The Sirian Experiments

by Doris Lessing

  I sat myself down carefully, and said to him, beginning my cross-examination: ‘Are you a relative of Klorathy?’

  This he took as a shock, or a check. He set his eyes direct on me, and gave me his attention:

  ‘Well, lovely lady,’ said he, and stopped. I remember how he briefly shut his eyes, sighed, and seemed to fight with himself. He said, in a different voice, patient, but too patient, there was much too much effort in it and he was speaking as from out of a dream or a trance: ‘We come from the same planet, Klorathy and I. We are all very similar in appearance.’ And there was, again, that flicker of a restless laugh – and then a turning aside of the eyes, a sort of painful grimace, a quick shaking of the head, as if thoughts were being shaken away. Then he looked at me again.

  ‘Am I going to see Klorathy this time?’

  ‘One Canopean is the same as another,’ he said, and it was like the ghost of a derisive quote.

  ‘You are not like Klorathy,’ I said doggedly, surprised that I said it. And knew I had not meant it kindly.

  He looked surprised, then laughed – sadly, I could have sworn to that – and said gently: ‘No, you are right. At this moment, at this time, I am indeed not remotely like Klorathy.’

  I did not know what to say.

  ‘I want to ask questions of somebody …’ and this was desperate. I was becoming amazed at myself – the tone of this interview or exchange was different from anything I had ever known. I, Ambien II, age-long high official of Sirius, with all that meant of responsibility and effectiveness – I did not recognize myself.

  It seemed to me, however, that incompetent as I was being, he was arrested by me, and returned to something different from … I could not yet say to myself, simply, that he was in a bad, a recognizably wrong and bad state. I said that at this moment at least I could see something in him of Klorathy.

  ‘Ask, fair Sirian.’ This I did not like but was able to swallow it – because of the element of caricature in what he said, the manner of it.

  ‘First of all. I met a man on the very first evening I was here. I disliked everything about him …’ I described him, physically, and waited.

  ‘You must surely be able to work that out for yourself. We are under the aegis of Puttiora here. As I believe you were told. That was one of them. They know everything that happens. Who comes into the city and who goes out. But you passed their test.’

  ‘What test?’

  ‘Obviously, you were of Canopus, and therefore you were not molested.’

  ‘I am not, however.’

  ‘They are an ignorant lot.’

  ‘Why do you tolerate their rule?’ I asked, fierce, hot, incredulous. ‘Why?’

  ‘A good question, fair Sirian. Why? I ask it myself. Every hour of every day. Why? Why do we put up with the nasty, stinking, loathsome, horrible …’ and he got up, literally sick and choking, and went to the window and leaned out. From far below I heard the clamour of evening, and imagined the flare-lit streets, the poor posturing women, the sale of flesh, the fighting, the drinking.

  At that point there was a very long silence. I could have, then, said things I did not until later. But this was Canopus and so … and when he turned a hunted haunted face towards me, and sighed, and then laughed, and then shook his head, and then put his face in his hands, and then flung himself down again, and yet was unable to stay still for even a moment, I said to myself only that this was a man disgusted by Shammat.

  ‘Very long term, the perspectives of Canopus, you must learn to understand that,’ he said at last.

  ‘And very long term are the perspectives of Sirius,’ I said, with dignity. For if there was one thing I understood, it was that … empires and the running of them … but he stared and laughed – he laughed until he flung himself back and lay exhausted, staring at the ceiling.

  The thought was in my mind that this was a man who was in very deep trouble. And I suppressed it.

  ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘for reasons of long-term development, you tolerate Shammat, you tolerate Puttiora and allow them to believe they are in control. Very well. But what are you doing here?’

  ‘A good question, again, fair Sirian.’

  I said, ‘You do not have to call me that. I have a name. But it doesn’t matter. What I want to know is, what is the function of Canopus? What are you?’ And I was leaning forward, twisting my hands together, so that they cracked – all my limbs are thin and frail, and I sustain breaks easily. I was using enough strength to break bones. I sat back, carefully relaxing myself.

  He was watching me thoughtfully. With respect.

  ‘You are right to ask that question.’

  ‘But you are not going to answer it?’

  At this he started up, leaning forward, gazing at me as if incredulous. ‘Can’t you see…’ he began – and then lay back again, silent.

  ‘See what?’ But he said nothing. ‘Why do you stop? Why is it that you will never answer? Why is it I always get so far and then you won’t answer?’

  He was gazing at me, from where he reclined. I could have sworn that this copper man, or bronze man, that bronze-eyed, alert smiling man was Klorathy. But he was not. The contrast was so absolute, and definite, to the extent that I said to him, not knowing I was going to: ‘What is the matter with you?’

  He laughed.

  And even then I didn’t pursue it, for if I had done he would have answered.

  He stood up. He collected himself. He smiled – oh, not at all like Klorathy.

  ‘First of all … I have to tell you …’ and he stopped, and he sighed. I saw he was not going to say it!

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Why? To work? They say you are a merchant?’

