The Sirian Experiments

I said: “I am having difficulty. The reasons that I think are conclusive—I do not know to put to you.”

Silence again.

Then spoke Stagruk from Planet 2.

“Since it seems recent experiences have distanced you from us, to the extent we do not know how we each think, I shall sum up our thoughts.”

This pained me—and they, too, were suffering.

“First. There is no advantage to Sirius in Rohanda. As an experimental field it is valueless, because of the overrunning of every part of it, and because of the mixture of races and even species…”

“The latter largely as a result of our intervention.”

A pause. I had introduced, and so soon, a note foreign to us.

“We shall have to accept that you see things differently. Shall we continue? Since there is no advantage to us, it must be that there is an advantage to Canopus.” A pause. “Canopus is our old enemy.”

I sat silent, looking at them all in enquiry, because of how this had been said.

Up and down through our Empire, Canopus is talked of in, if I may say so, pretty stereotyped ways. These are the ways used always for the strong, the threatening—the superior. That is, when not implicit, as, almost, a background to our lives. Canopus is mentioned with a laugh of contempt, a sneer, a jibe, or at least with that hardening of the countenance and voice that means a subject is taboo from serious enquiry. Among us, among the Five, this tone was not used, of course; it would be more accurate to describe ours as that due to a senior partner who has won the position by unfair means. But the word “Canopus” had been spoken without any of these undertones, and almost as an enquiry. The word fell between us, lightly, and our eyes met over it.

“Canopus was once our enemy,” I said.

“You have just spent a long—a very long—leave, with Klorathy.”

“On the Rohandan moon.”

“The attractions of which we do not believe responsible for the quite inordinate time you were away.”

I looked at each of them, slowly one after another, so that they might read, if they could, the truth in my eyes.

It seemed I had failed, for Stagruk said: “for us to re-engage in Rohanda means to re-open the debate about our function as an Empire. About whether we maintain our present minimum performance or whether we expand again. It will mean training technicians to operate in the two Southern Continents. This will be of necessity a difficult and expensive training because of the appalling situation on Rohanda. There will be, almost certainly, loss of life among them. This will again reinforce the questionings among us—it is absolutely essential for us to realise that if do as you say, the least we can expect is an inflammation of the Existential Question—and to a dangerous point. That is our view, Ambien.”

I sat, absorbing the news that this had already been fully discussed among them: they, as four, had discussed one, me, Ambien. My distance and alienation from them, my ancient friends and co-workers, was such that I could have given up then. If I had not been thinking of Klorathy.

I was conscious that my continual reliance on him, in thought, was creating, or continuing, or reminding me of—I did not know which—a feeling that was becoming stronger as I sat there. For through this talk of ours a silent word reverberated: Klorathy, Klorathy, Klorathy.

I said: “It has long been policy that I should cultivate an association with Klorathy.”

At once Stagruk said: “For our benefit.”

This was a threat. And yet—there are threats and threats!

A situation can contain a threat—and then it doesn’t matter what is said: a group of individuals in a room swearing eternal brotherhood are eating the wind, if the situation they are in contains threat to them. And vice versa. Here there was no doubt—on the face of it—that there was a threat. I knew the calm judgemental expressions on the faces of these colleagues of mine very well. They were using this look because they believed the situation demanded it. And yet…

At the back of my mind my thoughts were racing: not yet has Canopus wanted something, when it has not happened! A request became a fact, even if I seem to have done nothing to further it. Everything that has passed between Sirius and Canopus, re Rohanda, between Klorathy and myself as Sirius and as Ambien, is insisting now, in a thousand voices, that what Canopus wants will come to pass. The worst that can happen is that these dear colleagues of mine will punish me in some way, but this will not prevent a Sirian involvement in Rohanda. This is because we are already involved, and in a way that Canopus needs—for the education of Sirius. A decision has already been made. And therefore: the threat that is present here and now is only to me… and, since my fate is of no importance, there is no real threat present.

While I considered all this, we were silent again—and whirling about among the other thoughts was that it was not possible that what I thought did not affect them, with whom I was so close. With whom I made a whole.

Feeling that these words had already been said or thought, or existed somehow, I said: “It is my belief that this association has always been for our benefit. And planned to be so.”

This was, if you like, treason. But it was putting into words what had been implicit among us all for a long time. This is where Ambien II, a member of the Five, had, if you like, “gone wrong.” And long ago.

I felt a great relief, a relaxing all through me and through us all. A climax had been awaited, had been reached—had gone past.

They were all looking at me, and not in hostility. Curiosity, perhaps, but not of an urgent or pressuring kind.

“You have not once mentioned Shammat,” said Stagruk.

“No.”

“Shammat is not a threat in your belief?”

“Shammat apparently controls Rohanda. And her moon. Shammat is prowling and working and busy from one end of Rohanda to the other. And yet this is with the permission or at least the tolerance of Canopus. Who could stop it tomorrow.”

“And you believe we have to take all this on trust?”

“I do.”

I knew then that they were going to agree. Canopus, working on me, on my nature, had also worked on them—without knowing it. They had watched me involved with Canopus, had wondered, had speculated—and their innermost selves had been touched. As I understood this I felt close to them in a way I had not before. And I do now.

“It is all good,” I said. “Believe me. It is for our good. For the good of…” I had been going to say, for the good of Sirius, but found myself saying… “the good of the Galaxy.”

“Very well,” said Stagruk. “We will agree. You will take charge of the new policy. You will be responsible for the training of the personnel. And for liaison with Canopus. And you will announce, and then control, the ensuing debates on policy.” And then she added, with a smile, “I suggest that the public reasons you give for this change of policy, on behalf of us all, include the threat of Shammat on Rohanda, and the possible need for us to start mining on the Rohandan moon.”

“You four have decided on mining that moon?”

“We are, after all going to experience considerable difficulty in changing the policy for the entire Empire. Will you mind our pointing out that your new—alignments—at times seem to make you rather remote from our Sirian realities? Some kind of saving form is essential.”

I laughed, of course. And mostly with relief. But we all stayed where we were, looking closely into each other’s faces.

“Why can’t you tell us, Ambien?” said Stagruk, suddenly, in a voice both hard with pride and reproachful. “Surely you must see how we feel?”

And I said, in equal conflict: “How can I? Don’t you see? It has taken—oh, so long! And so much reluctance on my part has had to be overcome. And everything I have learned from them has been bit by bit and slowly, so that I never even knew I had changed so much until I came to sit here with you…” And then I wept. It was a long time since water had spurted from my eyes, like the most primitive of our populations. And they, too, my old companions, showed signs of relapsing into the older ways.

