Doris Lessing - The Sirian Experiments

“It is absolutely out of the question that I could get Administration to agree. They would not waste so many resources on such an inferior species.”

He was silent for a while. “Sirius, very often a great deal of time, effort, and resources are spent on ‘inferior’ species. Everything is relative, you know!”

I did not choose to “hear” this. Not at that time.

“You are also very rich, Canopus. Are you telling me that you do not transport populations from planet to planet?”

“Yes, I am telling you that. Not for the reasons you do, at least. Very rarely. We have a very finely balanced economy, Sirius. Exactly and delicately tuned. And if we were to undertake to transport a million animals from here to Shammat, then this would impose a strain on us.”

There was a great deal of information in this, of the kind I wanted so much to have from him—about Canopus and its nature. But I was too disturbed at that juncture to take it in.

“I tell you, it is not possible for me to arrange it.”

“Not possible for one of the five senior administrators of the Sirian Colonial Service?”

“No.”

“I appeal to you. It may surprise you to know that your economy is more flexible in certain ways than ours.”

“I am sorry.”

“Then we shall have to undertake it.”

I attempted to joke in the face of his evident disappointment, and even worry. “A million all at once will certainly impose a strain on Shammat!”

“It might keep them busy for a bit, at least. And I must confess it does give me some pleasure, unworthy though it is, I am sure, that these will become slaves now in their turn. Shammat is short of labour at this time.”

“I share your feelings.”

“Will you help us perhaps with the task of rehabilitating the tribes?”

And now I did hesitate for a long time. I did feel in the wrong about refusing our aid in the matter of the mass space-lift. I was feeling lacking generally in relation to Canopus—hardly a new emotion! But I also could not understand why he, or they, should concern themselves with this trivial nastiness.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why take so much trouble?”

“It will be useful for us—for everyone—for the whole Galaxy, if the tribes are enabled to return as far as possible to their old state. They will be returned to their own territories, and encouraged to resume their former simple lives in balance with the environment. Not taking more than they need, not despoiling, not overrunning their geographical areas, or laying waste. Before the Lelannian conquest this continent was in harmony. We shall see that it becomes so again.”

“And for how long?” I enquired, making him face me on this.

“Well, not forever, certainly. No. That we know.”

“Why?—oh, don’t talk to me of the Necessity!”

“There is nothing else, or less, I can talk to you of.”

“Then do so,” I cried, excited and peremptory. “I am waiting. I feel always at the edge of things, and you never come to the point.”

At this he looked, at first, faintly startled, then grieved, and then—as if he had determined to use this aid—amused.

“Sirius, you are indeed hard to please.”

I was angry. I was angry because of knowing I was in the wrong. I even knew then that this was why I was so fatally angry. I rose to my feet, unable to prevent myself, and said: “Canopus, I am leaving now.”

“I shall not prevent you!” said he, in an attempt to remind me of our old ironical understanding of the real situation.

“Very well, you can stop me if you want. But you won’t. Perhaps I would even be glad of that—if you would simply, and once and for all, do something unequivocal.”

And now he laughed. He laughed out, shaking his head with comical disbelief. This finally enraged me. I ran out into the open, summoned the hovering Space Traveller, and turned to see him in the doorway watching.

“May I perhaps give you a lift? To your Planet 10, perhaps? I shall be passing it.”

“I shall be staying here for a while.”

“Then goodbye.”

And that was how this encounter of ours came to its conclusion.

Once again, distancing myself, it was with relief. I was simply not up to it! It was all too much! And, as I approached home again, I found myself muttering: “That’s it then—it's enough!” And: “Very well, if that's how you want it!” But what these defiances actually meant was something I soon discovered, after I reported back and started to re-align myself with the work I had interrupted, for I found my mind was at work in quite other ways.

Recently I was scanning a history of that time in connection with a different subject, when I came across this: “Checks and restrictions were imposed on our experimental and research programmes; and as a result the numbers of animals licensed for use fell sharply.”

In this dry sentence is encapsulated what I am sure must have been the hardest effort of my career. I did not depart for the borders of our Empire. I did not apply for leave—which I was entitled to. I did not do, as Klorathy wanted, anything about our responsibility for Rohanda. But what I did do was engage myself with a fight to force us, Sirius, into a different attitude towards our subject populations, and particularly as regards their use as laboratory material. This battle is by no means over. As I write this, different factions of opinion are still engaged.

Large-scale experiments of the biosociological kind are in progress—the kind that one of our wits has summed up as: What if we…? In other words, populations are subjected to this and that stress, or the planets of planets moved about—all that class of thing. I am far from claiming that this does not cause suffering.

Of course it does. I do not believe that it is useful—as some of our technicians still do—to say things of this sort: “These creatures are of so low a mental development that they do not know what is happening to them.” Yes, I was certainly of their company—once. I like to think that it was a long time ago. It will not have escaped the speculation of the more sensitive reader that my—perhaps unnecessarily full—account of the Lombis was for a purpose. But it is not possible to avoid such disturbances of a Colonised Planet altogether. What would then be the purpose of colonising one? No planet is welcomed into the Sirian system without careful thought and planning and, as I have said, at this particular time our expansion is suspended.

To be of the Sirian whole is to be part of progress, development, an attitude of “one for all and all for each!” Sacrifices have to be made by everyone for such an ideal. I want to make it clear, here, at this point, that I do not demand the total abolition of all social disturbance—that would be to demand the end of Sirius itself—Sirius the Planet, herself daughter of the great star Sirius, and sister to her two siblings—Sirius the glorious, with her wonderful children scattered so felicitously through the Galaxy. Of course, I cannot mean that, cannot want that… I want no part of the sentimentalism that says that “Nature has its rights!” “Each in its own place!” Or “Hands off…”—whatever planet is in question: to mention a few of the more popular current slogans. No. It is the duty of the more evolved planets, like the great daughter of Sirius, to guide and control.

But that is a very different thing from using not hundreds, not thousands, not even millions, but billions of animals of all kinds and types of genera and species in cruel and unnecessary experiments. As we used to do. For a very long time. For not millennia, but for long ages. I say unnecessary . I use the word knowing how this goes straight to the point of the argument, the disagreement. Necessary for what?