The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

by Doris Lessing

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you be good enough to tell the court what skills you have?’

  Stil stood thinking for a moment before starting on a recital that lasted some minutes, beginning: ‘I understand all the processes to do with the catching, cleaning, curing of fish and its products, I can drain poor, sour land and clean it, I can plant and grow trees, and I can …’ It ended with, ‘I know how to administer a settlement, and to use all the technical devices associated with that. Some of them we captured from you.’

  A long silence.

  Spascock: ‘I gather that your point, Grice, is that Volyen, your motherland, has not provided you with an education as comprehensive as Stil’s?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I think his point is, Judge, that hardship has made Stil into what we see – and very admirable it is too,’ said the Chief Peer.

  At this point there was a light hand-clapping from the public benches, and Spascock, scandalized, shouted: ‘This is not a public theatre!’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like him,’ went on Arithamea. ‘I’m sure we none of us have. But are you really complaining, Governor Grice, that Volyen hasn’t treated you badly, half starved you, all that kind of thing?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Grice, though his point was in fact not far from that. ‘All I know is this. I am fit for only one thing – if that. Governing a colony. Provided I have enough underlings to do the dirty work. Oh, I can’t understand the technical devices used in administration. And all my life I have been soft, self-indulgent, weak. I cannot stand up to the slightest setback or hardship. I could not survive a day without the comforts and convenience I’ve known all my life. Compared with Stil here, compared with a Motzan, I am nothing.’

  Here we all examined Grice, we examined Spascock. Certainly there was nothing much there to admire. Meanwhile, the Motzan stood silent, his arms folded, looking ahead of him. A soldier, standing at ease: that was what he suggested, with his broad, healthy face, his great neck, his arms, his legs exposed under the short tunic in the Motzan fashion. Arithamea went on:

  ‘I want to ask the witness a question.’

  ‘Certainly, if he agrees,’ said Spascock.

  Stil nodded.

  ‘How many Motzans died as children under such treatment?’

  Stil looked uncomfortable for the first time. ‘A good many died. But we are talking of the past. You will remember, we developed a hostile planet from nothing, and it is only recently that –’

  ‘But many died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not all have survived to tell the tale?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are all the people of your planet as well equipped and strong and able as you?’

  ‘Yes, I would say we all are,’ said Stil unexpectedly, for we had expected him in his honesty to admit less than that. But because of his honesty, we knew it was true. ‘Yes, we are all able to turn our hands to anything that comes up. We aren’t afraid of hardship. We can eat anything.’

  ‘You all of you rise when your sun rises, and you work all day, you live on two small meals in the day, you drink very little intoxicating liquor, you sleep no more than three or four hours in the night.’

  Stil nodded. ‘That is so.’

  At this point an earnest, worried-looking man who had taken the place of the disappointed reveller on the seat next to Arithamea said, ‘It seems to me that what this Indictment is demanding is impossible.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Grice. ‘It’s perfectly obvious. It is generally known, everyone knows, that a population who are pampered, softened, allowed to go to flesh, become fit for nothing and degenerate. This is a law of nature. We observe it all the time, in plants, animals – and in people, though there seems to have arisen a convention with us on Volyen that people are exempt from these laws, and –’

  ‘May I ask a question?’ said the worried man.

  ‘May he ask a question, Chief Peer?’ asked Spascock.

  ‘I didn’t know I had to give him permission.’

  ‘He is being sarcastic,’ said Incent protectively, hovering about the group of Peers. ‘Take no notice.’

  ‘But we have to take notice of the Judge, dear, even if his manners aren’t up to mine.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Peer,’ said Spascock.

