The Sirian Experiments. Doris Lessing
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binoculars and judicious near approach to have ascertained that they were outwardly at least not much changed. We put the techs in quarters near our head station. They had nearly all been involved with the moves of the Lombis from C.P. 24 to 23; from 23 to Rohanda; their sojourn on 23. There were no unexpected adjustments for them to make. But when the first investigative contingent of 500 went off, stripped of their clothes, carrying nothing, not even a little food, or a weapon, they could not hide discomfort. The 22 people do not have hair on their bodies, and have forgotten when they ran on four legs. But in my observation it is the moment when a species puts on garments, even the most vestigial, such as aprons of foliage or bark, that marks the transition upwards from beast; and this much more than standing on two legs. It is the birth of a certain kind of self-consciousness. To put off every bit of clothing was hard for these Planet 22 people, and they did not like being looked at by us. We respected their feelings and let them go off down the side of our rocky plateau unaccompanied: normally some of us would have gone with them part of the way. We did watch them for a time, though: this kind of observation being part of our task. Planet 22 people are more yellow than the dark Lombis, and they had been under the sun-machines; but they were still more dark yellow than brown. The company of wiry little people were soon lost to view among the foothills, and we heard no more of them for some days.
Messengers sent back to report on first encounters with the Lombis said not much more than that it was safe to send in the other 1,500, who duly set off, naked and discomfited.
The task of these 2,000 techs was to dwell among the Lombis and to assess them and what changes had taken place.
I shall now sum up their several reports.
The first 500 did not find it easy to locate the Lombis. When they did see some out on the plain gathering plants, and were observed, the Lombis ran to find cover and disappeared. It took days for the first encounter. None of them remembered, as individuals, their capture from their home planet and subsequent events. But they remembered as a race: this was the most important change: their speech had evolved. Not over the business of the day-to-day maintenance of life, but in this one direction: they had songs, and tales, that instructed them in all their history.
The second change was that they now had festivals, or feasts, at the time of the full moon, so that these songs and tales could be exchanged. This had unified these animals. On their own planet they had lived in all types of association, sometimes in small groups with no contact with others. But now every individual without exception was expected to travel in to a central feasting place once every R-month. This was not always the same, but changed, and was situated in a well-wooded place, with a river for hygiene and water supplies. Not only the regular festival or ‘solemn remembrance’ – which was how their word for it translated; and the singing and storytelling; but the travelling to and from the central place had become ritualized and made the bonds that held this new nation together: for this is what they now were, according to our classifications.
They were, in any case, constantly on the move, changing their residences, their plant-gathering places, their watering places. Restlessness and fitful energy was their new characteristic. This was because they were using more oxygen than they had done on Planet 24. It was their chief physical change.
And here was a paradox, a contradiction. While never able to be still, always active, they nevertheless had become fearful and secretive. This characteristic was reinforced by the subject of their monthly rituals, which was, in various forms, their abduction from their home.
They had become a race of strong, indeed violent, contradictions. When first seeing our exploratory contingent, they hid themselves – because their history was of just such ‘strangers from the skies’ who arrived among them, were friendly, and then ruthlessly kidnapped them. But ‘strangers from the skies’ were what they expected to come again and rescue them … for they expected to be returned to their ‘real home in the skies’.
They had, on their own planet, sometimes used leaves or hides as coverings, either for warmth or for ornament, but now all clothing of any sort was forbidden, and inspired terror, because the space suits of C.P. 23 were the worst of their memories. Even a young female balancing a few berries on her nose in play, or trying them behind her ears, or tying some leaves around her middle, or sheltering an infant in a pelt would bring forth a storm of chattering and scolding from any who saw her – as if they all felt that these were the first steps to the so-much-feared garments; the claustrophobias of the ‘little prison’.
On 23, and while building the agricultural settlements on S.C. I, they had been supplied with simple foodstuffs, mostly cereals and vegetables. But these had been supplied and set before them and some had been cooked or processed – and they knew that prepared food was a ‘sign’ of captivity.
In these two major ways, then, their advancement had been checked, and they were as naked as any animal in our Empire, and their food was as they gathered it or caught it. They had previously roasted their meat: now this was done only at feasts, as if it were too dangerous a thing for individuals to tempt fate with. To tempt ‘the skies’ with …
Whereas previously they had lived in so many different ways, and quite casually and openly, unafraid of attackers, protected by their different associations, now they built rocky shelters for themselves, or leafy ones, always with great care – not for their comfort or warmth, but with one aim only: that they should not be easily visible. This was why our first attempts to locate them had been so frustrated.
Constant movement and activity – great festivals of thousands of animals all dancing and singing; and, at the same time, a terror of being observed and overseen.
The pleasant, easygoing, unsuspicious race of Planet 24 had become nervous, paranoid.
One of the changes had been expected by us.
Because of the disruption between males and females at the beginning, which took nearly five hundred years to disappear, the females had become the lawgivers, if not in fact, then in their view of themselves. The males were dominant in that they hunted, appointed sentinels and guards, saw themselves as protectors of the nation, but the women because of how they had been competed for at the beginning had all kinds of airs and graces, behaved as if mating were ‘a gift of themselves’: and there were courtship rituals where it had to appear as if males were fighting for a female who at last and after long hesitation then ‘chose’ one: and this even when the balances had been redressed and there was no competition for females. The females all had a rather bossy elder-sister manner, which was taught them by the mothers: this could even approach the regal, the gracious. These inevitable results of certain statistical facts do not cease to be risible because they are inevitable …
But these poor animals aroused more pity than amusement among our technicians. We were approached by a delegation from them a few months after their acceptance by the Lombis. They all felt uncomfortable about what they were doing, which was to put into operation a plan that involved lying and deception. We had expected this delegation; the 2,000 Planet 22 technicians were being observed, in the same way as the Lombis were: it was necessary for us to find out if they were to be entrusted with taking the Lombis to Planet 25 and supervising them there when they expected to be returned home.
It is our experience that if you put two species together, after initial hostility they will begin to absorb each other’s ways. If one is in a supervisory relation with the other, who are suffering hardship, then it is to be expected that a percentage of the first will sympathize with the second and make attempts to alleviate conditions – which result is often to be welcomed and encouraged – or to help efforts to escape. Under certain conditions even this second result is not always discouraged.
While we were making plans for adding companies of supervisors from another planet, which had not had contact with the Lombis, to the personnel who would transfer and police the Lombis, we were selecting 22-ers for further training in the arts of long-term judgement and assessment, and were putting the following points to them.
That conditions on Rohanda were better than on Planet 24.
That conditions on 25, while not perfect, could not be described as bad.
That