The Sirian Experiments (19 page)

I kept myself private and retired to the windows where I could look north and see – so I fancied – the white beginnings of the icecaps, and south to great mountains where the snows lay again. It was getting colder daily, and I wrapped myself in my black cloth for the sake of warmth, and sat many hours
quietly, thinking of the questions I was going to ask … Klorathy? Well, then, Nasar.

There were specific and definite things I wanted to know. It seemed to me that long ages had gone into my wanting to know them, that this wanting had fed a need that now could not any longer be put off.

And I imagined what would happen, how I would frame questions, how they would be answered, in all kinds of ways. And imagined, too, how they would
not
be answered, for I was already set to expect checks and delays.

One evening, when I had sat a long time in a window opening gazing over the rich suburbs and wondering who were the rich and powerful ones of this culture, and able – not all that inaccurately either – to picture them because of their victims and subjects I had seen in the streets, from the windows, and in the persons of the women downstairs in the foodshops; when I had watched in myself the melancholies and sadness that went with this ‘season' of the rapidly darkening days, so that there was less light in any day than there was night; when I had repeated in myself over and over again what I wanted to know, so that I could ask sensibly and well – in came Nasar, unexpectedly, and flung himself down on a low seat, opening a package of food he had brought from the shop below, and eating rapidly and in a way that I had never seen in Klorathy. He unceremoniously thrust a lump of some sweet stuff towards me and said: ‘Have some,' and wiped his mouth roughly and lolled back, his hands locked behind his head, staring up and out at the sky that showed through the windows high in the ceilings. It was a cool sky, and clouds fled past. I was utterly overthrown again, because he was so similar to Klorathy.

I sat myself down carefully, and said to him, beginning my cross-examination: ‘Are you a relative of Klorathy?'

This he took as a shock, or a check. He set his eyes direct on me, and gave me his attention:

‘Well, lovely lady,' said he, and stopped. I remember how he briefly shut his eyes, sighed, and seemed to fight with
himself. He said, in a different voice, patient, but
too
patient, there was much too much effort in it and he was speaking as from out of a dream or a trance: ‘We come from the same planet, Klorathy and I. We are all very similar in appearance.' And there was, again, that flicker of a restless laugh – and then a turning aside of the eyes, a sort of painful grimace, a quick shaking of the head, as if thoughts were being shaken away. Then he looked at me again.

‘Am I going to see Klorathy this time?'

‘One Canopean is the same as another,' he said, and it was like the ghost of a derisive quote.

‘You are
not
like Klorathy,' I said doggedly, surprised that I said it. And knew I had not meant it kindly.

He looked surprised, then laughed – sadly, I could have sworn to that – and said gently: ‘No, you are right. At this moment, at this time, I am indeed not remotely like Klorathy.'

I did not know what to say.

‘I want to ask questions of
somebody
…' and this was desperate. I was becoming amazed at myself – the tone of this interview or exchange was different from anything I had ever known. I, Ambien II, age-long high official of Sirius, with all that meant of responsibility and
effectiveness –
I did not recognize myself.

It seemed to me, however, that incompetent as I was being, he was arrested by me, and returned to something different from … I could not yet say to myself, simply, that he was in a bad, a
recognizably
wrong and bad state. I said that at this moment at least I could see something in him of Klorathy.

‘Ask, fair Sirian.' This I did not like but was able to swallow it – because of the element of caricature in what he said, the manner of it.

‘First of all. I met a man on the very first evening I was here. I disliked everything about him …' I described him, physically, and waited.

‘You must surely be able to work that out for yourself. We are under the aegis of Puttiora here. As I believe you were
told. That was one of
them.
They know everything that happens. Who comes into the city and who goes out. But you passed their test.'

‘What test?'

‘Obviously, you were of Canopus, and therefore you were not molested.'

‘I am not, however.'

‘They are an ignorant lot.'

‘Why do you tolerate their rule?' I asked, fierce, hot, incredulous. ‘Why?'

