-preservation.
I left the scene and went down into the street, as much to escape the imbalances being created in me by this unpleasant building as to rid myself of the sight of Tafta. It took Shammat—I was thinking—to make of good humour a quality to be suspected and distrusted.
In the street I not conspicuous, for I was wearing the uniform, the thick tight trousers and singlet, and my face was daubed thoroughly with paint.
Tafta soon sauntered towards me, smiling.
“Were you watching?” And he let out a guffaw, which reminded me of the beach, the three whipped wretches, the buccaneers.
“I was indeed.”
“Well, Sirius?”—and I have never seen such a triumphant sneer. There was nothing in this vulgarian, all crude contempt, of the urbane gentleman of science I had just been watching.
“It is not Sirius,” I said quietly, as I had done before, “who is master of this planet.”
But while his gaze did meet mine, it was only with the surface of his attention. He was enclosed in his conceit, and his pleasure at his cleverness. And yet, as this boasting animal swaggered there, laughing, I knew that what I was seeing was—defeat.
“Tafta,” I said, “you are very sure of yourself.”
“We have just had a directive from home,” he said. “From Shammat. Shammat of Puttiora…” And he laughed, because the planet Shammat was now master of the Empire of Puttiora, and he was identifying himself this master. “The directive was to test the degree of imperviousness among these Rohandans to the truth of their situation. I tested it. And believe me, Sirius, it is absolute.”
“You are wrong. It only seems to be so.”
“If any leader of any nation of Rohanda stood up and told them the truth, the full truth, of their real situation, do you know what would happen? They would not believe him. They would kill him. Or lock him up as a madman.”
“So it seems now.”
He was looming and swaggering above me, smiling and ascendant, drunk with power and with confidence. And, just as had happened so often before, his great brown hairy hands came out, one on either side of my head, where my allyrium earrings hung. His fingers itchingly stroked the things, while his eyes glittered. But he had forgotten their purposes… And, as I remembered how much he had forgotten, how far he was from any real understanding, I felt some strength come back into me, and this repelled his leeching and sucking at me. His hands fell away.
“What pretty earrings,” said he, in a different voice, a half-mutter, thick and dreamlike, and into his eyes came an anxious look.
“Yes, Shammat, they are.”
Now stood at a distance from each other. He seemed to shrink and diminish as I watched him. He was now only the poor beast Shammat, the doomed one, and I was sorry for him.
I said, “It was foolish of you to follow that order from your Home Planet. Very foolish.”
“Why? What do you know…” As I walked away from him I heard him come running after me, and felt his hot carnivorous breath on my cheek.
Without turning I said, “Goodbye, Tafta.”
I heard him cursing me as he stood there impotent on the street’s edge. And then he was coughing and gasping and retching in the fumes of the machines. And so I left him.
I bought myself a mask of the kind worn by these unfortunates in their streets, to protect themselves from the poisons manufactured by their machines, and which often made them blind, or ill, or silly, and I went walking around and about that city, unable to bring myself yet to summon my Traveller, for I was thinking of Klorathy, of Canopus. I wanted—I am afraid this was the truth—some sort of reassurance; for while I had been showing firmness and confidence with Tafta, I could not help feeling myself undermined by the familiar dry sorrow at the waste of it, the dreadful squandering waste of it all. I remembered Nasar and how he had learned to contain his pain on behalf of this sad place, and I was thinking of the things he had said, and how much I had learned. I was wishing I might see him again. How much it would reassure me to see him, and to exchange a few words. What would he be thinking now, my old friend Nasar—my old friend Canopus?
CANOPUS
I was on the edge of the city, looking at a building, and thinking that it pleased me. It was simple enough, a dwelling place, and built of the local stone. There was nothing remarkable about it, yet it drew me. It was built on a small rocky hill that rose clear from the city’s dirty fumes. I saw that on the steps stood a young man, wearing the familiar uniform of tight trousers and singlet, but I could not see his face, for though he was turned towards me, he was wearing a mask. Nasar, Nasar, was ringing in my mind, and I said aloud: “Nasar, I am sure that it is you.”
We were like two snouted creatures, and he took off his mask, and I took off mine. We went higher up the hill, to be more above the fumes, since our eyes had at once begun to redden and water.
“Well, Sirius.”
“Did you build this place? Are you an architect?”
“I am an architect among other things.”
We stood looking the building, side by side. It was really very pleasant. The horrible dissonances of the rest of the city seemed to disappear, and only this house remained.
“Those who live here will be sane?”
“I am living here. I suppose I am saner than most,” said he, on the familiar note Nasar note, and I laughed.
“Ah, Canopus, but why, why, why?”
“Are you still asking why, Ambien?”
“Don’t you?”
He hesitated, and I rccognised in this something I knew well: he was not able to communicate what he was thinking to me, Sirius. I was not up to it! He said: “Ambien, has it not occurred to you that there are useful questions, and those that are not? Not at all! Not in the slightest degree!”
“It is hard to accept.”
“Won’t you accept it from Nasar—who knows all about useless rebellions?” And he laughed again, looking into my eyes, so that we remembered our time together in Koshi.
“Perhaps I am not strong enough for that truth.”
“Then so much the worse for you. And we none of us have any choice… or do you want to remain of those who make up any kind of solution or answer for themselves, and take refuge in it, because they are too weak for patience?”
And I could not help laughing, thinking of the long ages of his patience.
But as I laughed, I began to cough, and he was coughing, too.
He put back his mask and so did I. Again two snouted monsters, we faced each other, Nasar and I.
“Ambien, listen to me.”
“When did I ever do anything else?”
“Good. After watching us at work for the long time you have been involved with us, are you still able to believe that we deal in failure?”
