Shikasta

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First of all I had to locate the rebel Giants. I now did have an idea of where they were, for when I was in the Hexagonal City to the north of the Great Mountains, I had seen from very far off a settlement where none was expected, and there were rumours about ghosts and devils ‘the size of trees.’

Again, it was David I decided to take with me. To say that he understood what went on was true. To say that he did not understand – was true. I would sit and explain, over and over again. He listened, his eyes fixed on my face, his lips moving as he repeated to himself what I was saying. He would nod: yes, he had grasped it! But a few minutes later, when I might be saying something of the same kind, he was uncomfortable, threatened. Why was I saying that? and that? his troubled eyes asked of my face: What did I mean? His questions at such moments were as if I had never taught him anything at all. He was like one drugged or in shock. Yet it seemed that he did absorb information, for sometimes he would talk as if from a basis of shared knowledge: it was as if a part of him knew and remembered all I told him, but other parts had not heard a word! I have never before or since had so strongly that experience of being with a person and knowing that all the time there was certainly a part of that person in contact with you, something real and alive and listening – yet most of the time what one said did not reach that silent and invisible being, and what he said was not often said by the real part of him. It was as if someone stood there bound and gagged while an inferior impersonator spoke for him.

He mentioned, when I asked him to come travelling again with me, that he did not want to leave his youngest daughter. He had not ever mentioned this daughter. Where was she? Oh – with friends, he believed. But did he not see her? Was he not responsible for her? He seemed to want to please me, by eagerly nodding his head and producing some phrases to the effect that she was a good girl, and could look after herself. This was the first time I encountered what was to become a typical Shikastan indifference to their progeny.

His daughter Sais was a large, light brown girl, with a mass of bronze tightly curled hair. Everything about her was wholesome and lively. She was not much more than a child, and indeed could look after herself – she had had to. She seemed to have no memory of having been brought up in the Round City, or of her life there with both her parents. She talked of her mother as if she had died many years before, but I discovered she had been killed hunting with a party for deer. A couple of tigers had lain in wait, and knocked her dead with blows from their great paws. Sais did not know that so recently as a year ago such a thing would have been inconceivable. Tigers were, always had been, enemies of Native-kind!

She agreed to come with us.

When the spaceship had first set me down on the planet, it was well to the north of the Great Mountains, on the east of the central landmass. I had walked and ridden west. Now we were walking back eastwards but to the south of the Great Mountains which are such a feature of Shikasta, towering over every other part. The foothills here were higher than the tallest mountains of the southern continents, and we climbed and climbed. All around the central peaks and masses, not one range, but range after range, chain after chain, peak after peak – a world of mountains, north and south, east and west. We looked down from immense heights into the dead Hexagonal City, with its surrounding settlements, which we could not see at all from there. But I did see something quite unexpected. Far below me, in a clearing on a mountainside, was a column, or a pylon – something that glittered, and must be of metal, and was extremely tall, though from here it looked so tiny. This must be something to do with Shammat. Besides, even from where we were high in that marvellous tonic air, I could feel an evil message coming from it to me. I did not want to expose David and Sais to it, and marked where it was, so that I could return to it alone.

We went on down, down, giving the Shammat thing a good distance, and then standing on the slopes of a minor peak, surveying interminable plains, I saw what I expected. We were looking down into the queerest kind of settlement. It had not been put together for shelter or for warmth or for any of the familiar purposes, but was an act of impaired memory.

A tall cylinder lacked a roof, but a couple of branches had been laid across the top. Another, square, had a ragged gap in it. A five-sided shack was leaning and crooked. Every shape and size of building were there, not one complete. The materials had been taken from the Hexagonal City. To carry great stones for several miles was not difficult for these Giants.

What had been in their minds, though? What did they remember of the old cities? How did they explain the vicious radiations they must have submitted themselves to, and how had they been affected?

As we three walked down and down through the wooded slopes of the lower mountains, I spoke of the Giants to David and Sais. We would soon be meeting very tall, very strong people, but no, these were not the Great Ones of the stories and ballads. We would have to be careful and on our guard at all times. It was possible they might harm us.

