It did occur to me that in a culture so addicted to murder, I might find myself a victim, but dismissed the thought: from our agents’ reports I had concluded that erring slaves or captives from other cultures were sacrificed. In other words, I did not feel myself eligible. This was because situations of danger are so rare in our lives that I, like all of us long-lived administrative-class Sirians, had come to think of myself almost as immortal! Certainly death did not – does not – often approach my mind. And so I walked calmly and unafraid into the greatest danger I have ever experienced. This was not courage, but a result of the atrophy of the instinct of self-preservation.
I considered, and dismissed, plans for taking a large entourage. For instance, the inhabitants of Grakconkranpatl were all dark skinned; both rulers and slaves. A plan was for sending a craft down to the recreation settlements and asking for volunteers, from those races who were pale skinned and, preferably, with pale hair. I imagined the effect of a company of silvery ambassadors, arriving unexpectedly among those coppery or reddish people. Or, the opposite: I had often observed the impressive effect of individuals from C.P. 2: enormous black specimens, totally and glossily black, with cone-shaped narrow heads and long fine features. I imagined an entry of myself companioned in this way, but decided against this, too.
I toyed with a display of our crystal observation spheres, hovering low over the city, for long enough to be thought a permanent invasion, and then broadcasting loud and portentous messages, threatening them with destruction if they again raided our settlements.
But I have always been reluctant to use complicated or even untruthful means when something simpler would do.
What was the simplest of the means within my scope?
It was to go myself, alone. It was to demand to see the High Priest, alone. It was to tell him the truth: that this territory of theirs, on the slopes of the mountain ranges, was not at all, as they seemed to imagine, theirs, and under their rule, but under the overall sovereignty of ‘the Gods’. Their astronomy was fair; they knew enough about the movements of the stars to match these with effects on crops and weather. They could be persuaded to make the step onwards to knowing that their superiors dwelled on the far stars: Gods. I would present myself as a God.
This was not untruthful, from the perspective of Rohanda.
I caused one of our agents to make a secret visit into the city, with a written message. I took care to use writing material foreign to Rohanda, and to choose solemn phrases to the effect that an Emissary from the Gods would visit them shortly, ‘from the skies’.
I then left a good interval, so that this should become well absorbed, and took the opportunity to pay another quick visit to my dear Ambien I.
I was conveyed to Grakconkranpatl by a war machine specially summoned by me from the Home Planet. Our population-control experts had been instructed to design an aircraft that could intimidate by appearance. It was extremely swift, could hover, and shoot off in any direction, or land and take off very fast. It was absolutely silent. It was black, with a single dull-red eye on its body, which emitted greenish rays that in fact did have a temporarily stupefying effect on any living thing beneath. But its shape was the real triumph of the experts. This managed to suggest a heavy implacable strength and brutality. Nobody underneath it could avoid an emotional reaction: one was being monitored by a crudely punitive and jealous eye. This machine was very seldom used. The more sophisticated of our Colonized Planets were not likely to be more than irritated by it. Those of our planets kept backward, as for instance 24, where the transplanted Lombis were, would be too violently affected by it: the balances of their culture might be entirely overthrown. But for an occasion like this, it was admirable.
So I thought. I was right. But I should have ordered a fleet of them, accompanied them with threats, and not appeared myself at all …
The machine set me down at such a speed that I had no opportunity to take in that the long oblong or central avenue was crammed, but in an organized and purposeful way. I was at one end of this avenue, my back to one blank frowning facade, facing down its length to its opposing building. The avenue was longer than it seemed from the air. It was narrower because it was banked with what seemed to be statues, or even machinelike beings. They wore straight dark grey tunics, to the ankles. Over their heads they wore hoods of the same colour, with only narrow slits for eyes. Their gloved hands held upright before them very long iron lances. Their feet were in heavy leather. They were five deep on either side.
