Shikasta

The man, the woman, sitting humbly in the corner of their room, stare at that indescribably perfect thing, a golden chestnut leaf in autumn, when it has just floated down from the tree, and then may perform any one of a number of acts that rise from inside themselves, and that they could not justify nor argue with or against - they may simply close a hand over it, crushing it to powder, and fling the stuff out of the window, watching the dust sink through the air to the pavement, for there is a relief in thinking that the rains of next week will seep the leaf-stuff back through the soil to the roots, so that next year, at least, it will shine in the air again. Or the woman may put the leaf gently on a blue plate and set it on a table, and may even bow before it, ironically, and with a sort of apology that is so near to the thoughts and actions of Shikastans now, and think that the laws that made this shape must be, must be, must be stronger in the end than the slow distorters and perverters of the substance of life. Or the man, glancing out of the window, forcing himself to see the tree in its other truth, that of the fierce and furious war of eating and being eaten, may see suddenly, for an instant, so that it has gone even as he turns to call his wife: Look, look, quick! - behind the seethe and scramble and eating that is one truth, and behind the ordinary tree-in-autumn that is the other - a third, a tree of a fine, high, shimmering light, like shaped sunlight. A world, a world, another world, another truth...

And when the dark comes, he will look up and out and see a little smudge of light that is a galaxy that exploded millions of years ago, and the oppression that had gripped his heart lifts, and he laughs, and he calls his wife and says: Look, we are seeing something that ceased to exist millions of years ago - and she sees, exactly, and laughs with him.

This, then, is the condition of Shikastans now, still only a few, but more and more, and soon - multitudes.

Nothing they handle or see has substance, and so they repose in their imaginations on chaos, making strength from the possibilities of a creative destruction. They are weaned from everything but the knowledge that the universe is a roaring engine of creativity, and they are only temporary manifestations of it.

Creatures infinitely damaged, reduced and dwindled from their origins, degenerate, almost lost - animals far removed from what was first envisaged for them by their designers, they are being driven back and away from everything they had and held and now can take a stand nowhere but in the most outrageous extremities of - patience. It is an ironic, and humble, patience, which learns to look at a leaf, perfect for a day, and see it as an explosion of galaxies, and the battleground of species. Shikastans are, in their awful and ignoble end, while they scuffle and scrabble and scurry among their crumbling and squalid artefacts, reaching out with their minds to heights of courage and... I am putting the word faith here. After thought. With caution. With an exact and hopeful respect.

JOHOR continues:

Warnings that it will be dangerous to delay any longer have been received. Before I enter Shikasta on the necessary level, I must make a final check on two possible sets of parents suggested by Agent 19. It is even more difficult than was envisaged to choose circumstances that will allow me to develop quickly, and with time to become independent, and without incapacitating damage.

JOHOR reports:

There is not much to choose between the two couples.

First Couple. He is a farmer, a farming technologist, and will not find himself unemployed. She is similarly employed. There are already two children. This is a healthy, intelligent, practical pair, not likely to split up, and with a responsible attitude towards their offspring. There is one disadvantage: both are natives of a certain island of the Northwest fringes, and suffer from a characteristic disinclination or inability to adapt to other races and peoples. As I have, of course, in view of one of the major tasks in front of me, no alternative to choosing parents who are white or partly so, this problem must be circumscribed. By, I think:

Second Couple. They combine between them many useful capacities. His parents came from the central landmass during World War II and he was brought up speaking several languages. They had the energy that often is to be observed in immigrants and refugees, and he has this, too. He is a doctor, an administrator, and a musician. Her mother is a native of the extreme western islands of the Northwest fringes: being "working class" and much handicapped by her origins in a class-obsessed society, though she was able to overcome these to a certain extent by energy and ability, she has made sure her daughter was equipped with as good an education as is available. Her father is of mixed race, which will almost certainly be an advantage. This woman has therefore as much energy and effort in her background as her husband. She is trained in medicine and sociology and writes books of an informative sort. This couple is not likely to divorce. They, because of their cosmopolitan background, are particularly able to view the world scene with competence and comparative lack of regional bias. They are healthy, well balanced, likely to be responsible parents. They have no children as yet. They are, because of their dispositions and their work, likely to travel.

This couple seems suitable.

JOHOR reports:

I had taken so much power from the Giants that I did not expect to see anything left of that sad habitation, its pitiful occupants. I travelled as fast as I could across blowing sands, and saw that these were deeper and wider, the rocks starker and blacker, no green anywhere, no life - just as on Shikasta the deserts spread while the forests were levelled or died of disease. The halls of the Giants were like a mirage, shimmering towers, battlements, courts, broken walls - ghosts and illusions, all, all, and I walked through them as through a soap bubble. In the great hall the thrones, the dais, the ba

I left there and walked towards the borders of Shikasta. I passed many possibilities of slipping over into the other Zones, Zones Four and Five in particular, and, remembering the lively scenes I had observed or taken part in on past visits, it was a real effort to make myself move on.

Besides, there was an unpleasant region of Zone Six to pass through, and I was not looking forward to it.

All around the boundaries with Shikasta, on a certain level, crowd the avid ghosts, and not one of us enjoys contact with them.

They are souls who were unable to break the links with Shikasta when they left it. Very often they are unaware they have left it, are like goldfish who find themselves inexplicably outside their bowl yearning in, not knowing how they got out or how to get back. Like hungry people at a feast: but while the food and festivities are real, they are not, dreams in a real world. These poor wraiths crowd around every part of Shikasta, as thick as bees. Some scenes, places, occasions, attract them irresistibly. Around the proud and the power-loving, there they cluster, trying to partake of what they yearn for, because in their lives they were powerful arid proud and ca