by it that I had accomplished what I had been sent for. Partly accomplished: but at least I was past the worst of it.
I waited. Time had to be allowed for the absorption of what I had said. Time passed … passed …
We did not speak. At first I believed that this was entirely because of the pain of the news I was bringing, but soon saw that they were waiting for what was in their minds to pulse outwards into the minds first of all of the other Giants in the Round City, and from there – though this would necessarily be in a weaker, vaguer form, would transmit probably no more than feelings of warning, danger, unease – to the Giants of the other Mathematical Cities. This tall cylinder we sat in was a transmitting chamber, constructed to work if it had in it between ten or twelve Giants. Any ten of them would do, male or female, but they had to be trained, and so the very young were not used in this function.
The way this transmitting work was done mirrored the exchange between Canopus and Rohanda. There was a grid, or common ground, which made possible the transfer of exact news; but things had to be set up, ordered, arranged. It was not that everything in the mind of one, or of ten, carefully brought together, would at once, and automatically, go out and reach the minds of others in the same city, and then the others in the other cities.
As we all sat there effects were being calculated. First a basis of emotion, if this is the right word for feelings so much higher than what was understood later on Shikasta by emotions. And then, the ground prepared, further news would be broadcast.
Meanwhile, I was using my eyes … I was interested that among these ten was a female of a type that had been, still was, by common Canopean standards, a freak. She was taller than the other Giants, by a good span of their hands, and all her bones were frail, and long, with the flesh hollowed on them. Her skin was dead white, and cold, with grey and bluish gleams. I had not seen a skin colour like it anywhere in my journeyings, and found it repulsive at first, but then was fascinated, and did not know whether I was repelled or attracted. Her eyes were amazing, a blazing bright blue, like their sky. She, like the other Giants, had very little head hair, but what she did have was the lightest fleece of pale gold. And she had long extensions of bony tissue on her finger ends, like the Natives, who once had paws and claws. The genetic ideas evoked here were many and troubling – and what must she feel about it all! She was so much an exotic, among so many brown and black and chestnut people with their black and brown and grey eyes. She must feel herself excluded and alien. And then, too, there was her look of attenuation, even of weakness and exhaustion, and this was not just to do with this difficult and taxing occasion, but was bred into her substance. She certainly was not full, as were the other Giants, of an immediate and obvious vitality. No, for her, everything must be an effort. I noted that she was the only one here who seemed affected by what I had said to the point of evident stress. She sighed continually, and those unbelievable cerulean eyes roamed about restlessly, and she bit her thin red lips. Again these were something I had never seen before: they looked like a wound. But she made efforts to contain her feelings, straightening herself where she sat leaning against the wall, and smoothing down the soft blue cloth of her trousers. She laid her very long delicate fingers together on her knees, and seemed to resign herself.
When the feeling of the meeting seemed right, I went on to say that the cause of this crisis was an unexpected malalignment among the stars that sustained Canopus. I have to record a reaction of restlessness – checked; of protest – checked …
We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves separate. But when the Gods explode, or err, or dissolve into flying clouds of gas, or shrink, or expand, or whatever else their fates might demand, then the minuscule items of their substance may in their small ways express – not protest, which of course is inappropriate to their station in life – but an acknowledgement of the existence of irony: yes, they may sometimes allow themselves – always with respect – the mildest possible grimace of irony.
To the Natives not even this was allowable, for they would not be able to take it in, they could not understand events on the level where the Giants thought and acted. No, the chief victims of this lapse in heavenly behaviour, this unforeseen calamity, a shift in the star movements, would not know even enough to be able to nod their heads resignedly, tighten their lips, and murmur, ‘Well, it’s all right for them, I suppose!’ Or: ‘Here we go again! But it’s not for us to complain!’
It is not reasonable for the Lords of the Galaxy, moving on their star-waves, on star-time, planet-perspective, to expect of their protégés less than this small ironical smile, a sigh, at the contrast between the aeons of effort, struggle, slow up-climbing that a life may come to seem, let alone the long evolution of a culture, with that almost casual – or so it must seem – ‘But we did not foresee that burst of radiation, that planetary collision!’ With that: ‘But we are, compared with the Majesties above us, of whom we are a part as you are of us, only small beings who have to submit, just as you do …’
I said when I began this report that I have not remembered my first visit from that time to this. When it came near my mind and tried to enter I barred it out. This was the worst thing I have had to do in my long service as Envoy.
I do not remember if it was a half a day, a day, or how long it was we all sat there, looking at each other, trying to sustain each other while we thought of the future. The sounds of the city seemed far away, swallowed up in the silence, and in the proportions of this building. A couple of Giant children did play for a while outside in a sunny court, calling out to each other and laughing, their exuberance making a painful contrast to our condition, but soon the white frail Giant made a signal to them and they went off.
At last Jarsum said it was not possible for them to absorb further on this occasion, and that more could be taken in tomorrow. Discussions would take place between the Giants on how best to tell the Natives, or if anything should be said at all. Meanwhile, there was my room, furnished, they all hoped, to make me as comfortable as possible. If I wished to stroll abroad, I should, for I was free to do exactly as I wished. And food would be available at such a time … oh, all the courtesies, everything of the kindest and pleasantest. But I felt my heart was breaking. I have to say it, in all the banality of these words. That is how I felt: desolation, an unutterable blankness and emptiness, and I was absorbing these emotions from the Giants, who were feeling all this and more.
Next day I was summoned early to the transmitting room. There were ten Giants waiting, different ones, but I did not feel any strangeness with them.
When the Giants left now, how would the Natives’ carefully fostered and trained expectations take the shock of it? What aberrations and perversities might be looked for? And what of the animals of the planet, of which the Natives had so recently ceased to be one variety? It had been planned that the Natives would administer and guard the animals, and see that the powers and qualities of the different genera would match and marry with the needs of the Lock. How would they view these animals now? How would they treat them?
As these thoughts developed in our minds that morning, I was needing, and urgently, to introduce Shammat. So strong was this current in me that I was surprised they did not introduce Shammat themselves. And I think that a strain of uneasiness, and even suspicion, did indicate that the theme was ready to surface. But it did not. Not then. I had to take my own cue from them, to wait on their signals and decisions. Soon the end of that session was decided on, and I was dismissed, again with courtesies.
This time I availed myself of the invitation to move about as I wished, and I returned to the parts of the Round City where I would find the Natives. Everything seemed flourishing and normal. I moved from group to group, and talked to anyone who had time to talk to me. At first I said I was visiting from the Crescent City, but soon found that travel was common among them, and did not want to reveal myself then. I discovered that an ovoid city very far in the north,
