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He might have been able to find out by subtle reasoning when I was to arrive in the other city, but he had not known that Lelanos was peaceful behind its forbidden zone, and not a tyra
And because, of course, Canopus, inexplicably, allowed them to survive—but this was deep waters for me, and I was far from understanding.
I said to this little upstart that I would take myself back to my lodgings and he did not stop me. It was because he did not care. He had got what he wanted—to be ruler of Lelanos.
Well, I could tell myself that if he was a tyrant who would bring the place to ruin very fast, then this was no more than Lelanos would do for itself, could not prevent itself doing. I had hastened an inevitability, that was all.
I left him there lolling in the graceful council chamber, ruler of Lelanos, among his savages, whom he had been to fetch the day before from where they had been feasting and roistering in the forests, not daring to enter the city—I left them, and went to my lodgings, where I sat up and thought, and thought, through the night.
The low and sibilant song of Sirius, Sirius, be careful, was strong, and it drowned out other thoughts, until I bade the song be quiet, for it had a valedictory sound. And it was quiet, for I had no need of it now that I was restored to myself. Except for my shame. My incredulous shame… how easy it had been after all, for Shammat to win me over. And with such slight powers at his disposal! No more than a minimal use of intuition, as in the case of my first capture, constant brooding about Canopus, envy of Canopus, hatred of Canopus, had brought to Shammat some of the least and most lowly of Canopean skills. How easy, then, to flatter me, by speaking through my weaknesses. How easy to take me over. And now it was all done with, I could hardly believe it had happened and that I had succumbed—yet I had to believe it, and, by extension know that I could be lost again, and that I might easily have not recovered my good sense this time—for if it had not been for the low song of Sirius, Sirius, set into me by Rhodia, by Canopus, to remind me of what I was, I might easily be lolling there with Shammat now, ready to tyra
When the morning came, I walked out of my lodgings into the empty street and away from the city. I reasoned that Shammat would be drunk this morning, and in any case he would not care. He could use the legend of the white goddess, or priests from afar, or any such formulation, to strengthen his claims to power there. For as long it lasted. Why should he come after me? He might know, using the pitiful little powers he did possess, where I was, approximately, in the forests to the south of the city, but did he want an unwilling captive, one who would not grace his rule, but must be drugged, or beaten into submission? Sirius willing was one thing. Sirius sullen and subversive could do nothing to help him.
Besides, he afraid of—not me, but Canopus. Shammat might control this planet—Canopus admitted this. But Shammat controlled it only within limits Canopus set. Drunk with power, with inglorious confidence, as Tafta might be, he could not choose to challenge retribution.
He had gambled to his limits when he had told the dark priests I would be an easy capture. He had wanted two things. One, to take from me the ornaments that he knew had some sort of talismanic power—Shammat with or without Puttiora were always trying to get their hands on the articles powerful at any given time. But he also expected to be able to use the situation, for he had been waiting, having partially gained the confidence of the priestly caste, to gain total power over them, and to rule Grakconkranpatl. He knew that Canopus was somewhere close, for he could sense the strength there, but he never guessed it was Rhodia the wardress who watched and knew everything he did. And when the priests, afraid of me, afraid that one faction might use me to strengthen its position and win power over the others, decided to sacrifice me, and he sensed that Rhodia—or someone—would rescue me, he did not give the alarm, for he was a gambler by nature, always ready to see where any new twist in a situation would lead him.
He would not follow me. I knew this, having thought it out all through the long night.
And so I walked steadily south, and had many pleasant solitary days, and even some adventures (which I have published elsewhere, for the entertainment of our people), and at last I reached one of our outposts, from which I could send a message for an aircraft to come fetch me.
And so ended my descent into Shammat-nature. Ended, at least, outwardly. But inwardly it was a different matter. It is not possible to become a subject of Shammat, even temporarily, without being affected, profoundly, and for long time, in every fibre of oneself.
When I reached our headquarters for the supervision of the Colony 9 animals, I spent a short time restoring my i
It had to be decided what was to be done with the city, Grakconkranpatl. I thought long and hard about this. Easy enough to blast the whole place out of existence. But there was no way of preventing another just as bad coming into being. And looking at it from the overall view (which after all it was my responsibility to do), these indigenous cultures—if it was accurate to call cultures native when the origin of their genes lay so far from Rohanda, in such distant planets—were useful to us. Some of them provided social laboratories without any effort on our part. I decided to rescue our 2,000 captives, and sent five cargo planes, with ten armed craft for support. These flew back and forth over Grakconkranpatl for a sufficient time, and then the cargo planes descended at the prison farms where the animals were working in chains. The 2,000 were returned to the settlement in the high peaks. It was felt that their sojourn in the lower areas, and then a re-introduction to the harsh conditions, would strengthen them and further their adaptability. And so it turned out.
As the future of these animals does not concern this narrative further, I will summarize. The controlled explosions on Planet 3 (1) did not affect its atmosphere in the way it had been hoped. The crawling plant-animals were destroyed, however. This did not seem to be likely to change the planet’s atmosphere in any way, but some of our biologists complained that we had destroyed a unique and irreplaceable species. The usual arguments took place: “You ca