Doris Lessing - The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

‘Them? They don’t give a damn for their colonized planets!’

And suddenly he sat straight up and looked at me tragically, lips quivering.

‘And they don’t give a damn for me. Not one of them. And neither do the others.’

By this he meant the young groups. They had rebuffed him.

You will note that their not giving a damn for hi m was what really reached him.

‘Yes, but do any of them care about Volyenadna?’

‘If you told some of them to go out there and join the revolution, they might listen to that.’

‘You are referring to Incent, I suppose? To Krolgul?’

‘If they would have me, I’d go like a shot and throw in my lot with them, with Calder! But they don’t want me! No one does. It’s always been like that, Klorathy! Ever since I was small. I’ve never really fitted in. I’ve never been wanted. I’ve never been …

And he flung himself down and wept, loudly and painfully.

I could see we can expect nothing from him, so I told the hotel to send medical assistance, and came back here to Vatun.

It is my belief that I myself should, as Canopus, try what I can do with Calder. I put this forward as an official request.

I had hoped to meet Calder with his colleagues. He sent a message that he would come alone, to a place that turned out to be a settlement of a few clans in a cold valley far from the capital. Grey stone houses, or huts, and a grey tundra rising all around us to a grey sky.

It was a miners’ club, but at an hour when they were at work. A woman served us the thin, sour beverage of Volyenadna and went out saying she had to prepare a meal for her children.

This is the conversation that took place.

He was in that condition of irritable gloominess that indicates, in this species, an extreme of suspicion. ‘Calder, would you describe this tyranny you live under as an efficient one?’

He slammed his great fist onto the table and exploded: ‘Tyranny, you say! You can say that again! Filthy exploiting callous swine who …’ He went on for some minutes, until he ran into silence. ‘But you know what they are like,’ he added.

‘What I asked was, is it efficient?’

He sat blinking at me, confused; then feeling himself attacked growled, ‘You forget, I’ve never been out of this planet. How can I make comparisons? But I take it you can. You tell me, then, is it efficient or not? From where we sit, it is efficient enough: it drains all that we make with the sweat of our brow and leaves us … as you can see for yourself.’ And he sat there triumphant, as if he had made a good point in a debate, even shooting glances to either side as if to check up on the reactions of an audience.

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