Shikasta

Again a general, if slight, movement of unease, the shifting of limbs, small sighs.

Against this resistance I gave them a short history of the Puttiora Empire, and its colony Shammat.

It wasn’t that they were not listening, rather they seemed unable to listen.

I repeated and insisted. Shammat, I said, had had agents on this planet for some time. Had there been no reports of aliens? Of suspicious activity?

Jarsum’s eyes wandered. Met mine. Slid away.

‘Jarsum,’ I said, ‘is there no memory among you that your ancestors – your fathers even – believed there might be hostile elements here?’

‘The southern territories have been cooperative for a long time.’

‘No, not the Sirian territories.’

Again, sighs and movements.

I tried to keep it as brief as I could.

I said that this planet, under the changed influences of the relevant stars, would suddenly find itself short of – as it were – fuel. Yes, yes, I knew I had told them this. But Shammat had found out about this, and was already tapping the currents and forces.

Rohanda, now Shikasta, the broken, the hurt one, was like a rich garden, planned to be dependent on a water supply that was inexhaustible. But it turned out that it was not inexhaustible. This garden could not be maintained as it had been. But a slight, very poor supply of Canopean power would still seep through to feed Shikasta; it would not entirely starve. But even this slight flow of power was being depleted. By Shammat. No, we did not know how, and we wanted urgently to find out.

We believed that a minimum of maintenance would be possible, the ‘garden’ would not entirely vanish. But in order to plan and to do, then we must know everything there was to be known about the nature of our enemy.

No response. Not of the kind I needed.

‘For one thing,’ I insisted, ‘the more the Natives degenerate, the more they weaken and lose substance, the better that will be for Shammat. Do you see? The worse the quality of the Canopus/Shikasta flow, the better for Shammat! Like to like! Shammat cannot feed on the high, the pure, the fine. It is poison to them. The level of the Lock in the past has been far above the grasp of Shammat. They are lying in wait, for the precise moment when their nature, the Shammat nature, can fasten with all its nasty force onto the substance of the Lock! They are already withdrawing strength, they are feeding themselves and getting fat and noisy on it, but this is nothing as to what will happen unless we can somehow prevent them. Do you see?’

But they did not. They could not.

They had become unable to take in the idea of theft and parasitism. It was no longer in their genetic structure, perhaps – though how such a change had come about is hard to tell. At any rate, I saw that there was nothing I could say that would get through to them. Not on this subject. I would have to make efforts myself.

My first was to spend time with Jarsum, when the transmitting sessions were over, and to try and make an impact on him. From him I got every kind of help and information on any subject but one.

The transmitting sessions went on. They are always the same. A theme would be brought forward, held in the minds of those present, a little discussion might take place, or there might be continuous silence. The theme, as translated into ideas and facets in the individual minds of the Giants, would be enriched and developed: and this complexity would go out and reach the Giants of the other cities.

I kept urging that messengers should be sent out, to confirm and add to what was being transmitted. How did we know if the strength of the currents was still as it had been? I wanted the fastest possible individuals to be sent to run all the way, if necessary! But I came up against a curious block or barrier in the Giants. They had never had to do things this way! they said.

‘Yes, but things are different now.’

No, they would wait.

And I could not make them listen.

Then came the news from Canopus that the spacecraft for taking off the Giants would be arriving – with the precise dates and places – near the main cities.

‘Jarsum, we must hurry. We can’t wait any longer …’

But he had become obstinate, even suspicious.

I saw then that it had begun. The Giants were affected. Already they were not as they had been.

And if they, then very likely I was affected, too … I did have moments of dizziness. Yes, and sometimes I would come to myself after an interval when it was as if my mind had been full of clouds.

I had not expected to have to do this so soon, but I took out the Signature from where it was hidden, and concealed it under my tunic, tied on to my upper arm. My mind cleared then, and I understood that in fact I had been changed without knowing it. I could see that soon I would be the only individual on Shikasta with the power of judgment, of reasoned action.

And yet the Giants did not know of their state and were in control of everything.

I found that the Giants were not influenced equally – some were still sharp-minded and responsible. Alas, Jarsum was not one. He had succumbed almost at once. I did not know what to make of that, nor did I attempt to. I was concerned with practicalities, and kept urging those who would to come into the transmitting chamber where they seemed clearer-minded than they were outside.

