The Sirian Experiments. Doris Lessing

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      What was happening, Ambien I said, was that Klorathy did not make any attempt to communicate what he thought until he was asked a direct question – or until something was said that was in fact a question though it was masked as a comment. And Ambien I then went to Klorathy and inquired if this was indeed a practice of Canopus: and whether Klorathy expected to stay there, living on as he did, with these savages, until they asked the right questions … and if this was Klorathy’s expectation, then why did he expect the savages to ask the right questions?

      To which Klorathy replied that they would come and ask the necessary questions in their own good time.

      And why?

      ‘Because I am here …’ was Klorathy’s reply, which irritated Ambien I. Understandably. I felt irritated to the point of fury even listening to this report.

      Anyway, Ambien I had wanted to go, but could not, since I had the Sirian transport with me. He had in fact gone off to visit the dwarves again, by himself, another colony of them – a foolhardy thing, which had nearly cost him his life. He had been rescued by the intervention of Klorathy, who had only said, however, that ‘Sirians as yet lacked a sense of the appropriate’.

      Then had begun the ‘events’ that were not to be described as more than that.

      At last, I had arrived back, and he, Ambien I, could not express how he had felt when he saw the glistening bubble descend through all that grey steam, because he had believed me to be dead. And of course it was ‘a miracle’ that I had survived – to use a term from our earlier epochs.

      We stayed together that night, in emotional and intellectual intimacy, unwilling to separate, after such a threat that we might never have been together again at all.

      We decided to leave Klorathy.

      First, having pondered over what Ambien I had said about questions, how they had to be asked, I went to Klorathy and asked bluntly and directly about the Colony 10 colonists, and why we, Sirius, could not have them.

      He was sitting at his tent door. I sat near him. We were both on heaps of damp skins … but the clouds of steam were less, the earth was drying, the thundering and trickling and running of the waters already had quietened. It was possible to believe that soon these regions would again be dry and high and healthy.

      ‘I have already told you,’ said Klorathy, ‘that these colonists would not be appropriate. Do you understand? Not appropriate for Sirians, for the Sirian circumstances.’

      ‘Why not?’

      He was silent for a while, as if reflecting inwardly. Then he said: ‘You ask me, over and over again, the same kind of question.’

      ‘Why don’t you answer me?’

      Then he did something that made me impatient. He went into his tent and came out with some objects – the same things that Ambien I and I had been supplied to maintain our balance on this difficult planet.

      I at first believed that because of the recent ‘events’, certain changes in our practice were necessary, and I readied myself to take in instruction, since I knew that exactness was necessary here, and that it would not do for me to overlook even the smallest detail. (I had told him – and heard his dismayed yet patient sigh – about Adalantaland falling off in this respect, how they had not maintained the care needed to make these practices work.)

      I watched what he did. Certain kinds of stone, of natural substance, some colours, shapes, were laid before him and handled and ordered. But I was watching very carefully and saw that he made no changes in the ritual I had been using.

      ‘So nothing has had to be changed?’ I asked, knowing my voice was rough and antagonistic. ‘Not even the recent events, and the distancing of the earth from its sun, and all the other differences, are going to necessitate changes in what we have to do?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet. Though perhaps later, when we have monitored the exact differences. In climate, for instance. And of course the magnetic forces will be affected …’

      ‘Of course,’ I said, sarcastically, as before.

      He continued to handle the objects, precisely, carefully. I watched his face, the amber, or bronze face, long, deeply moulded, with the strong eyes that were so closely observing the movements of his hands.

      And I continued to sit there, arms locked around my knees, watching, maintaining a dry tight smile that was all criticism, and he continued patiently and humbly to manipulate his artefacts.

      I did not understand him. I thought this was a way of putting me off, of saying wordlessly that he would not answer me.

      As I formulated this thought, he said: ‘No, that is not it. But if you want to understand, then I suggest you stay on here for a time.’

      ‘For how long?’ And answered myself with, ‘For as long as necessary, I suppose!’

      ‘Yes, that’s it.’

      ‘And what sort of progress have you made? Are the savages and dwarves in an alliance? Are they ready to stand against the Shammats?’

      ‘I think it is likely the dwarves have been sealed into their caves, and that we may never see them again.’

      The way he said this made my emotions riot. The end of a species – a race – the end of the Lombi strain on Rohanda and the 22 technicians.

      He said: ‘Well, we have to accept these reverses.’

      ‘Then why are you staying on? The reason for your being here is gone – swallowed by the events.’

      ‘The tribes are still here!’

      ‘So you are not with them just because of the old hostility between them and the dwarves?’

      ‘I am here as I often am with all kinds of peoples … races … species, at certain stages in their development.’

      I did understand that here was a point of importance: that if I persisted, I would learn.

      ‘You want me to stay?’ This was a challenge: deliberate, awkward, hostile.

      ‘Yes, I think you should stay.’

      He had not said: ‘Yes, I want you to stay.’

      I got up and left him. I told Ambien I that I intended to leave. And in the morning, having said goodbye to Klorathy, we took off in our space bubble. We surveyed, rapidly, the ravages of the ‘events’ on both southern continents, and then went home to our Mother Planet.

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