entertaining, particularly when suggestive or openly sexual. I am not above finding it so myself! But at the time I wanted only to lie down, and in fact, did drop off to sleep suddenly, and woke to see through the apertures, in the full Planet 11 light, contrasts rather stronger than anything I and Klorathy could provide. There was another shed not far away, and outside it two Giants, twice Klorathy’s size and nearly three times my size, one a totally black man, shining in the pale lemon glare, the other a rich chocolate brown, both virtually naked. I had always seen them clothed, because during conferences everyone made sure of being well clothed, regardless of the local climate, for the sake of giving least offence during occasions that were always quite rich enough opportunities for annoyance or criticism. They were magnificent men: I have never seen anything like them. But they were in a group of creatures half their size, who seemed like frail and pale insects – that was the impression they made on me.
As I looked, the dark swallowed everything, and almost at once the two moons appeared, large and small, lighting everything with a strong yellow glare. Their colours seemed different from when I had seen them in the hovercar, and again I dropped off to sleep, with the strain of it all, and when I woke it was light, and Klorathy was outside, talking to a group of the ‘insects’. They were not much different in plan from the physical structure common throughout our Galaxy.
They were in fact not very short, being taller than myself, but seemed so, because they were so extremely thin and light in build, and of a silvery-grey colour that made one believe them transparent when they were not. They had no hair on their tall domed heads. Each hand – and it was their hands one had to take note of first – had ten very long fingers, nailless, giving the impression of bunches of tentacles always in movement. They had three eyes, quite round, bright green, with vertical black pupils. There was a pattern of nostrils – simple holes – in the centre of their flat faces, three, or four or even more. No nose. And no mouth at all.
I was glad that I was able to examine them from a little distance, and even more glad that Klorathy was not there, because I have never been able to overcome an instinctive abhorrence for creatures dissimilar to my own species. This has been my greatest single handicap as a Colonial Servant. Attempts to overcome the weakness have cost me more than any other effort, such as learning languages and dialects, and having to acclimatize myself to places like this Colony 11, with its rapid rotation that one could feel and its violent alternations of light.
Despite my repugnance, I was able to watch Klorathy’s lips in movement and his animated face, but could not see how they talked, with no mouth. After a time the same two Giants rejoined the group and Klorathy came in to rejoin me.
I could see no sign in him of repugnance.
Without speaking, he pulled the low seats to a window, and we sat side by side and observed the two Giants and the ‘insect people’.
As I was thinking this unflattering description of them, and looking at the tentacles that seemed to flow around them and in the air around their heads, Klorathy said: ‘You are wrong. They are more highly evolved than any but one of our peoples.’
‘More than the Giants?’ I could not help sounding sarcastic, the contrast between the noble and handsome black men and the ‘insects’ was so great.
‘They complement each other,’ was the reply.
And he looked at me, leaning forward to impress on me the force of his amber gaze.
I could not prevent myself sighing – it was impatience, and also tiredness. This atmosphere was exhausting – not the chemical balance of it, though it had slightly less oxygen than I was used to, but suddenly again the sun had gone, and now there was one moon shining blood orange this time, and then appeared the little moon, a sort of greenish colour, and the scene we had been watching, of low greyish grass, the two enormous black Giants, and the cluster of the others, was lit by a horrible reddish light, and the Giants seemed to be made of blood, and the shapes of the ‘insects’ were absorbed, and all I could see was a mass of waving tentacles. I abruptly left my seat and turned my face inwards.
I said, ‘I don’t think Colony 11 suits me.’ And tried to make it humorous.
He said nothing and I asked: ‘And you?’
‘I spend a good deal of time here.’
‘Why?’
‘At this time, for our present needs, this planet is important to us.’
I understood that this reply was specific, and contained information that I wanted – had been reaching out for. But I felt ill and was discouraged; my strongest thought was that if after so many ages I could not control an instinctive response to creatures physically different, then it was time I gave it all up and retired!
‘It is not the physical difference as such,’ said Klorathy.
‘Well then? I suppose they talk with their tentacles?’
‘No. Their tentacles are sensors. They sense the variations in the atmosphere with them.’
‘And I suppose they use telepathy?’
We had no races in all our Empire who were telepathic, but had heard there were such races, and believed that Canopus had several. I was being sarcastic again, but Klorathy said, ‘Yes. They are telepathic. The Giants talk like you and me. The others in their own way. The two species get on well enough.’
‘And they have no mouths.’ I could not help a shudder.
‘Have you not noticed something quite unique about this planet?’
‘No. All I know is that it makes me feel very sick indeed, and I am going to leave it.’
I looked out again. The moons were in the sky, but the sun was, too. The moons, sunlit, were faintly green and yellow in a grey sky, and each sent off a glow of illuminated gases.
‘Wait just a little.’
‘There are no towns. No cities.’
‘And there are no crops growing. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Ah! The Giants have given up eating!’
‘No. We import enough food for them. But the people here do not eat.’
‘They live on air,’ I expostulated.
‘Exactly so. Their tentacles assess the ingredients of the air and they breathe it in according to what is available at any given moment.’
I absorbed this. It gave me a dismayed, cold feeling. It is not that I am, as our saying goes, eaten by my food, but it does not come easily to imagine life without any at all.
‘And the Giants are teaching them, as they did the apes on Rohanda?’
‘No. I told you,’ he said gently. ‘They are a balance for each other. Together they make a whole.’
‘In relation to what?’
As I said this I realized I had come out with a real question: one that he had been waiting for me to ask. At once he replied: ‘In relation to need.’
And my disappointment made me snap out: ‘Need, need, need. You always say
