Shikasta

But first I shall set down my recovered memories of my visit to Shikasta, then Rohanda, in the First Time, when this race was a glory and a hope of Canopus. I am also making use of records of other visits to Shikasta in the Time of the Giants.

The planet was for millions of years one of a category of hundreds that we kept a watch on. It was regarded as having potential because its history has always been one of sudden changes, rapid developments, as rapid degradations, periods of stagnation. Anything could be expected of it. But a period of stagnation had held for mille

Almost at once our envoys reported startling changes in the species. The whole steamy swampy fertile place was sizzling with change. The monkeys in particular were breeding all sorts of variations, some freaks and monsters, but also dramatic variations that showed the greatest promise. And so with all life: vegetation, insects, fish. We saw that the planet was on its way to becoming one of the most fruitful of its class, and it was at this time that it was named Rohanda, which means fruitful, thriving.

Meanwhile, it was still a place of mists, swamps, and dismal wetness. (There are no more depressing places than these planets that are all warm water, cloud, fen, bog, dampness - and no one likes visiting them.) But there was a change in the climate. Water was steaming off the marshes and the swamps and hung in vast lowering clouds. More dry land appeared, though approaching the planet nothing could be seen but the rolling, seething cloud masses. There was another, completely unexpected, blast of radiation, and the poles froze, holding masses of ice. Rohanda was on its way to becoming the most desirable kind of planet, one with large landmasses and water held in defined areas, or ru

Long before we had pla

Canopus decided to subject Rohanda to an all-out booster, Top-Level Priority, Forced-Growth Plan. This was partly because another of our colonies, unstable, like Rohanda, was known to have only a short life ahead of it. A comet was expected to shift it off course in twenty thousand years. This would upset the so carefully maintained balances of our System. (See Maps and Charts Nos. 67M to 93M, Area 7 D3, Planetary Demonstration Building.) If Rohanda could be brought up to operational levels by then, it could take the place in our cosmic scheme of that unfortunate one - whose future, alas, was exactly as forecast: knocked off balance, it lost all life, and very quickly, and is now dead.

What we needed, to be precise, was to progress Rohanda up to the appropriate level in twenty thousand, not fifty thousand, years.

As is customary, we put out tenders among our colonies for volunteers, and we chose a species from Colony 10, which has been remarkably successful in symbiotic development.

Of course, a species has to be of a certain mental set even to consider such conditions: let us say that they must be adventurers! While the main outlines of a probable development are known, it is never possible to forecast exactly what will happen when two species are put into symbiosis: there are too many unforeseens. And it was not kept from them that Rohanda was by nature unpredictable, unusually subject to chance and change. Above all, it was not known how their life-spans would adjust: if badly, down to the Rohandan current norm, then this volunteering of theirs could be regarded as not far from racial suicide.

But it is enough to say that at that stage and at that time these were a strong and healthy species; they were alert and mentally adaptable; they had the genetic memory of experience in similar experiments.

Small groups of Colony 10 volunteers were introduced successfully onto Rohanda, in various parts of the northern hemisphere. There were a thousand in all, male and female, and almost at once - that is to say, within five hundred years - it was obvious that this was going to be a most successful experiment.

The interaction between the two species was admirable, both being well affected. There were no instinctive aggressions due to genetic incompatibility. We on Canopus were congratulating ourselves.

Well within the twenty thousand years, the younger (ex-monkey) race would have attained the required level; and the fast-developing Colony 10 people would have advanced themselves to a stage where they could be said to have taken an evolutionary step forward that in usual conditions might take ten times as long.

I shall describe the situation as it was about a thousand years after the introduction of the Colony 10 species.

First, the indigenous race. Nothing remarkable here: we have all seen this before, since it is a pattern that has shown itself on many planets.

The creatures were now on their hind legs, and their arms and hands were well adapted for manifold tasks and the use of tools. They had a strong sense of their own worth - that is, as creatures able to manipulate their environment and survive. They hunted, and were at the begi

A good proportion of the first Colony 10 people died early - but this was to be expected. There is never any explanation for this type of death. The infants were the size of their parents before they were out of childhood: the species was increasing in size so rapidly they called themselves Giants almost from the start. This was not without unease: no species observes itself in such rapid change without misgivings. They were a tall, strong race from the begi