The Sirian Experiments

by Doris Lessing

  And now, by contrast, here was this Tafta, about whom she had warned me. He was her enemy, the enemy of Canopus. And therefore of Sirius. But here I was sticking, in my thoughts. She had said that we had been enabled to escape from that dreadful city because of our enemy – that meant he had helped, or at least allowed our escape. She had said … and implied … yet not said …

  Tafta was doing everything to win me – I could see that, of course, but did not dislike this, or even resent it – provided he kept at a good distance. The physical presence of the creature, this great hairy barbarian, glistening with crude strength, affected me as if I was being threatened by the smell of their blood, or at least by something too hot, too thick, too pressing. As he leaned towards me, where he sat in his characteristic swagger on a low seat – this little patch of roof was used for sitting out on – and smiled, showing the great glistening teeth of a healthy animal, and compressed his features in a smile that was like a snarl – even so, I found myself reassured. The snarl, after all, was only what I saw, with my experience of these lower species: it was their expression of friendliness: the shining white teeth, like the exposed teeth of the lower animals, meant I need not expect attack. The light almost colourless eyes surrounded by fringes of yellowy hair were not unfamiliar to me: these eyes were to be seen even among the favoured class of our Home Planet. Provided I was able to hold off in myself a strong reaction to this animality, I was able to regard him steadily – and to regard myself, too. I was not unconscious of the contrast between us, and of how he must be seeing me, Sirius, in the light of our long history of domination of Shammat. What I was thinking most strongly was that this almost overpowering vitality of his, which he was using like a weapon, was at least not a symptom of decline as were the inner doubts and dryness that was afflicting our Empire. At least this one was not likely to let his magnificent confidence be assailed by any existential confusions! And, when he spoke to me of what I, Sirius, could do here, in this city, to prevent its decline, I found myself unable to stand up to him. That is the truth.

  He was speaking to me as if he, Tafta, this enemy of Sirius, had somehow become the voice of my most inner feelings. As if he had laboured, with me, devising my last tour of duty in our outermost planets, asking himself why, and what for, and what next. As if he wandered, with me, through Lelanos, inwardly grieving for its imminent overthrow.

  I had hardly to speak! As the day passed and the blue went out of Rohanda’s sky, I was feeling that this enemy was myself. As if some part of my mind, or inner self, had been occupied by this Tafta without my knowing it. And long before the Rohandan sky had filled with its stars and I had signalled a private greeting to my own home, I had agreed, at least by silence, to the following:

  That I would put myself at the head of the government of this city. That he, Tafta, would maintain me in power for as long as I needed to restore Lelanos to its former balance and health. That I would set up a governing body with his aid, of the best individuals to be found in Lelanos. And that when all this was done, I would either stay as ruler, or queen, or whatever I wished, or leave – and he would see me safely to my own part of the continent.

  He told me I might now return to my room in Rhodia’s house, without fear, since I was ‘under his protection’ and that he would meet me again next day for further discussion of ‘our plans’.

  I spent the night seated at a window, star-bathing, as if I were already safely home. I was immersed in my plans for the re-establishment of Lelanos.

  And next day, when I walked quite openly and at ease through the green spaces to the same airy building, and went up to our little platform among those stone symmetries, my mind was at work on management: the exercises and uses of management.

  He was not there as he had said he would be. I did not think anything of this, then. I was considering the causes of the falling away of Lelanos, among which Rhodia had indicated was the failure to maintain the independence and integrity of money. Well, that was easily put right! An enforcement of the law … if necessary an enforcement by the power of Tafta’s troops … the strengthening of the Scrutiny, and its powers … perhaps Tafta should be made a member of the Scrutiny …

  Tafta did not come at all that day. I felt as if I had had something snatched from me: and I was again full of grief on behalf of Lelanos, the deprived – the deprived of me, and my expert and benevolent guidance. But as I waited there on my little platform among the snowy and bluish cubes and spheres, the deep blue of the Rohandan sky enclosing the lovely scene, I looked down on little people far below, and it was as if I held them in my protection; as if I was promising them an eternal safety and well-being.

  It is not that I am proud of this: I have to record it.