The situation so unusual for us all that we were not as disturbed by our reactions as might otherwise have been.

This is what happened in that council meeting that later was recognised by everyone as a turning point, the beginning of a new orientation, for Sirius. Of course, at the time, that this was so was implicit in everything we said, and what we did not say. But none knew how far-reaching the changes would be. Even now, as I write, the importance of that meeting is still being re-assessed.

I shall now make two statements, without elaboration.

The first is that I have not again met Klorathy.

The second is that a very great of effort went into the change of policy that had to be made before I could actively and openly take my place identified in the eyes of the whole Empire as “Rohandan Ambien.” Ambien I aided me behind the scenes during this campaign.

Meanwhile, I was thinking deeply and privately about what it was Canopus really needed from us. These thoughts could be shared with no one, not even Ambien I.

Again, I shall not overload the narrative detail. The attentive reader will be able, I am sure, to understand my reasons for this or that decision.

I did not make arrangements for large numbers of technicians to establish themselves on Southern Continents I and II. This would have amounted to an armed occupation of these territories. Both continents were already being overrun by the white invaders from the northwest fringes: Klorathy’s prophecies were being proved true. Both vast territories were being conquered by the most savage brutalities, and indigenous peoples and races were being wiped out or enslaved. The rule was everywhere that of force, of compulsion, of tyranny. Shammat or its spirit was absolutely dominant. And there was another thought: to equip our forces on a large enough scale to subjugate. or least to control, these continents would be to undertake more than Canopus was doing in the northern areas. And it would mean teaching our technicians ways of war that we were forgetting—learning to forget as a deliberate and strict policy. We had our armed forces, yes; but these were small, and kept for special and particular occasions and tasks.

What I did was to have trained a restricted number of carefully selected personnel, from Planet 11, who were of a similar build and height to the average Rohandan, and of a dark colour—that is, similar to the subjugated ones on both continents. Being of the subject races meant they would be more policed and watched; yet even so they would be less visible than if they had been chosen from among our white peoples. These were trained in surveillance, and the arts of exact and accurate assessments of social and political situations. Yet, although so few, they were able to monitor everything that went on in these continents. I am going to make the claim here that there have never been, anywhere, such expert and tactful spies as these.

And such self-sacrificing ones: their dislike of this unpleasant, and often heartbreaking, work was such that none was expected to do more than a tour of duty consisting of ten R-years.

But when they returned, the effect of their experience was very great: what they had seen of the extremes of suffering, cruelty, social disruption, was conveyed in all kinds of ways to our populations; and as a result, the whole subject of how an Empire should, and could—but not necessarily did—behave was debated in a new way. And this effect of our acceding to the Canopean request has by no means been exhausted. I make a point of mentioning this, because it is sometimes forgotten where and why the sudden renewal of self-questioning originated. And it is since that time that there has been a small but persistent—and powerful—undercurrent of interest in Canopus, its ways, its function. Yes, that is a word, on the lips of so many of our young, that dates from then.

To try and dismiss such a strong new way of thought as “treachery” or even slackness of moral fibre, does not, in my view, show enough insight into our deeper social processes, those that will, I am sure, ultimately prevail. I am saying this in the conviction that I am speaking for very many more of our more senior individuals than have—as yet—expressed themselves.

I made an investigatory trip through both Southern Continents when our skeleton staffs were well established. I was always on the lookout for Klorathy, believing that the relationship established on the moon would have a continuance on that same level. It was not that I had formulated something precisely probable in my mind: more that my emotional self was demanding some kind of food. Of an infantile nature. As I was soon coming to see it. I looked, too, for Nasar. But reflection told me that both these Canopean officials were more likely to be at work in the north, once they were assured that we taken over at least an adequate, if minimal, responsibility. In fact, it was obvious I would not run into either—after what Klorathy had told me of their being so stretched. Obvious once I had reflected!

It was Tafta I saw.

An advanced kingdom had been established for a good long time—by Rohandan reckoning—in the mountain chain along the western coasts of Southern Continent II. This was at Stabilised Level 4, Galactic Scale. Invading whites from the Northwest fringes had by treachery overcome this state, and laid it in ruins, for the sake of the gold that filled its treasure-houses. From one end of this kingdom to the other, nothing was to be seen but corpses, ruined crops, and burning cities.

I summoned my Space Traveller to a long stretch of sandy coast, and was waiting for its descent. I saw a column of males with mules and horses coming from the foothills, all laden with gold in every shape and form—bars, bags of dust, ornaments, the stripped-off coverings of official and sacred buildings. These men were as if intoxicated: I recognised easily the characteristics of indulged greed. Then I saw them all, about three hundred or so, at an order from a leader, put down their burdens and gather in a great circle. Standing rather above, on some grassy dunes, I able to look down into the circle. Tafta was there. He was the commander of this plundering expedition. He was dressed as they all were, in coloured tunics, belted, over knee breeches. He was hung about with knives and weapons of all kinds. He swaggered and laughed. I was comparing this animal with the one who had approached us, in the time of the Lombis. And with the Tafta who completed the destruction of the first Lelanos. He had refined, in the sense that he was less animal; there was an obvious worsening, too, in another way, which I could not easily define. Impudence, rascality, had always been his nature: the attributes of the thief his inheritance. But there was a new savagery here, quite distinct from the physical, a quality of the moral self. He was sickening to look at: this band of thieves were revolting. They did not even have the easy animal attractiveness that Tafta had had when I lost myself into the temptations of easy power.

I saw that three men had been roughly flung into the centre of the ring. Three others were equipped with instruments of punishment. They were heavy sticks, to which were fixed nine thin tough ropes. Those who were to be punished were tied to stakes, their backs facing the punishers. Tafta, his hands on his hips, legs apart, swaggered there, grinning.

He raised his hand, and dropped it, and the whips hissed as they descended into the exposed flesh. Screams, groans, which held a note of surprise: the degree of pain felt was unexpected.

Again Tafta raised his hand and dropped it and the flails descended. I expected perhaps two or three strokes. I had never seen such coldly practised brutality. The groans and cries made the air quiver. The smell of blood sharpened the salt of the sea. It was a late afternoon, and the sun was sinking. A gold spread of cloud, gold edging the ridges of the waves, a wash of gold over the sands, and over the scene I was watching. And that hand rose, the palm facing out at shoulder height—and fell, and the whips came down and the shrieks went up. The watching circle of men was silent, watching in terror, their attitudes expressing how they, like me, counted each stroke by the sympathies of their own flesh. And the whistling flails came down, down… the men being flogged sank as bushes or swathes of grass subside under flames.