Thus I tried to prepare these two for what I feared. But how to explain to those who had never known anything like it, never even heard of such a thing, what slavery was, or serfdom? They had no means of knowing, or imagining, the contempt a degenerated and effete race may use for another, different from themselves.

We at last reached the plain, and walked towards that haphazard settlement. The Giants were all inside their buildings. We shouted greetings when we got near, and they came out, showing fear. Then, as we did not seem to threaten them, and they could see we were half their size, first one put on an act of indignation, as if it were trying it out and looking at the others to see if it was making an effect, and then they all copied, behaving as if calling out to them at all was an impertinence. They took us into a sort of corral, so badly made that light showed through the stones. Jarsum was there. He was a chief, or a leader. He did not recognize me. Beside him, like a queen, sat his consort, the freakish white Giant. She stared, and then yawned, ostentatiously. Nothing could be more pathetic than their way of looking surreptitiously at each other to see if these gestures were being admired. Both Jarsum and she then tried out all sorts of tricks and gestures of ridiculous hauteur, bridling, giving us contemptuous glances, putting their noses in the air. I could see that David and his daughter were confused, for they had never seen anything like it.

I told Jarsum that I was Johor, an old friend, and he leaned forward to stare, his great face puckered and frowning, like someone presented with a conundrum too difficult. I said that my companions were David and Sais from what had been the Round City, his old home. But he did not remember, and looked in enquiry at the white Giant who lolled insolently there beside him, and around at the other Giants who stood like servants around the walls. But none remembered the Round City. Later I found that not all these Giants were from the Round City, but had come here from several other cities, apparently guided by what remained in them of their old intuitions. They had tried to recreate what they could in these crazy sketches of buildings.

The white Giant had been studying the sturdy David, and his healthy daughter, and now she whispered to Jarsum. He examined us, directed by her, and saw three beings half the size of him and his kind, with different features and skin colour.

He announced that we would be permitted to stay and work for them.

Then I used the name Canopus. I had to.

Something did come home to them. Their eyes sought each other, first Jarsum and the white Giant, then, finding nothing there, these two leaned forward and stared at the other Giants, who stared back.

Yes, Canopus I said, Canopus, and waited again for the word to resonate.

They might not go against the Laws of Canopus, I said, not one of us could do that, and the first Law of Canopus was that we may not make slaves and servants of others.

This reached them.

I asked for shelter for the night.

They replied that there was no building unoccupied, but the truth was, they wanted us to go, for we presented them with a challenge too great for them.

I said that we would rest for the night outside this settlement under some trees, and come to them again in the morning, to talk.

I could see that they were going to demand that we leave, and might even chase us away.

I said that Canopus ordained that travellers must be fed and given shelter. It was a Law binding on each one of us.

This did not reach them easily. They were inwardly rebellious, and angry, and would have killed us if they were not afraid. As for us three, we stood waiting, I suppressing fear, because I knew how great our danger was, but David and Sais quite calm and even eager, since they did not understand anything of what was going on. And I saw again that these Natives were better off than the Giants, simply because they stood so much nearer to stones and earth and plants and the beasts: in them was a bedrock of strength the Giants did not have. The ones who had agreed to leave into airs and climates on planets chosen for them – yes; but these, no – I could see from their inwardly shocked, empty eyes that even their physical beings were doomed. They would not live long.

They did bring us food. Animal food, so they had taken to hunting. We had not seen animals as we approached this settlement, so the herds must have already fled a long way off across the plains.

We laid ourselves down under some nearby trees, and I stayed awake while the others slept. When it was very late, the stars crowding down in a black sky, a great shadow came stooping out of the round enclosure, and it was Jarsum, striding across to us. He stood a couple of his paces away – many of ours – and peered and puzzled, but could not see us under the boughs, and came nearer, bending close. When he saw me awake, he smiled. It was an embarrassed smile. And he went away, cracking stones and twigs under his feet that were shod in hides now.

In the morning the three of us walked the miles to the edge of the Hexagonal City, where the stone patterns began. The ugly vibrations did not seem as strong as those in other places, either because time had already weakened them, or because so many of the stones being carried away had broken the patterns, or for other reasons I could not surmise.