  By the end of that day, I was in the sort of mood where, had I been on my own ground, within my own frame of understanding, I would have had to watch myself so as not to punish unjustly. I was feeling about Tafta as about a delinquent servant. That night, my contemplation of our stars was hazed, I seemed not to be able to find their shadow within myself, and at the back of my mind, where the shores of Sound begin, I could hear the warning whisper, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, and I was shaking my head as an animal does when its ears are full of irritating water. Sirius, Sirius – and I shook my head so as not to hear the echo of: Be careful, be careful, be careful.

  I was late going to my high watching place next day, and it was from calculation, and when I reached it, Tafta was there,and bent in a gesture of submission that I had always previously found slavish. He applied his furry lips to my hand, and then glanced up from this humble position with a winning glance and a baring of his white teeth. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘But it was for the sake of our cause.’

  And that did begin to shake me out of my illusion. He stood before me, all confident physicality, all glisten and shine, the sun warm on his whiskers and the smooth curls of his head, his brown skin where you could see the red blood running underneath shining, too. This type of animal, when overheated, produces a greasy secretion to cool itself: the exposed areas of his skin, cheeks, brow, nose, arms, hands, even his ears, were beaded with globules of liquid. It had a salty smell. And yet there was something in me even then that said: this is health, this is vitality, you need it!

  He told me that his absence was due to his having to bring in from outside the city the troops that would guard us. And to his having to organize their safety and their shelter. And he said that on the next morning he would come to my lodging for me and we – he and I and the guards – would make a public display of ourselves through Lelanos, to the place of government of the city and its environs, where we would be installed as rulers. This was not at all as I had been imagining events. But meanwhile we were standing on the very edge of the little snowy platform, overlooking the whole plain and its focal city, and he was flinging out his arm and saying: ‘It is yours, all yours. And together we will restore it and make it everything it was.’ There was such a glossy insolence about him! He could not stop the triumphant grimace that showed his teeth, he could not control his glances down at me, as if he had already swallowed me whole, and finding me negligible, was about to spit me out again.

  And yet my head swam as I overlooked Lelanos, and I was promising it in a silent passionate bond with it: ‘I will protect you, I will guard you, I will keep you safe.’ And the warning whisper, Sirius, Sirius, was not more than a low hissing from a long way off.

  Again he kissed my hand, and I descended, he following, and I went to my rooms, and – but now I was thinking. Thoughts that had been far from me crowded in.

  Who was it who had warned the priests of the time of my arrival in the other city? Not Rhodia – though she had known what was going to happen.

  How was it that this gallant ruffian had made his appearance in Lelanos only after Rhodia’s death?

  And how could I explain that Shammat was now so ready to devote himself to the restoration of sweet civilization and order, when I had so recently seen
this, their servant, at work, of the kind to be expected of them, with the dark priests?

  How was it … but it was as if two forces were at war in me. I did not want to hear warnings from deep within me, or remember Canopus. I wanted with all my present self – the self brought into being by Shammat – to rule this city, and to strengthen my inner feebleness by doing as Canopus did. And I was already thinking of how, when Lelanos was itself again, balanced under the care of the Scrutiny, I would leave here and find other tribes, descendants perhaps of the Lombis, or subsequent experiments, and build, as Rhodia had done, a perfect and lovely civilization, using all my own age-long experience, and what I had learned from Rhodia, here.

  Next morning I waited quietly for Tafta, my mind already beyond the – so I thought– unimportant formalities of the day, dwelling on future plans and arrangements, when Tafta walked in, saw me standing there in my ordinary Lelannian clothes, flung over me without asking a cape of fur, which smelled of the poor animals that had been killed to make it, and pressed me to the door, his arm at my back, to stop me sliding away. He was grinning, triumphant … outside were company after company of Shammat soldiers, the nastiest, most brutish types you can imagine. Tafta pulled me in front of them, a harsh thumping music started up, and I was being marched along the leafy ways of Lelanos, a captive of Shammat.

  And unable to escape. My mind was darting frantically around the possibilities of escape. My whole self had been shocked back into sanity, into sense. Behind me came, singing – if that is the word for it – the Shammat contingents. Beside me strolled, grinning, Tafta. Those people who came out of their houses or ran along beside us to see what this impossible and inconceivable visitation could be were beaten back with swords, with cudgels, with knouts – and our path was lined with poor wretches who lay bleeding, or tried to crawl away to safety.