And then the groans ceased. But the whips went on. And on. The punished ones were three bundles of bloody rags slumped by the stakes.

Tafta let out a shout. The company of pirates turned their backs on what they had been forced to watch, and shouldered their loads of gold. They made their way to boats tied to some rocks. A vessel with sails awaited them. The beasts they had used to carry these loads were being left on the shore to die or save themselves. I signalled my Space Traveller to wait, and walked down, past the butchered men, to the crowd of thieves. They all became immobile when they saw me, their jaws dropping. It was their silence that caused Tafta to turn, with brutalities already on his lips, before he even knew why they were silent.

There was a moment of indecision when he saw me. Then a grinning confidence puffed him out and he swaggered forward. He made a deep bow, lifting off a broad hat that had jewels in it, and was about to take my hand to kiss it. But while he hid his fear at my look, he did not lose his ease.

We looked at each other, across the small sandy space that separated us.

“Tafta,” I said, “were you punishing those men because they disliked the savagery of your behaviour with the Indian kingdom? Was that it?”

From the men around him arose a deep assenting moan, at once stilled at his look. And in a moment they had recovered their air of greedy confidence.

“Tafta,” I said, “there will be an account made. There will come a time when you will suffer as you now make others suffer.”

Again the minutest flicker of indecision, and then his swagger was back. He smiled. This handsome coarse brute smiled, and strengthened the cocky thrust of his shoulders. And I was looking at this stage of the creature’s evolution, holding in my mind the stages of what he had been, and crying out to Canopus in my mind, Why, why why do you allow it?

“It must be a long time since you were on Rohanda,” he said. “It is mine, from end to end.”

“No, Tafta, it is not. And you will see that it is not.”

He let out a guffaw, which was even indulgent, as if I were an inferior in mentality. This was the change in him: and, looking at him, seeing this in him, I glanced around at his company and the same in them. It was conceit. They were all thickened and stupefied by it. Their intoxication was of many strands, and conceit was as strong as their greed.

I walked away from them back to the small eminence on which I had been before, and stayed watching as they put themselves and their loot into their boats and rowed themselves out to their winged vessel. Oh, yes, it was aesthetically very pleasing, this galleon of theirs: I had not before seen sailing craft at this precise stage of technology. And the scene was beautiful, as the light faded, leaving the dark acres of the ocean, crisping with light from a thin slice of moon. The Rohandan moon, which was my next assignment.

Having made sure the poor wretches at their stakes were in fact dead and having called to the mules and horses to follow me from off the beaches into the forests where they could find food and water, I took off for the planet’s planet.

Since I had been there last, there had been considerable changes. The Shammat stake was still the largest and had been spreading rapidly. Mining operations were predominant. Everywhere the crawlers could be seen at work in the craters, and new craters were visible. That was on the surface: underground, we knew, every kind of technological operation was in progress. But we, Sirius, had placed ourselves all around the perimeter of the Shammat area in an arc on one side: Canopus had done the same on the other. Our crawlers were plentiful, some of them the largest we had, five or six miles in diameter. We were mining; and we proposed to make use of what we produced: but let me put it this way: I have never seen in one of our operations so great a proportion of visible effect to what was actually produced. And Canopus had placed vast domes, and manned them and armed them. Shammat was therefore contained, and knew it.

Visible, too, were the observational towers of the three planets, and the pylons used by one of them to anchor their aircraft. The moon was now furiously active, but the inhabitants of Rohanda were only just beginning to develop instruments capable of seeing this.

I made sure that our policy of friendly co-operation among the three planets was being maintained, and paid a short visit to each station myself.

After consultation with the Canopean station, I ordered a Demonstration, first class, over the surface of the whole planet. It was interesting to me, underlining certain developments, that it was so long since we had had to use any such show of force, that our Mother Planet was hard put to it to raise enough craft and personnel of the required kind. But at length thirty-seven Battalions of our largest and most impressive machines, built for precisely this purpose, appeared all at once from space, hovered everywhere over the surface of this moon, swept repeatedly around it, hovered again, and departed in clouds of luminosity especially developed for this kind of effect. Yet, remembering Tafta, this new unreal confidence of his, I found doubts in myself. And I dubious, too, about my reaction when I returned home. Which I then did, getting there not long after the return of the special Battalions.

The Four called me to a meeting.

The personnel were now returning as their tours of duty were completed, from the Southern Continents, and what they were reporting of their experiences had caused a furore prognosticated by these experienced ones. Never had our Mother Planet imagined anything like the pointless, barbarous treatment of the peoples of these continents by the invading ones, the Northwest fringers. They had not believed such cruelty could be…

I shall now take the liberty of making a short observation. It is that a certain law clearly to be observed on Rohanda is not exactly unknown elsewhere. There, a geographical area, or nation, would criticise another for faults it committed itself. To such lengths was this tendency developed in the last period of Rohanda that this planet, at this time, has become the exemplar for us, and descriptions may be found plentifully in our technical literature. But for my own part I must say I have never been more amazed as when observing full-scale, all-global conferences on Rohanda, where all the nations hurled accusations at each other for practices that they were apparently incapable of seeing in themselves.

My colleagues and I were facing first-class crisis—not immediately evident as one, but with the potentialities of social ferment that could affect everything.

And my request for the thirty-seven Battalions, and the resulting re-organisation and rapid re-training, had not gone unobserved by our people.

What was Rohanda, why was she of such importance to us, that so much disturbance was being allowed on her account?

We, the Five, sat together, now Four and One, as on the last occasion, and they wanted to know if I had seen Klorathy again. I said I had not, and that that was not the point. But how could I expect them to understand what had taken me so long?

They waited, regarding me with an expectation not untinged with anxiety. They were feeling, even if they had not formulated this, that their destinies, Sirian destinies, were in other hands. That this had always been so, they did not suspect. Nor could I easily think along these lines, even now.

They were waiting for me to say something as simple as “I believe this Canopean bond will benefit us in such and such a way.”

At last, they demanded, having heard of the developments on the Rohandan moon, if I proposed to send a report to Klorathy. This was because they wished to read it and to assess our relationship from it. I said I did not believe a report was indicated yet.

This ended our meeting. I can see now their faces, turned as one towards me, and feel their fretfulness, their distrust. I don’t blame them: I have never done that! In their places I would have been, I have done, the same.