  ‘This is my question, then. You say in your Second Indictment, which is what we are considering today, that Empires are like animal organisms: they have a curve of development and ultimately decay. All Empires show this. While they develop they are vigorous, admire simple virtues and capacities, teach their children discipline and how to devote themselves to duty. On the ascending curve they produce people like this Stil hete, who are healthy and not neurotic, who admire forcefulness and determination and responsibility. But when they decline, they are like … like we are on Volyen. We are lazy and even proud of it. We teach our children that they are entitled to anything, without working for it. We are self-indulgent. We spend our time eating and drinking and sleeping. We dress as the fancy takes us. A lot of us take drugs and intoxicants.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ came from the public benches.

  ‘If I am not speaking for most of us, where have I been living all my life?’ said the worried man. ‘But the point is, if this is an organic process, and if an Empire, like a group, like a person, like an animal, has a time of growth, of flourishing, and then a descent, then how can you expect Volyen, which is this organism, to change its own laws? You haven’t explained that. How? At what point should “Volyen,” whatever that may be, and I’m told even this court hasn’t made up its mind on the point, have said: “Now, I am not going to let myself get decadent and soft, I’m going to contradict all the laws that I know operate”?’

  Silence again.

  ‘Well, Grice, that seems to be a reasonable question,’ said Spascock.

  ‘Why do we have to take for granted that it can’t be done? Pessimism again. Just like us, that is – pessimism and negativism.’

  ‘I agree with that,’ said Stil suddenly, ‘if I am entitled to say anything, as a witness. When we say we are going to do a thing, we do it. It’s a question of will.’

  ‘Yes, but you are on the ascending curve, love,’ said Arithamea soothingly, ‘while we’re going down. Judge, are we supposed to say that Volyen is guilty, or not guilty, of arresting some inevitable force or law of growth? Because I am with my fellow Peer here.’

  ‘Grice?’ demanded Spascock.

  ‘How is it that I’ve never heard Volyen, in the person of public body, teacher, court, President – not once has Volyen ever said to its citizens: “We were energetic, self-disciplined, and dutiful; now we are softened and fit for nothing”?’

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Governor Grice,’ said Krolgul. ‘How is it that you are not mentioning that while Volyen had all these noble qualities, Volyen was also conquering and grabbing and killing and imprisoning and taking over any little planet that took your fancy?’

  ‘It is not my present point,’ said Grice, suffering.

  ‘Well, love,’ inquired the Chief Peer of Stil, ‘do you Motzans conquer and steal and imprison and kill?’

  He was silent, and then said: ‘No, no, I am sure not.’

  But he knew the Motzan fleets were poised waiting all around Volyen. He was more than uncomfortable, this Stil. He was suffering an assault on his entire emotional and intellectual apparatus. It had occurred to him for the very first time that the Virtue of Sirius was not to be embodied in one word and left undefined.

  Krolgul said: ‘When Sirius invades, it will be the Motzan fleets who invade first.’ He said this quite lightly, even laughing. The information was too new, too raw to assimilate; and everyone looked doubtfully at this court official who was so saturnine and threatening, even though he was laughing.

  ‘Do let’s get on,’ said Spascock again. ‘You want a verdict passed, I take it, that “Volyen” should have instructed us that these amenities we have been t
aking for granted all our lives, our civilization, everything we have been proud of, our leisured lives, our ease, our plenty, all this was quite simply decadence and would lead inevitably to our defeat by stronger and more vigorous peoples?’

  He was looking straight at Grice, with a grim, self-critical, angry smile.

  And Grice was looking at him, similarly. ‘Well, what do you think, Spascock?’

  ‘Well, yes … speaking personally,’ he said in a hurried, low voice, and then loudly: ‘Very well, Peers, that’s it. Will you retire and consider your verdict.’

  The group of Peers looked at one another, consulted in low voices.

  The court was in that restless, almost irritated atmosphere that says people feel a thing has run its course. And when the Chief Peer announced, ‘We are going to retire to consider our verdict,’ there was even a groan.

  Spascock: ‘I’ve already said this isn’t a theatre.’

  ‘As good as one,’ shouted someone from the public benches. And there was laughter as they all got up and jostled out, in a rough, raucous, jeering mood that contrasted with the sober demeanour of the retiring Peers.