But we saw something astonishing. Half a dozen Giants had come after us from that pathetic settlement of theirs, but took no notice of us, striding straight into the middle of the Stones, where they stood, turning themselves about, and raising their arms and bending and bowing. I understood that they were enjoying the sensations. Yet this practice could only make them more befuddled than they were.

After some time of this, they came out of the Stones, their limbs and heads jerking, as if they were truly diseased, and they danced and twitched their way back to their home.

I noticed that both David and Sais showed signs of wanting to ‘try it and see’ – for they had forgotten, or so it seemed, what those discords could do. I said to them, No, no, they must not – and led them back to the Giants.

There, a feast was in progress, with mounds of roast meat, and they were singing and dancing. I understood that the Giants who had gone to the Stones went to fetch back, in themselves, the power of the disharmonies, which they were using like alcohol to fuel this revelry.

I reminded them of our presence and asked for fruit.

I asked Jarsum to come and talk with us, alone, under the trees. He came, but as if drunk or half asleep. I spoke of Canopus again.

He accepted it. He listened. But nothing much was getting past the fogs and silliness of that poor brain.

I produced the Signature and held it in front of him. I had not wanted to do this, because I had noticed that its power had uneven or sometimes contradictory effects by now.

Yes, he remembered it. He remembered something. The half-dazed eyes, reddened and narrowed, as if with drink, peered close, and the great trembling hands came out to touch it.

And he did something I had never seen on this noble planet, that could not have happened on Rohanda – he bent and prostrated himself and poured sand on his head. And David and Sais copied him: they did it eagerly, pleased with themselves for learning this new attractive thing.

I led the way back to the settlement, telling Jarsum that he must make everyone come. He did, but more than half had gone out to dance among the Stones, and we had to wait for them to come back.

Then I stood before them, in a space among the lean-to fragmentary buildings, and I held out the Signature, so that it shone and dazzled, and sent its gleams everywhere into their eyes, their faces.

I said that Canopus forbade them to go near the Stones. It was an order. And I made the Signature flash and shiver.

I said that Canopus forbade them to use each other or the other creatures of the planet as servants, unless these servants were treated as well as they would treat themselves, as equals at all times.

I said that Canopus forbade them to kill animals unless it was for food, and then only with care and without cruelty. They must plant crops, I said, and must harvest fruit and nuts.

I said that they might not waste the fruits of the earth, and each might take only what was needed, no more. They must not use violence with each other.

Above all, over and above all these prohibitions, was the first one: never, never, must they go into the old cities, or use these stones for building other settlements, and they must not intoxicate themselves in these ways if they ever again came across places or things that held the capacity to intoxicate. They were destroying themselves in these practices, and Canopus was displeased.

Then I put away the Signature, and I went up to Jarsum, who was prostrate, trembling, the white Giant beside him, and I said, ‘Farewell. And I will come to you again. And until that time remember the Laws of Canopus.’

And I and David and Sais walked away, not looking back. I had forbidden them to, for fear this might weaken an effect which I believed was weak enough, and when we were deep in the trees on the foothills of the mountains, I asked these two companions of mine what had happened.

They did not reply. They were awed.

When I pressed them David said that I had knowledge of something called Canopus.

Sais? Perhaps it would be better with her?

I made a trial. I waited until we had gone up one range of foothills and down into a pleasant valley full of trickling streams and bright plants, and I asked them again if they had understood what had happened with the Giants.

David had that look on him which was familiar by now, a sullenness, as if he were being asked for too much. Then he turned his eyes away and pretended to be watching a bird on a branch.

Sais was looking at me attentively.

‘What do you know of Canopus?’ I asked.

She said that Canopus was an angry man, and he did not want anyone to dance where there were stones. He did not want hunting bands to kill more animals than they needed for meat. He did not want …

Well, she got through it, and I decided to concentrate on her. As we walked, I drilled her and I drilled her, and David her father ambled on, sometimes singing to amuse himself, for we bored him in our intensity, or sometimes listening, and chiming in with a phrase or two: ‘Canopus doesn’t want …’

And so we went on, day after day, wandering on among the foothills and valleys of the Great Mountains, until I felt the presence of Shammat growing stronger, and knew I must make these two go away from me.

