The Sirian Experiments

All the same, I must record that I did not enjoy the comparisons I was being forced to make; I suffered more than a few moments of attack from the existential problem.

At various distances from the central city, beyond the farming areas, were mines; the culture made extensive use of minerals. The same dark and forbidding patterns of barracks showed where the mines were. Down the mountainside from Grakconkranpatl ran an absolutely straight paved road, a dark grey streak through the lush forests. This road can only be described as insane. It made no concession to the terrain, to ups downs or even mountains and precipices. Where there was a mountain it did not wind about it, but drove straight through. A long precipitous decline of several R-miles had been filled with rubble and the road taken over it. What it looked like was that some tyrant in a fit of hauteur commanded: Make me a road straight to the ocean!

In fact I learned later that this was what had happened: hundreds of thousands of slaves died in its making.

From my craft, I could watch long trains of transport animals with their loads of fish from the sea making their up to the city on its high place. I could see that it was joined all along its length by smaller, equally straight roads, for the transport of farm produce and minerals.

I had to decide how best to present myself. I was handicapped by not having experienced this particular type of society before. “Religions,” of course, are to be found in one form or another everywhere. Only on Rohanda, due to the influence of Shammat—so I came to understand later—were theocracies common: that is, societies where the social structure was identical with the hierarchies of the religion. The ruling class was the priesthood, was hereditary, was all-powerful. The slaves were kept in order by the priesthood.

The root of my problem, so it seemed to me, was the degree of cynicism of the priesthood. In other words, could they be frightened through “religion” or could they not?

I studied the reports for accounts of their ceremonies and practices, and concluded that since—for Rohanda—they were well established, not to say ancient, having lasted for over a thousand years, and since this same ruling class had been perpetuated for so many generations, there was a likelihood that they in fact believed their repulsive inventions. The practice on which this “religion” based itself was murder, ritual murder. This has always struck me uneconomic, quite apart from its barbarity. One has to postulate a population organised to renew itself in excess of the needs of labour and breeding; or if not, then accessible to weaker cultures for the capture of slaves.

Not only were large numbers of unfortunate creatures “sacrificed” continually, the method was most disgusting. The heart was cut out while the victim was still alive. This had been going on, as I say, for centuries. This fact raises problems and questions that as an administrator ca

The thought that occurred to me when I read of this practice was, of course, how it originated? Memories of meetings with Canopus, reports from our agents, came to my aid. Canopus always and everywhere on Rohanda attempts to modify and soften the effects of Shammat by enjoining moderation of the natural appetites, sometimes referred to as “sacrificing the heart.” I concluded that this emotive and rhetorical phrase had, due to the continuous degeneration on Rohanda about which Nasar had been so eloquent, come to be taken literally. If this was the case, it seemed to me to indicate that Rohanda had, in the long interval since I had been involved there last, made a further step, and a large one, into brutishness.

It did occur to me that in culture so addicted to murder, I might find myself a victim, but I dismissed the thought: from our agents’ reports I had concluded that erring slaves or captives from other cultures were sacrificed. In other words, I did not feel myself eligible. This was because situations of danger are so rare in our lives that I, like all of us long-lived administrative-class Sirians, had come to think of myself almost as immortal! Death did not—does not—often approach my mind. And so I walked calmly and unafraid into the greatest danger I ever experienced. This was not courage, but a result of the atrophy of the instinct of self-preservation.

I considered, and dismissed, plans for taking a large entourage. For instance, the inhabitants of Grakconkranpatl were dark ski

I toyed with a display of our crystal observation spheres, hovering over the city, for long enough to be thought a permanent invasion, and then broadcasting loud and portentous messages, threatening them with destruction if they raided our settlements.

But I have always been reluctant to use complicated or even untruthful means when something simpler would do.

What was the simplest of the means within my scope?

It was to go myself, alone. It was to demand to see the High Priest alone. It was to tell him the truth: that this territory of theirs, on the slopes of the mountain ranges, was not at all, as they seemed to imagine, theirs, and under their rule, but under the overall sovereignty of “the Gods.” Their astronomy was fair; they knew enough about the movements of the stars to match these with effects on crops and weather. They could be persuaded to make the step onwards to knowing that their superiors dwelled on the far stars: Gods. I would present myself as a God.

This was not untruthful, from the perspective of Rohanda.

I caused one of our agents to make a secret visit into the city, with a written message. I took care to use writing material foreign to Rohanda, and to choose solemn phrases to the effect that an Emissary from the Gods would visit them shortly, “from the skies.” I then left a good interval, so that this should become well absorbed, and took the opportunity to pay another quick visit to my dear Ambien I.

I was conveyed to Grakconkranpatl by a war machine specially summoned by me from the Home Planet. Our population-control experts had been instructed to design an aircraft that could intimidate by appearance. It was extremely swift, could hover, and shoot off in any direction, or land and take off very fast. It was absolutely silent. It was black, with a single dull-red eye on its body, which emitted greenish rays that in fact did have a temporarily stupefying effect on any thing beneath. But its shape was the real triumph of the experts. This managed to suggest a heavy implacable strength and brutality. Nobody underneath it could avoid an emotional reaction: one was being monitored by a crudely punitive and jealous eye. This machine was very seldom used. The more sophisticated of our Colonised Planets were not likely to be more than irritated by it. Those of our planets kept backward, as for instance 24, where the transplanted Lombis were, would be too affected by it: the balances of their culture might be entirely overthrown. But for an occasion like this, it was admirable.

So I thought. I was right. But I should have ordered a fleet of them, accompanied them with threats, and not appeared myself at all…

The machine set me down at such speed that I had no opportunity to take in that the long oblong or central avenue was crammed, but in an organised and purposeful way. I was at one end of this avenue, my back to one blank frowning facade, facing down its length to its opposing building. The avenue was longer than it seemed from the air. It was narrower because it was banked with seemed to be statues, or even machinelike beings. They wore straight dark grey tunics, to the ankles. Over their heads they wore hoods of the same colour, with only narrow slits for eyes. Their gloved hands held upright before them very long iron lances. Their feet were in heavy leather. They were five deep on either side.