Shikasta

by Doris Lessing

  A lot of people were standing up to shout that they hadn’t come to listen to ‘private quarrels’.

  This caused more interventions, verbal and otherwise: there were some scuffles. In a moment everything was quarrelling and disorder.

  George Sherban brought the proceedings to an end. As he did this, a helicopter appeared, directly overhead, very low. It was large, noisy, with violently flashing lights of different colours.

  Suddenly everyone was standing, shaking their fists and screaming. It was by then almost completely dark, the torches were flaring: a scene of confusion and impotent rage.

  They all streamed back to the camp. By then everyone recognized the ‘Trial’ was over. People were talking about returning to their respective countries. They were hot, dirty, tired, irritable, and very hungry. All night, there were aircraft coming and going. This made it impossible to sleep or to rest. When the light came, everyone streamed away down to the sea, walking, jogging, running.

  Not everyone left the camp.

  About seven in the morning, a single aircraft came over, flying rather high, and dropped a single well-aimed bomb into the amphitheatre. This was totally destroyed. Some debris fell among the tents. The old white, who was sitting by himself not far from the amphitheatre, was hit by a piece of stone and killed. No one else was hurt.

  When the thousands of young people came streaming back, they found a scene of devastation. Some left at once, making their way on foot to towns and villages along the coast where they could begin their long and dangerous journeys home.

  By that night very few were left. The camp had been dismantled, the disgusting latrines filled in, the local people had gone.

  Our Chinese delegates were taken away by special coaches. Resentment and anger were expressed, as it was seen that food had been brought, and our delegates were already eating and drinking as they were driven away.

  By next morning there was nothing left but the usual half-starved dogs nosing about.

  So much for the ‘Trial’.

  While it was still in progress, I was getting reports of rumours – very strong and persistent – particularly in India and Africa, that there were plans for ‘mass transfer of populations’ to all parts of Europe. By implication, these included plans for pogroms and massacres and the compulsory attachment of land. The rationale for these invasions was always variations on the theme of the white man’s culpability, that he had ‘proved himself unfit to play his part in the brotherhood of nations’.

  Our attitude was expected, was assumed, to be one of sympathetic noninterference.

  Shortly after the delegates left Greece, scattering over the world, these rumours ceased.

  Are we then to believe that the highly rhetorical and oversimplified (though of course in essence entirely correct) ‘indictments’ had exhausted a certain allowance of anger and desire for revenge? Or that these young people returning home with an account of what had taken place, a description of the arguments and counterarguments used – this had the effect of damping certain fires?

  I am without any rational explanation. But the fact is, coincidence or not, massacres, a determined and planned wiping out of the remaining European populations was on the cards, and being actively endorsed – and now nothing is being heard of it.

  This rather minor, and bizarre, and suspect event, the ‘Trial’, to begin with almost a joke (not I hasten to add because of its subject), is in fact being commented on everywhere.

  This although we allowed no news coverage. Of course accounts – inadequate and inevitably garbled – found their way into the newspapers of the world, including the official organs of the People’s Will. But always in a minor and unemphasized way. There was no television, and it was mentioned hardly at all on the official radio wavelengths.

  The question of George Sherban. This ‘Trial’ succeeded in elevating him to a position of undisputed leader and spokesman, even though he spoke, during the ‘Trial’ itself, perhaps not more than a score of sentences. What did he expect to gain by this exposure of himself in this particular way? Which was accomplished, I remind you, without even the aid of certain positions he could have had for the asking?

  I can only report that whatever one may have reasonably expected to happen, the fact is that he disappeared when the ‘Trial’ was over. No one seems to know where he is, and yet the Youth organizations and Armies of fifty countries are clamouring for him to visit and ‘instruct’.

  Many of the delegates to the ‘Trial’ have also disappeared, and people with whom they are known to have been in contact.

  What were the subjects of conversation during those days and nights when he was always on view in the camps, talking, discussing, ‘holding seminars’?

  Studying my informants’ reports, I can come to no conclusion.

  He is a fluent and witty conversationalist – yet on no particular subject. He makes a strong impression, yet does not seem to leave people with the memory of strong opinions. He does not take any particular political stand, he has never stood for a class or other position that could be defined. Yet he is trusted by young cadres for whom politics are everything.

  Our Agent Tsi Kwang when reporting conversations she was – obviously – fascinated by, since she mentions over and over again that she has been in his company, says, ‘The delegate George Sherban fails to satisfy the soaring aspiration of the People’s glorious militancy. He lacks revolutionary sweep. He lacks an ability to base his actions on the highest interests of the broad masses. He suffers from wishy-washy idealism and enthusiasm for humanistic ideas unrelated to concrete requirements. Weak-minded elements with insufficient bases in correct doctrine find his utterances attractive. He should be exposed and re-educated.’

  I have reissued instructions for his elimination.

  I send you comradely greetings. My remembrances, memories of an old friendship are one of the few pleasures of my exile.

  [This Overlord was recalled shortly after. His friend Ku Yuang had already been removed from his position by an opposing faction. Both were sequestered, and underwent ‘beneficent correction’ until their deaths. Archivists.]