I made a solemn and fearful thing of the occasion. They were to undertake a task of the utmost importance – for me, but above all, for Canopus. They were to go from place to place over Shikasta, everywhere there were settlements, and they were to repeat everything I had said. Sais was to be the spokesman, but David was to be her protector. And I gave her the Signature, saying that they must regard this as more important than – but what? Life? They did not have that conception: the thought of death as an ever-present threat was not in them. This came from Canopus, I said. It was the very substance and being of Canopus and must be guarded at all times, even if they were to lose their lives doing it. Thus I held Death before them, using it to create in these creatures a sorrow and a vigilance where there had been none.

Sais put the Signature reverently into her belt and kept her hand there on it, as she stood in front of me, her eyes on my face, listening.

When they reached a settlement, I said, she must first of all speak of Canopus, and if the word was enough to revive old memories and associations, and if her hearers could listen because of that word alone, then she could give her message and go. Only if she could get no one to listen, or if it seemed that she and her father might be harmed, then she might show the Signature. And when they had been everywhere, and spoken with everyone, even hunting bands they met, or solitary farmers or fishermen in the forests or by rivers, then they must bring the Signature back to me.

And then I spoke to her carefully and slowly about the concept of a task, something which had to be done – for I was afraid that this might have lapsed from her mind altogether. This journey of hers, I said, the act of making it, and carrying the Signature and guarding it, would develop her, would bring out in her something that was buried and clouded over. And when I left Shikasta, I said – telling them for the first time that I was going to leave – she would be responsible for keeping the Laws, and for passing them on. I saw panic in both of them, at the idea that I would be leaving them, but I said that they would be without me now for months, longer, and would learn they could maintain themselves and the Laws without me. We separated there, and I watched them go off, and my will went with her: You can do it, you can, you can, I was whispering, then saying, then shouting, as they went out of sight and hearing among the enormous trees of that wonderful forest. I would not see them for at least a Shikastan journey around its sun.

And now for the Shammat transmitter.

If I have ever been in a paradise, it was there. Neither Natives nor Giants had ever lived in that region. The forests were as they had grown, and the trees were some of them thousands of years old. There were flowers everywhere, and little streams. And the birds and animals did not know they should be afraid of this new animal, and came wandering up to sniff me, and they lay down by me, for company. That night I lay by the bank of a stream, with animals coming down to drink, and the worst I feared was that some great deer might tread on me in the dark. Tigers, lions did not know I was prey. Herds of elephants stretched out their trunks to me and then went on.

My lingering there, taking in the sane breath of the trees, and communing with the animals was for a purpose. I was now not armed with the Signature, and I had to confront the power of Shammat.

But now I did not know how to go about finding the transmitter. The sense of it seemed to come from everywhere. High above me, stretching up into the bluest sky I can remember, was the peak I had stood on and looked down into the glade where the glittering column was. Had I then to make the wearisome climb back up there? I could not bring myself to do it, from which I knew that I was badly affected already, and I lay down to rest under a great tree that had white flowers on it, and shed an invigorating scent. When I woke, a shaggy creature was bending over me. He was the size of a Native, but heavily furred, and I understood at once that he was the descendant of a Native who had strayed away long ago from his fellows and had not developed with the others. He was not at all hostile, but curious, and seemed to smile, and his quick brown eyes had something like consciousness in them. He brought me fruit, and we ate it together, and after a while we were able to communicate. He had the beginnings of speech in him, a good deal more than grunts and barks. Some of his gestures and his facial grimaces were the same as the Natives’, and half through sounds, half through grimaces and signs, I was able to tell him that I was looking for a thing that was new to the Great Mountains, that did not belong. Already he seemed to understand, and when I said this was a bad thing, wicked, he showed fear, but overcame it, and lifted me up solicitously from where I was sitting – for his being stronger and larger than I seemed to him reason for his protecting and assisting me always – and we set off together.

I was farther from the thing than I had thought. We went up, up, always up. We reached the snow line on some peaks, and crossed these and went down again, leaving the snow line behind. I was cold, but he was not, with his heavy fell of hair. He was concerned, and made little shelters of boughs, and at night lay down close to me so that his body would warm me. And he brought me fruit and nuts, and then leaves, but saw I could not eat these, and we had little feasts together.

