The making of representative for Planet 8

We, the three Representatives, agreed to go on.

Because the skies were clear and blue on that third day we could see the great white birds everywhere, floating over the snows and the ice, looking downwards for - what prey? At first we could see nothing, but then, straining our eyes against the glare, did see small movements that seemed to creep and run in a way different from the smoke and the surge of snows moved by the wind. And then we saw little black specks on the white, and they were droppings; and then larger pieces that were the droppings of the white birds, which had in them fur and bones, and from these we were able to form some picture of the little snow animals before we actually saw one: we were on it, it was under our feet, and it rolled over in a pleading confiding way as if in play. A sort of rodent, completely white, with soft blue eyes. And once we had seen them we were able to pick them out, ru

As we pla

Although it would soon be dark and we wanted very much to be sheltered, we had to give him time to recover. We sat down in a hollow in the ice, with our backs to the cliff and looking out over a coldly brilliant scene: a sharp blue sky that seemed to us cruel, de

'No

And, as his face showed the peevishness and irritation of his reluctance, she persisted, 'No, no, No

'Where did you live?'

He indicated with a weak lift of his head, which at once fell back against her shoulder, that it was somewhere there in front of us.

'And how? And what did you do?'

'You know what I did!'

'Go on!'

Again he resisted her, with an involuntary movement that said he wanted only to slide away into sleep, but she would not let him, and he gasped out: 'Before The Ice, it was there - there.'

There was now the plain of snow, undulating, cut by crevasses and sending up small eddies and whirls of snow.

'And you lived in a town down there, and it was one of our largest towns, and people used to come from all over the planet to visit it, because it was the only town like it? A new kind of town?'

He struggled to evade her with irritable shiftings of his head, shutting his eyes, but again his will to live came back.

'The town was built there because these hills are full of iron. Under the ice here are the mine workings. A road goes from here to there - the best road on the planet, because of what it had to carry, heavy loads of ore, from which we made trucks to carry even more ore...'

Here he seemed to drowse again, and Alsi said: 'Please, No

'Before our town was built and we began mining, there was no centre for making iron, though it was made in a small way everywhere. It was Canopus who told us to look for iron here, and what to look for, and then how to work it and mix it with other metals. It was clear to us that these metals we were making would change the way we all lived. Some people did not like what was happening. Some left our town again and went to live in other places where life had not changed.'

'And you, did you like it?'

'It seems that I must have, because I was going to be a worker in metals, like my parents. Both of them knew all the new processes. Just before The Ice I travelled with them, to a town not far from our ocean, and it was the first time I had seen anything different.'

'And how did it seem?' said Alsi, teasing him, for she knew.

'It seemed to me charming,' he said, full again of the youthful scornfulness he had felt, so that we all laughed, and he laughed too, since now he was able to look back and see himself. 'Yes, it was so pretty, and so soft. With us everything was so much harder. Every day we had a new invention or discovery, and we were learning to make metals we hadn't ever thought of. It seemed as if something quite new had happened to us, and we could not help but make new things and have new ideas. After that visit, I was glad to get back. And Canopus came again about then. Because we had seen how differently people lived in other parts of the planet, and we could make comparisons, we asked Canopus how things were on other planets. And suddenly our minds seemed filled with newness... we were stretched... we were much larger than we had been... we knew how many different ways there were of living, we talked about how species began and grew and changed - and died out...' Here he stopped for a moment and was silent, a darkness coming over his face.

'No

'Some of us will not,' he said, in a direct statement of something he felt, something he knew, and it chilled us. We knew then, or at least we older ones did, that No

'That was the real change, it seems to me now. Not only that because we were making new metals and all kinds of machines we knew life on our planet would change, but because for the first time we thought in this way at all - and then began to think about how many different ways of living there could be - and then, of course, it followed that we wondered if we could choose how we would develop, choose the direction we would go in... It seems now as if what really happened for the first time was the idea of choice... And then there was The Ice!' And he laughed out strongly, an angry laugh, as only the very young can laugh. The anger injected energy into him, and he staggered up, and was supported by Alsi. 'What are we doing sitting here? Look, the light is going. We should get under cover.'