The question of developing 3 (1) arose because there is a latent hunger in our Colonial Service for the old days of expansion and development. I say this knowing I shall attract criticism, and cries of “Old Imperialist!” But why avoid the truth! It is my belief that very many of the ills and problems of our Service stem from this hunger. There is something in Sirian nature that demands, that flourishes, in situations of challenge, provided best by the takeover of a new planet, its problems, it regulations, its development. To expand, I maintain, if not normal for us (in the sense that is right) is at least the most agreeable condition. To monitor and police planets kept deliberately stable, and on a low level of energy generally, is not exhilarating, does not inspire and develop the members of the Service. If this were not true, should we always have in operation so many schemes deliberately contrived to provide challenge to our Service?
No, the truth is that Planet 3 (1) came to our attention because a large number of our personnel, particularly the younger ones, wanted to experience the sharp edge of difficulties, problems, hazards. Even dangers—for there is something quite different in quality between the dangers that have to be surmounted in establishing something new, and those faced in, let’s say, a regular policing job on a planet that erupts in dissatisfaction or discontent because of a life level that is seen too clearly to be stagnant. I do not wish here to re-introduce metaphysical questions! It is far from my intention to stray into regions that are only too thoroughly explored by our social philosophers. If I mention that on many of our thoroughly stable and economically balanced planets we have deliberately—during some epochs—allowed the inhabitants to believe in dangers that are nonexistent, that is only because it is relevant here. We have invented threats from Puttiora, or from Shammat; caused rumours of possible cosmic hazards, such as approaching comets or unfortunate starry alignments; even provoked minor uprisings—all of this to prevent planets from becoming dolefully sunk into What-is-the-purpose-of-it-all states of mind that, unchecked, can even lead to mass suicide.
At any rate, this was the main reason for our reconsidering Planet 3 (1), and it did not appear on the official list of reasons as released finally by our deliberating Conference. (It is my experience that this is a general rule, to be observed everywhere and in all kinds of situations: the real, the propelling cause of a situation or decision or change of policy is never mentioned at all, and must be sought for behind and buried under the peripheral ones.)
The reasons were listed as follows:
1.Planet 3 (1) is the only one of our Colonised Planets, or Planet’s Planets, left undeveloped, or not made use of in some way or another.
2.To choose an analogy from the remote past, it is as if a well-run farm of the old kind allowed a single field to remain uncultivated. (Our younger members are particularly fond of these archaic and romantic comparisons—one may almost say that it is a cult with them.)
3.This planet, being so near to Sirius, would be more economical to use for its minerals than other mineral-rich planets.
4.Planet 3 has shown signs of the familiar moral stagnation and will benefit from the debates and disagreements resulting from the decision to bring its moon to life.
5.Planet 3 (1) presents new problems, and their solution will add to our stock of scientific knowledge.
6.There have been reminders from our personnel on Rohanda that our territories there are underused, and that parts of them are already overrun by peoples and races resulting from our previous experiments. The provision of atmosphere for 3 (1) might be dovetailed into certain local conditions on Rohanda, as discussed at the Conference.
I had a message sent to Canopus asking if it would inconvenience them to let us use part of their territory for a limited and definite time. I was not unaware of a certain duplicity here, if one was not to call it, simply, diplomacy; the point was that we did not know exactly how long we would need the territory. We wanted the highest possible mountains. Extremely high mountains covered a large area of the southern part of the landmass. These had become higher still, more extensive, during the internal squeezings and pushings of the planet during the unfortunate “events.” We believed, through our espionage, that Canopus was not making much use of these mountainous areas. (Later we discovered this was mistaken.) But in any case, the message came back that they were not able to lend us these mountains or any part of them, and they “wished to draw our attention to” the very high mountain chains along the western edge of the Isolated Southern Continent II. Thank you very much! I thought; but of course we did have these mountains, and they were adequate for our purpose. One motive for at least attempting occupation of their Great Mountain was that our reports indicated that Klorathy was or had been stationed in those parts. I had not heard anything further from him.
Nor from Nasar.
My experience with Nasar had gone into the background of my thoughts shortly after it ended. This in spite of an intriguing report of a conference on Canopus that had caused “great and unprecedented interest.” It was a question of whether Rohanda should be entirely given up. “Top and Authoritative Policy” had been challenged. “The debate, which lasted longer than any previous debate, and which argued the very bases of Canopean colonial policy, ended in a majority vote in favour of the maintenance of Rohanda.” Colonial policy been changed in a way that was unprecedented. “The disgruntled minority had put forward a suggestion which was adopted: that with the exception of those officials who had always been involved with service on Rohanda, service on the recalcitrant and burdensome planet would be voluntary: no one should be forced to sign up for a tour of duty.” I translated these concepts, all very Sirian, into what I imagined would be nearer to Canopean ideas, in accordance with the conversations I had had with Nasar, and with what had I learned of the nature of Canopus.