It will already have been seen by the reader that these figures underlined and reinforced the theme of the buildings, with their featureless uniformity. Behind these guards stood in rigidly ordered groups the contents of each individual building – the living contents, in the shape of the members of a family group, or tribe, all wearing identical black robes, which covered them completely, leaving their faces bare. My first sight of the visage of this culture caused my physical self unmistakably to falter. It was a harsh, authoritarian face, remarkably little diversified, and with little difference, too, between the tribes or families. On their heads they each wore a certain style of stiff conical hat, in black felt. I was easily able to recognize this as having derived from one of the old and superseded special articles prescribed by Canopus to its agents. These privileged ones, the rulers of Grakconkranputl, carried no arms.
Far ahead of me, at the end of the narrow grey corridor between these dark grey guards, and their black-robed rulers, was a massed group of priests, and theirs was the only colour on the scene. In scarlet and yellow, bright green and brilliant blue, these stood waiting under the blank dark wall of their temple. For these two buildings that stared eyelessly at each other were temples.
I understood, rather late, that this was a reception for me: and that the exact time of my arrival here had become known. This gave me food for thought indeed, since my decision when to come had been made two days before.
I was already aware that I had made a bad mistake. For one thing, I should not be wearing a slight white robe, that paid little homage to ceremonial. (I of course had on me the artefacts currently prescribed by Canopus, some concealed, and others in the shape of a necklace of Canopean silver, and heavy bracelets.) To these people, able to be impressed only by the grandiose, the emphatic, the threatening, I must be seeming like a leaf or piece of dead grass. Able, at any rate, to be crushed at a touch.
I walked slowly forward in a dead, an ominous silence. I could see the glint of eyes inside the oblong narrow slits in the dark hoods that hemmed me in; I could see behind them the heavy savage faces of the men and women of this horrid land.
I understood that my mouth was dry. That my knees were weak. That my breathing was shallow. Recognizing these classic symptoms of Fear, which I could not remember having felt, I was of course fascinated. But at the same time I was analysing my situation. Very bad indeed, if they meant ill by me, as the atmosphere convinced me they did. I had told the aircraft to vanish itself well and it would not return without my signal. This would depend on my being able to preserve my Canopean artefacts exactly as they should be.
When I had got halfway along this living avenue, four figures detached themselves from the group of priests ahead. They were in black, the same robes as those of the patricians. These advanced swiftly towards me, and two came behind me and two went just ahead. I was impressed by their odour, a thick cold dead smell.
I knew now I was a prisoner.
When I was standing in front of the group of priests, in their vivid clothes, heavy with gold and jewels, the four escorts went back to join their family groups – each to an exact place. I was reflecting that in all that large multitude there was not one out of his or her ordered place, not one there by casual impulse, or who was watching, even, from the roofs. The slaves were well down in their dungeons, it seemed, for none was to be seen here. Yet at other times, so I learned later, when the sacrificial murders took place, the slaves were all herded out, and crammed into the narrow place between
the five-deep bank of guards.
There was not a single individual in that city, on that day, whose whereabouts could not be accounted for, was not known by these dreadful cruel men and women whose faces I was studying as I stood below them, looking up. I said nothing. Silence is a potent weapon. Can be.
And so they had decided, too. Nothing was said by them. They stared contemptuously down at me. I outstared them, and even, sometimes, turned my head, as if unimpressed, and allowed myself to glance about.
On either side of the bank of brilliant priests sat a large animal of a kind unfamiliar to me, a feline, with a yellow hide marked with black, and large unwinking green eyes. At first I thought them statues, so still were they; then saw the lift and fall of breath as sunlight moved on glossy fur. These were not chained or restrained in any way. Beside each stood a tall strong female, skirted to the waist, naked above, but marked with many intricate patterns all over the flesh, using the breasts and nipples and navel as eyes. The animals kept their gaze on me. I realized I was in danger of being torn apart by those trained beasts. I therefore summoned up certain techniques that I had learned, and had hardly ever had the occasion to use. I caused them one after the other to lie down, their paws stretched in front of them: their eyes, no longer on mine, were directed out over the heads of the silent crowd.
