Shikasta

Head of Government Three: This man, determined to tell the inhabitants of his geographical area (because of our promptings) certain facts that had been withheld from them, was assassinated by the military before he could do so: because of their total espionage cover, they knew of his determination at once.

Head of Government Four: In the midst of a worse than usual crisis, he made hitherto inaccessible facts public and found no one believed him: there was such a gap between what they had been told and what he was telling them now. Becoming emotionally unstable with the effect of impressing the truth on them and finding over and over again this had no effect, he had a heart attack and died.

These tests have proved that the planet is immune to truth.

There is therefore nothing left to bar our progress.

Excelsior! Glory to us! We have overcome!

Submission, O Great One!

==================

The PAN-EUROPE FEDERATION of SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC-COMMUNIST PEOPLE'S DICTATORSHIPS for the PRESERVATION of PEACE.

Integrated ALL-EUROPEAN SERVICES for the VIGILANT SUPERVISION of ENEMIES of the PEOPLE and the PREVENTION of CRIMES AGAINST the PEOPLE'S WILL.

DEPARTMENT 15. (BRITAIN) TOP LEVEL. SECRET.

To our Great Leader, All Hail! Our grateful thanks to Him whose Life guards us all with its fearless farsightedness in the Service of an unremitting advance into the future. Our homage to Him who stands like a bulwark between us and the forces of degeneracy. Words fail us when we think of His sacrifices in our Sacred Cause!

[This was a report on seventy-four leaders who emerged from the youth movements or who retained influence from the past, who were not, that is, appointed by the ruling bureaucracy. The report was based on material supplied by spies and agents. It was begun just before the taking over of Europe by the Chinese and completed and in some cases rewritten by a Chinese official. We choose this particular document to exemplify the superior abilities of the new overlords. The choice of these three representatives is of course ours: neither the British official nor the Chinese official thought he was of particular interest and both laid greater emphasis on others. Archivists.]

Benjamin Sherban. No. 24. What can we say about this decadent philistine whose filth pollutes the glorious struggle transforming the ownership of the means of production for the benefit of all the toilers of mankind. The lesson of such degenerates is that we have far to go to achieve total victory on the political and ideological fronts. We have to gird ourselves to wage a protracted and ever-hawk-eyed struggle against the reactionaries enslaved to the undertow of capitalist influences from the filthy past in order to mount the heights of true socialist achievement. This enemy of the people has impudently assumed so-called leadership of the Junior Youth of the Youth Movements of North Africa (Section III) and is openly challenging the will of the true fuglemen of the People. Under the false and patently transparent guise of speaking for the children (eight to twelve years) of those territories he imposed his vomit of subjective twaddle on their defenceless minds in contradiction to the true conclusions arrived at by the methods of comradely i

George Sherban. No. 79. This hyena is brother to the last entry. Due to unscrupulous and pitifully debased opportunistic methods never before surpassed in the history of the glorious class struggle he has imposed himself as a representative of several Factions in the name of so-called Fairness, little reckoning that his feeble wrigglings in the dust of historical subjectivism are seen through by the clear-eyed masses in their glorious climb up the mountains of Truth. He has visited various countries in our glorious Federation in the last two years and imposed his slime wherever his low ambitions have led him. What can we say about such unscrupulous and debased criminals who trail with them the germ-laden and polluted dust from the dead past? We must resolve to be ever-watchful! Ever-ready to expose errors! Ever-open to opportunities to speak out of a wholehearted and disciplined empiricism so that never again will such jackals sully the spirit of the glorious masses. This man must be arrested on his next impertinent appearance on our glorious European soil and put on trial if he refuses on his own accord to step down from history. If this should prove impossible for any reason then our propaganda is always ready to expose the contradictions and to impose the correct line, and must unmask him.

John Brent-Oxford. No. 65. This pitiful relic of the past has at times served the People's interest but those who can follow only the old routines in a revolutionary period are utterly incapable of grasping the new and the ever-growing. Under the ba

[Notes on the above Report by Comrade Chen Liu, in charge of the People's Secret Services, Europe. Archivists.]

24. Benjamin Sherban. Emotionally unstable. In my view he will respond to reeducation. He should be invited to attend re-education. With the usual rewards. He should then be asked to return to his present position at the head of the children's movement, as our representative and with an important title.

79. George Sherban. He is intelligent, well educated, with an appealing personality. He is skillful at handling people and groups. He is in my view dangerous. There is no question of re-education. There is no question of arresting him on his next visit or using him in a Trial: the repercussions would be undesirable. He should be disposed of by any "accident" that seems appropriate. I have given the necessary instructions.

65. John Brent-Oxford. This man is a nuisance. He has influence among the older generation who remember him as Member of Parliament and representative of Britain in the early Pan-Europe councils. He is of a good moral type. He ca