  History of Shikasta, VOL. 3014, Period Between World Wars II and III. SUMMARY CHAPTER.

  This was a period of furious activity.

  The inhabitants of Shikasta, engaged in destroying themselves, soon to face the intensive, if short, final phase of their long orgy of mutual destruction, were not entirely unaware of their situation. A feeling of foreboding was general, but was not commensurate with the situation, nor specific to the various dangers. Alarms and warnings were frequent, but related to an aspect or part of the situation: these preoccupied them for a while, and were then forgotten as another crisis arose and seemed overriding. A few Shikastans, and in all countries, understood quite well what was happening.

  Shikastans, then, in every country, scurried about like insects when their nest is threatened: a breach has been made, and in that place repairs must be effected. And of course, talking went on continuously and always and everywhere; councils, conferences, meetings, discussions, were held all over the planet, some of these purporting to be in the interests of Shikasta as a whole, but the habit of partisan and sectarian thinking was too ingrained for these to be of use.

  None, or few, understood the nature of the intense interest taken in them by various outside localities.

  That there was interest, on the part of ‘beings from space’, was suspected, and there was a worldwide belief that heads of states and governments knew factually and specifically about the visits, peaceful or otherwise, from other parts of the galaxy. It was believed that these functionaries and their underlings denied this knowledge out of a fear of the reactions of their populations, who, for their part, because of the innumerable ‘sightings’ and ‘experiences’ of all kinds of unknown spacecraft, believed in 'visitors from space’, but in a vague and almost mythic way, as they did in religious exemplars and other-worldly beings of a saintly or devilish kind:
for there was no part of Shikasta whose myths and legends did not include visits from superior visitors.

  Meanwhile, under the noses of the unfortunates, real battles were being fought, real events took place.

  First of all, there was our former enemy and uneasy ally Sirius.

  Through the long development of Shikasta, Sirius had several times used areas, mostly in the southern hemisphere, and usually with our agreement, for experiments. Some of these animals proved unsatisfactory for Sirian long-term purposes, and were allowed to remain and develop along their own lines, without further modification or interference. Some of the experiments were successful or promising, and more than once Sirian fleets had descended and taken off an entire species, sometimes numbering many thousands, after anything from between five hundred or a thousand, to several thousand, years. These were transferred to other Sirian colonies, to develop along planned and foreseen lines, or to go into service at once according to their specific physiques, their mental development.

  Due to the comparative ease of travel in recent times, and the accessibility of all parts of Shikasta to the others, a great deal of racial mixing had taken place.

  Sirius was not much involved in the culminating events on Shikasta. One reason was in fact this racial mixing: as soon as travel, due to the developments of technology, had become general, Sirius had wound up certain experiments, and had no further expectations of Shikasta. She always kept us informed, telling us exactly when she withdrew her active participation, placing in our hands details of the experiments she had at various times undertaken, whose results we might have to oversee, or take into account, ourselves. She did send observing spacecraft however, and these were of premier size and quality, the cream of her fleets. This was partly to indicate to us, her ancient rival, that the relinquishing of her power was voluntary, and partly to intimidate Shammat, whose frenzies of mind caused all of us anxiety.

  Shammat of Puttiora was now in fact the most powerful planet in that complex, and Puttiora was her puppet, but remained the apparent centre for purposes of Shammat’s convenience. Shammat knew that at some time the unfortunate cosmic pattern which had caused the long decline of Shikasta because of the diminishing flow of SOWF was due to end. She knew that Shikasta would again lock into place in the great plan that kept Canopus and her planets and colonies in an always harmoniously interacting whole. At some time, Shammat’s influence would end.

  But Shammat did not know when. Did not know how complete her overthrow was to be. Did not know what our plans were.

  Shammat’s disability has always been of the same kind and degree, and can be described in a useful Shikastan saying: it takes one to know one! For Shammat’s low level of development has always prevented her from understanding the nature of our interests and intentions.

  Shammat’s nature has always been that of an exploiter, a drainer, a feeder, a parasite. She has never been able to comprehend that other empires may be based on higher motives.

  Shammat, since her rapid rise to a key position in the Puttiora Empire, has been a place of power, highly fortified, always at war, whose citizens, all of a single racial stock, ex-Puttiora, have considered themselves superior, and draw tribute from any other part of the galaxy they might happen to conquer or influence. Shammat sits in the middle of the complex like an ever-open mouth. Shammat is, and always has been, a threat to the overall development of the galaxy. A vast planet, the largest known, it is barren, dry, lacking in resources. Everything has to be imported. And she lacks, completely, any wholesome balancing powers and currents because of her position in the cosmic organization. Even Puttiora would not develop this dreadful place. Yet by an unfortunate combination of chances, some criminals found their way here, seized it, used its very awfulness to wrench power for themselves from others.

  For a short time (in cosmic terms) Shammat was the most luxurious in the galaxy. It overflowed with riches, wealth, the products of a hundred inventive and industrious cultures. The inhabitants lived on a level of self-indulgence and beastliness that has never been equalled, not even during the nastiest episodes on Shikasta.