But a fact remained: there been a conference on Canopus, as I had suggested to Nasar, to debate conditions of colonial service on Rohanda. (Their Shikasta.) He had laughed at the mere idea of it, but it had happened, nevertheless. But I had too little information. All this was not even secondhand: one of our officials, visiting Colony 10 for a routine exchange of information with their officials, had heard this conference mentioned in a casual conversation and had enquired about it, but without any sense of its importance, or its historic nature… And I had to confess, thinking it all over, that perhaps it was not all that important. How was I to know the emphases Canopus must place on events, according to that “Necessity” of theirs! Because a disgruntled and disaffected—I hoped and believed only temporarily—official disagreed with a top-level policy, this did not mean that one had to take it that seriously! Officials on my level had to consider this kind of thing all the time, and I took it as no more than routine. All the same, there had been a conference, and Nasar had laughed, and laughed, at the very idea of such a conference being possible… I had to end up with this small fact, and abandon all other speculation.
The reason I did not dwell overmuch on my visit to Koshi was that it was all too much for me. That is the truth. What I had learned was a challenge to everything I was as a Sirian official. How could it not be? And yes, I was only too aware that to think on these lines—that I, Ambien II, might have ideas and intimations beyond my role as Sirius (I thought often enough of how Nasar had called me, simply, Sirius!) and was even beginning to separate off in myself these two entities, or ways of experiencing living—was, probably, treason. Treason of a kind. Treason to the Sirian of looking at things. Yet who and when had ever shown tendencies of this sort before? I could not remember it! When we (Sirius) had to face revolts on our colonies or disagreements about policy, these were within Sirian terms, ideas, concepts. As for our famous “existential situation,” this certainly did not go beyond Sirian boundaries. But, when I was with Canopus, inside Canopean thinking, it was Sirius itself that was challenged, its very bases, its foundations.
No, I certainly was not able to see myself as an alien to Sirius. For that was what it amoun
ted to. Was I to put myself forward at one of our regular Conferences on Overall Policy and say—but what? That I believed Canopus to be altogether finer and higher than we were, and that we should go humbly to Canopus begging for instruction? Wrap it up as I might, that is what it amounted to.
I have already made it clear in this memoir, or account, of mine that our attitudes toward Canopus made that quite inconceivable.
Was I then—knowing this—to start propaganda work among my close colleagues and personal allies, such as the others of the Five, or Ambien I, or my offspring, with the idea of changing a nucleus that would (but how?) slowly change all of Sirius? The formation and cultivation of such “cells” of course was perennial and only to be expected by all of us when facing dissident planets and insurrectionary movements.
I might consider this, playing with the idea sometimes, but could not imagine myself actually doing it. There is such a thing as the art of the possible, and working with it. Well, it was not possible that I, with my position in the Empire, my experience, my temperament, should start what amounted to revolutionary cell-building!
What alternatives were there? I now have to state, categorically, that I could not envisage any alternatives. These were the possibilities… as I saw it. I did, dimly and distantly, see that Canopus itself might have ideas of its own… I would entertain, sometimes, these rather visionary notions, and always when brooding about my various encounters with Canopus—where I had failed, where I had, in spite of these failures, learned. The practised and practising person that was Ambien II had to recognise facts, when I saw them. Facts, the more experienced one became, were always to be understood, garnered, taken in, with that part of oneself most deeply involved with processes, with life as it worked its way out. Facts were not best as understood formulas or summings up, but through this inward groping and recognition. Well, what I recognised in contemplating my relations with Canopus was some sort of purpose. It was unmistakable. To dismiss it, deny it, meant denying everything I had ever learned in my long career as participator in events. I could not dismiss it. But I could say that it was all too much for me. I postponed it. And for a long time was busy with my work, which I was not enjoying, and which inwardly I was questioning and feeling sapped and diminished by because of an ever-increasing sense of its (oh yes, treachery and treason, I know!), because of, in fact, the steady, unstoppable growth in me of that person or individual who was not “Sirius.”
Who was—who? Or what? Canopus?
This was why I caused the request to be sent that we might borrow or lease their Great Mountains. This was the cause of the disappointment at their refusal.
So! I was not to see Klorathy yet… Very well then. I set myself to my task, and again pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind.
A map of Isolated Southern Continent II shows that rather more than a third of the way down the mountain chain is a lake high among the peaks.
What we wanted was to accustom a sufficient number of suitable individuals to living on sparse supplies of oxygen. It happened that we had, on our Colonised Planet 2, some high mountains, and on them were living a species able to function on comparatively little oxygen. But they had been established for generations. We needed flexibility, adaptability. After some thought, we chose a species from C.P. 9, a damp, dismal sort of place, whose nature was to match, phlegmatic and dour. We space-lifted 30,000 of them not to the highest peaks but to a plateau halfway up a mountain range that had sparse but adequate food, and a wet changeable climate. There left them, under supervision, to adapt.
Meanwhile, 3 (1) was being surveyed and prepared. I visited there, I suppose it could be said, from curiosity, though there was not much on the place to feed interest.
It was arid, chilly, dusty. There were semi-frozen marshes, maintaining some sluggish lizards and frogs.