But I was feeling deathly ill, and wondered if I would be able to finish my task. And he, too, was beginning to feel sick and trembling. He did not want me to go on. But I told him I had to, and that he should wait for me here. He persisted with me, for a little while. Then he became fearful, and moved in a terrified way through the trees, which, I saw, had begun to be broken and damaged. Rocks had been flung about, for no reason, trees had been cut and left lying, and above all, there was a horrible smell. We kept stumbling among the bones of animals, and there were half-decayed carcasses everywhere, and birds that had been killed and left, and all this killing and smashing had been for the sake of it. Oh, yes, this was Shammat all right!

And now I ordered my friend to stay where he was and wait for me. He did not like it, and he reached out after me with his furry hands, wanting to hold me back, but I turned so that I could not see him, and be tempted, and went on.

I soon came to a high ridge. Below was a valley, and there were great peaks all around that glittered and shone with snow. The sensation of Shammat was very strong now.

Everything in the valley was broken and spoiled. I knew that this was the valley I had looked down into from above, but could not now see the column anywhere. Yet it was here, I could feel it. Waves and pulses of Shammat came out at me and made me reel, but I held on to a young tree that had been half cut through at its base so that it had fallen, and lay forward at my height, making a sort of handhold. I looked and looked but I simply could not see the column I knew was there. Yet the centre of the valley where it had been was not two hundred paces ahead. And still the pulses came out, throbbing, deadly, sickening me. I sent my thoughts to Canopus in a plea for help. Help me, help me, I cried silently, this is the most terrible danger I am in, danger far too strong for me – and I kept my thoughts steady, like a bridge, and soon did feel a little trickle of help coming from there. And, as I strengthened, I did see it – a glimpse only – I saw the column. There was a jet, or narrow fountain there, sometimes visible, and then not, but coming in sight again. It was as if the air itself had thickened and become a very fine and subtle liquid, a crystalline water, jetting up and falling back on itself. But now I recognized it, and I felt that I would have done so before, if the idea had not been so far from my mind. I knew this substance! I summoned every kind of strength I could and walked forward to where this glittering column was, was not – and was again.

A few paces from it I stopped, for I could not go nearer: it held me away from it.

This was a substance recently invented, or discovered, on Canopus, Effluon 3, and that was why I had not expected to find it here. And no, it was not possible for Puttiora to have made it, for their technology was so far behind ours. And Shammat certainly could not. And so they must have stolen it from Canopus.

Effluon 3 had the property of drawing in and sending out qualities as needed – as programmed. It was the most sensitive and yet the strongest of conductors, needing no machinery to set it up, for it came into existence through the skilled use of concentrations of the mind. What Shammat, or Puttiora, had had to steal from us was not a thing, but a skill. This was too much for me to puzzle out now, feeling as I did, on the edge of losing consciousness, and besides there was a more urgent question. Effluon 3, unlike Effluons 1 and 2, did not last for long: it was a booster, no more.

From above I had seen a metal column, a thing of strength and durability, because I had been expecting something of the sort. But really it was a device which by its very nature soon would not be here at all. And yet it was hardly likely that Shammat would go to all this trouble – inviting reprisals from us, from Sirius (and possibly even from Puttiora, if this was, as it might well be, an act of defiance) – for some short-term gain.

Yet I could not be mistaken. It was a colleague on Canopus who had first thought of this device, and I had seen these evanescent columns of thickening air in all the different stages of their development. This could not be anything other than Effluon 3 – and it would not be here in a year’s time.

I realized that I had slipped to my knees, and was swaying there a few paces from the horrible thing – which of course could be health-giving and good-making, in other places and times – but my mind kept going dark, it kept filling with swaying grey waves, a painful shrilling attacked the inside of my brain and I could feel blood running down my neck from my afflicted ears. The snowy peaks, the sunny slopes of the valley, the smashed and splintered trees, the half-visible jet of glistening substance, all swayed and went, and I fell into a coma.