I was summoned back to the Rohandan moon. Fighting had broken out in the Shammat territory: civil war on Shammat was being reflected here. It was ground fighting. All over their territory were explosions that made new craters where their underground dwellings and factories had been; and wrecked crawlers, their limbs torn off, sprawled over the workings of the old craters. That the factions had not yet dared to make an aerial attack seemed to us a sign that they had not entirely lost a sense of their position. We took no chances; another show of our strength was arranged over their battlefields so that they would not be tempted to forget our presence, and that of Canopus. The details of this war do not concern this narrative.

On Rohanda was a similar state of affairs. That planet was now into its Century of Destruction, with the first of its global wars. Most of the fighting took place in the Northwest fringes, where the nations tried to destroy other over the question of who to control—mainly—Southern Continent I. This combined the maximum of nastiness with a maximum of rhetoric. It was a disgusting war. I caught glimpses of Tafta. Even more inflated with self-esteem than he been when I had seen him last, he was at work inflaming national passions, as a “man of God,” the term given to the exemplars of the local religions. First on one side, and then on the other, he announced God’s support for whatever policy of mass destruction was being implemented. I shall not easily forget his evil unctuousness, his face all inflamed with sincerity, as he urged on the poor wretches who died or were wounded and crippled in multitudes.

My recall to Sirius was by the Four, who wanted to know “what Canopus thought it was doing”—allowing such carnage on Rohanda. They believed I had been meeting Klorathy and that for some reason connected with my inclination towards Canopus, was not telling them so. I could only repeat that I had not met Klorathy, nor had “instructions” from him; but that for my part I was disposed to trust in the long-term purposes of Canopus. This was not a happy meeting; and I was relieved to get an urgent message from Rohanda. The Shammat war on the planet’s planet was at an end; the faction that had won on Shammat imposed itself there, too: it was a matter of indifference to us—for nastiness and baseness there was nothing to choose between the factions. Tafta, the Shammat representative on Rohanda, had been compromised by the civil war in such a way that his personal position on Rohanda was weakened. It was known to us that on his return home he might face arrest or assassination. This was possibly not known to him.

The destructive processes on Rohanda were hastening to a conclusion. The second global war was in progress. Again, this had originated in the Northwest fringes, as an expression of national rivalries, but had spread everywhere, affected every of the planet. It this war that weakened, finally, the position of the white races; they had dominated the planet from end to end, destroying every local variation of culture and civilisation as their technological needs dictated.

The changes in the balances of power made by the second war are fully documented; but the details of these local struggles—which after all was all they were, looked at from any reasonable perspective—did not concern me nearly so much as the lessons that could be drawn from them and that could be applied to our own problems.

I was watching the changes in mindsets throughout our own Empire, on our Mother Planet and on the Colonised Planets. Every planet had different attitudes and ideas, which were stubbornly defended, always passionately, often violently. And each took in new facts and ideas at a different rate. I did not at first understand that this was my prime preoccupation: it was one thing to have seen that to cause changes in the Sirian Empire was a long-term aim of Canopus, and that I was their instrument—I have done my best to chronicle the slow, difficult growth of my understanding—but to comprehend a process fully, it is often essential to see the results of it. And this is true even for skilled administrators like the Five.

What I was doing during this period, which turned out to be a short one, was to stay quietly in my quarters thinking. It occurred to me that it was very long time since I had done anything of the kind. I have been almost permanently on the move, or stationed on another planet. But it was not only my remaining at home that was unusual: I understood that the state of my mind was one I did not remember.

It was when the other members of the Five had been to see me, and almost furtively, and with that apologetic air caused by not understanding fully why one is doing something, that I began to comprehend. For one thing, I have only too often observed that this type of apology easily becomes irritation and then, very quickly, worse…

We had seldom visited each other in this way. Our formal meetings were necessary for the records, and so that citizens’ groups could have reassurance for their anxieties by actually watching us at work in the council chambers. We had known what we were all thinking, were likely to think, had formed something like a collective mind… The uneasiness of my visitors was partly because they did not like the necessity they found themselves in, to come to my quarters so as to find out—but to find out what? They did not know!

Each of them arrived with this aggressive embarrassed manner, and then enquired most solicitously after my health, which I assured them was, as always, excellent. The visits were all the same. We all agreed that we were seeing Sirius in ferment, beliefs and ideas held for millennia being thrown out, new ones being adopted. When this upheaval was over—and as usual during a period of tumult it was hard to believe it could ever be over—there was no means of foreseeing what our Empire would have become.

Our talk then turned to Rohanda. “Paradox, contradiction, the anomalous—when a planet is in a period of transformation, these are evident. Well then, in your view, Ambien, what is the most important of these? Important from the point of view of illustrating mechanisms of social change?”

“First of all, I am not equipped to talk of the real, the deep, the really fundamental changes that are taking place.” I said this firmly, knowing it would exasperate. But looked my visitor calmly in the eyes insisting that I had to say this. And when it was accepted, with good grace or not, I said: “But as for the immediately evident and obvious paradoxes, I would say that it is that Rohanda has perfected techniques of communication so powerful that the remotest and most isolated individual anywhere can be informed of anything happening anywhere on Rohanda at once. There are millions of them engaged in these industries to do with communication. Through the senses of sight and sound and through ways they do not yet suspect, each Rohandan is subjected day and night to an assault of information. Of ‘news.’ And yet never has there been such a gap between what this individual is told, is allowed to know, and what is actually happening.”

“But Ambien, is this not always true, everywhere, to an extent at least?”

“Yes, it is. For instance, if a Sirian were to be told that our Empire is run by a Dictatorship of Five, he would run or call the doctors.”

“I am not talking about that, Ambien—and I don’t like how you put it. If we are dictators, then when have there been rulers so responsive to the needs of their subjects… so compassionate… so concerned for the general good… Very well, you look impatient, you look as if I am quite ridiculous—we all of us recognise that we no longer think as one. You have your own views… but I was not talking of any specific problem we may have. I was suggesting that what can be taken in by an ordinary individual is always behind the facts.”

“It is a question of degree. But are generalities useful at this point? This dangerous and crucial point? Very well then, let me put it like this. When what the populace believes falls too far behind what is really going on, then rulers do well to be afraid. It is because a mind, individual or collective, can be regarded as a machine. From this point of view. Feed in information too fast and it jams. This jam manifests in rage—riots, uprisings, rebellions.”

“Which we are seeing now throughout our Empire. All kinds of new ideas fight for acceptance.”