  That is how Ambien II, of Sirius, one of the Five, came to be marching into the gay and colourful building that was used to house the governing bodies of Lelanos, at the head of a Shammat army; how I came to be made ruler of Lelanos, with Tafta.

  When the brief and ridiculous ceremony was over, Tafta announced that he would take me to my ‘palace’ – there was no such thing in Lelanos – and I said that I would return to my own lodgings. It was at this moment the illusion, or spell, that had been on me finally dissolved, and left me looking at a half-animal adventurer, who had no idea of the dimensions of the forces he was challenging. He could not stop me. Not unless he made me a prisoner then and there and ended his illusion. He was living in some dream of glory and grandeur, with his own city to rule, backed by Sirius, whom he could manipulate and use in his, Shammat’s, eternal battle with Canopus. So he had seen it. So he still saw it; looking into those shallow almost colourless eyes of his, I could see his thoughts swimming there, for my Sirian intelligence had come back to me – I could see, in the cocksure, but absurd, postures his limbs fell into that he was dreaming of an Empire that would match that dreamed of by Grakconkranpatl. Suddenly, I was able to see all kinds of things.

  He might have been able to find out by subtle reasoning when I was to arrive in the other city, but he had not known that Lelanos was peaceful behind its forbidden zone, and not a tyrant. He had not dared to challenge Canopus by entering Lelanos, until Rhodia was gone. And he did not know that our forces could crush anything he or the evil city across the mountains did any time we wanted – that if they were allowed to survive, it was because it did not matter to us.

  And because, of course, Canopus, inexplicably, allowed them to survive – but this was deep waters for me, and I was far off understanding.

  I said to this little upstart that I would take myself back to my lodgings and he did not stop me. It was because he did not care. He had got what he wanted – to be ruler of Lelanos.

  Well, I could tell myself that if he was a tyrant who would bring the place to ruin very fast, then this was no more than Lelanos would do for itself, could not prevent itself doing. I had hastened an inevitability, that was all.

  I left him there lolling in the graceful council chamber, ruler of Lelanos, among his savages, whom he had been to fetch the day before from where they had been feasting and roistering in the forests, not daring to enter the city – I left them, and went to my lodgings, where I sat up and thought, and thought, through the night.

  The low and sibilant song of Sirius, Sirius, be careful, was very strong, and it drowned out other thoughts, until I bade the song be quiet, for it had a valedictory sound. And it was quiet, for I had no need of it now that I was restored to myself. Except for my shame. My incredulous shame … how easy it had been after all, for Shammat to win me over. And with such slight powers at his disposal! No more than a minimal use of intuition, as in the case of my first capture, constant brooding about Canopus, envy of Canopus, hatred of Canopus, had brought to Shammat some of the least and most lowly of Canopean skills. How easy, then, to flatter me, by speaking through my weaknesses. How easy to take me over. And now it was all done with, I could hardly believe it had happened and that I had succumbed – yet I had to believe it, and, by extension know that I could easily be lost again, and that I might easily have not recovered my own good sense this time – for if it had not been for the low sweet song of Sirius, Sirius, set into me by Rhodia, by Nasar, by Canopus, to remind me of what I was, I might easily be lolling there with Shammat now, ready to tyrannize poor Lelanos.

  When the morning came, I walked out of my lodgings into the empty street and away from the city. I reasoned that Shammat would be drunk this morning, and in any case he would not care. He could use the legend of the white goddess, or priests from afar, or any such formulation, to strengthen his claims to power there. For as long as it lasted. Why should he come after me? He might know, using the pitiful little powers he did possess, where I was, approximately, in the forests to the south of the city, but did he want an unwilling captive, one who would not grace his rule, but must be drugged, or beaten into submission? Sirius willing was one thing. Sirius sullen and subversive could do nothing to help him. Besides, he was afraid of – not me, but Canopus. Shammat might control this planet – Canopus admitted this. But Shammat controlled it only within limits Canopus set. Drunk with power, with inglorious confidence, as Tafta might be, he could not choose to challenge retribution.