I was not there long and certainly would have died if not for my new friend who had been watching from a ridge above, holding on to a tree for support, in fear for his sanity, because his mind, like mine, was badly attacked. He saw me swaying on my feet, then on my knees, and then lying prone. He crept down from the ridge, forcing himself forward, until he was able to reach for my ankles. He turned me over on my back, so that my face might not be cut, and he dragged me away from the place and then lifted and carried me. When I came to, on the other side of the ridge, he was lying unconscious beside me. Now it was my turn to help him, by rubbing his furry hands and his shoulders, with all my strength, but he was such a big creature it was hard to believe these small ministrations could be enough to start life flowing again. As soon as he was himself, and we were both able to stand, we supported each other away and up into the mountains, to get away from the emanations we could both feel. He had a warm cave, heaped with dry leaves and larders of dried fruits and nuts. He knew about fire, too, and soon we were warmed and strong.

But while I had been unconscious, I had had a dream or vision, and I knew now the secret of the Shammat column. I saw the old Rohanda glowing and lovely, emitting its harmonies, rather as one does in the Planets-to-Scale Room. Between it and Canopus swung the silvery cord of our love. But over it fell a shadow, and this was a hideous face, pockmarked and pallid, with staring glaucous eyes. Hands like mouths went out to grasp and grab and at their touch the planet shivered and its note changed. The hands tore out pieces of the planet, and crammed the mouth which sucked and gobbled and never had enough. Then this eating thing faded into the half-visible jet of the transmitter, which drew off the goodness and the strength, and then, as this column in its turn dissolved, I leaned forward in my dream, frantic to learn what it all meant, could mean … I saw that the inhabitants of Shikasta had changed, had become of the same nature as the hungry jetting column: Shammat had fixed itself into the nature of the Shikastan breed, and it was they who were now the transmitter, feeding Shammat.

This was the dream and now I understood why Shammat needed its transmitter there only for a short time.

I stayed with my friend for some days, getting my strength back. I understood by now a good deal of what he knew and was trying to tell me. Trembling and fearful, he told me that a great Thing had come down from the sky, and set itself on the slopes of that valley, and then horrible creatures had come – and he could not speak of them without shaking and hiding his face as if from the memory – and killed everything and broken everything. They had lit fires and let them go out of control to rage over the mountain slopes, destroying and killing. They had slaughtered for pleasure. They had caught and tortured animals … He sat by me, this poor creature, whimpering a little, and tears ran down over the fur of his big cheeks, as he stared into the flames of our fire, remembering.

And how many of them?

He held up his hands palm out, then again, and then, clumsily, for this was not an easy mode of thought for him, once again. There had been thirty of them.

How long had they stayed?

Oh, an awful time, a long long time – but he put up his paws, or hands, to his eyes, and sat rocking and letting out small yelps of pain. Yes, he had been caught by them, and put in a cage of boughs, and they had stood round laughing and sticking sharpened branches at him … he lifted the fur of his sides to show me the scars. But he had escaped, and had let out from their cages many other animals and birds and fled away – all the animals and birds had left, and as I must have noticed, had not gone back. There were none of the creatures of the forest anywhere near that valley now. And he had crept back one dark night, and gone as silently as he could to the top of the ridge and looked over – and had seen nothing, but the emanations of the column had made him ill, so he had known that something was there … he did not know even now what it was, for he had not been able to see it, only feel it.

And the big Thing these terrible things had come in? Had he seen it or touched it?

No, he had been too afraid to go close enough to touch. He had never seen anything like it, he had not known that anything like this could exist. It was round – and he made his arms round. It was enormous – and he spread them till he indicated the whole interior of this very large cave. And it was – he whimpered and swayed – horrible.

I could not learn more than that.

But I did not need to.

I told him that I would have to travel very far from here. He did not understand ‘very far’. He would come with me, he said, and he did, but as day after day passed, he became silent and apprehensive, for he was a long way from the part of the mountains he knew. He was lonely, I could see that. But perhaps he had not known that he was lonely? Had there been others like him? Yes, there had been once! Many? Again he held out hands – once, twice and again and again … There had been many and they had died out, perhaps from an epidemic, and now there was only himself. If there were others now on the mountain he did not know of them. He came shambling along beside me as I walked up mountains and down them, and up them and down again, and then left them behind and went down and down, with snows behind us, and then through the marvellous untouched forests and down again through regions of flowering scented bushes – and there in front of us were the steamy southern jungles, and beyond them, but very far away, the sea. Did he know of the sea? But he could not understand anything of my attempts at explanation.

