The Sirian Experiments (23 page)

‘What do you do with your criminals, Sirius? What would
happen to me, if I were one of yours?'

‘I think you would be executed.'

‘Yes. That is what I thought. And suppose I agree with you and not with my own dear Empire? Suppose I think I ought to be executed?'

‘You want to be punished?' I inquired, as dry as I could manage. And again I saw him straighten, the black weight on him lift. He said, just as dry: ‘Yes, and perhaps that is it. But Sirius, when I say that they have made a mistake, I mean it. I have not been strong enough for my work.'

‘Do you never get leave?' I asked. ‘They surely do not put you here indefinitely – not for the long ages you tell me you have been stationed here.'

And now he came to stand by me, in my window embrasure, leaning against the inner wall, looking at me.

‘I take it,' said he, ‘that you are of the liberal party on Sirius.'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘Poor Sirius,' he said softly, those dark-bronze, or copper, or amber eyes full and strong on my face. ‘Poor, poor Sirius.'

Now this was quite unexpected, and I was thrown off my balance with him. We stood there, very close, looking into each other's faces. I was not now thinking of Klorathy, or of my search for his real friendship, or anything of the sort: I felt near, because of what Nasar had said, to some sort of mystery or understanding.

I waited until I could speak moderately, and said: ‘Why do you not simply go back home and tell them what you are saying to me.'

‘Because I have done so already.'

‘So you have been on leave?'

‘Yes. But it was a long time ago – just after what these poor wretches call “the Punishment”. But Sirius, to spend time
there –
and then to return here – do you know what that means? How one feels? How utterly
intolerable
…' and he struck off and away again, and began his despairing pacing.

‘In short,' he said, ‘it is not worthwhile to go home if one
has to come back. And in my case I have to come back. That is what they say. This is my place. This hellhole. Shikasta the disgraced and the shameful one.
This.'

‘Rohanda is very beautiful,' I said, with a sigh for my long stay on the Southern Continent, before the failure of the Lock. ‘No planet in our system is anything near as beautiful and as rich and as …' I was looking at the golden light in the grey sky to the southeast where the storm had now quite gone away. The brown cone nearest to this one showed the most elegant pattern of black markings all the way up, each touched with white: the snow underlined each window opening, and the symmetry and balance of the patterns gave me the deepest satisfaction; and that is what
Rohanda –
I was simply not prepared to use their niggardly little word for it – so plentifully did offer. A rich food for the senses – always and generously.

‘Yes, it is beautiful,' said he in a stifled voice, and he stood upright, eyes closed, his hand at his throat, and his eyes closed tight, quivering. He was thinking of Elylé.

‘I understand,' I said quietly. His eyes flew open: he gazed at me, sombre, but himself, and he strode across and bent over me, looking into my eyes. ‘Desiccated bureaucrat though I am, I understand very well. I wish I did not.' And I could not prevent myself shuddering.

‘Thank you,' he said and went off again.

‘I would like to know about this city – before it was spoiled.'

He laughed, and with such bitterness. ‘And the other cities – before they were spoiled – because they are always spoiled, always, always.'

‘Always?'

‘Yes.'

‘So then you have to make allowances for that?'

‘Yes,' he said with a sigh, the driven black one gone again, and he simple and
there
with me. ‘Yes. We make allowances. We know that if we build a city, or make a jewel, or a song, or a thought, then it will at once start to slide away, fall away – just as
I
have done, Sirius – and then – pfft! – that's it, it's over.
This
city, you say: the city of the twenty-one tall cones? And what of the city just there – can you see?' – and he pointed to where the storm had gone. I could just see a blur on the white horizon. ‘That is the city of the gardens. That
was
the city of the gardens …'

‘And what is it now?'

‘It is a city of gardens,' said he, grim and savage, black and vibrating. ‘A gardened city. Elylé adores it. She has her place there, fountains and delights … Elylé, Elylé,' he moaned suddenly, rocking, his hands up over his face.