  He had gambled to his limits when he had told the dark priests I would be an easy capture. He had wanted two things. One, to take from me the ornaments that he knew had some sort of talismanic power – Shammat with or without Puttiora were always trying to get their hands on the articles powerful at any given time. But he also expected to be able to use the situation, for he had been waiting, having partially gained the confidence of the priestly caste, to gain total power over them, and to rule Grakconkranpatl. He knew that Canopus was somewhere close, for he could sense the strength there, but he never guessed it was Rhodia the wardress who watched and knew everything he did. And when the priests, afraid of me, afraid that one faction might use me to strengthen its position and win power over the others, decided to sacrifice me, and he sensed that Rhodia – or someone – would rescue me, he did not give the alarm, for he was a gambler by nature, always ready to see where any new twist in a situation would lead him.

  He would not follow me. I knew this, having thought it out carefully all through the long night.

  And so I walked steadily south, by myself, and had many pleasant solitary days, and even some adventures (which I have published elsewhere, for the entertainment of our young people), and at last I reached one of our outposts, from which I could send a message for an aircraft to come and fetch me.

  And so ended my descent into Shammat-nature. Ended, at least, outwardly. But inwardly it was a different matter. It is not possible to become a subject of Shammat, even temporarily, without being affected, profoundly, and for a long time, in every fibre of oneself.

  When I reached our headquarters for the supervision of the Colony 9 animals, I spent a short ti
me restoring my inner balances. I was viewing my recent psychological overthrow with amazement as well as apprehension for a possible recurrence. When I thought of the woman Rhodia it was with admiration, a feeling that I was able to take refuge in the thought of that strength of hers – or his! And I now could think with abhorrence of Tafta, whom I had even liked, for a while.

  It had to be decided what was to be done with the slave city, Grakconkranpatl. I thought long and hard about this. Easy enough to blast the whole place out of existence. But there was no way of preventing another just as bad coming into being. And looking at it from the overall view (which after all it was my responsibility to do), these indigenous cultures – if it was accurate to call cultures native when the origin of their genes lay so far from Rohanda, in such distant planets – were useful to us. Some of them provided social laboratories without any effort on our part. I decided only to rescue our 2,000 captives, and sent five cargo planes, with ten armed craft for support. These flew back and forth over Grakconkranpatl for a sufficient time, and then the cargo planes descended at the prison farms where the animals were working in chains. The 2,000 were returned to the settlement in the high peaks. It was felt that their sojourn in the lower areas, and then a reintroduction to the harsh conditions, would strengthen them and further their adaptability. And so it turned out.

  As the future of these animals does not concern this narrative further, I will summarize. The controlled explosions on Planet 3 (1) did not affect its atmosphere in the way it had been hoped. The crawling plant-animals were destroyed, however. This did not seem to be likely to change the planet’s atmosphere in any way, but some of our biologists complained that we had destroyed a unique and irreplaceable species. The usual arguments took place: ‘You cannot make an omelette, etc’ against the ‘Storehouse of nature’. An amount of oxygen was locked up in the soil and rocks of the planet; we did now know how much. Thermonuclear explosions with a different intent took place. The oxygen content of the atmosphere did significantly increase. We shipped the Planet 9 animals from their high, oxygen-starved station in the mountains to the low oxygen-starved air of Planet 9. About half succumbed, but this was felt to be better than expected. We introduced at the same time a large quantity of different kinds of vegetation at the lichen level, and marsh plants, and types of seaweed – all with the idea of adding to the oxygen. A fuller account of this experiment will be found in the appropriate place. The planet, in fact, did slowly come to life, and within five hundred S-years was in a condition to allow the exploitation of minerals. But it was and is a chilly, phlegmatic planet, where everything is slow moving, small, dank. It was interesting to see what happened to the Planet 9 type. They became smaller; their fur became more like scales, or lichens; they laid eggs that they carried in a pouch under their tails until they hatched; and they were amphibious. They became useless for physical work of any kind. Their function remains slowly to increase the oxygen content. The exploitation of the planet has to be carried out by technicians and labourers who work in strictly controlled conditions for short periods.