did not reply. While I was wrestling with my need to formulate the right question, I fell asleep again, and when I woke up the moons of Colony 11 were absent altogether. The stars were many and bright, though, and I stood looking out into the night, feeling soothed and comforted, but not for long, for soon up sprang the larger moon, and the light was green and metallic and very unpleasant, and I decided at that moment to leave. I could not see Klorathy.
On the table was a large white tablet, and on it Klorathy had written: ‘The exact disposition of usefulness of this planet according to Need will change in twenty Canopean days. If you feel able to stay until then, I think you should. If not, then perhaps you may care to meet me on Shikasta (Rohanda, if you insist) in the city of Koshi on the eastern side of the central landmass. I have ordered the hovercar to take you to the space-port if you want.’
It was waiting. I got into it, shut my eyes so as not to see any more of this nauseating planet and had thankfully left it before there could be another descent of its lurid and always different night.
Twenty Canopean days make a Sirian year. I attended to some other tasks and then went to Rohanda.
Instructions from Canopus – ‘may we be permitted to suggest’ – arrived well before I left, and there was plenty in them to make me think. First, there was a change in the protective practices, or rituals. A sharp one, greater than any previous change. I had begun to take for granted certain basic usages that did not alter – nor could, I had thought – but now everything was different. I will not trouble to detail these practices, which were to change again and again thereafter. But it was emphasized that these were of importance, that their exact and accurate practice was vital, and that I should not be tempted to alter them, not for any reason at all, nor at the behest of any person whatsoever, no matter his or her apparent credentials. I am underlining here what was underlined. Certain artefacts were provided for my use. Secondly, I must remember that the planet was now under the domination, for all apparent purposes, of Shammat, and I must be on my guard: this was particularly true of the cities on the eastern part of the central landmass, and Koshi was as bad as any of them. Thirdly, I must remember that the planet, since its axis had been set on a slant, had seasons – Canopus believed that one of our own planets had seasons? – and this had much affected the general temperament, already, of course, thoroughly perverted since the Catastrophe of the failure of the Lock. Fourthly, the predominant stock was now a mix of the old giants and the old natives, with admixtures unplanned and planned from other genes (was that a reminder of my deceptions and errors, I had to wonder), and this hybrid, though physically vigorous, was nevertheless psychologically affected because of a sharp reduction in general life-span, and resulting dislocation of expectations for a certain life-span, and the fact. Fifthly, I should remember that a symptom of the general worsening and corruption was that females had been deprived of equality and dignity, and while I would be able to enter Koshi as a traveller without attracting too much attention, once there I would have to choose my role with the greatest possible care …
There was a good deal more, too. I made a detour to visit our Planet 13 that had climatic seasons. How did Canopus know so much about us? Again I was prompted to brood about a wonderful espionage system with equipment beyond anything we could imagine. Planet 13′s disabilities were a result of a hotheaded, and to my mind irresponsible, phase of our early Empire. The counsels of maturer minds in our Colonial Service had been unable to prevent a decision to propel a certain planet, then in orbit with several others around a vast gaseous planet, away from its station there, and into orbit around 13, a rich and fruitful planet, where it could make use of 13′s natural resources of water and food to balance its own barrenness. The point was that this thoroughly dreary little world was loaded with every kind of desirable mineral. It was not that I – and my faction – did not want, just as much as the hotheads, to get our hands on these mineral riches but that we were not prepared to go to such lengths, take such risks. I maintain still that we were right: they that they were … The propulsion of 14 was a success. It arrived to take up its orbit around 13, again a planet’s planet, but its ‘pull’ caused cataclysms and catastrophes on 13, disturbing its balance, and making it slant on its axis. There were various species of animal on 13, none particularly attractive, but I have always believed in and supported policies that cause as little damage to indigenous races as possible. The upsets on 13 wiped out millions and completely changed the patterns of fertility – I see that I am talking like Klorathy, when he referred to the horrific cataclysms on Rohanda as the ‘events’. As far as we were concerned, these unfortunate effects on 13 were enough to prove our policy correct: but there is no arguing that 14 has been producing minerals enough to supply all our Empire ever since.
All I wished, during my stop on 13, was to check briefly on the effects of continual, often violent, climatic change, sometimes from extreme heat to extreme cold. My account of this stopover, which turned out differently – and more dramatically than I expected – will be found in the records, entitled ‘Under a Punishing Moon’.
It is enough to say here that I learned all I needed about these continual variations.
When I arrived over the designated area of Rohanda and looked down, it was with the thought that somewhere here I had been buffeted and swept about in the blizzards and torrents during the ‘events’ – and that below me must be the mountain peak where I had rested in my space bubble and seen the fleeing herds of animals and heard their sad, lamenting cry. Now I could see a dozen great cities on a vast plain that was coloured green from its grasses, and deeper green where forests spread themselves. But the grassy areas were showing tints of brown and ochre, and I saw at a glance that deserts were threatening – and was able to diagnose at once that these cities were doomed to be swallowed by the sands. As I have seen often enough on some of our own planets, before we became the skilled administrators we now are. I yearned, as I hovered there in my Space Traveller, to simply descend, give the appropriate orders, see them carried out – and then be able to rejoice that these cities, which looked healthy enough from this height, would live and flourish. It gave me the oddest feeling of check and frustration to know that I could not do any such thing! – that I must keep quiet about what I knew, and must allow my long experience to remain unvoiced. It is not often that an individual as well ensconced in a career, a way of living, as I am – with patterns of work, friends, companions, offspring, and so much varied experience always ready to be pulled into use – it is very seldom, in fact, that one may be attacked suddenly with such a feeling of futility. Of uselessness … which feelings must then at once and inevitably attack much more than an individual sense of usefulness. Again I was afflicted – as I had been before, hovering over the Rohandan scene, but such a different one – with existential doubts. It is not possible to be armoured against such feelings.
However, I pushed them away and instructed the crew to hover in the fast-invisible mode over Koshi itself.
I always like to examine a city in this way before actually entering it: one may often see at a glance its condition and probable future.
The first thing to be seen here was that it had experienced recent growth, that it bulged and spread out to the west in large suburbs of shining white villas and gardens. These covered more ground than the old city, which was earth coloured, and composed of densely crammed buildings from which rose tall cone-shaped towers. In other words, there was a disparity between the rich and the poor – a punishable disparity, to my mind. Gardens of an ornamental kind spread around the western suburbs. Market gardens lay to the south. To the east, the poor mud-coloured dwellings ended in the shabby-looking semidesert. This great city on its eminence in the plain had lost its vegetation almost entirely. The expanses of browns and yellows that surrounded it had little smears of green in some places, but dust clouds hung over the many roads and paths that ran into the city from all directions. I did not need to know more, and gave the order to set me down on the edge