  Power from Shikasta remained always Shammat’s main source, and she was not able to find anything to replace it.

  More and more power had been drawn from Shikasta. Shammat was taking everything she could, while she could. But she simply was not able to understand what was happening. She did not know how to find out, and flailed about wildly, blindly, in every sort of damaging way, in the hope that ‘something would work’. She knew that we, Canopus, was, is, must always be, her enemy: knew that we were always present, potent, unconquerable – but did not know what to look for, unable to recognize us in our innumerable guises.

  Shammat, until the very end, believed that in some extraordinary way or other, it would be possible to maintain ‘somehow’, the link with Shikasta. ‘Something will happen.’ ‘It will all come right.’ This desperate unclarity was not what characterized Shammat in the days when we observed her accurately foreseeing the weakening of the link Canopus/Shikasta, and what that weakening might offer her in the way of benefits – but Shammat had degenerated. The long history of shameless dependence on others, the selfishness of her attitude towards neighbours in the galaxy, parasitism, her luxury and the weakening of her moral fibre – all had conspired to ruin her. And the emanations from Shikasta itself, in her final phase, were poisonous. The very process that Shammat had set moving – reducing, weakening, enslaving a large part of Shikasta’s populations, this had reduced and weakened itself, and caused self-division and civil war.

  There were battles fought above Shikasta in those days that had nothing to do with Shikasta! Shammat fought Shammat – wildly, senselessly, self-destructively.

  The skies over Shikasta were in any case filled, crammed, with every sort of mechanical and technical artefact, observing stations, weather stations, relaying stations, some in the service of usefulness, others for war; there were weapons of every kind, of every degree of destructiveness – and these too competed in ways the inhabitants of Shikasta knew nothing about. Shikasta had an outer shell of metal hurtling around it. That this had a weakening effect on the links and meshings of the cosmic forces was of course not a consideration of Shikasta, whose technicians, even at the end when certain facts were becoming obvious, had not yet reached an ability to understand these forces: for several centuries their sciences had been set in a retrograde and backward path of thought which prevented them from thinking usefully along these lines. (They never suspected for instance that certain of their cities, or certain buildings, were built in such a way as inevitably to make their inhabitants mad, or unbalanced at the least.) All around the whirling shell of metal that encased Shikasta battles took place. And others observed these battles. More than once Sirian master-ships appearing on a routine reconnaissance trip put to flight Shammat’s craft that had been dogfighting all over the Shikastan skies. More than once Sirian master-craft, and our own, patrolled these skies in protective alliance, keeping away the ugly little Shammat machines, whose almost automatic belligerence only increased the pressures on Shikasta. And the Shikastan moon was hotly contested.

  Craft from the Three Planets were also visitors to Shikasta. Their happy balances in the structure of forces had long been affected by the Shikastan descent into barbarism, and to maintain their health had not for a long time been easy. The Twentieth Century War with its evil and deadly emanations, useful only to Shammat, had affected these planets. Their visiting craft were for observation. At all times our servants have been on the best of terms with them, have given them every assistance. They were waiting, as were we all, for the moment when Shikasta’s long night would end, and be succeeded by a slow return to the light.

  It will be seen, then that a large part of the work of the visitors to Shikasta was for monitoring and observation, and was no threat at all to that unhappy planet – on the contrary. But that there were so many different visitors, with so many different types of craf
t, was not known by them. There was of course and in addition the already mentioned fact that the major powers all had weapons of war kept ‘secret’ from each other, and certainly kept secret from the populace, and since from the point of view of such powerful weapons, the skies of Shikasta were small enough, every part of the globe was visited by craft originating in Shikasta itself.

  Nor did Shammat fully understand the nature and extent of these many different craft, many visitors.

  How very much did Shammat not understand; and what damage she did; and how she did crash about and blunder and spoil!

  For instance, in her ignorance, Shammat’s agents would often destroy large numbers of people whose proper term on Shikasta had not ended – and whose destruction was no help at all to herself. These we would return to Zone Six and immediately reintroduce into Shikasta for service as soon – sometimes – as they could talk and walk.

  For instance again: Shammat’s preoccupation was always to weaken and soften the moral fibre of the inhabitants. Ours was always the opposite effort. But Shammat was not always – and increasingly less so, towards the end – able to control her own efforts or to observe and understand ours.

  Again: Shammat’s agents prowled and lurked, feeding the spirit of hatred, antagonism, unreason, contention: we did the opposite always, but they were never able to observe, let alone understand, the techniques working against them, and this led sometimes to situations quite farcical, where they might be working against themselves, without knowing it.

  Again: Shammat’s agents, relying on the link between Shikasta and Shammat, often saw this bond where it did not exist, or had been destroyed or weakened by us. People who in fact were free of Shammatan influence, and who had clung to us, understanding – perhaps at first only in an inkling, or the thread of a thought – that salvation lay with us, people who in fact were in our service, and often without knowing it, were trusted by Shammat, who did not have the means to recognize the situation.