The Sirian Experiments

The success of this experiment influenced how we set up our stations on the Rohandan moon.

A necessary word about my state of mind. I remained on Rohanda for a considerable time after my experience as a captive. I recognised that I had been in an unhealthy and dangerous emotional condition. I knew that this was not a new thing: its origin was due to the situation of Sirius itself. I felt that I should do something about it, change myself in some way—at least not remain as I had been: capable of such foolhardiness and almost cynical indifference. But time did not seem to improve me. Discussions with Ambien I led to no more than assurances of mutual support, and declarations that we understood each other’s metaphysical situation: for my mood was not confined to myself, and the briefest of exploratory conversations with others of our Service revealed how general the unease had become.

What slowly hardened in me was a feeling of resentment, or at least puzzlement, over the behaviour of Rhodia, or Nasar. Why had I been led into such temptation? For what purpose? I had succumbed, had freed myself—or, rather, had recognised in myself the implanted reminders of Canopus, which were the means by which I saw my situation and could free myself. But what had it all been for?

And this thought, or emotion, was directly linked to, fed by, an astonishment, a sick angry disbelief that Shammat—was so paltry! Who was, what was, this power that held Rohanda in thrall? Tafta was an insignificantly nasty half-animal who had acquired some minor capacities that allowed him petty tricks. He was not more than crafty and cu

All these thoughts, and many others on these lines, conflicted in me and at length I found it all too much, and I shut a door on them. Enough. I had been proved to be gullible and feeble. I knew it. I was not going to deny it. I flew away from Rohanda, with a dissatisfaction in me I was not equipped to handle.

This dwindled into a dry sorrow, which was not far from the “existential malady,” or so I found, when subjecting it to my dispassionate judgment.

I was away from Rohanda for some time.

The experiments being undertaken there, less biosociological than strictly scientific, laboratory stuff, did not interest me very much. I followed the progress of only one. The atmosphere of Rohanda is 80 percent nitrogen. Yet its mammals subsist on less than 20 percent oxygen. The idea was to breed an animal capable of living on nitrogen, or at least a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen.

Many and ingenious were the experiments, which had to end because all of Isolated S.C. II was overrun by an empire ruled by Grakconkranpatl and Lelanos. This uneasy alliance. Alliances between two partners equal in strength and much the same aim in my experience have to be unstable. They last only when one is in a generously tutelary relationship with the other. Our history is in point. Lelanos had become as horrible a place as the other. The Lela

But I was not disposed to concern myself much with Rohanda. Affairs elsewhere in our Empire seemed more important. When I got message from Canopus, inviting me to a discussion “on the present situation in Rohanda, with particular attention to the Isolated Southern Continent II,” I at first ignored this order. For it was one. I was then sent a message signed by Klorathy of whom I had never ceased to think, and who was always at the back of my mind, even when I was much occupied elsewhere. What he said was that “the present situation in the continents under your control is disadvantageously affecting all of Rohanda.”

Now, I was quite aware that both the Southern Continents were populated by warring, savage, degenerated tribes. But when we had wanted the use of these two continents for—mostly—experimental purposes, it was not in my mind that our responsibilities should also be altruistic. I saw no reason why Sirius should not simply leave Rohanda altogether. Canopus was welcome to both Southern Continents. Nor did my reports indicate that the state of affairs in the northern hemisphere was much to the credit of Canopus. If our uses of Rohanda could not be described as having led to an improvement of the place, then the same had to be said about Canopus.

So I saw things then.

I was reluctant to accede to Klorathy’s invitation, because it was to discuss a squalid and unsatisfactory planet full of brutes who could be relied upon for only one thing—to kill each other on one pretext or another at the first opportunity.

If Klorathy had sent me an invitation to visit him on Canopus—or to discuss other planets that concerned us—yes.

I was disappointed. I felt as if I had been waiting, perhaps only half-consciously, for the development of an unfulfilled friendship, and then been offered participation in a dreary task that by definition could not succeed. I sent a message to Canopus that I could not meet Klorathy, “though I might be able to find time later.” There no satisfaction for me in this gesture. I felt only an intensification of my aridity. But a task that I knew I would find difficult and absorbing was waiting for me at the end of the Galaxy. As I prepared to leave, I was again summoned to a top-level conference. It concerned Rohanda, or rather, her moon. It had of course been known to us that Shammat was established on this small and unpleasant planet. Now it appeared there were new developments. I appointed someone to represent me at this conference, turned my mind from Rohanda—and found that as I went about my preparations for leaving, possibly for a long time, it as if, again, my ears were being filled with an insinuating memory. Sirius, I heard, Sirius, Sirius… and I could not free myself of it. Waves of this insidious whispering came up in me, so that I could hear nothing else, and ebbed, leaving a silence that I knew was waiting to be filled with Sirius, Sirius. In Nasar’s voice. In Rhodia’s. And in Klorathy’s. And in voices I had never heard but knew I would. I stubbornly ignored this call, or tried to, making my mind dwell on problems distant and different from Rohanda’s and found that no matter what I did, the whispering grew, so that I would find myself standing quite still, some task forgotten, listening.