Doris Lessing - The Sirian Experiments

“Why not? Why not, Klorathy?”

“It’s like this, Ambien II: cities, buildings—the situations of cities and buildings on any planet—are designed according to need.”

Well, obviously —was what I was thinking.

I was disappointed, and felt cheated. I felt worse than that. I had not really, before meeting Klorathy, stopped to consider the effect it would have on our being together, that I could not say anything about what was so strongly in my mind then—the horrible new race, or stock, of beast-men on S.C. II. We had not told Canopus that we had had visits from Shammat, or that we had stolen without telling them some of “their” Natives, or that C.P. 22 technicians had escaped with some Lombis and settled not far from here, or that we had so often and so thoroughly conducted espionage in their territories, or that Shammat had done the same… it seemed to me, sitting there in that delightful picnic spot, if instead of being open and generously available to this friend, as one has to be in friendship, my mind had bars around it: keep off, keep off… and there were moments when I could hardly bear to look into that open unsuspicious countenance. And yet I have to record that I was also feeling something like: You think you are so clever, you Canopeans, but you have no idea what’s in my mind, for all that!

No, there was not going to be any easy companionship between us, not really. Or not yet.

Soon we found out why Sirius had been invited to send representatives… when we heard, we could hardly believe it, yet what we had expected was not easy to say.

The remnant of the degenerating Giant race had proliferated and spread everywhere—over this continent as well. They were now half the size they had been, about our size—eight to nine R-feet tall, and were not as long-lived. They had retained little memory of their great past—not much beyond knowledge of the uses of fire for cooking and warmth and some elementary craftwork. They did not grow plants for food, but gathered them wild; and they hunted. From north to south of the Isolated Northern Continent they lived in large, closely organised tribes who did not war with each other, since there plenty of territory and apparently infinite stocks of animals. The tribes near here, near this spot, were called Hoppe and Navahi, and it was Klorathy’s mission to visit them and… I missed some of what he was saying, at this point. For I could not tell him the origin of these two names, and I was afraid even of looking at Ambien I. When I was able to hear again, he was talking about some dwarves that lived in these mountains,

and in other mountain chains, too, over the continent, and he was to visit these, for Canopus would like to know more about them. And assumed that Sirius would as well. I can only say that I recognised in a this sort of shorthand for much more… for much more I will not say at this point: certainly it turned out very differently from what I then imagined.

Klorathy was wanting us to go with him into the mountain habitations of the dwarves. This would involve danger, since they had been hounded by the Hoppes and Navahis, and while he was known by them we would have to win their trust. He was taking it absolutely for granted that we would be ready for this: Ambien I most certainly was, for he liked challenge. As for me, I did not want any association with what were bound to be no more than squalid little half-animals—but I assented.

We concealed the two machines as well as could in a canyon and walked forth boldly towards the mountains. These had not been devastated by the quake, though some rock falls had taken place, giving the mountainsides a raw disturbed look. Standing close against a precipitous surface we could hear kinds of murmurings and knockings and runnings-about, and I was reminded of the termite dwellings on Isolated S.C. II—putting one’s ear to the walls of one of these, having knocked on its surface or broken a part off, one heard just such a scurrying, rustling murmur. Coming round the edge of this precipice, there was a low dark cave entrance, Klorathy walked at once towards it, lifting up both his hands and calling out words I did not know. We, too, lifted our hands in what was obviously a gesture of peace. There was a sudden total silence, from which we were able to gauge the degree of the background of noise to which we had adjusted ourselves approaching the mountain. Silence—the sun blazing down uncomfortably from the warm Rohanda skies—heat striking out from the raw and unhealed rocks—heat dizzying up from the soil.

Suddenly there was a rush of movement from the cave, so swift it was impossible to distinguish details, and we three were enclosed in a swarm of squat little people who were hustling us inside the cave, which we tall ones—they came up to our knee level—had to go on all fours to enter. We were in a vast cavern, lit everywhere by small flames, which we later found were outlets of natural gas, controlled and kept perpetually burning. Yet they were not enough to create more than a soft twilight. The cavern was floored with white sand that glimmered, and in crystals in the rock twinkled, and a river that rushed along the cavern’s edge flung up sparkling showers of spray. I had not expected to find this soft exuberance of light inside the dark mountain, and my spirits rose, and as I was rushed along by the pressure of the little people I was able to examine them. They were certainly less animal than the horrid new beast-men of the Southern Continent, but quite seemly and decent creatures, wearing trousers and jackets of dressed skins. Very broad they were, almost as broad as tall: and I was easily able to recognise in the stock the powerful arms and shoulders of the Lombis, and the yellow skins of the technicians. Their faces were bare of hair, under close caps of tight rough dark curls, and were keen and sharp and intelligent.

We were taken through several of such caverns, always with the river rushing along beside us, until we were deep inside the mountain—yet it did not feel oppressive, for the air was sweet and fresh. We were in a cave so enormous the roof went up above us into impenetrable black, and the illuminations around the rocky verges were pinpoints of innumerable light. There was a cleared space in the centre, quite large enough to take a horde of these little people and ourselves, but small in proportion to the enormousness of the place. We were sat down on piles of skins, and given some food—hardly to the palates of such as we—though it was not without interest to be reminded of what was—what had to be—the food of all the lowly evolved planets of our Galaxy. Meat. A sort of cheese. A kind of beer. All this time Klorathy was keeping up talk with them: he seemed to know their language at least adequately. It was Ambien I and myself who puzzled them, though they were civil enough—for we were both obviously of different kinds from Klorathy. They eyed us, yet not unpleasantly, and one of the females, a quite attractive little thing in her robust heavy way, begged to touch my hair, and in a moment several females had crowded up, smiling and apologetic, but unable to resist handling my blonde locks. Yet I, for my part, was looking around into the faces packed and massed all around, and remembering the Lombis—who had never set eyes on me or anything like me—and the Colony 22 techs, who had… a long, long time ago, far out of personal memory, in their time reckoning, but such a short time ago in ours. Did they have any sort of race or gene memory? We examined each other, in a scene of which I have been a part so very often in my long service: members of differing races meeting, not in enmity but in genial curiosity.

How were we able to do this—see each other so close and well, when the twinkling walls of the cave were so distant? It was by—electricity. Yes. Everywhere stood strong bright lights, wooden containers that housed batteries: it is never possible to foresee what part of a former technology a fallen-off race will retain.