The vegetation was lichens, and a curious form of marsh weed that seemed half-animal. At any rate, while being anchored at one end in mud or slushy ice, the fronds, branches, feelers, crawled about all over the surface of the soil, sometimes even lifting and overturning stones and rocks, or burrowing down into mud, for the primitive insects and crustaceans. Sometimes these branches were half an R-mile long, and a single plant could cover a square mile. These animal-plants were a danger to our technicians. One was walking through what she believed to be quite ordinary, if unfamiliar vegetation, when the creature reached up with its “hands” or feelers, and tugged her over, and when she was rescued, it was only just in time, for the “plant” had already begun to dismantle her spacesuit, undoing screws and fastenings in search of the—obviously—delectable food within. This caused much excitement among our naturalists, it goes without saying; but as for me, I had a more localised interest in the place, namely, whether it would indeed be possible to change the planet’s climate, as our experts claimed. It had one great advantage from our point of view: there was oxygen locked up in the soil.
This moon revolves about Planet 3 four times in its year, and spins on its axis once. Planet 3 is far from its sun, and is itself on the cold and lethargic side.
I left instructions to follow our experts’ recommendations that thermonuclear explosions should be tried, with the aim of warming the planet, and returned to the settlement of our experimentees on the mountainside of Isolated S.C. II.
Enough time had passed for the first generation to have died out, and it was now a question of examining their progeny for signs of possible failure. None was found. Although they were existing on an oxygen supply of two-thirds of their familiar conditions on C.P. 9, they seemed to be thriving. I therefore took a decision: instead of giving them a further intermediate acclimatisation period, I ordered them to be transferred at once to as high as it was possible for animals to subsist. This was at over 15,000 R-feet, more than twice the height of their previous station, and the drop in oxygen level was severe, not only in comparison with that station halfway up the range but particularly in comparison with their Home Planet. The experts reported their lungs were already enlarging. I saw them established. It was now such an effort for them to accomplish what was needed that I ordered an abandonment of our usual policy and had housing installed for them.
As it happened, it was possible to get this from a Canopean settlement on the Isolated Northern Continent—I was interested, more than interested, in how this happened. I was pondering about how to get this housing easily, for while we had settlements over the other side of the mountain range—this was not far, relatively speaking, from my settlement of the old days, in the time of the Lombis—it happened we were short of suitable aircraft. It was at this moment I had a message from Klorathy offering the materials I needed. I record that I merely noted that this was Klorathy, that he was at work so close, in the continent north of this one, and that he had known where I was. I noted it, and went on with my task.
I did not meet the fleet of their cargocraft as they arrived on the sea parallel with the mountains we were on, for I was convinced that Klorathy would not be there personally. The materials were lifted to the high plateaux by our craft. The settlement was soon in existence, double-storey wooden buildings, set out according to a plan that was found attached to the consignments of dismantled dwellings. I merely ordered this plan to be put into effect.
The Planet 9 animals were not the most attractive I have known! Again, they were of small build, not more than three to four R-feet. They were stocky, and their original hairiness already enhanced, because of these cold heights they were adapting to. Very bright glassy blue eyes peered from under shelves of reddish fur. They had bred three or four or even five to a litter, but already were giving birth to only two or at the most three. They were strong, physically, but more importantly—as we believed—strong by moral nature. That is, they were not subject to emotional collapse under difficulties.
I watched these animals in their snowy valley lifted high up among those dreadful peaks, moving slowly in packs and groups, turning as one to face a new challenge—as
, for instance, my appearance among them, or that of their supervisors. They stabilised their balance on long thick staves, and set their furry legs wide apart… the slow difficult turn of their heads, and the careful swivel of the cold blue eyes… the baffled glassy stare… all this was to see, or to fancy that one did, animals drugged, or tranced. I had seen this species on their Planet 9, where they are hardly a volatile or quick-moving kind, but at least did have some native liveliness. I was sorry for them, I admit. They had been told, on being rounded up for this experiment, that they were to accomplish a task of the greatest importance to Sirius, and that they would be honoured by the Empire if they succeeded: and what now remained in their progeny of this sense of importance was a feeling of having been chosen, or set apart. The supervisors reported that their instruction to their young centred on their “special destiny” and their “superior qualities.” All this was satisfactory.
Their high valley, with its beautiful lake, enjoyed three months of summer, when they were able to grow brief crops of a cereal we introduced from our Central Cereal Stocks that was able to flourish in high places, and to come to fruition within the three months. This was their staple, but they grew, too, various kinds of marrow and pumpkin. They kept some sort of sheep for milk and meat. But they were not able wholly to maintain themselves, so slow and difficult were their lives, and so prolonged their periods of snow; and so we supplied them yearly with additional foodstuffs, telling them it was an expression of the gratitude of the Empire. After all, it was not our intention to breed a species self-sufficient under difficult circumstances, but to breed one able to stay alive in the early stages of the new existence of 3 (1).
The Sirian Experiments Page 19