‘A good question, fair Sirian. Why? I ask it myself. Every hour of every day. Why? Why do we put up with the nasty, stinking, loathsome, horrible …' and he got up, literally sick and choking, and went to the window and leaned out. From far below I heard the clamour of evening, and imagined the flare-lit streets, the poor posturing women, the sale of flesh, the fighting, the drinking.

At that point there was a very long silence. I could have, then, said things I did not until later. But this was
Canopus
and so … and when he turned a hunted haunted face towards me, and sighed, and then laughed, and then shook his head, and then put his face in his hands, and then flung himself down again, and yet was unable to stay still for even a moment, I said to myself only that this was a man disgusted by Shammat.

‘Very long term, the perspectives of Canopus, you must learn to understand that,' he said at last.

‘And very long term are the perspectives of Sirius,' I said, with dignity. For if there was one thing I understood, it was that … empires and the running of them … but he stared and laughed – he laughed until he flung himself back and lay exhausted, staring at the ceiling.

The thought was in my mind that this was a man who was in very deep trouble. And I suppressed it.

‘Very well,' I said, ‘for reasons of long-term development, you tolerate Shammat, you tolerate Puttiora and allow them
to believe they are in control. Very well. But what are
you
doing here?'

‘A good question, again, fair Sirian.'

I said, ‘You do not have to call me that. I have a name. But it doesn't matter. What I want to know is,
what is the function of Canopus?
What are you?' And I was leaning forward, twisting my hands together, so that they cracked – all my limbs are thin and frail, and I sustain breaks easily. I was using enough strength to break bones. I sat back, carefully relaxing myself.

He was watching me thoughtfully. With respect.

‘You are right to ask that question.'

‘But you are not going to answer it?'

At this he started up, leaning forward, gazing at me as if incredulous. ‘Can't you
see
…' he began – and then lay back again, silent.

‘See what?'
But he said nothing. ‘Why do you stop? Why is it that you will never answer? Why is it I always get so far and then you won't answer?'

He was gazing at me, from where he reclined. I could have sworn that this copper man, or bronze man, that bronze-eyed, alert smiling man was Klorathy.
But he was not.
The contrast was so absolute, and definite, to the extent that I said to him, not knowing I was going to: ‘What is the matter with you?'

He laughed.

And even then I didn't pursue it, for if I had done he would have answered.

He stood up. He collected himself. He smiled – oh, not at all like Klorathy.

‘First of all … I have to tell you …' and he stopped, and he sighed. I saw he was not going to say it!

‘I have to go,' he said.

‘Why? To work? They say you are a merchant?'

‘I am a merchant. In Shammat land do as Shammat does. I am a merchant as you are my servant.' He came close to me then and bent and put out both hands and touched my earrings. ‘Take care of them,' said he, and sprang back, as if
the touch burned him. ‘Where are yours?' I asked.

‘A good question. But they are on the earlobes of Shammat. They were stolen, you see. Or, more accurately, I got drunk and gave them to the earlobes of Shammat … very bad,' he said. ‘Not good.'

And he smiled in a way that frightened me, and left.

And now I knew at last that there was something very wrong with this Canopean. I was enabled to search my memory and come up with: the fact that this was a suborned, or disaffected, or rebellious official. I had seen it! I had had to deal with it a hundred times! This was Canopus gone wrong.

And I wrapped myself rapidly in my black cloth and I ran down those stairs after him, catching him halfway, and making him stop.

‘Where are you going?'

‘To visit my woman. I have a beautiful woman,' said he. ‘Oh, don't look like that! Believe me, it is only those who understand nothing that look like that …' and he bounded down the stairs. I went after him, the alabaster walls of the stairs gleaming around us both, and we reached the dark street that was luridly illuminated and full of sweating shouting demented people. I grabbed him and made him turn. ‘Don't be a fool,' he said. ‘Do you imagine we are unobserved?' He tore himself away. I did not listen, and went after him. He turned again and said in a low urgent voice: ‘I may be lost, but do you have to lose yourself, too? Be careful …' And as we stood there, up came two of the same greenish-grey cold-eyed officials I had seen before, and one reached forward and wrenched down my headcloth to show my earrings, and a hand was already coming out to wrench them off, while another was pulling Nasar around by the arm, when Nasar said, ‘Punishment from Canopus!' and the one who had touched my earrings fell, like a stone, and the other ran off into the crowds. Nasar looked full at me, his amber eyes pained and sick, and said: ‘That cost us a good deal, Sirian, more than you know – get back upstairs. I may be lost,
but why should you be?' And I took hold of both his arms, and asked him: ‘Very well, I have just understood … you have gone bad, you have gone wrong … I know the symptoms – yes, it has taken me long enough to see it … but come back, come back, Nasar … please. I demand it. You must. In the name of Canopus.' Well, he came back up the stairs with me, the long climb of them, and when he was at the top he was ill and frightened. He had lost the inner power that for good or bad had sustained him in his encounters with me. He trembled, and was pale under his dark copper skin.