I heard the slightest commenting breath among the priests, and momentarily in the ascendant, I smiled at them and said:
‘I am from the star Sirius. Your Lord and Governor.’ I had spoken loudly, so that I could be heard at least by the guards nearer to me. I heard a movement among them. I knew that the priests would now have to act one way or the other.
The four black-robed ones closed in on me, and I was hustled by them into the midst of the priests. I could not then be seen from outside that group. I saw the harsh angry faces, reddish-bronze, with dense black eyes, bending down all around me. I was moved off by them into the low entrance of the temple. There was a smell of stale blood. The blood of this planet is a thick unstable substance, and its smell speaks of its animality. It was dark in the temple, except for flames high up near the unseen roof. I was hustled along passages, and then more and longer dark passages that were cold and musty – I was in the lower part of one of these great blocklike buildings, perhaps even being pushed along from one to another, and then another. We passed slaves, poor pallid creatures, who stared in terror at my guards and shrank away into some side passage. These corridors were lit at very long intervals with feeble lights on the walls. This was the underworld of the slaves. I was at last thrust into a cold and dimly lit place and left.
Alone. I was surrounded by cold blue-grey stone. It was not a small room, but was oppressive, because of its dimensions. I will say here that while Sirius even then was familiar with ideas to do with the relations between the dimensions of buildings and the psychological state of their inhabitants, we had – dare I say have? – not approached the understanding of Canopus in the field. It was a place designed to crush, belittle, depress. (These dimensions were in common use through all the levels of the buildings, even those in use by the ruling class. When I found this out, I concluded that this culture had been Canopus-inspired and had then degenerated under the influence of Shammat.)
The walls were of large slabs of squared stone. So was the floor. The ceiling was made to look the same, as it was faced with stone. The door was a single slab of stone, moving in a groove on invisible weights. There was no window. Two small oil lamps stood on a cube of stone that was the only table. A stone bench or ledge ran along one wall. This bluish-grey stone did not reflect the light. It was not stuffy: there was air coming from somewhere.
There was nothing in this room, or tomb, to soften or reassure. I decided therefore that my captors intended to threaten or even torture, and that I had been put here to lower my resistance.
I sat on the bench, as comfortably as I could, and entered into reflection on my situation.
First of all, and most important for the overall situation of Sirius, the exact timing of my arrival had been known: I had been expected. This meant a much closer acquaintance with our activities on this continent than we had known. One had always to expect some sort of espionage or at least a local curiosity enough to supply a certain amount of information, but the manner of my reception showed something well beyond this. No matter how I mentally surveyed my companions, our local staff, the members of our internal and external air forces, I could not find anyone to suspect. There was another thought that kept presenting itself: who was it that had always seemed to know what our movements and plans were? Canopus! Was I to believe that Canopus had supplied this nasty little kingdom with information about us? No, that was out of the question. Yet, here, in this area of possibility, was something that could not be dismissed … I set it aside and considered my own present situation.
If it had been planned simply to kill me, to remove me as a threat, then this could have been done as I landed, or soon after, without this obedient populace knowing anything about it. The fact that I had been received by the entire priesthood – the upper class of this culture – and their guards meant that I was to be sacrificed publicly, probably as the central and even sole figure of an imposing ceremony.
I was beginning to feel very cold inside my prison. This, too, was not a sensation I could remember feeling – not to this degree. I noted my thoughts were slowing; my mental reactions were becoming as stiff as my limbs. There was an absolute silence here under this weight of stone.