  The people who came in from the street to the Trial went through three different moods. First, they hoped to be able to release in laughter, because of the clumsy and ridiculous processes of the law, their rage and frustration at everything that was happening around them in Volyen. Then, finding something different, and that the Peers after the first day were prepared to be serious, they became attentive. Then, as they could be heard complaining on their way out, ‘But there’s nothing to take hold of, one way or the other,’ and so they again became derisive, ready to mock anything or anyone in authority. At any rate, they left all together and as one, and from then on the public benches were empty.

  Spascock was looking in a hollow, appalled, incredulous way at Grice, who was ruffling sheaves of papers as if some truth that lay hidden there was escaping him.

  ‘Grice,’ hissed Spascock, ‘you can’t possibly want to go on with this … this …

  ‘Farce,’ offered Krolgul in a helpful way.

  ‘Certainly I do,’ said Grice.

  ‘Can’t you see you are bringing the legal processes of Volyen into disrepute?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ cried Incent, ‘on the contrary, he’s asking questions that have to be asked!’ And now he hovered about Grice, his big black eyes fervently offering total support.

  ‘Yes, but not here,’ moaned Spascock.

  ‘It’s all logical, said Grice. ‘Tell me one thing I’ve said that isn’t logical.’

  At this word, Incent did glance in doubt towards me, remembering how often I’ve told him that when that word appears in a situation, it is time to be on your guard. I shook my head at him, and Incent sank onto a near chair, his head in his hands.

  Krolgul smiled at me. It is interesting that at such moments this old enemy of ours seems to regard himself almost as an ally.

  ‘I see that number Three of the Indictment is a total condemnation, root and branch, of the entire Volyen system of education?’ remarked Spascock.

  ‘I suppose it amounts to that,’ agreed Grice. ‘You could perhaps tell them to bring in the relevant books?’

  ‘Your next batch of witnesses, I suppose? But we haven’t finished with your Second Indictment.’

  The two bickered on in the amiable, grumbling way that characterizes their relationship, until a group of serious, even suffering people entered the court. These were the Peers, and it was evident that their deliberations had united them: the way they stood so close, as if in support of one another, told us that any one of them could speak for the rest. But it was still Arithamea who spoke up, without stepping forward or separating herself from them.

  ‘Judge,’ she said. ‘The little bit of talking we’ve done has made one thing clear: this is a very serious matter.’

  ‘Oh, is it?’ groaned Spascock. ‘That’s what you’ve decided, is it?’

  ‘Yes, love, it is. And we want to criticize the conduct of this court from the start. It hasn’t been treated seriously enough.’

  ‘Wha-a-at?’ creaked Spascock. And to Grice: ‘You, as Accuser, are you complaining about the conduct of this case?’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Grice histrionically, ‘that my Peers recognize the importance of what I am saying.’

  ‘I didn’t say we went all the way with you, Governor Grice. No, what we think is this. There’s sense in what you say. We all think that – don’t we?’ And here she was supported, as she looked around at the others, by nods, smiles, and even touches and squeezes. ‘Yes. We do. We are shocked, Judge, because we haven’t been told things we ought to know. And we are grateful to Governor Grice for bringing them up. But there’s something we can’t quite put our finger on, in a manner of speaking …’ And here she smiled in her helpful, motherly way around the court. ‘What we can’t come to grips with is that, at the same time, there’s something not right. How can we put it …?’

  ‘It’s either right, or wrong,’ said Grice, standing up to them like a man before the firing squad, his whole being at stake. ‘Either good, or bad.’

  ‘Either with me or against me,’ suggested Krolgul.

  ‘Logic,’ moaned poor Incent, who still huddled, stricken, on his seat.

  ‘Well, there you are, love, that’s it. There’s something silly about it, but we can’t put our finger on what. Because when we sit and think and remember what the Governor here said, we decide he’s right. And then one of us says, But there’s something silly, for all that …

  Grice, with a gesture of long-suffering, turned away, as if from her, the Peers, the Judge – everyone.