‘What happened?' I kept asking.

I asked, and I pressed, and it was very late in the night, and the snow, a pale presence, filled the windows, and at last he said this: ‘Lady, I have been on this planet for twenty-five thousand years. Since before Adalantaland. It was I who taught that island and the peoples around it. I was here before the change of earth's axis and the birth of the seasons. It was I who taught – other cities and cultures you know nothing of. I have been
here, here, here.
Klorathy my brother has come and gone … there are those who visit, they come, they warn, they set the stones, they make the lines, they order, they align – and they go again if they are recalled to home, but I, I am a permanent official. And in my case they have made a mistake. Do you understand? I have gone very bad, as you say, Ambien the II or the III or the 97th. You come and go, too, I suppose? A sojourn on this planet and a little holiday on that? But I have been in this hellhole for … ages, ages, long ages …' He muttered, and he swung his head, and he puckered up his face and sighed, and then leaped up and ran out of the door so fast I could not catch him.

It was a day and an hour when I had to perform the regulatory observances. I set out the objects on the rugs of the floor, arranged colours as they should go, put garments on myself in a certain way, adjusted my earrings, and observed the hour exactly, standing quietly there alone at the top of the great tower, enclosed in the snow's white hush … it was very difficult. I knew by the resistance of the time and the
substance about me that I was contending with a great deal: many times had I performed these rituals, since the failure of the Lock, had performed them in this or that continent, and in several different manners, but never had I felt as if I, or the substance of something felt through me, was pushing against a resistance experienced as – evil. Felt as a heavy, dead weight. But stuck to my purpose, thinking of Klorathy, and that he had asked me here.
Why?
For what purpose?

I had just finished what I had been instructed to do, when the curtains of the door were yanked back, and the man I had seen on my first evening stood there. ‘Canopus,' said he. ‘You are on sufference here and that does not allow you to kill our officials.'

What I was feeling as I stood up to face him surprised me: it was exactly the same tone or taste as what I felt when with Nasar. There was no mistaking that sensation, a resonance. I had told myself that Nasar had gone
bad:
but I had not gone on to understand what it might mean that he had been captured by Shammat,
was
Shammat.

I said nothing, but stood before him in my slight white robes, the luminous metal circlets on my upper arms, the metal band on my head of the same softly shining silvery gold, a metal foreign to Sirius, which I did not know, and my heavy golden earrings.

As he took in what I was wearing, his dull stonelike eyes stared, and he involuntarily took several steps forward. He was still wearing the golden earrings.

I was preserving a distancing and detached manner, while I attended to a large variety of thoughts and sensations. Speculations about Nasar continued. I was also thinking that this official ought never to have seen me thus accoutred and that he was at this moment fixing my image on his mind so as later to copy what he could; I noted, too, that he had not observed the patterns of colours, nor the scents, nor the stringed instrument on which I had been making the necessary sounds. I was right in thinking that he would be bound to believe these some sort of ‘female entertainment'
and of no use to him. I was thinking that I did not believe the official punished by Nasar was in fact dead: more probably he was stunned. No authority of even ordinary sense uses greater methods of punishment or deterrent than are necessary. I was also concluding that my having to pretend to be Nasar's servant could not be for the benefit of the Shammat surveillance, but was necessary not to disturb the populace. More than all this, I was trying to decide how to behave in a way that would control him.