  ‘I am a merchant. In Shammat land do as Shammat does. I am a merchant as you are my servant.’ He came close to me then and bent and put out both hands and touched my earrings. ‘Take care of them,’ said he, and sprang back, as if the touch burned him. ‘Where are yours?’ I asked.

  ‘A good question. But they are on the earlobes of Shammat. They were stolen, you see. Or, more accurately, I got drunk and gave them to the earlobes of Shammat … very bad,’ he said. ‘Not good.’

  And he smiled in a way that frightened me, and left.

  And now I knew at last that there was something very wrong with this Canopean. I was enabled to search my memory and come up with: the fact that this was a suborned, or disaffected, or rebellious official. I had seen it! I had had to deal with it a hundred times! This was Canopus gone wrong.

  And I wrapped myself rapidly in my black cloth and I ran down those stairs after him, catching him halfway, and making him stop.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To visit my woman. I have a beautiful woman,’ said he. ‘Oh, don’t look like that! Believe me, it is only those who understand nothing that look like that …’ and he bounded down the stairs. I went after him, the alabaster walls of the stairs gleaming around us both, and we reached the dark street that was luridly illuminated and full of sweating shouting demented people. I grabbed him and made him turn. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘Do you imagine we are unobserved?’ He tore himself away. I did not listen, and went after him. He turned again and said in a low urgent voice: ‘I may be lost, but do you have to lose yourself, too? Be careful …’ And as we stood there, up came two of the same greenish-grey cold-eyed officials I had seen before, and one reached forward and wrenched down my headcloth to show my earrings, and a hand was already coming out to wrench them off, while another was pulling Nasar around by the arm, when Nasar said, ‘Punishment from Canopus!’ and the one who had touched my earrings fell, like a stone, and the other ran off into the crowds. Nasar looked full at me, his amber eyes pained and sick, and said: ‘That cost us a good deal, Sirian, more than you know – get back upstairs. I may be lost, but why should you be?’ And I took hold of both his arms, and asked him: ‘Very well, I have just understood … you have gone bad, you have gone wrong … I know the
symptoms – yes, it has taken me long enough to see it … but come back, come back, Nasar … please. I demand it. You must. In the name of Canopus.’ Well, he came back up the stairs with me, the long climb of them, and when he was at the top he was ill and frightened. He had lost the inner power that for good or bad had sustained him in his encounters with me. He trembled, and was pale under his dark copper skin.

  ‘What happened?’ I kept asking.

  I asked, and I pressed, and it was very late in the night, and the snow, a pale presence, filled the windows, and at last he said this: ‘Lady, I have been on this planet for twenty-five thousand years. Since before Adalantaland. It was I who taught that island and the peoples around it. I was here before the change of earth’s axis and the birth of the seasons. It was I who taught – other cities and cultures you know nothing of. I have been here, here, here. Klorathy my brother has come and gone … there are those who visit, they come, they warn, they set the stones, they make the lines, they order, they align – and they go again if they are recalled to home, but I, I am a permanent official. And in my case they have made a mistake. Do you understand? I have gone very bad, as you say, Ambien the II or the III or the 97th. You come and go, too, I suppose? A sojourn on this planet and a little holiday on that? But I have been in this hellhole for … ages, ages, long ages …’ He muttered, and he swung his head, and he puckered up his face and sighed, and then leaped up and ran out of the door so fast I could not catch him.

  It was a day and an hour when I had to perform the regulatory observances. I set out the objects on the rugs of the floor, arranged colours as they should go, put garments on myself in a certain way, adjusted my earrings, and observed the hour exactly, standing quietly there alone at the top of the great tower, enclosed in the snow’s white hush … it was very difficult. I knew by the resistance of the time and the substance about me that I was contending with a great deal: many times had I performed these rituals, since the failure of the Lock, had performed them in this or that continent, and in several different manners, but never had I felt as if I, or the substance of something felt through me, was pushing against a resistance experienced as – evil. Felt as a heavy, dead weight. But stuck to my purpose, thinking of Klorathy, and that he had asked me here. Why? For what purpose?

  I had just finished what I had been instructed to do, when the curtains of the door were yanked back, and the man I had seen on my first evening stood there. ‘Canopus,’ said he. ‘You are on sufference here and that does not allow you to kill our officials.’

  What I was feeling as I stood up to face him surprised me: it was exactly the same tone or taste as what I felt when with Nasar. There was no mistaking that sensation, a resonance. I had told myself that Nasar had gone bad: but I had not gone on to understand what it might mean that he had been captured by Shammat, was Shammat.

  I said nothing, but stood before him in my slight white robes, the luminous metal circlets on my upper arms, the metal band on my head of the same softly shining silvery gold, a metal foreign to Sirius, which I did not know, and my heavy golden earrings.

  As he took in what I was wearing, his dull stonelike eyes stared, and he involuntarily took several steps forward. He was still wearing the golden earrings.