“No.”
“Remember that then. Remember it.”
He made a jaunty little gesture of farewell, and went up the steps into his house.
I then left Rohanda, without going back to its moon.
The Four were waiting for me.
This time it was not possible to put them off. They had to have some sort of information.
After a good deal of thought, I dispatched this message to Klorathy. (We always used their term, Shikasta, for Rohanda in such exchanges.)
Private letter sent through the Diplomatic Bag.
AMBIEN II of SIRIUS, to KLORATHY, CANOPUS
In haste. Have just been looking through our reports from Shikasta. In case—which is unlikely, I know—you have not got this information, Shammat called a meeting of all its agents in one place. This in itself seems to us symptomatic of something long suspected by us—and I know, too. Conditions on Shikasta are affecting Shammatans even more than Shikastans, or affecting them faster. Their general mentation seems to be deteriorating rapidly. They suffer from hectivity, acceleration, arrhythmictivity. Their diagnosis of situations, as far as they are capable and within the limits of their species, is adequate. Adequate for certain specific situations and conditions. The conclusions they are drawing from analyses are increasingly wild. That Shammat should order this meeting, exposing its agents to such danger, shows the Mother Planet is affected; as much as that the local agents should obey an obviously reckless order.
This condition of Shammat and its agents, then, seems to us likely to add to the spontaneous and random destructivity to be expected of Shikasta at this time.
As if we needed anything worse!
Our intelligence indicates that you are weathering the Shikastan crisis pretty well—not that anything else was ever expected of you. If all continues to go well, when may we expect a visit? As always we look forward to seeing you.
Shortly after this, I was called by the Four, who had of course read this and discussed it.
“Why is it that you do not tell us what has really happened between you and Klorathy?”
“Between Sirius and Canopus.”
They were not so much annoyed at this, as alarmed.
I had a vision of our mind, the mind of the Five—five globules or cells nestling together in a whole, and one of them pulsing at a different rate. And the Four shrinking closer while the one, me, vibrated more wildly, because of the space around it.
“You tell us nothing. Nothing.”
“I tell you everything I can.”
“Ambien, you are going to have to tell us. Because if we cannot produce, as whole—we the Five—a consistent and convincing reason for our activities on Rohanda, then we are all threatened.”
“You have the remedy,” I said, looking at each in turn, steadily.
“But we obviously don’t want to use it.”
“Do you really imagine that all I have to do is to find a formula, a set of words, some phrases strung together—and then you would nod your heads and say: Oh of course, that’s it! and then you would release them to the Empire and everyone would be happy?”
This meeting, I have to emphasise, was at the height of the debate, which still continues, and threatens to destroy our foundations.
What foundations?
What uses, what purposes?
What service? What function?
At length I said to the Four that to explain to them as they wanted would mean my talking for a year or writing a book.
“Well, why not write a book, Ambien?”
I saw that many purposes would be served by this.
“It comes hard to an old bureaucrat, to write a history of the heart, rather than of events,” I said.
The jokes made between those who have been very close and who are so no longer are indeed painful. They sent me on extended leave. In other words, I am under planet arrest, on Colonised Planet 13.
I would do exactly the same in their place. In my view the institution of the Five, now—I hope, temporarily—the Four, is the most valuable regulator of our Empire. It should not be destroyed. I make a point of saying this, hoping that my millennia-long service and experience will not be entirely dismissed.
It is hard for me to be confined to this one planet, accustomed as I have been to range at will through the Galaxy, but I am not complaining. I feel it is a privilege for me to be allowed to write this account of what I know is a unique experience.
To think of Rohanda gives me pain, though I try to comfort myself with Nasar’s last words to me.
If I have learned so much that I never expected, what more can I hope to learn and understand, providing I am patient, and do not allow myself to ask useless questions?
This is Rohandan Ambien, Ambien II of the Five, from Planet 13 of the Sirian Empire
DIRECTIVE FROM THE FOUR, TO THE SIRIAN MOTHER PLANET AND ALL COLONISED PLANETS OF THE SIRIAN EMPIRE:
Attention! There is a document in general circulation that purports to be the work of Ambien II, formerly of the Five. That this so-called memoir has never been printed and therefore shown to be approved is evidence enough that it is not authentic, to those who use their judgement. We wish, however, to emphasise that this is a crude invention, the work of unfortunates who wish to subvert the good government of our Empire. Ambien II, after her long and valued service to our Empire, succumbed to mental disequilibrium, due to an overprolonged immersion in the affairs of the planet Rohanda. She is under treatment, and we her colleagues are confident that in due course she will be able to resume her duties, even if only to a restricted, and less taxing, degree.
LETTER FROM AMBIEN II TO STAGRUK:
I have seen your Directive. I can see that with the turn events have taken, and the danger of revolution in every part of our Empire, you Four had to take some such action. I have received your kind messages about my health. Yes, thank you, I am well, and I have no need of anything. Of course, I cannot help craving real participation in affairs. Old habits die hard! Meanwhile, it is a consolation to me that—not for the first time, as you know!—I receive visits from each one of you separately. These are a great pleasure to me. I like to feel that my experience is even being put to use in this indirect way. I reflect on the fact that you all assure me of your personal support, and your sympathetic understanding of why I took the steps I did to make sure my manuscript reached general circulation, even in its somewhat archaic form. I agree with you that unpalatable facts have to b
e released to the populace in measured and often ambiguous ways. Was it not I who first introduced this view? I reflect, too, that this rapport between us old colleagues may stand us all in good stead yet when—as you will, I am sure, agree seems more and more likely to happen—we all find ourselves together in “corrective exile” on this quite pleasant though tedious Planet 13.
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The Sirian Experiments Page 34