“But how many more are there that are not yet seen at all? But you don’t want to talk about the particular. Very well then, though in my view we—you—are making a mistake. We ought to be talking about the Sirian situation. And about our situation. We ought to be thinking of ways our populations can be told: you Sirians, you, the Sirian Empire, have been ruled by an Oligarchy of Five, and this fact does not fit in at all with what you have been taught… oh very well then, let us stick to Rohanda. I shall make a very general observation. We all know that the central fact in a situation is often, and in fact most usually, the one that is not seen. We may say even that there is always a tendency to look for distant or complicated explanations for something that is simple or at hand. I shall say that as a result of watching the mental processes on Rohanda, I have concluded that they do not understand an extremely simple and basic fact. It is that every person everywhere sees itself, thinks of itself, as a unique and extraordinary individual, and never suspects to what an extent it is a tiny unit that can exist only as part of a whole.”

“And that is a really new idea for you, Ambien? Ambien of the Five?”

“Wholes. A whole. It is not possible for an individual to think differently from the whole he or she is part of… no, wait. Let us take an example from Rohanda. There is a large ocean vessel of new and advanced design. It is struck by a lump of floating ice and sinks, though it has been advertised as unsinkable. They appoint a committee of experts—individuals, that is, of the highest probity and public admiration, with the longest and most efficient training possible in that field. This committee produces a report that whitewashes everyone concerned. But this same report, studied only a few years later strikes a new generation as either mendacious or incompetent… well?”

“You occupy your mind with the minuscule! It isn’t we expect of you!”

“It seems to me that the minuscule, the petty, the humble example is exactly where we can study best this particular problem. What happened in the interval between the first report and the reassessment of it?”

“Change of viewpoint.”

“Exactly. An assortment of individuals, identically trained, all members of a certain class, dame together on a problem. They were members of a group mind—together concentrated into a smaller one of the same kind. They produced a report that could not have been different, since they could not think differently. Not then. That is why one generation swears black, and the next white.”

“But you, Ambien, are surely proof that a group mind is hardly inviolable—or permanent!”

“Ah, but here is another mechanism… what we are seeing are only mechanisms, machineries, that is all… let us consider these group minds… these little individuals making up wholes. Sets of ideas making up a whole can be very large, for instance, when they are occupying a national area, and millions will go to war for opinions that may very well be different or even opposite only a decade later—and die in their millions. Each is part of this vast group mind and cannot think differently, not without risking madness, or exile, or…”

Here there was a moment of consciousness, discomfort, sorrow—which I dissipated at once by going on.

“Yes, you said I have been at odds with you and for a long time, and that this fact proves I am wrong. But what is the mechanism, the machinery, that creates a group, a whole, and then develops a dissident member—develops thoughts that are different from those of the whole?”

“Perhaps this individual may been suborned? Influenced by some alien and unfriendly power?”

“If we are going to allow ourselves to think like that, then—”

“Then what, Ambien? Tell me. Tell us. We are ready to understand, don’t you believe that?”

“It is a mechanism for social change. After a time… and it can be a very long time indeed; or after only a short time… as we see now on Rohanda, where everything is speeded up and sets of ideas that have been considered unchallengeable can be dispersed almost overnight—after a period of time, short or long, during which the group mind has held these sacred and right ideas, it is challenged. Often by an extremely small deviance of opinion. It is characteristic of these group minds, these wholes, to describe an individual thinking only slightly differently as quite remarkably and even dangerously different. Yet this difference may very shortly seem ludicrously minor…”

“And so we all hope, Ambien.”

“But there is a question here, it torments me, for we do not know how to answer it. This deviant individual in this group—he or she has been unquestioningly and happily and conformingly part of this group, and then new ideas creep in. Where do they come from?”

“Well, obviously, from new social developments.”

“Thank you. Oh, thank you so much! That’s settled then, and we need think no more about it! May I go on? When such a deviant individual becomes too uncomfortable for the group mind to tolerate, various things can happen. Commonly, expulsion. Labelled seditious, mad, and in any case wrongheaded, he or she is thrown out… yes, yes, we all agree that in our case this would be a pity. Talking generally though, this individual may start an opposing group having attracted enough people with similar ideas—no, I am not threatening you. Can we not talk about this with less personal reference? Can we not? Yes, indeed, I concerned about our ancient association, indeed I am anxious for my personal safety—but can you not believe that brooding about these questions I am still Ambien II, who has with you administered an Empire for so long? This deviant individual may influence others of this group, this mind, to think differently, when the entity will split into two—and I do not expect this to happen in this case. No. What has caused me to think differently from you has affected, I believe, only myself… no? We shall see! No, I am not threatening! How can it be a threat? We are not in control of these processes. We like to think we are. But they control us. You like that thought! We of the Five don’t like to think that all this long time we have never been more than straws in a current… but may I go on to suggest another possibility for this deviant and so irritating individual? If he or she is not expelled, or does not expel herself, but remains, contemplating her position, then a certain train of thought is inevitable. She has been part of a group mind, thinking the same thoughts as her peers. But now her mind holds other ideas. Of what whole is she now a part? Of what invisible whole? It is surely not without interest to speculate, when feeling isolated, apparently alone, on the other little items or atoms who with her are making up this other whole… this line of thought doesn’t interest you? And yet surely I have been seeing indications that it does, it interests you very much—and in fact perhaps your speculations in this realm are why you are here, visiting me, just as the others have done… did you not know that the others have all been? Odd, that! Once we would all have known, we did all know what the others did, and thought. What is happening to us? We don’t know! That is the point! Are we going to be like the Rohandans, quite happy to use social machinery without being prepared to examine the mechanisms that rule them? Are we quarrelling? Does our disagreement have to be seen as such a threat?”

“We not hostile to you, Ambien. You must not think that we are. Not to you personally.”

“When have we ever seen our relations with each other as personal? Well, I am delighted to have your personal good wishes, of course.”

“I must go. Can we send you anything? Do you need anything?”

“I am not ill! I am not, as far as I am aware, under arrest? But thank you, no, I don’t need anything, and I have occupation enough with what I am thinking. I think day and night about group minds and how they work. Do you realise that one may present a fact as hard and bright and precious as allyrium to a group of individuals forming a group mind, one that is already set in a different way, and they cannot see it. Literally. Cannot take it in. Do you understand the implications of that? Do you? Well, thank you for coming to see me. Thank you. Thank you.”

During this period I had not heard from Klorathy, nor had there been any official communication between Canopus and Sirius. When the other members of the Five had concluded their visits to me, a message arrived addressed personally to me. “Perhaps you would consider taking a visit to the Isolated Northern Continent.”

The Four had seen this, and had directed it on: normally a message for an individual of the Five is not intercepted.

