The Sirian Experiments

So went my reports. I then made a mistake. Believing that the extreme height of the settlement would be enough of a deterrent, I did not order an increase in the supervisory force.

I ordered, however, a visit by spies into this “kingdom,” and asked that their report should be sent to me where I would be on the other side of the mountain chain on the foothills above the great jungles that now covered so much of the continent.

I wished to visit Ambien I, whom I not seen for a long time.

Ever since the unfortunate “events” on Rohanda, which had knocked the axis askew and caused seasons, involving changes of vegetation and weather of a sometimes spectacular nature, it had been fashionable for certain of the more advantaged of our citizens to spend holidays on both southern continents to observe these “seasons.” Not only the well off; there were also excursions for officials of the more lowly kind, or even of ordinary citizens, particularly the elderly. In other words, there were two different sorts of visitor to Rohanda, for whom two standards of accommodation were prepared. My old friend Ambien I was put in charge of arranging the accommodation for the second class of our citizens and colonists. This did not mean more than a supervisory eye on the work of underlings. But he had indicated he would appreciate a chance to spend time in the better class of place, where I would join him.

As this most agreeable visit has nothing to do with this account of mine, I shall merely say that I flew down to a holiday settlement, from which one was able to see the high mountains on one side, and over the top of the jungles on the other, and where we watched the snows of the winter dwindle off the mountain ranges, and rush everywhere in fountains and torrents of sparkling water. Meanwhile, Ambien and I caught up with news and gossip of what turned out to be—when we added it all up—fifty thousand R-years! We had in fact last met on this planet, on a joint mission co

That meeting had seemed to us short enough; but this one was even shorter, for the reports of our spies in the threatening kingdom reached me, and it was clear that something had to be done at once. An expeditionary force had been sent up into the mountains, and it had succeeded in capturing over 2,000 of the poor animals, whose future, judging from what I was finding out about Grakconkranpatl, was dark indeed.

Ambien I and I talked it all over, and I made my plans. Leaving him, reluctantly, I flew away from this holiday place, full of species from every part of our Empire, all revelling in the sharp new sensations to do with changing weather, the delightful emotions associated with the “seasons”—which pleasures are to be found only on Rohanda, or only to such a prodigal and always unexpected extent.

It was as a result of this meeting of ours, and what we observed together of the reactions around us, that we recommended a team of medical experts visit the Southern Continents, to see whether sojourns in places where the changes of the “seasons” were particularly marked could benefit certain psychological conditions, such as melancholia, or an exaggerated dose of “the existentials”—an irreverent name among the young for this emotional affliction. Our recommendations were followed; a team of medical technicians did explore possibilities on both continents; they agreed with our—tentative—conclusions; clinics were set up on appropriate sites; and was it not long before Rohanda became the most favoured place for the treatment of these afflictions.

A side benefit was that a new branch or department of literature resulted. It is categorised in our libraries as Effluvia of the Seasons. I wonder how many now realise that this honoured, not to say hoary, branch of our great literature originated in Rohanda with that—now long-past—era of its use by us as a station and emotional-adjustment area?

As usual, I began my investigation with an aerial survey. I had to decide whether I wanted this to be noticed, and interpreted to Sirian advantage. After deliberation I decided on minimum visibility, choosing a surveillance aircraft that, if seen, could easily be dismissed as the result of freak atmospheric effects. Whirling at extreme speed, at the worst it would be seen as a kind of crystalline glisten. I chose a day of high winds, fast-moving white cloud, and bright sun, and hovered over Grakconkranpatl long enough for a good survey.

I certainly did not like what I saw: for one thing, I observed our poor Colony 9 animals being sadly misused. I had to retire with my observations to my old headquarters in the foothills that once had monitored the Lombi and other experiments, for an opportunity for solitary thought.

What I had seen was this. Descending through gaps in the mountain ranges, my eyes filled with the blue sweep of the ocean, below me was what at first glance could seem to be an assemblage of stone cubes assembled on a high place between peaks. The vegetation was heavy, a dense green, kept back from the piled stone by brief clearings showing the reddish soil. The massive cubes were of a dull greyish blue, the same colour as certain ticks I have seen infesting animals. These great blocks crammed and piled together were the city, and closer analysis showed they were built of uniformly cut stones, fitted together. Their lowering colour, their massing and crowding arrangement, gave an impression of hostility and threat, and even of great size. Yet it was not a large city. There were no gardens or green. No central open space, only a not overlong avenue, or narrow rectangle, that lay between two very large buildings, facing each other. These two opposing facades had no openings or windows. There were few windows anywhere, and once observed, this fact explained the sombreness and the threat of the place. The roofs, however, did offer some relief, for they were flat, and each was crowded.

I had never before seen a city like this, and, if it had not been for our spies’ reports, would not have been able to interpret it. The social structure could not easily be inferred from it. I knew this to be a wealthy culture with a large ruling class of one race, and slaves and menials of other captured races.

There was no sign here of rich or poor buildings, or rich and poor quarters of the city. Each of these vast blocklike buildings was a microcosm of the society, housing the rich and their attendants. The rich, it was clear, lived on the top layers, where there were more windows, and on the roofs, which were equipped with awnings and shades wind screens of all kinds. The slaves were down in the dungeonlike bottom layers where there was very little light. Life was never communal or public; there were no festivals or common amusements; no eating places, no baths, no shops.

Around this central city, the heart of Grakconkranpatl, on lower slopes, were the farms and the mines. These stretched in every direction for long distances. The farms were worked with gangs of slaves. They lived in heavy stone buildings, built in regular blocks. From the air they looked depressingly uniform. They were prisons. Even from the height of my observation craft I could see that where there was a cluster of working slaves, there were lines of supervisors, with weapons. I thought of our encampment in the heights where our Colony 9 animals were being acclimatized, and the regular patterns of huts in which they were kept, and could not help a pang, wondering if they perhaps felt not very different from the poor wretches I could see slaving below me. But after all, our supervision was only for their benefit, to keep them in health and of course to prevent them from ru