Shikasta

Everywhere in the Round City the Natives were hustling and jostling about in groups which continually formed and re-formed. They were always in movement, looking for something, someone; they moved from street to street, from one garden to another, from the outskirts in towards the centre, and when they had reached it and had run everywhere over that place, they looked around wildly, uneasily, and their eyes, which now all had the lost restless look that seemed the strongest thing in them, were never still, always searching, always dissatisfied. These groups took little notice of each other, but pushed and elbowed, as if they had all become strangers, or even enemies. I saw fights and scuffles, children squabbling and trying to hurt each other, heard voices raised in anger. Already the golden-brown walls were defaced with scribblings and dirt. Children in ones and twos and groups stood by the walls, smearing them with mud from the flowerbeds, in the most earnest, violent attempts - at what? Interrupted, they at once turned back to their - task, for that is what it obviously seemed to them. But they, too, were searching, searching, and that was the point of all their activity. If enough people rushed around, hurrying, from place to place, if children, and some adults, daubed mud over the subtle patternings of the still glowing walls, if enough of them met each other, ran around each other, pushed each other, and then gazed hungrily into each other's faces - if enough of these activities were accomplished - then what was lost would be found! That was how it seemed to me, the outsider, clutching on to the Signature for my very life.

But these poor creatures already did not know what had been lost.

The leak, the depletion, was very great by now: must be so, for look at the results!

Were there none left unaffected? Not even enough to be prepared to listen?

I looked into faces for a gleam of sense, I began conversations, but always those brown haunted eyes that so recently had been open and friendly, turned from me, as if they had not seen me, could not hear me. I looked for the storytellers and singers who had been entrusted with as much of the information as they could bear. I found one, and then another, who looked at me doubtfully, and when I asked if people liked their songs, hesitated and seemed struck as if they nearly remembered. Then I saw David sitting on the ledge of a fountain that had rubbish in it, and he was half singing, half talking: "Hear me now, hear this tale of the far off times, when the Great Ones were among us, and taught us all we knew. Hear me tell of the wisdom of the great days." But he was talking of no more than thirty days before.

As he spoke, groups of people did pause in their hurrying and searching, and listened a moment, as if something in them was being touched, reached - and I went forward to stand beside him, and using him as a focal point, called out, "Friends, friends, I have something to tell you... do you remember me? I am Johor, Emissary from Canopus..." They stared. They turned away. It was not that they were hostile: they were not able to take in what I said.

I sat beside David the storyteller, who had become silent, and was sitting with his strong brown arms around his knees, musing, thoughtful.

"Do you remember me, David?" I asked. "I have talked with you many times, and as recently as a month ago. I asked you to watch what happened here, and tell me when I got back. I've been in the Crescent City."

He spread his white teeth in a great smile, one every bit as warm and attractive as before, but his eyes held no recognition.

"We are friends, you and I," I said, and sat with him for a time. But he got up and wandered off, forgetting I was there.

As for me, I stayed where I was, watching the turmoil, thinking. It was clear that things were worse than had been foreseen on Canopus. My own link with Canopus was quite lost, even with the aid of the Signature. I had to make decisions on my own account, and with insufficient information. For instance, I did not know what was happening in the Sirian territories. Where had the rebellious Giants gone? I had no means of finding out. Was the degradation of the Natives complete, or was it partially reversible? What was the situation in all the other cities?

For some hours I took no action, but observed the general restlessness, which grew worse. I then moved among the poor brutes, and saw that the by now very strong vibrations of the city and its environing Stones were causing real physical damage. They clutched their heads as they ran, or let out short howls or screams of pain, but always with a look of incredulity and wonder, for pain had not often been their lot. In fact most never knew it at all. Occasionally one might break a limb; and then there was the rare epidemic; but these happened so seldom that they were talked of as distant contingencies. Headaches, toothaches, sickness, bone aches, joint aches, disorders of the eyes and ears - all the sad list of ailments of the physical body afflicted by the Degeneracy: these were unknown to them. Again and again I watched one stagger, and clutch his head, and groan; or put hands to his stomach, or heart, and always with the look of: What's this? What is happening to me?

I had to get them away. What I had to tell them would seem impossible, preposterous. They must leave this city, this beautiful home of theirs, with its perfect symmetries, and its synchronized gardens, its subtle patterns that mirrored the movements of the stars - they must all leave and at once, if they did not want to go mad. But they did not know what madness was! Yet some were already mad. One of them would shake and shake a pain-filled head, and put up both hands to it with that gesture: What is this? I don't believe it! - and then let out howls of pain and start ru

As for me, I had not felt like this since I had been in a similarly afflicted place, our poor colony which it had been hoped this planet would replace.

I found David. He was lying face down, on a pavement, his hands over his ears. I forced him up and told him what must be done. Without much energy or purpose, he did at last find friends, his wife, grown-up children with their children. It was a group of about fifty I addressed, and he turned my words into song as I talked. On each face were the grimaces of pain, nausea, and they felt dizzy, and they leaned against walls or lay down anywhere, and groaned. I begged them to leave the city, to leave at once, before its vibrations killed them. I said if they would leave the horrible emanations of this place and go into the surrounding sava

All this was to the accompaniment of cries of disbelief, refusal, while people resisted, groaned, wept. By now thousands of Natives were staggering about, or rolling on the pavements.

Suddenly, the group I had first addressed ran out of the deadly place, through the neglected gardens, and into the Stones where the pain was so much intensified that some went back and jumped into the river and drowned, willingly, eagerly, because of what they were suffering. But some, hugging themselves, holding their heads, clutching their stomachs, ran on, crouching as if keeping low to the earth would help them, and there, outside the horrid circle of radiations, they flung themselves down among the first trees of the forests and wept in relief. For the pain had left them.