I informed the Four that I was again visiting Rohanda but they made no comment. Not knowing what I was supposed to be doing, I instructed my Space Traveller to hover over the Isolated Northern Continent, at the highest altitude possible for observation. I was not alone. The skies were full not only of craft originating on Rohanda, but of the observational machines of Canopus, Shammat, and the three neighboring planets. A Canopean Crystal, Shammat Wasps, and ten of the Darters evolved by the three planets: they often shared their technology.

I was looking down at the continent, in an idle nonfocussed way, remembering the other guises and transformations I had seen it in, when the Canopean Crystal floated down and lay in the air in front of me. It was in its most usual shape, a cone, and it hung point down among the charming clouds of that atmosphere, with the blue of the atmosphere beyond, it was most attractive, and I was admiring it when it moved off, slowly, and I followed. I did not understand this lesson, which I assumed it was, but only watched, and enjoyed—as always—the aesthetic bonuses of this planet. The Crystal became a tetrahedron—the three facets of it I could see reflecting the landscape of these blue and white skies—then a globe. A glistening ball rolled and danced among the clouds. I was laughing with the pleasure of it, and even clapping my hands and applauding… it elongated and became like a drop of liquid at the moment when it falls from a point. But it was lying horizontally, the thin end in front of us.

This exquisite drop of crystalline glitter was thus because of the pressures of the atmosphere, it was adjusting itself to the flow of the jet stream, we were being sped along by the air rivers, and the Crystal had become a long transparent streak. My craft was almost in the end of the streak, and for a few moments we seemed almost to intermingle, and what delicious thoughts sang through my mind as we saw the rivers and mountains and deserts of the landmass beneath through what seemed like liquefied light. My guide was changing again, was showing how it had to change, and flow, and adapt itself, for all the movements and alterations of the atmosphere we were submerged in like liquid moulded this Globe, or Rod, or Streak, or Fringe… How many shapes it assumed, this enchanting guide of mine, as we followed the flowing streams of the upper airs of Rohanda—how it evolved and adapted and shone!—but then dulled, so it seemed as if a lump of dullish lead lay there, sullen in a chilly and yellow light, but then lost its grey and took in a sparkle and a glisten again, and seemed to frolic and to play, and yet again became serious and stern, with an edge of hardness in it, all the time a flowing and an answering, and an astonishment, but then, my mind lost in contemplation of this Crystal that seemed to have become no more than a visible expression of the currents, I saw that it had stopped, and had become the shape of a drop that points down. Its narrow end was directing my attention below. What was it I was supposed to be noticing?

I hovered there near the monitoring Crystal and saw again how the edges of the continent were being pressed and squeezed up into its mountain folds, how the deserts lay and spread, how the great forests of other times had gone, and realised that I was seeing something extraordinary. A grid had been stamped over the whole continent. It was a mesh of absolutely regular rectangles. I was seeing a map, a chart, of a certain way of thinking… this was a way of thought, a set of mind, made visible. It was the mind of the Northwest fringes, the mind of the white conquerors. Over the variety and change and differentiation of the continent, over the flows and movement and changes of the earth—as vigorous as that of the air above, though in a different dimension of time—was this stamp of rigidity. Cities, towns, the larger mountains, the deserts, interrupted it: but over rivers and hills and marshes and plains lay the grid, this inflexible pattern.

It was a pattern of ownership, a multiplication of the basic unit of the possession of land. I had not noticed it before: previous visits of surveillance from this height had been before the new conquerors had inflicted their ways of thought on everything: I had seen how the growth and unfolding of the material of the continent displayed itself in surface contours, and in the disposition of its waters and its vegetation. But now, between me and the language of growth and change was this imperious stamp. This pattern. This grid. This print. This mint.

Now I knew what it was Canopus had wanted me to see, and I looked towards the Crystal, for some kind of directive. I would have liked to leave, and to be allowed to take my attention from this depressing and miserable map—the mind of Shammat. But still it hovered there, silent, changing its shape at every moment, demonstrating the possibilities of a fluid communication… and then it was lifting up and away, was a great drop of glittering water from the depths of space, and it hung there, this infinitely various and variable and flowing thing, this creation of the Canopean mind, it spoke to me, it sang to me, it sent messages of hope, of the eternal renewal of everything, and then it elongated itself, and ebbed up and fled back to its station high above Rohanda, where it was a mote in sunlight, a memory of itself.

And so I was alone again. I wondered if I had seen all that I was meant to sec, and if I should now return home. I thought of how I would speak to the Four of the messages I had been given, and of how they might receive it… but then reflected that I had not seen the western coasts of this continent during this present phase of Rohanda, and I directed my Traveller accordingly.

I was set down at the top of an immensely tall building in a large city. From there I could see the deserts and mountains inland, and the ocean on the other side. Beneath me the city itself was hardly visible, for it was filled with a poisonous smoke, and the buildings emerged from the fumes like islands from water.

I deliberately curtailed this survey since I knew I was being invaded by emotions not felt by me since my sojourn in Lelanos: these were because of the contrast between what these animals had made of their technical achievements and what they in fact were doing. But it is a story unfortunately not rare in our annals; and I will simply state that this was my state of mind—dangerous to my equilibrium. I left the top of the building and went down into a room in the heart of the building, a public room, constructed in such a way that it could only adversely affect the mental processes. In it was a machine for the transmission of “news.” Visual transmission, and consisting only of brutalities and savageries of various kinds.

Of the real situation of the planet nothing was being coherently said: there were glimpses, references, all kinds of half-truths, but never the full picture.

Then I saw Tafta. On the screen of the machine was Tafta, and he was on a platform in a hall that was full of people. He was superficially different in appearance from how I had last seen him as the black-clothed, war-inciting priest. His physical being had not much changed. He glistened with health, was rather fleshy, and he emanated a calm, self-satisfied conceit. His garb was that now worn everywhere over the planet, as if it had been ordered by a dictator—but these animals have never been able to relinquish uniforms. He wore blue very tight trousers of a thick material, which emphasized his sexuality, and a tight singlet.

He was resting one buttock on the edge of a table, swung one leg, and smiled easily and confidently down at his audience.

Tafta was now one of the senior technicians of the continent, and his task was to answer questions put by this disquieted and indeed frankly terrified gathering. He was a world figure, as an apologist for current technology. For some years he had enjoyed a reputation as an intrepid critic of governmental and global policies to do with the uses of technology, and had written several works of fiction, of that category where social possibilities of the day were given expression in a popular form. This type of fiction was both challenging and useful, in that it gave the populace opportunities to examine potentialities of technological discoveries; but anodyne, because the mere fact that sometimes appalling developments had been displayed in print at all seemed to reassure the citizens that they could not happen.