‘Nasar,' I said sharply and he sighed and came to himself.

‘You are going to have to give me your earrings,' said he, coming up to me, taking me by the shoulders and peering into my face. The grip of those large hands bore heavily, and he felt me brace myself and he loosened them. ‘There's nothing to you,' he said, incredulously. ‘A dry bone of a woman, with your judicious little face and your …'

‘No, I am not Elylé,' I said steadily. ‘Do you want me to be sorry for that?'

‘No,' he said simply, coming to himself.

‘Nasar, is it that you want the earrings because you can stay here instead of going back home – and you have been ordered back home and don't want to go?'

‘Exactly so.'

‘But wouldn't they – come after you and punish you?'

‘No,' he said, with his short laugh, that I now knew to associate with his inner comparisons between Canopus and what I made of Canopus as a Sirian. ‘No. What need of punishments? What punishments could conceivably be worse than
this
…' and he shut his eyes, and flung back his head with something like a howl – yes, it was like the howl of a desperate animal. ‘Ohhh,' he groaned, or howled, ‘to
be
this, to have become part of it, to be Shikasta, to be Shammat …'

‘You are not Shammat,' I said, sharp and cold. And afraid.

‘What do you suppose Shammat
is
, lady?' And he again marched and strode, and stopped, on his desperate course.

I had been given – I felt – another piece of my puzzle.

‘Shammat is not merely an external tyranny?'

‘Surely that is evident?'

‘I see.'

He inquired, really surprised. ‘How is it you have to ask?'

‘I ask … and I ask … and I ask … there are questions I seem to ask over and over again. Yet I do not ever get any answer.'

‘But wasn't that an answer?'

I felt weighed with a half-knowledge, something too much, too painful, too dark – a long dark wail that was inward. And I could see the same on Nasar's face.

‘This is a terrible place,' he said in a bleak voice, as if suddenly seeing something for the first time – he who had lived with this for so long! Yet he was contemplating it again, anew. ‘A terrible place.'

‘Will you tell me
why'
I said. ‘Please will you try and say. What
is
Shammat? That is what I want to know.' And I added, ‘If I knew that, then could I understand Canopus?'

At this he laughed – a real laugh. ‘What is Shammat? Shammat is this – if you build a city – perfectly, and exactly, so that every feeling and thought in it is of Canopus – then slowly, the chords start to sound false – at first just slightly, then more and more – until soon the Canopus-nature has gone, it has slipped, it has fallen away … like me … and if you start again, and collect together, let us say, ten people and teach them Canopus – if you can, if you
can –
then that is all you can do because Shammat rises up and strikes back and for the ten of Canopus nature there will be ten times ten of Shammat. The ten you cherish, if they stand,
if
they stand, if they do not fall away like me … and if you say Love, then Love is the word, it is Love, yes, but then …' and he was muttering now, in a crazy, restless, wild desperation and misery, ‘… but then it is Love still but cracked, the sound false, then falser, and it is not love but wanting, oh Elylé, Elylé, Elylé the beautiful one, my beautiful one …'

‘Nasar!' I stopped him and he sighed and came to himself. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘Love the golden word does not sing her song for long here, before her voice cracks … Love slowly turns
down, down the spiral and then there is Hate. Each perfection becomes its opposite, that is Shammat. You ask what is Shammat – it is that if you Love, then before long, it is Hate, and if you build for harmony, then soon it is quarrelling, and if you say Peace, then before long it is War – that is Shammat, that is Shammat, Sirius.'

‘And yet Canopus persists here. Canopus keeps this planet. Canopus does not jettison it. Rohanda is under your protection.'

‘That is our policy.'

‘And do you not agree with it?'

‘No, I do not agree with it – but then,
I
am now Shammat, or at least for a good part of the time, so what does it matter what I agree with or not?'

‘Tell me, you have been ordered back and you do not want to go?'

‘Yes.'