If they were so well informed about our movements and intentions, why was there any need to interrogate me? … It was at this point I noted my thinking was becoming too inefficient to continue and so I switched it off. Soon afterwards the great stone slab slid sideways in its grooves and a female entered. She was a slave. The reddish skin colour of this face was paler in her because of her long sojourn within these stone prisons. She was shorter and lighter in build than those great stone specimens, the ruling caste and their guards. But her face had the same brutality and I could see in her dulled brutish eyes that she would kill me at a word. She had brought in some dishes and jugs that contained quite an adequate meal. I told her that I was very cold. She stared, and did not seem to hear. She came swiftly to me, her black eyes not on my face but all over me, as if they were curious hands. And then her hands were all over me and I thought she was going to take my protective necklace and bracelets. I could see that she was afraid of this exploration of my person, but could not resist it. Her face showed an uneasiness not far off terror, and her eyes kept flickering towards the open doorway. Yet she felt my hair, ran thick fingers up and down my arm, and then bent to peer right into my face, and my eyes: this was the oddest sensation, because it was the colour of my eyes that fascinated her, the shape of my face, and I might have been inanimate for all the interest she had in my intrinsic self, in anything my eyes might have been saying to her.
Then she abruptly stood straight and turned to go out. I said again that I was cold and again she did not respond.
Perhaps she was deaf. Or even dumb.
Although I believed there might be drugs in the food, I did not hesitate to eat and drink, and without any real concern for the results. This was partly because of the frigid slowness of my mental processes, but partly because of what I have already mentioned. My inbuilt unconquerable belief that I was immune. Not eligible for death!
Yet I was certainly able to consider, and even with an appreciation, that I was likely to be murdered in this ugly little city on this inferior little planet. It was a fact that I kept supplying to myself, as something that had to be taken in. But I could not.
Between my functioning being, the familiar mechanisms of Ambien II, senior official of Sirius, member of a race that did not expect to die, except by some quite fortuitous event, such as a meteorite striking a Space Traveller – between that state of consciousness, and the real urgent apprehension of the fact: You may very well be murdered at any moment, there
was really no connection. I literally could not ‘take it in’. I wondered what it would feel like to ‘take it in’ so that my whole organism knew, understood, was prepared. What would it be like to live, as these unfortunates did, not more than four hundred to eight hundred years, depending on their local conditions – no sooner born than ready to die? Did they feel it? Really feel their impermanence? Or was there something in the nature of the conditions of living on this planet that imposed a barrier between fact and its perception?
I pursued these thoughts, or rather, allowed them to float through my mind, or – perhaps even more accurately – observed them to take shape and pass, while I ingested foodstuffs that I hoped would soon warm me.
Soon there came in another female.
Once again I am faced with that problem of hindsight. The female was Rhodia. To try and put myself back into my state of mind before I knew who she was, without distortion, is not easy. But I can say accurately that at once I was saying to myself that she did not resemble the slave who had brought the food. She was dressed in the same clothes, long loose dark blue cloth trousers, and a tunic of the same, which was belted with leather, and hung with various keys. She was a wardress or jailer. She was larger in build than the other, and her red or red-brown skin was lightened by lack of sunlight, like the other. But I at once felt an ease in her presence, to the extent that I was warning myself: Be careful, it might be a trap. She was not, as I was already seeing, of the same race. Or not of the same sub-race. Same in general style or pattern – skin colour, build, with the long black hair – she nevertheless had an aliveness that at once set her aside. She stood immediately in front of me, this handsome, alert female, and her large black eyes were full on mine. And remained there, as if expecting or requesting an exchange. I did smile at her, even while I was telling myself that it was the oldest trick in the world – the amiable jailer. She had over her arm a length of dark blue woollen cloth, and this she unfolded to display a warm cloak, in which I was thankful to muffle myself. Then she grasped me by the arm and assisted me to rise, knowing that I had become stiffened and lumpish. This firm confident touch was quite unlike the avid, brushing touch, like a snake’s tongue, of the other inferior wardress. She walked me, gently enough, to the door, and then assisted me through it. By now my responses were blocked and confused. Everything in me that told me to like this creature was being chided and set aside by me. She felt this, for her hand fell away from my elbow and I stumbled on by myself along the low dark corridors, all straight, all lit by the same regular minor gleams of yellow light at long intervals, all of the same regular blocks of dark stone. Somewhere above me was the heavy sunlight of this region, were the great peaks capped with snow. But it was as hard to take in, to really believe that fact, as it was to believe that this woman might easily slide a knife into me.
The Sirian Experiments Page 21