  I was preserving a distancing and detached manner, while I attended to a large variety of thoughts and sensations. Speculations about Nasar continued. I was also thinking that this official ought never to have seen me thus accoutred and that he was at this moment fixing my image on his mind so as later to copy what he could; I noted, too, that he had not observed the patterns of colours, nor the scents, nor the stringed instrument on which I had been making the necessary sounds. I was right in thinking that he would be bound to believe these some sort of ‘female entertainment’ and of no use to him. I was thinking that I did not believe the official punished by Nasar was in fact dead: more probably he was stunned. No authority of even ordinary sense uses greater methods of punishment or deterrent than are necessary. I was also concluding that my having to pretend to be Nasar’s servant could not be for the benefit of the Shammat surveillance, but was necessary not to disturb the populace. More than all this, I was trying to decide how to behave in a way that would control him.

  Before I could move he had again advanced, and now stood immediately in front of me: arms akimbo, legs apart. Seen thus, I had every opportunity for a full scan of this species, enabling me on my return to furnish the biologists with ample details. The most remarkable feature was the wide slit of a mouth, connected, I judged, not with alimentation, but with voice production: when he spoke next, I was able to see, as I had not when crushed in the street, that this slit seemed to vibrate, and the sounds came from his mid-torso. The way he spoke was resonant, giving a fuzzy sound to the words.

  ‘Ornaments of this kind are not permitted in this city!’

  And as his stone eyes seemed to swallow the artefacts, so that I was enveloped in a glitter of cupidity, I felt he was again trying some rather crude technique of hypnotism. But there was more to it: he was testing me, trying to elicit from me some kind of show of authority – was that it? Something he had been accustomed to find in Nasar? At any rate, I felt his triumph – and then, in myself, a weakness of fear because of this triumph in him. I knew that I had failed in some test he had applied.

  My mind was racing. I turned from him casually, and moved away, my back to him, stood a few moments glancing out of the window, then sat down on a low chair. There are few places in the Galaxy where superiors do not sit, while supplicants or inferiors stand. As I sat, an idea flashed into my mind unrelated to the present situation – very clear my thoughts were, because of the aligning practices just concluded, and because of this situation of danger. ‘How long has it been,’ I inquired, ‘since this city was allowed to spoil its original design?’ For I had understood that this city, as it had been designed, had consisted solely of the conical towers, in a certain alignment – probably interlocking arcs – and that the huddle of poor buildings around their bases, and the spreading new suburbs, were a dereliction of an original purpose. Memories of what I had been told of the ancient mathematical cities, speculations that were never far from my mind as to what their function was – these were in my mind, and my distance from this situation and this stone slab of a man was genuine.

  His response was immediate: sullen, and this meant a genuine annoyance; cunning – which alerted me to say: ‘There will one day be an end to your cupidities and your despoilings.’

  He stood still. Very still. The heavy eyes seemed to glow. What I had said, not idly, but certainly not with any crushing intention, had made him remember past – warnings? Threats?

  I remained where I sat, watching him. In my mind were two models of behaviour – one was Nasar, and everything that I felt was needed by this situation dismissed him. The other was Klorathy, who I understood as I thought of him would not regard this little servant of even the most horrible power with anything but – at the most – a detached dislike. So I said mildly, even with humour: ‘As for your colleague, he is of course not dead. He will recover, if he has not already …’ and I rose again, as if dismissing him, and returned to the window, for I wanted to look around at these spiring towers with my new ideas in mind, and to imagine this city as it had been. For what purpose?

  But I heard a humming, or vibration just behind me, and turning, there he was, that slit mouth of his thrumming: I knew now that that wordless sound had meaning, but knew, too, that I could not allow him to think I did not understand it. I leaned on the ledge there, and saw the towers dark against the pale falling sky.

  ‘You are to come with me. I have authority. In this city I have the authority,’ he insisted, and I believed him: it was part of some agreement that Canopus had allowed.

  ‘I shall change my clothes,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said, slamming it out, and he again ate my headband, the armlets, my earrings, with his eyes. I remarked: ‘But it is very cold tonight.’r />
  ‘You have a cloak.’

  ‘I take it we must be expected at some very fine function indeed,’ I said, smiling. And his lips’ rapid quiver conveyed to me that this was the case.

  ‘I can only hope that you have a good reason to take me there tonight,’ I remarked, as I took up the great black cloth and enveloped myself in it, ‘for I had other plans. Canopus has work to do.’

  ‘I understand perfectly, perfectly,’ said he, hurried and placating, and I knew that while he had not expected that he would fail to get his way, he was at least relieved that he had got it: and was afraid that I might find some reason to give him the slip. And all the time everything about this creature emanated greed, so that I thought back to the visit, long ago, by the hairy avid Shammat-brutes: they were the same breed, different though they were. And I was not going to ask what he must be expecting me to know: Are there many different kinds on that Shammat of yours? Or are you from Puttiora itself? Well, I learned later he was from Puttiora: the cities of this plain were policed by Puttiora and not by its subject planet Shammat – but that is part of another story.