What I had to do was to walk back to the settlements of Natives who had escaped from the Round City, for there I would meet again with Sais and her father. I tried to persuade this poor animal to come with me, for I believed that the Natives would befriend him. At least Sais would. But when I reached the low foothills beyond which stretched the jungles, he became silent and morose, turning his face away from me continually, as if I had turned myself away from him, and then he came stumbling and running to me, and he clutched at my arms, and tried to hold my hands so fast in his I could not leave him. Great tears ran from his kind brown eyes, and disappeared into the fur of his cheeks, and streaked his chest with wet. He let out whimpers, then a roar of pain, and ran back, falling and getting up again, till he reached the shelter of the trees. He stood with the foothills at his back, and stared and peered after me, and shouted farewells that were a plea: come back, come back! Then he ran out a little way after me, but retreated again. I waved until he was no more than a little dot under the trees that it was hard to believe from where I stood a couple of miles away were so tall. But I had to go on. And so I left him to his solitudes.

I had been gone half a year by the time I reached the settlement. I was concerned for Sais and David, but there was no news of them. It even seemed as if they had already been forgotten. I made myself a shelter of earth and logs, and waited. Meanwhile, I tried to teach those among the Natives who seemed intelligent what I could of Canopus and how they could live so as to limit the power of Shammat over them. But they could not take it in.

They were prepared, though, to learn anything I could teach in the realm of the practical arts, which they were in danger of forgetting. I taught them – or retaught them – gardening and husbandry. I taught them to tame a goatlike creature, which could give them milk, and I demonstrated butter and cheese-making. I taught them how to choose plants for their fibres, and to prepare the fibres and to weave them, and to dye them. I showed them how to make bricks from the earth and fire them. All these crafts I was teaching to creatures who had known them for thousands of years and had forgotten them a few months ago. It was hard, sometimes, to believe that they were not making fun of me, as they watched me, and then their faces lit up with amazement and delight as they saw cheese, or fired pots, or the suppleness of properly cured hides.

Two years after they had left me, Sais and David came. Even as they walked into the settlement, I could see they had had a hard time. They were wary and careful, and ready to defend themselves – which they nearly had to do, for their friends, even their family, had forgotten them. They were lean and burned brown. The girl had grown into her proper height in that journey, but was still much shorter than her father, shorter than the average of the Natives, and I saw that a reduction in height was very likely beginning.

They had succeeded in reaching most of the settlements. They had walked, ridden on the backs of animals, used canoes and boats. They had not stayed in any one place more than a day. They had done exactly what I had ordered – talked of Canopus, watched for the effect, and never used the Signature unless they had to.

In two places they had been chased away, and threatened with death if they returned.

Both talked of dead people they had seen in the settlements. It was not fear they showed, or sorrow or grief: just as the death of Sais’s mother had left her more puzzled than grieved, so the evidences of the nearness of death such as an unburied corpse lying in a forest, or a group going past with a dead person on a litter, excited in them efforts at understanding. My attempts to make death real for them, by linking it with the Signature, had not succeeded. They could not believe in death for themselves, because those robust bodies knew that hundreds of years of life lay ahead, and their bodies’ knowledge was stronger than the feeble thoughts of their impaired minds. They told me as if it were an extraordinary fact I could not really be expected to believe that some corpses they had seen had been killed in quarrels: yes, people killed each other! They did! There was no doubt of it!

In many settlements it had become the practice for many or most, particularly the older Natives who were finding it hard to adjust to new conditions, to make excursions to the Stones, and subject themselves to sensations felt first as horrible, and then as attractive or at least compulsive.

Yet the repetition of my orders had made a difference. In nearly all the settlements people had memorized the words that had been brought to them by these two strangers, repeating over and over to themselves, to each other: Canopus says we must not make servants of each other, Canopus says … Canopus wills …

Yes, over and over again, in a hundred different places, Sais had said, or chanted, for the words had turned into a song, or chant: