and then another. An interesting fact was that at the beginning the Giants were worse and more quickly affected than the Natives, who continued comparatively normal for longer. The higher, more finely tuned organisms had to submit first. This gave me time to communicate what I could. But the innate difficulty or contradiction of this task is obvious: I had to tell these unfortunates that due to circumstances entirely beyond their control and for which they bore no responsibility at all, they would become less than shadows of their former selves. How could they possibly take this in! They had not been programmed for failure, disaster! They were less equipped even than the Giants for bad news. And the more detailed and factual the information, the more I could count on its being distorted. The essence of the situation was that these were minds which very shortly would have to deform what I said, begin to invent, reprocess.
It was as if I had been given the task of telling someone in perfect health that he would shortly become a moron, but that he must do his best to remember some useful facts, which were a … b … c …
One morning, a good third of the Giants had disappeared. No one knew where to. The ones that remained waited submissively by the landing place where the spacecraft would descend – which happened, shortly afterwards. Three of our largest craft came down, and several thousand Giants left. Suddenly, no Giants, none, not one.
The Natives saw the descent of the spacecraft, watched the Giants crowd in, watched the great shining machines lift off, and dart away into the clouds.
Winging their way into the heavens,
They have left, our Great Ones …
went the songs, and for days the Natives crowded around the landing spaces, looking up into the skies, singing. Of course they believed that their Giants would return. These rumours were soon everywhere and bred the appropriate songs.
When they return, our Great Ones,
We will not have failed them …
I could not find out where the disobedient Giants were.
The Natives now entered all the tall buildings which had previously been the Giants’ homes and functional buildings, and made them their own. This was not good for the exact dispositions of the Round City. I told them this. They had accepted me as one with a certain amount of authority, though of course nothing on the same level as their Giants, but by now most were not capable of accepting information. Already, sense and straightforwardness were being met with a vague wandering stare, or restless belligerent looks that were the first sign of the Degeneration.
A storyteller and song-maker, David, had become a friend, or at least seemed to recognize me. He was still to an extent in possession of himself, and I asked him to watch what went on around him, and report to me when I returned from a journey to the nearest city. This stood on a great river near an inland sea where the tides’ movements were minimal – the Crescent City. Again a river made an arm around it, but only on one side. The open side had streets and gardens laid out crossways to it, like the strings of a lyre. The music of this city was like the harmonies of lyre music, but before I reached it I could hear the discords, a grating shrillness that told me what I would find when I got there.
It was very beautiful, built of white and yellow stone, with intricate patterns everywhere on pavements, walls, roofs. The predominant colours of the clothes of the people were rust and grey, and these shone out against the green foliage, a brilliant sky. The Natives here were similar in build to those of the Round City, but they were yellow of skin, and their hair was always jet black. I never saw these as they really were, for by the time I reached them, the process of falling away was well developed. Again I sought out one who seemed more aware of what was happening than the others. The songs and tales had reached here, and these Natives, too, had watched the Giants leave in the enormous crystalline spacecraft which were already beginning to seem like dreams … I asked my friend to assemble others, to persuade them to be patient, not to take hasty decisions, not to panic and be fearful. I said these things with every sense of their absurdity.
I decided to return to the Round City. If the songs and tales had reached the Crescent City, they must have spread to all the others, and that was a beginning. Meanwhile, I felt more and more a sense of urgency, of danger – I had to get back to the Round City, and quickly. I knew this, but not why until I got near it.
I walked towards it from the other side to that where I had come at first. Again it was through light open forest. As I got near where the Stones would begin, there were walnuts and almonds, apricots, pomegranates. The animals were thick here, but all seemed apprehensive, and stood looking in towards the city. They shook their heads, as if to dismiss unwelcome sound: they were already hearing what I could not, but soon did, as I reached the space where the Stones began. There was now a harshness in the harmonies that lapped out from the city, and my ears hurt. I had the beginnings of a headache, and as I entered the Stones I felt sick. The air was ominous, threatening. Whether the disposition of the Stones had ceased to fit the needs of Canopus because of the starry discordance, or whether the harmonies of the Round City had been disrupted by the Giants’ leaving, and their abodes being taken over by those who had no place there, I did not know. But whatever the reasons, by the time I reached the inner side, the pain of the sounds seemed worse than when I entered, and as I looked up, I saw birds flying in towards the Stones swerve aside to get away from what rose at that place up into the sky whose deep blue seemed marred, hostile.
Everywhere in the Round City the Natives were hustling and jostling about in groups which continually formed and re-formed. They were always in movement, looking for something, someone; they moved from street to street, from one garden to another, from the outskirts in towards the centre, and when they had reached it and had run everywhere over that place, they looked around wildly, uneasily, and their eyes, which now all had the lost restless look that seemed the strongest thing in them, were never still, always searching, always dissatisfied. These groups took little notice of each other, but pushed and elbowed, as if they had all become strangers, or even enemies. I saw fights and scuffles, children squabbling and trying to hurt each other, heard voices raised in anger. Already the golden-brown walls were defaced with scribblings and dirt. Children in ones and twos and groups stood by the walls, smearing them with mud from the flowerbeds, in the most earnest, violent attempts – at what? Interrupted, they at once turned back to their – task, for that is what it obviously seemed to them. But they, too, were searching, searching, and that was the point of all their activity. If enough people rushed around, hurrying, from place to place, if children, and some adults, daubed mud over the subtle patternings of the still glowing walls, if enough of them met each other, ran around each other, pushed each other, and then gazed hungrily into each other’s faces – if enough of these activities were accomplished – then what was lost would be found! That was how it seemed to me, the outsider, clutching on to the Signature for my very life.
But these poor creatures already did not know what had been lost.
The leak, the depletion, was very great by now: must be so, for look at the results!
Were there none left unaffected? Not even enough to be prepared to listen?
I looked into faces for a gleam of sense, I began conversations, but always those brown haunted eyes that so recently had been open and friendly, turned from me, as if they had not seen me, could not hear me. I looked for the storytellers and singers who had been entrusted with as much of the information as they could bear. I found one, and then another, who looked at me doubtfully, and when I asked if people liked their songs, hesitated and seemed struck as if they nearly remembered. Then I saw David sitting on the ledge of a fountain that had rubbish in it, and he was half singing, half talking: ‘Here me now, hear this tale of the far off times, when the Great Ones were among us, and taught us all we knew. Hear me tell of the wisdom of the
