Doris Lessing - Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Delegates glanced at each other, but sat down again. Minna might be overconscientious, but it was true enough that until most of them had reached here and had been hit by the atmosphere of this particular conference, they had not really appreciated the urgency.

They had already seen the Forecast film, showing Earth as an item in its place in the solar system. Earth had showed it was under pressure, as it and the other planets moved into the expected positions, first of all by the increased activity of the surface. This was slight to begin with, but earthquakes, tidal waves, excessive movements of all kinds become increasingly noticeable. The weather, always inhospitable to life on that planet, became more extreme. The icecaps melted slightly, causing havoc along the seaboards. The Comet added its quota of disturbance to the already delicate-enough balances between Earth and its neighbours. The representatives of Mars and Venus had sat with particularly long faces. What happened anywhere in the System (and of course, beyond) affected everyone, but near neighbours were bound to feel it first: the last time Earth was in a crisis, both Mars and Venus had suffered, and the memory of that time was still strong. But it had not been possible for any delegates, not even those from Pluto and Neptune, to whom the Earth’s inhabitants were alien indeed, to watch the end of the Forecast film without awe.

But this was Forecast (Detail) ; Earth in closeup, by herself, and without even the Moon. The previous film, showing Earth and Moon as — as it were — an atom of the molecule, had brought home first the change in the seasons, weather, crustal activity, vegetation. This film, on a smaller and slower scale, showed the drastic increase of population as Forests and Plant Life and Animal Life diminished, and deserts spread. For as animal and bird life dwindled, human beings multiplied, to preserve the balance. Organic life, necessary in the cosmic balance, had to be maintained on Earth, and as humans killed and destroyed the organic life of which they were a part, their own increase kept the balance. But their aggressiveness and irrationality increased steadily. As usual it was a total process — one strand or factor not to be separated from another. It was not that human aggression and irresponsibility increased because of the population explosion, and that this explosion was because of the planetary movements — all these were strands in a single process.

The delegates watched with steadily deepening grimness as wars, previously kept fairly local, got worse and enlarged. Towards the end the destruction ceased to have even a pretence of consistency. Nations became allies in one decade who had been enemies the last; enemies who had been devoting every technical resource to mutual slaughter suddenly became allies. But the technical devices were out of control; the instruments of mass slaughter and destruction took over. As that planetary position was reached that was by now designated everywhere in the System as FIRST CLASS EMERGENCY, the increasingly poisoned atmosphere on Earth, the emanations of mass Death and Fear, reflected back and affected — first of all, Mars and Venus; and their imbalance in its turn spread out to the other planets — and, as was signalled by the presence of the Sun Himself, to the Sun Himself.

By the time the planets had moved out of the Danger position, changes must occur in every part of the System which even now, at this moment, the computers in a million laboratories were busy forecasting.

The penultimate stage showed by Forecast (Detail) was more violent than the last stage. Earth rocked and hissed, and heaved, showered locally by falling rock, flame, boiling liquids, and convulsed by quakes. Men fought and struggled. There were mass movements of lower forms of animal and insect, locusts, rats, mice. There were sudden epidemics. Whole nations of people died in these epidemics, and as poisoned air and water reached their patches of the planet. So much of animal and human life died it was as if the globe quietened, stilled. An awful emptiness distinguished the final stage. It seemed as if no life remained. But even while this cauldron of poison bubbled, it was possible to see the beginnings of another pattern — some of the humans busied themselves in a different way. Even as the Earth’s convulsions began to subside, the planetary Emergency over, they were again rebuilding, re-creating — and, as was obvious from their increasingly meaningful activity, the crisis on the planet had bred a new race. It was a mutation. While not much different in appearance from the previous human, the new human being had increased powers of perception, a different mental structure. This remnant of an old, or the beginnings of a new race, had as heritage all the accumulated experience of the human race, plus, this time, the mental equipment to use it.

Forecast (Detail) ended, and the delegates left. When no one remained but the Descent Team and Minna Erve, the hundred or so of them waited politely for the Sun to leave, if He so wished, but the pervasive golden glow remained steady. Some thought It even brightened a little, and they took courage from this, thinking it to be a message of hope, and of belief in their powers to accomplish what they had all volunteered to do.

Now Minna Erve was joined on the platform by Merk Ury.

Minna said: “Merk will brief you. But I must remind you all that Time is running out.”

Merk said: “Thanks, Minna. I had in fact already decided to limit this to the main points, particularly of course as you have already so ably done the groundwork.

“The first point is this — and the second and the third — you should not underrate the difficulties. Every one of you in this room has of course travelled extensively inside the System — some of you perhaps outside of it — and you won’t need to be told that to hear a place described is not the same as experiencing it. Which is another reason to keep these few remarks short.

“Now, you will probably all know that at first there was a doubt whether life could exist on Earth at all, after the previous Crisis which altered the atmosphere. But Nature is infinitely resourceful, making virtues from deficiencies. We had thought that nothing could live in that tempestuous, erupting, unstable, accident-prone planet, but in fact the life forms did adapt, but most are only able to live in certain dry areas of the Earth and where the temperature is more or less equable. Most parts of the planet are too cold, too hot, wet, frozen, mountainous or dry. But you are all familiar with the dominant creature that has evolved, its most striking physical feature being its pumping system for air and liquid. In other words, it is distinguished by the organs it has evolved for living in a particularly difficult and poisonous air. But it is as yet an inefficient adaptation and the creature’s mental processes are defective.

“Now, the Permanent Staff on Earth has always had one main task, which is to keep alive, in any way possible, the knowledge that humanity, with its fellow creatures, the animals and plants, make up a whole, are a unity, have a function in the whole system as an organ or organism. Our Permanent Staff’s task is always extremely difficult, the main feature of these human beings as at present constituted being their inability to feel, or understand themselves, in any other way except through their own drives or functions. They have not yet evolved into an understanding of their individual selves as merely parts of a whole, first of all humanity, their own species, let alone achieving a conscious knowledge of humanity as part of Nature; plants, animals, birds, insects, reptiles, all these together making a small chord in the Cosmic Harmony.”

Here there was a discreet, slight, and not uniformly approving applause. For Merk had a literary turn. Merk smiled slightly on hearing it. He knew quite well that some of them there believed that as he was a technician he should not be indulging himself with the inexact arts. It was an affectation among some of them to use jargon, despise literature and to arm themselves with a jaunty facetiousness when approaching the serious.