It was at a transmitting session that I realized there had been a real and drastic change. The form of the session was the same, but there was more restlessness, and moments, too, when it seemed as if everyone there had lost themselves: their eyes would glaze and wander, and they spoke at random. Then, one morning, a Giant suddenly said in a hectoring voice that he, at least, would elect to stay on the planet and not go with the others. He was making a case, as in a debate, and this was so foreign to them all that they were startled back into understanding. My friend Jarsum, for instance, was shocked into himself, and I saw that he was there again, behind those magnificent eyes of his. He did not speak, but sat concentrating all his powers. Another Giant spoke, arguing against the first, but not in favour of going as much as to make a point. The first one shouted that ‘it was obvious’ it would be stupid to leave. Jarsum was fighting, wrestling inwardly, trying to bring that assembly back to what it had been. Another voice was in argument. I could see from the stresses on Jarsum’s face, the strain in his eyes, that it was too much … and suddenly he snapped and his voice was added to the others in a shouting babble of disagreement.

And in that way, literally ‘from one moment to another’, things fell apart on Shikasta. Outside could be heard shouting arguing voices, could be heard children quarrelling, the sounds of dissent, debate. Inside was all excitement and agitation. They leaned forward, trying to catch each other’s eyes, gesticulated, interrupted. There were two factions, a group who still tried to hold fast to their inner strength, their faces bewildered, and the ones who had been swept away, led by Jarsum, who was shouting that ‘they could send all the spacecraft they liked and he wouldn’t budge, not he!’ – like a child. And then the group that had held out, succumbed.

I intervened. To do this I closed my hand over the Signature, and used it. I said to them that those who decided to stay would be committing Disobedience. For the first time in their history they would not be in conformity with Canopean Law.

They broke in with the arguments, the logics, of the debased modes.

They said, among other things, that their staying could only make things better for the Natives because they, the Giants, ‘knew local conditions’, whereas outsiders did not. They said that if the Natives were going to be betrayed by Canopus, then they, the Giants, would have no part in it.

I said that if the Giants stayed, even some of them, then the modified Canopean plan would be at risk. That the Giants would not be fitted ‘to lead and guide’ the Natives, as they kept insisting they were, because their powers, too, would be depleted – were already depleted – could they not see their behaviour now was proof of a falling away? But no, they had already forgotten what they had been, dissension and enmity were already natural to them.

I said that disobedience to the Master Plan was always, everywhere, the first sign of the Degenerative Disease … and looked to find noble faces, and comprehending eyes that were so no longer, for onto the faces had come peevishness and self-assertion, and into the eyes, vagueness.

The next few days were all faction-fighting, argument, and raised voices.

I was everywhere I could be, with my hidden Signature. By putting forth every power I had, I managed to beam to the Canopean spacecraft that they must not expect to descend and find the Giants waiting to be taken off: things had gone beyond that. They must expect to have to go into every city and argue and persuade and if necessary to capture by force. By then the resistance to my transmissions spacewards was so great I feared nothing clear would get through. But later I learned they had understood the essentials. And in most of the cities, particularly those in the central area, it had been understood at least that there was a crisis and that spacecraft were approaching. The lift-off was nothing like the smooth planned thing that had been envisaged. In every city was argument and refusal to leave, before a bewildered submission – this at best; and in some, Canopean troops had to use force.

I did not know immediately what had happened: I had to piece information together later.

Meanwhile, in the Round City, Jarsum headed a group who refused to go at all. He showed the noblest self-sacrifice in staying. He knew that his fellows, and himself, the disobedient Giants, risked their very beings, their souls – yet he would stay. The tall white Giant with her bizarre and disturbing beauty stayed, and with her others who were her progeny, all of them sports and showing the strangest combinations of physical characteristics. She said that she was a genetic freak, and could have no place on the planet where the Giants were being taken.

How did she know this? I asked, pointing out that the galaxy included varieties of creatures she had never dreamed of. But ‘she knew it.’ Bad enough that she had to live out her life among people different from herself, always an alien, without having to start all over again.

This while we were waiting for the spacecraft’s arrival.

Meanwhile, discussions went on about what to tell the Natives.

The Giants were showing a yearning, passionate, protecting concern for their erstwhile charges which contrasted absolutely with their former strength of confidence. At every moment I was confronted with Jarsum, or another Giant, all great accusing eyes, and tragic faces. How can you treat the poor things like this! was what I was meant to feel. And every practical discussion was interrupted by heavy sighs, looks of reproach, murmurs about cruelty and callousness. But in spite of this, I was able to arrange that some songs and tales should be made, and taken by suitable individuals among the Natives from city to city, which would transmit and inform at least the basics of the new situation.

And these emissaries were informed that in each city they must seek out a few representative Natives and tell them that they must prepare for crisis, for a period of hardship and deprivation, that they must wait for other messengers to come and instruct.

The Giants arranged this. They had to. The Natives knew the Giants as their mentors and could not suddenly see them otherwise.

But the Giants were leaving – went the songs.

Winging their way to the heavens,