‘Because you cannot face what you feel when you have to come back again?'

‘Yes.'

‘And if I gave you the earrings and the other things …'

‘Oh, the earrings would do, they would be enough,' he muttered, desperate and evasive and savage.

‘How could they be enough? You have certain exact and accurate practices, always changing as circumstances change … Is that not so?'

He was staring at me, sullen, admiring in a way, but disliking.

‘Very true.'

‘So if you are asking for the earrings, they cannot be to enable you to maintain yourself healthily here, but to give to Elylé. Is that it? Or is there something else?'

‘There might be.'

‘Can it be that the Puttiorans, who have the earrings and who are making wrong use of them, are putting pressure on you to join them?' I heard my own voice, prim and scandalized – and incredulous.

‘Something like that.'

‘You cannot conceivably be tempted by Puttiora?'

‘Why not? If I can be tempted by Elylé – and more than tempted – do you realize I have been as good as her husband for – oh, I don't want to think how long …'

‘Well, how long?' I asked, as the thought came into me that these creatures lived very short lives.

‘Exactly so, Sirius. There is the additional torment that this absolute and incredible beauty is – stuff for a moment, snow on your palm. It is like being allowed to become besotted, drunk,
gone
into the perfection of a butterfly. Do you have butterflies on Sirius?'

‘No. But I have seen them elsewhere.'

‘In Shikastan terms, I have
loved –
forgive the word – Elylé for a long time. In our terms, our time, I am drinking, drunk,
gone
into something that dissolves as I look at it, like wanting to possess a snowflake. Can you imagine the fascination of that, Sirius?'

‘Nasar, you should go home. And you should say all this – in the right quarters.'

‘And then?' he said – amused, I could see that; and in exactly the same way as I should be by a very young child.

‘Very well,' I said, ‘Sirian ways are not yours. But surely the problems of discipline are the same everywhere? You should obey orders, freely confess your derelictions, and take your punishment – but you say there isn't any.'

He sighed and began his pacing.

‘And you should put forward your point of view – you should say that in your opinion the policy for this planet is incorrect.'

He flung himself down again, on a pile of cushions, stretched his legs out, put his arms behind his head and watched me, with a smile.

‘Canopus should argue with Canopus,' said he. ‘Well, why not? It has never been done. But …' and he laughed.

‘I do not understand why that is so amusing,' I said. ‘But I have had a very great deal of experience with the
administration of planets, and the personnel who administer them. I have always been an advocate of the policy that does not only allow, but insists on, the views of personnel being heard at all times. It is not possible for an administration that has to be centred on the Home Planet to remain
always
au fait with local problems. That is exactly how administrative policies get top-heavy and inflexible. If there is not a continual and active liaison between headquarters and the local officials – then in my experience, one can expect things to go wrong.'

I have to record here that he laughed until I became very angry, but on behalf of Sirius, not of myself. For it was Sirius that was being criticized.

‘Very well,' said he, ‘I shall go back, as ordered. I shall demand active rehabilitation – for I certainly need it. I shall demand the right to put forward an opposition to existing policy. I shall say that this was on the advice of Sirius …' and he nearly began laughing again, but he saw my face and stopped. ‘I am sorry,' he said, ‘I really am. But you simply do not know …'

‘No, I don't know. But I would like you to go on. If your persuasions fail, and the existing policy stands, then …' I hesitated, and said: ‘I shall not attempt to conceal from you that Sirius would like all of Rohanda. We obviously have very different ideas from yours. Let us say, they are not so lofty! We could make good use of this planet for our experiments. We have made very good use of the southern hemisphere …' and here I had to stop. I had forgotten, because of the superior and even commanding position I had had to take in relation with this Canopean functionary, that our part on this planet had not always been honestly played! Again I found myself in the position of hoping a Canopean was not able to read my thoughts, yet knew he did.

I made myself say: ‘Did you know that some of our experiments in the south were not always entirely within the terms of our agreements?'