At any rate, Tafta illustrated the social law—so often seen, and of course causing me, because of my own position, much private alarm in case I might fall victim to it—that to the extent an individual has been a deviant from a group, a set of ideas, a “received opinion” of some sort, and then his own deviant opinions becoming “respectable,” ousting or questioning the former standards, so that he as an individual has ceased to be threat, but on the contrary has become stabilised in the new orthodoxy, then to the same degree he may be expected to misuse, scorn, and ridicule the new uprising generation of nonconformists.

I shall not detail the set of attitudes that on this occasion he was defending, but they were all to do with the despoiling of the planet, the damage being done by technology, poisoning, fouling, wastage, death. He was reassuring his questioners, and this easy, affable, smiling, democratic fellow, the very embodiment of successful adaptation, was deeply reassuring to them, or at least to most. And of course that this was so was not an accident.

There he sat, informally posed on the edge of the table, one leg pleasantly swinging, as if his exuberant vitality could not help expressing the sheer invincible joy of life in this way, the bright candid blue eyes beaming over his full healthy beard, and it occurred to me that he did not look all that different from the pirate whom I had watched plundering the continent south of this one. And he smiled. How he smiled! His smile was a most powerful instrument…

As a question was put to him from below, in the hall, the smile was adjusted: he adjusted, minutely, ridicule, scorn, contempt; but it was the mildest and almost careless ridicule that he was using to demonstrate the questioner’s foolishness or stupidity.

And he was, similarly, mildly and almost carelessly sarcastic. An individual stood up to demand reassurance about something or other, and he would, as he listened, adjust that smile and adjust the tone of his voice—exactly. Perfectly. What a performance Tafta was giving! I could not help but admire it. The social mechanism he was using so well was that social law that most Rohandans could not bear to be ridiculed, to be “out of step.” It was too uncomfortable to them to be outside the current group mind, and they were easily manipulated back into it.

Ten years before, the questions being asked had been different: in the meantime, many of the possibilities dismissed by Tafta or a similar spokesman as absurd had become fact. In ten years’ time, the questions being asked being ask today, and being so subtly ridiculed, would have been answered by events…

By the end of that “conference” and the “discussion period,” Tafta’s bland well-mannered contempt had succeeded in making his audience seem absurd and silly-minded little people, and most had a crestfallen look. But others, a few, had an air of stubborn self-preservation.

I left the scene and went down into the street, as much to escape the imbalances being created in me by this unpleasant building as to rid myself of the sight of Tafta. It took Shammat—I was thinking—to make of good humour a quality to be suspected and distrusted.

In the street I not conspicuous, for I was wearing the uniform, the thick tight trousers and singlet, and my face was daubed thoroughly with paint.

Tafta soon sauntered towards me, smiling.

“Were you watching?” And he let out a guffaw, which reminded me of the beach, the three whipped wretches, the buccaneers.

“I was indeed.”

“Well, Sirius?”—and I have never seen such a triumphant sneer. There was nothing in this vulgarian, all crude contempt, of the urbane gentleman of science I had just been watching.

“It is not Sirius,” I said quietly, as I had done before, “who is master of this planet.”

But while his gaze did meet mine, it was only with the surface of his attention. He was enclosed in his conceit, and his pleasure at his cleverness. And yet, as this boasting animal swaggered there, laughing, I knew that what I was seeing was—defeat.

“Tafta,” I said, “you are very sure of yourself.”

“We have just had a directive from home,” he said. “From Shammat. Shammat of Puttiora…” And he laughed, because the planet Shammat was now master of the Empire of Puttiora, and he was identifying himself this master. “The directive was to test the degree of imperviousness among these Rohandans to the truth of their situation. I tested it. And believe me, Sirius, it is absolute.”

“You are wrong. It only seems to be so.”

“If any leader of any nation of Rohanda stood up and told them the truth, the full truth, of their real situation, do you know what would happen? They would not believe him. They would kill him. Or lock him up as a madman.”

“So it seems now.”

He was looming and swaggering above me, smiling and ascendant, drunk with power and with confidence. And, just as had happened so often before, his great brown hairy hands came out, one on either side of my head, where my allyrium earrings hung. His fingers itchingly stroked the things, while his eyes glittered. But he had forgotten their purposes… And, as I remembered how much he had forgotten, how far he was from any real understanding, I felt some strength come back into me, and this repelled his leeching and sucking at me. His hands fell away.

“What pretty earrings,” said he, in a different voice, a half-mutter, thick and dreamlike, and into his eyes came an anxious look.

“Yes, Shammat, they are.”

Now stood at a distance from each other. He seemed to shrink and diminish as I watched him. He was now only the poor beast Shammat, the doomed one, and I was sorry for him.

I said, “It was foolish of you to follow that order from your Home Planet. Very foolish.”

“Why? What do you know…” As I walked away from him I heard him come running after me, and felt his hot carnivorous breath on my cheek.

Without turning I said, “Goodbye, Tafta.”

I heard him cursing me as he stood there impotent on the street’s edge. And then he was coughing and gasping and retching in the fumes of the machines. And so I left him.

I bought myself a mask of the kind worn by these unfortunates in their streets, to protect themselves from the poisons manufactured by their machines, and which often made them blind, or ill, or silly, and I went walking around and about that city, unable to bring myself yet to summon my Traveller, for I was thinking of Klorathy, of Canopus. I wanted—I am afraid this was the truth—some sort of reassurance; for while I had been showing firmness and confidence with Tafta, I could not help feeling myself undermined by the familiar dry sorrow at the waste of it, the dreadful squandering waste of it all. I remembered Nasar and how he had learned to contain his pain on behalf of this sad place, and I was thinking of the things he had said, and how much I had learned. I was wishing I might see him again. How much it would reassure me to see him, and to exchange a few words. What would he be thinking now, my old friend Nasar—my old friend Canopus?

I was on the edge of the city, looking at a building, and thinking that it pleased me. It was simple enough, a dwelling place, and built of the local stone. There was nothing remarkable about it, yet it drew me. It was built on a small rocky hill that rose clear from the city’s dirty fumes. I saw that on the steps stood a young man, wearing the familiar uniform of tight trousers and singlet, but I could not see his face, for though he was turned towards me, he was wearing a mask. Nasar, Nasar, was ringing in my mind, and I said aloud: “Nasar, I am sure that it is you.”

We were like two snouted creatures, and he took off his mask, and I took off mine. We went higher up the hill, to be more above the fumes, since our eyes had at once begun to redden and water.

“Well, Sirius.”

“Did you build this place? Are you an architect?”

“I am an architect among other things.”

We stood looking the building, side by side. It was really very pleasant. The horrible dissonances of the rest of the city seemed to disappear, and only this house remained.

