The Sirian Experiments. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ was the Giants’ settlements that could not be explained. They were living on a level not very much higher than the natives; and yet on Colony 10 they had evolved to the stage of advanced cities.

      When Ambien I’s survey was complete, he instructed the liaison ship to fly down over Isolated Northern Continent, to see what had happened to the Lombis and the stock from C.P.22. But he could find no sign of them. We had a rough idea of where they ought to be, from Hoppe’s information – but nothing. We concluded that they must all have succumbed to some epidemic, since there was no sign of settlement by natives or Giants either.

      We had to come to terms with the facts about the Canopean work in the north. The captured native stock so happily living on their hillsides where they were always under our inspection could not be said to have regressed. They had not developed. They had abandoned attempts to care for and use other animals, but hunted skilfully and intelligently. They grew a few roots for food, but not grains. They picked leafy plants from the wild, but did not plant any. They wore animal pelts but no art was used in their preparation. The shacks and huts they lived in were adequate.

      We did not understand what had happened to make the difference.

      Again I was ready to conclude that the Canopean north was in some way better endowed, but Ambien I reminded me that the Giants actively instructed the natives on their visits, whereas we had pursued a policy of non-interference.

      We decided to divide out stock of natives into two, and establish a colony of them at a distance from us, so that there could be no contact. This new colony would be energetically supervised and taught by us in the practical arts. Ambien I undertook this task: it was one he was particularly well fitted for.

      He built himself a shelter in the new village, and settled down with them as an instructor.

      This attempt was a failure. He was not able to teach them anything they could retain. That is, he taught them a variety of crafts, which they seemed to understand – but in a short time everything was forgotten. After a period of intensive work, he had to confess that the new colony was not much better off than the first one.

      He did make further attempts during the next ten thousand years, goaded by the amazing results of the Canopeans, but they all failed. Meanwhile he was making more trips to find out what was happening in the north. Not only he, but others, too, whom we ordered from our Home Planet. We wanted individuals as near to the natives of the north as possible – no races in our Empire attained anything like the height of the Giants. Ambien I and these new experts again and again surveyed the north. Always, we believed, without discovery. Certainly without resistance.

      Because of the number of spies we sent northwards, we believed that the Canopeans must be doing the same to us; and we were careful to spread rumours of the fierce and warlike nature of the southern hemisphere.

      All this activity of ours during that period now makes me amazed and incredulous – as we are when remembering earlier cruder phases of ourselves. None of it was necessary. All we needed was to read, without suspicion and with an open mind, the material they continually supplied us and then to ask them questions. But it is always useless to bewail past mistakes.

      During this period of ten thousand years, the reports by Ambien I and the others were increasingly amazing. There were cities being built everywhere, of a kind Sirius knew nothing about. The beauty of the cities on Canopus was famous, and we had always emulated them: to state the fact, which even now we are reluctant to admit. But these cities were built in remarkable shapes, of a mathematical kind. They were all different. The Giants and the natives lived together now. The cities were different not only in shape and size but in their qualities: Ambien I always said that it was not easy to describe what he could feel. On the islands, great and small, of the ocean between the Northern Continent and the main landmass were many cities, and the life on them was more advanced than any in our Empire. And we were talking about not only the Giants – whom we were certainly not surprised to find at this highly evolved level – but the indigenous stock whose unregenerate state we could see by going to the windows of our citadel and looking down: there they were, a lazy, amiable colony of – apes, for after all, that was all they were.

      Why? It is not too much to say that Ambien I and myself and the others of our staff became obsessed with Canopus and their successes. I was, particularly. I had not seen what they described. But I did once insist on being taken in one of our fastest craft on a trip over the island-crammed ocean between the Northern Continent and the main landmass, and saw a very large island, that had on it a magnificent white city, circular, with many surrounding channels and causeways, and ships as fine as any we used anywhere riding in the harbours. This after only 5,000 years of the ‘Lock’ that Canopus attached so much importance to.

      Because of the primary intention of this account – Sirian relations with Canopus – and my emphasis on aspects of our researches that affected these relations, there is a danger readers may believe what is described here more or less defines these researches. I can only repeat that during the roughly 18,000 years of that ideal period on Rohanda, only a small part of our work had any long-term effect on Rohanda or on Canopus. During the 10,000 years we were so preoccupied with what went on in the north, we were also making full use of opportunities. I will mention one project, which lasted more than 10,000 years, involved nearly the whole of Southern Continent II, employed millions of our technicians from every part of our Empire, and which had no contact at all with, nor influence upon, our spying missions into the north, or Ambien I’s attempts with the captured natives.

      The paradoxical Sirian situation already mentioned had not improved: on all the older and long-established Colonized Planets were millions who had no employment nor hope of any, who knew that their deaths (which we of course did not hasten in any way whatsoever) would be a relief and a lessening of a burden on us all, and who were too softened and enfeebled by affluence for any but the easiest work, who had come to crave even the physical labour they believed to be beneath them – but who, when offered it, were not able to do it. For there was a period when we of the Colonial Service did in fact do our best to use these noisy and complaining hordes where we could on large-scale development projects. It was a failure. While demanding ‘any kind of work, no matter how rough’ – most vociferously and tiresomely – when they were in fact put to this type of work their ingrained beliefs in their own superiority, their weakness of will, their self-indulgence, caused them very soon to slacken, or to manifest a large range of psychosomatic problems.

      For a period of about 8,000 years, we had vast encampments all over Southern Continent II, where physical work graded to easy preliminary stages was created for these people, in order to fit them for the real work elsewhere on the newly acquired and still undeveloped planets that we were ‘opening up’ – to use our term for the early phases of our colonization. Our problem was that we did not want to disturb the ecological balance of Rohanda more than we had to. We did not want to destroy vegetation or animals. Nor to engage in plans that would scar or mar the earth. We had plenty of other planets whose natural endowments were suitable; but only one whose endowments were so lavish, fertile, beautiful. The food for these millions of apprentice colonists was easily supplied by S.C. I – whose agricultural stations remained successful beyond anything we had hoped for. But to supply them work without upsetting their environments was a different matter. It was, it had to be – invented. As each new contingent of, sometimes, many hundreds of thousands arrived from this or that planet, flown in by our giant transport craft, they were set to make their own housing and amenity buildings by using premade building materials. But this task did not take them long. And while so easy, involving very little real labour, they were already complaining that they were ‘demeaned’ and ‘degraded’. Yet each one was a volunteer, and had had explained to them that their sojourn on Rohanda was temporary, and for training purposes only.

      I will make here an observation that was formed in that time СКАЧАТЬ