The Sirian Experiments. Doris Lessing
forests of giant ferns were laid flat by the violent winds and rain.
There was a sudden cooling. When the convulsions lessened, and ceased, the planet was left transformed. In a very short time, much of the water was massed around the poles in the form of ice and snow. Some swampy areas remained but now earth and oceans were separated, and there were areas of dry land. That was of course long before the planet’s axis had been knocked out of the vertical: before the ‘seasons’ that contributed so much to its instability. The poles were cold. The area around the middle was hot. In between were zones of predictable and steadily temperate climate.
This was period (3), from which both Canopus and ourselves hoped so much, when conditions were as perfect as can be expected on any planet – and which was to last rather less than twenty thousand R-years.
It was at the very beginning of this new period (3) that Canopus invited us to a joint Conference.
This Conference was held, not on our Mother Planet, nor on theirs, but on their Colony 10, convenient for us both.
The mood of the Conference was one of confidence and optimism.
This is the place, I think, to say more about our relations with our eminent friend and rival.
I shall begin with this statement: that Canopus pioneered certain sciences, and in the opinion at least of some is still far ahead of us.
In my view the duty of a historian is to tell the truth as far as possible … no, this remark is not meant as provocation, though in the prevailing climate of opinion everywhere through our Empire, there are many who will see it as such.
For far too long our historians refused to accept the simple truth, that Canopus was the first to explore and develop the skills associated with what we all now call Forced Evolution. (I do not propose to enter here into discussion with those – I am afraid still quite numerous – people who believe that nature ought to be left to itself.) It was Canopus who began to look at species – or whole planets – from the point of view of how their evolution could be modified, or hastened. We learned this from them. That is the truth. We were pupils in their school. Willing – and not unworthy – pupils; willing and generous teachers.
That is why, when it came to sharing out Rohanda between us, we got the less attractive share. This was what fitted our position in relation to Canopus.
The critical reader will already be asking: Why this praise of Canopus when as we all know the story of Rohanda was one – to put it baldly – of disaster?
If Canopus was at fault, then so were we, Sirius. At that Conference on their Planet 10, we all assumed that if Rohanda had – to our certain knowledge – experienced very long periods of stability, two of them, both lasting many millions of R-years, then we might safely expect that this new period would similarly last millions of years. Why should we not? There are factors, which we all agree to call ‘cosmic’, over which we have no control, and which may not be foreseen. All evolutionary engineering is subject to these chances. If we did not permit ourselves to begin any development on a newly discovered planet, or one that has become suitable for development and use, because of the threat of cosmic alteration or disaster, then nothing at all would ever be achieved.
Canopus, like ourselves, has experienced disappointment – and worse – in their career as colonizers. Rohanda was not the only failure. I am calling it a failure, though I know they do not – but it is no secret that I have been generally known throughout my career as belonging to that body of opinion that finds Canopus sentimental. Sometimes to the point of folly. What else can we call attitudes that are often uneconomic, counter-productive, wasteful of administrative effort?
What else? Well, I have learned that there are different ways of looking at things; though I do not yet share these viewpoints. That is, I hope, for the future … meanwhile, I am saying that judged from the immediate and practical view, Rohanda was not only a failure but perhaps their worst; and yet this was not at all or in any way their fault. And why should some of us be so ready to ascribe blame to Canopus, when we were, equally with her, ready to use Rohanda for as long as was possible – for millions of R-years, as we then thought was likely to be the case?
The disposition of the land and seas was roughly, very roughly, the same as it is now. There is a central mass of land fringed with promontories, peninsulas, islands. Around it is a vast ocean, with many islands, some of them large. There are two continents, separated from the main landmass, and joined by an isthmus which has sometimes been submerged, and these are now referred to as the Isolated Northern Continent and the Isolated Southern Continent. Between the central landmass and the Isolated Northern Continent, looking west with their north pole at North, have been at various times, according to the rise and fall of the ocean levels, many islands, one of them at least enormous. But sometimes there has been only an almost islandless ocean.
Projecting southwards from the central landmass, of which its northern areas form a part is another southern continent, now called Southern Continent I. (The Isolated Southern Continent is Southern Continent II.) Southern Continent I has sometimes been considered by geographers as part of the main landmass, since its northern parts have been so influenced by the easy migrations and movements to and from every part of the main landmass. But the southern parts have on the whole had such a different history that they are more usually classed as a different and separate continent. We, Sirius, were allotted in the share-out of Rohanda the two southern continents, including the northern areas of S.C. I, and any islands large and small lying in the oceans that we felt inclined to make use of.
More has to be said about the Conference itself.
It was considered a success. Remarkably so. Even though it was only one of very many conferences and discussions about the situations of a large number of Colonized Planets whose problems, in one way or another, we shared, everybody taking part felt that it marked a new level in co-operation. And the further it receded into the past, the more we were all able to see it had been extraordinary, and this not only because of the unexpectedly fortuitous new epoch on Rohanda. Committees, conferences, discussions, followed one after another through the millennia: it was to that particular one, on Colony 10, we were always referring back, as if there had been some particular and unrepeatable spring of life and vigour there we had not been able to approach again.
I am now going to say, with equal emphasis and confidence, that the Conference was a failure.
What Sirius understood of the resolutions, the agreements, the verbal formulations, was not the same as the understandings of Canopus. This was not evident then. It did not even begin to be evident for a very long time. It is not seen now, except by a small number of us Sirians.
By now it will have become clear, I think, that this report of mine is an attempt at a re-interpretation of history, from a certain point of view.
An unpopular point of view, even now: until recently, impossible.
Until recently, I have been among those who would have made it impossible: this I must say now, and clearly: I am not claiming that I am one who has been preserving an individual (and seditious!) view of history in secrecy, because of an oppressive conformity in the official way of looking at things. Far from it. If there is, if there has been, a minority of individuals who have in fact maintained a view different from the official one, then these will have considered me as a bastion of orthodoxy. This is not an apology I am making. We all see truths when we can see them. When we do, it is always a temptation to consider those who have not yet seen them as quite intrinsically and obdurately stupid.
In throwing in my lot with this minority – if it exists – I am doing so in the expectation of strong criticism – but not, I hope, of worse.
I shall deal at once with what I consider to be the root of the problem: that long-ago war between Canopus and Sirius.
It ended in a Truce … the anniversary of which occasion we still celebrate. The beastliness and horror have been formalized in tales of heroic exploits that we teach our young. The fact is that Canopus won this war, and, at the moment when they might reasonably have been expected to humiliate us and to exact tribute