  ‘And so, what we ask is this, that you adjourn the court long enough for us to read these books, and then we’ll give our verdict.’

  ‘My good woman, you can’t possibly be serious!’

  ‘Why not, Judge? Were these books brought into the court as evidence or were they not?’

  ‘Logic,’ breathed Krolgul, smiling.

  ‘Because if they were, and we have to make up our minds on evidence, we have the right to –’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, very well,’ said Spascock. ‘Have the Peers taken to a private room, supply them with the books, feed them, and all that kind of thing.’

  ‘Thank you, Judge.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mention it. We all have all the time in the world. You did actually hear the news this morning?’ And he glared down at Arithamea.

  ‘If you are saying that perhaps, at a time of National Emergency, such a case should have been put off to happier days, then we go along with that, but since you allowed the case to be brought, then you must allow it to be finished.’

  ‘Logic. Since – then,’ remarked Krolgul, laughing.

  ‘Ergo,’ said Spascock. ‘And,’ he muttered, as if to himself, in real misery, ‘I suppose it has served its purpose.’

  ‘Which is?’ demanded Grice, confronting him, full on.

  ‘Which is to make this poor planet of ours look even more totally and absolutely and ridiculously hopeless than it does already. Or hasn’t it occurred to you, Grice, that there are certain quarters who lose no opportunity to – Oh, what’s the use! Case adjourned until these twenty or so assorted Peers have read – what is it? one hundred and fifty, at least – erudite volumes.’

  He swept out. The Peers left, followed by three court attendants trundling the trolley of books.

  So ended the last court case to be heard on Volyen, the last under the old dispensation.

  KLORATHY TO JOHOR. FROM VOLYEN DESTA.

  Many events in a short time!

  As the history books will put it, Sirius invaded Volyen, the day after the Trial was adjourned.

  On Sirius the power struggle rages. The Questioners, recently repelled, made a comeback, and succeeded in dividing the Centre on the question of whether to invade Volyen or not. But this was pan of the larger question: what the Questioners won the vote on was, ‘We propose t
hat no further expansion of any kind takes place until we have learned from Canopus how to align ourselves with the Purpose; until we know what we are for.’

  You will see that the silent influences of the Five have been potent indeed.

  But the defeated faction sent a secret message to the Sirian armies to carry out existing plans; and by the time the Questioners knew about it, it was too late.

  Motzans, in Sirian Centre spacecraft, landed all over Volyen, to be met by patchy resistance. Sirian ‘agents’ everywhere saw to it that the defending armies were confused and got conflicting orders. The inverted commas are, of course, because many still had no idea to what extent they would be considered Sirian partisans. Most people allowed themselves to be motivated by patriotism, and so there were areas of Volyen where the fighting was bitter. The Motzan armies were in control in a few V-days.

  Their demoralization began at once.

  First, before they even landed, they heard rumours – contradicted at once – that the ‘Centre’ had never ordered them to attack. These in any case unwilling soldiers were angry. And then, what they found when they landed … never had they imagined such plenty, such piles of everything. Men and women – Motzan females are willing and skilled soldiers – went about the streets of the Volyen cities, not believing what they saw. Volyen had been presented to them as a deprived and bitterly poor planet, needing Sirian assistance. In the shops and markets in every street, in every city, in every settlement, piles, wasteful rolling piles, of food: fruits and vegetables the frugal Motzans had never even heard of; meat and fish prepared in a thousand ways, clothes so fanciful and delicate and rare and delightful.

  The Motzans, in the absence of clear orders from ‘the Centre itself,’ had instructed Volyen to establish normality at once. And so normality there was. And the Motzans could not believe it. At first they believed there was a gigantic conspiracy, cunningly organized, to present to them this vision of smiling plenty. And they went running around from street to street, looking for the horrible poverty and deprivation they had expected. But, like Stil on his first arrival, they said: We could feed one of our settlements on what they waste here in a day!