“Those who live here will be sane?”

“I am living here. I suppose I am saner than most,” said he, on the familiar note Nasar note, and I laughed.

“Ah, Canopus, but why, why, why?”

“Are you still asking why, Ambien?”

“Don’t you?”

He hesitated, and I rccognised in this something I knew well: he was not able to communicate what he was thinking to me, Sirius. I was not up to it! He said: “Ambien, has it not occurred to you that there are useful questions, and those that are not? Not at all! Not in the slightest degree!”

“It is hard to accept.”

“Won’t you accept it from Nasar—who knows all about useless rebellions?” And he laughed again, looking into my eyes, so that we remembered our time together in Koshi.

“Perhaps I am not strong enough for that truth.”

“Then so much the worse for you. And we none of us have any choice… or do you want to remain of those who make up any kind of solution or answer for themselves, and take refuge in it, because they are too weak for patience?”

And I could not help laughing, thinking of the long ages of his patience.

But as I laughed, I began to cough, and he was coughing, too.

He put back his mask and so did I. Again two snouted monsters, we faced each other, Nasar and I.

“Ambien, listen to me.”

“When did I ever do anything else?”

“Good. After watching us at work for the long time you have been involved with us, are you still able to believe that we deal in failure?”

“No.”

“Remember that then. Remember it.”

He made a jaunty little gesture of farewell, and went up the steps into his house.

I then left Rohanda, without going back to its moon.

The Four were waiting for me.

This time it was not possible to put them off. They had to have some sort of information.

After a good deal of thought, I dispatched this message to Klorathy. (We always used their term, Shikasta, for Rohanda in such exchanges.)

Private letter sent through the Diplomatic Bag.

In haste. Have just been looking through our reports from Shikasta. In case—which is unlikely, I know—you have not got this information, Shammat called a meeting of all its agents in one place. This in itself seems to us symptomatic of something long suspected by us—and I know, too. Conditions on Shikasta are affecting Shammatans even more than Shikastans, or affecting them faster. Their general mentation seems to be deteriorating rapidly. They suffer from hectivity, acceleration, arrhythmictivity. Their diagnosis of situations, as far as they are capable and within the limits of their species, is adequate. Adequate for certain specific situations and conditions. The conclusions they are drawing from analyses are increasingly wild. That Shammat should order this meeting, exposing its agents to such danger, shows the Mother Planet is affected; as much as that the local agents should obey an obviously reckless order.

This condition of Shammat and its agents, then, seems to us likely to add to the spontaneous and random destructivity to be expected of Shikasta at this time.

As if we needed anything worse!

Our intelligence indicates that you are weathering the Shikastan crisis pretty well—not that anything else was ever expected of you. If all continues to go well, when may we expect a visit? As always we look forward to seeing you.

Shortly after this, I was called by the Four, who had of course read this and discussed it.

“Why is it that you do not tell us what has really happened between you and Klorathy?”

“Between Sirius and Canopus.”

They were not so much annoyed at this, as alarmed.

I had a vision of our mind, the mind of the Five—five globules or cells nestling together in a whole, and one of them pulsing at a different rate. And the Four shrinking closer while the one, me, vibrated more wildly, because of the space around it.

“You tell us nothing. Nothing.”

“I tell you everything I can.”

“Ambien, you are going to have to tell us. Because if we cannot produce, as whole—we the Five—a consistent and convincing reason for our activities on Rohanda, then we are all threatened.”

“You have the remedy,” I said, looking at each in turn, steadily.

“But we obviously don’t want to use it.”

“Do you really imagine that all I have to do is to find a formula, a set of words, some phrases strung together—and then you would nod your heads and say: Oh of course, that’s it! and then you would release them to the Empire and everyone would be happy?”

This meeting, I have to emphasise, was at the height of the debate, which still continues, and threatens to destroy our foundations.

What foundations?

What uses, what purposes?

What service? What function?

At length I said to the Four that to explain to them as they wanted would mean my talking for a year or writing a book.

“Well, why not write a book, Ambien?”

I saw that many purposes would be served by this.

“It comes hard to an old bureaucrat, to write a history of the heart, rather than of events,” I said.

The jokes made between those who have been very close and who are so no longer are indeed painful. They sent me on extended leave. In other words, I am under planet arrest, on Colonised Planet 13.

I would do exactly the same in their place. In my view the institution of the Five, now—I hope, temporarily—the Four, is the most valuable regulator of our Empire. It should not be destroyed. I make a point of saying this, hoping that my millennia-long service and experience will not be entirely dismissed.

It is hard for me to be confined to this one planet, accustomed as I have been to range at will through the Galaxy, but I am not complaining. I feel it is a privilege for me to be allowed to write this account of what I know is a unique experience.

To think of Rohanda gives me pain, though I try to comfort myself with Nasar’s last words to me.

If I have learned so much that I never expected, what more can I hope to learn and understand, providing I am patient, and do not allow myself to ask useless questions?

This is Rohandan Ambien, Ambien II of the Five, from Planet 13 of the Sirian Empire

Attention! There is a document in general circulation that purports to be the work of Ambien II, formerly of the Five. That this so-called memoir has never been printed and therefore shown to be approved is evidence enough that it is not authentic, to those who use their judgement. We wish, however, to emphasise that this is a crude invention, the work of unfortunates who wish to subvert the good government of our Empire. Ambien II, after her long and valued service to our Empire, succumbed to mental disequilibrium, due to an overprolonged immersion in the affairs of the planet Rohanda. She is under treatment, and we her colleagues are confident that in due course she will be able to resume her duties, even if only to a restricted, and less taxing, degree.

I have seen your Directive. I can see that with the turn events have taken, and the danger of revolution in every part of our Empire, you Four had to take some such action. I have received your kind messages about my health. Yes, thank you, I am well, and I have no need of anything. Of course, I cannot help craving real participation in affairs. Old habits die hard! Meanwhile, it is a consolation to me that—not for the first time, as you know!—I receive visits from each one of you separately. These are a great pleasure to me. I like to feel that my experience is even being put to use in this indirect way. I reflect on the fact that you all assure me of your personal support, and your sympathetic understanding of why I took the steps I did to make sure my manuscript reached general circulation, even in its somewhat archaic form. I agree with you that unpalatable facts have to be released to the populace in measured and often ambiguous ways. Was it not I who first introduced this view? I reflect, too, that this rapport between us old colleagues may stand us all in good stead yet when—as you will, I am sure, agree seems more and more likely to happen—we all find ourselves together in “corrective exile” on this quite pleasant though tedious Planet 13.