The Sirian Experiments

Before we left that place we were taken on a tour of the compounds. They housed several hundred tribespeople: males, females, children. Long sheds contained tiers of bunks in which they slept. These were built of concrete because, as was explained to us, the animals were thus more easily protected from vermin and kept clean: the interiors of the sheds, and the animals, hosed down once a with water that had chemicals in it. Some animals took cold and died of this treatment: the hot climate disposed them to respiratory diseases. They were fed from large pots filled with porridge made of a cereal introduced by us long before from our Planet 17. They were made to do exercises twice a day because unfit animals were of no use in research work. There was a prison and punishment block for offenders, and a small hospital for the sick. The compound was surrounded by tall fences, and guarded heavily. As we made our tour, a male tribesman stood forth, holding up his hands palms out—in their gesture for entreaty. As the guards went forward to club him back among his fellows, I asked them to let him speak. He wanted to make a petition. He said that many of the experiments being made on them were u

The poor fellow came out with this in a rush, because of his fear of being checked, looking all the time at me, begging for protection. He stood naked there before us, his features marked with the signs of long imprisonment, but he had a self-respect that was impressive. This “inferior” race was obviously, and at the most cursory inspection, superior to their masters—particularly in the honesty and straightforwardness of their understanding and means of expressing themselves.

He said that at no time had the Lela

But Klorathy stood silent by me. I knew him enough to understand that a tightening of his face showed he was suffering. But he made no sign, only turned to go. And we made our way through the packed masses of naked tribespeople, all beseeching us with their eyes and holding up their palms to us, afraid to speak, but taking this opportunity to make their cause known to those who—they could see—were not Lela

Before we left the place we had to endure a long feast at which we played our parts. The feast was nauseating. The flesh of the natives and other animals was its main feature. The technicians of this place were glad of an excuse for a feast, we could see: they saw themselves as sophisticates banished for long tours of duty in a backwater, and longed to be returned to the capital.

They made speeches every one of which congratulated themselves on their brilliant experimental work. It did not cross their minds to think we might not admire them as they admired themselves.

And next morning we thankfully left.

News about the appearance of the “great ones from over the waters” had preceded us to the capital. We were received with much pomp and ceremonial. Again, the priesthood ruled, but the ruling caste did not consist only of the priestly families, as had been the case in old Grakconkranpatl. The division showed at once as we proceeded between two ranks, on one side the priests in their gorgeous robes and jewellery, flanked and buttressed by the soldiery; and on the other side the privileged families, in colourful clothing and jewels, charming and infantile as such indulged castes always are. No soldiers on their side! No guards, even! And no need of either, for they were the willing captives of the ruling priests. I shall not describe our visit to this capital city any further—there were no experimental stations there. But I shall mention the architecture. When the Lela

We spent some months in the capital. Slowly I saw that Klorathy needed this time to find out whether these brutes were capable of regeneration. The process, for the most part, consisted of listening. Or he probed, lightly and skillfully. Sometimes he made experiments of his own—but so slight and subtle were they that at first I did not notice what he was doing: I to learn to be able to observe what went on. He would test their reactions to this idea or that, by suggestions, or even mild provocation. He would implant a new idea into a group and then wait to see how it would become processed by their particular mentation. I was not equipped to understand how he was reacting to what he found in them. But I was able to see that he was increasingly sombre, and even—it took me some time to be able to admit to myself that the great Canopus was capable of such emotions—discouraged. But there was soon no doubt of it: he was containing a dry and powerful sorrow, and I was able to recognise what I knew myself so very well and so intimately from such long immersion in it.

This stay in the capital is fully dealt with in my old report.

By the time we left, in spite of Klorathy's attempts to prevent us becoming cult objects, focuses of useless awe, that is what we had become. We had to forbid, absolutely, ceremonies in which droves of unfortunate natives were designated as “sacrifices to the Gods.” We insisted, as far as we could, that such practices were regarded at least “over the long blue seas” as u

The experimental station we visited next was similar to the other in appearance. The experimental subjects again consisted of the local tribesmen, but they also used some other kinds of animals, notably carnivores. They preferred to use the natives, on the ground that these were nearer to themselves in physical structure. Also that they had done so much work on them that comparisons could more usefully be made.

At this station Klorathy made an attempt to persuade the technicians to ask the natives in a systematic way for information about their medicine. He spoke of places “beyond the waters” where an advanced medicine was used, based on local balances and earth forces, on the rhythms of the stars, on the disposition of exactly placed and pla