Shikasta

I really don't know what I can do, or say. I don't think I exist at all. There is a transparency around me, like a film I can't brush aside. A sort of faint rainbow.

Raymond Watts was here and said that someone had just arrived from over there and had information for me. This person had hoped to find George here. But that is strange in itself. Why should he. I told Raymond to bring this "someone" here.

I have to go, must leave at once. The "someone" said he "had access to" information that George was going to be killed by the Overlords. He didn't know George had already left here. He is part of the Administration. That means the Youth people wouldn't trust him. Raymond Watts trusts him because he said he had "gone bad" from the Administration's view.

I have to tell George. Warn him. He might not know.

Suza

What right has Suza

This is your home, Rachel, this is where you belong. And of course you must be with Kassim and Leila, they need you. Over and over again.

Why do they need me? They need her! Why should the world need Rachel Sherban if it has Suza

Of course she would be only too delighted to be left here in this flat in complete charge and owning the children. She is here. She is in my parents' room. She is positioned just right for George when he gets back. If he gets back.

I don't mean the things about Suza

She says and says and says that George doesn't want me to rush off after him. How does she know? Yes of course George did say I should stay here, but did he know then that this man was going to turn up? I have to go quickly, I know how I can do it, I have been thinking how. Suza

When I said that I was going, Suza

I shall disguise myself to look like him. We are very alike, everyone says so. And they will kill me instead of him. It is easy. All these thousands of different uniforms and ways of dressing make it easy. I am ready to leave. Suza

And so now we are two women, weeping and wringing our hands. I watch us doing it.

Here we are, in this flat, the two of us with two children, a family, and she leans all over me and makes me cups of soup and gives me her rations, and says, You must eat, Ra-chel, you must sleep, Ra-chel. She has altered all the furniture in Mother's and Father's room. There is no reason why she shouldn't. I've watched her stand in the door smiling in at the room, as if she had been given something wrapped in pretty paper and she doesn't want to unwrap it for fear of spoiling the paper.

When I saw this I kissed her. I loved her for it. I wished I could give her everything wrapped in pretty paper to make up for the awful things that have happened to her, and that she came through. I can't imagine anything that could defeat Suza

I am leaving tomorrow.

COMRADE CHEN LIU, to PEKING:

re the GEORGE SHERBAN situation

Attempts to dispose of this dangerous man have failed. What went wrong is not clear. A woman impersonating him, who we later discovered was his sister, appeared in various places, but not where he was scheduled to be: he has never made any attempt to disguise his movements. This woman was wearing the uniform of Section 3, North African Youth Movements, while leaving Tunis and arriving in Spain - aided by the Youth networks, and getting lifts with various types of military vehicle. In the south of France she changed to clothes commonly worn by the said George Sherban, and succeeded in passing for him, but only for a few days. Appearing in towns and encampments where he was not expected, and behaving in a bizarre ma

These theatrical events are not all that obscure this situation. For instance, we expected George Sherban to seek election as representative for all North Africa, and we are informed that he would certainly have succeeded. But he did not, and made no attempt to do so. He is travelling through the Youth networks representing an assortment of miscellaneous organisations, some with status, some without influence to the point of being ridiculous. I can only believe that his ambitions are pitched much higher. I can make no guess at what this man is aiming for. This is by no means the first opportunity for fulfilling apparent ambitions that he has despised. There have been others that were his for the picking and he ignored them.