Shikasta. Doris Lessing
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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 great days.’ But he was talking of no more than thirty days before.
As he spoke, groups of people did pause in their hurrying and searching, and listened a moment, as if something in them was being touched, reached – and I went forward to stand beside him, and using him as a focal point, called out, ‘Friends, friends, I have something to tell you … do you remember me? I am Johor, Emissary from Canopus …’ They stared. They turned away. It was not that they were hostile: they were not able to take in what I said.
I sat beside David the storyteller, who had become silent, and was sitting with his strong brown arms around his knees, musing, thoughtful.
‘Do you remember me, David?’ I asked. ‘I have talked with you many times, and as recently as a month ago. I asked you to watch what happened here, and tell me when I got back. I’ve been to the Crescent City.’
He spread his white teeth in a great smile, one every bit as warm and attractive as before, but his eyes held no recognition.
‘We are friends, you and I,’ I said, and sat with him for a time. But he got up and wandered off, forgetting I was there.
As for me, I stayed where I was, watching the turmoil, thinking. It was clear that things were worse than had been foreseen on Canopus. My own link with Canopus was quite lost, even with the aid of the Signature. I had to make decisions on my account, and with insufficient information. For instance, I did not know what was happening in the Sirian territories. Where had the rebellious Giants gone? I had no means of finding out. Was the degradation of the Natives complete, or was it partially reversible? What was the situation in all the other cities?
For some hours I took no action, but observed the general restlessness, which grew worse. I then moved among the poor brutes, and saw that the by now very strong vibrations of the city and its environing Stones were causing real physical damage. They clutched their heads as they ran, or let out short howls or screams of pain, but always with a look of incredulity and wonder, for pain had not often been their lot. In fact most never knew it at all. Occasionally one might break a limb; and then there was the rare epidemic; but these happened so seldom that they were talked of as distant contingencies. Headaches, toothaches, sickness, bone aches, joint aches, disorders of the eyes and ears – all the sad list of ailments of the physical body afflicted by the Degeneracy: these were unknown to them. Again and again I watched one stagger, and clutch his head, and groan; or put his hands to his stomach, or heart, and always with the look of: What’s this? What is happening to me?
I had to get them away. What I had to tell them would seem impossible, preposterous. They must leave this city, this beautiful home of theirs, with its perfect symmetries, and its synchronized gardens, its subtle patterns that mirrored the movements of the stars – they must all leave and at once, if they did not want to go mad. But they did not know what madness was! Yet some were already mad. One of them would shake and shake a pain-filled head, and put up both hands to it with that gesture: What is this? I don’t believe it! – and then let out howls of pain and start running, rushing everywhere, howling as if pain were something he could leave behind. Or they might find a spot, or a building where the pain was less, for the intensities of the disorder of the vibrations were not the same everywhere. And then these people would stay in the comparatively comfortable place they had found and would not leave.
As for me, I had not felt like this since I had been in a similarly afflicted place, our poor colony which it had been hoped this planet would replace.
I found David. He was lying face down, on a pavement, his hands over his ears. I forced him up and told him what must be done. Without much energy or purpose he did at last find friends, his wife, grown-up children with their children. It was a group of about fifty I addressed, and he turned my words into song as I talked. On each face were the grimaces of pain, nausea, and they felt dizzy, and then leaned against walls or lay down anywhere, and groaned. I begged them to leave the city, to leave at once, before its vibrations killed them. I said if they would leave the horrible emanations of this place and go into the surrounding savannahs and forests, these pains would leave them. But they must run quickly through the Stones. Before they went, they must tell as many of their friends as they could, for the safety and the future of them all.
All this was to the accompaniment of cries of disbelief, refusal, while people resisted, groaned, wept. By now thousands of Natives were staggering about, or rolling on the pavements.
Suddenly, the group I had first addressed ran out of the deadly place, through the neglected gardens, and into the Stones where the pain was so much intensified that some went back and jumped into the river and drowned, willingly, eagerly, because of what they were suffering. But some, hugging themselves, holding their heads, clutching their stomachs, ran on, crouching as if keeping low to the earth would help them, and there, outside the horrid circle of radiations, they flung themselves down among the first trees of the forests and wept in relief. For the pain had left them.
They called out to those left behind. Some heard and followed. I went around among the others, telling them that many of their fellows had left and were safe. And soon everyone went. They left behind them houses, homes, furniture, food, clothing, left their culture, their civilization, left everything they had accomplished. This small multitude, coming together among the trees and grasses, saw that they were surrounded by animals, who stood watching with their intelligent wondering eyes. They were stripped of everything, as helpless as if they were still what they had been millennia ago, poor beasts trying to raise themselves to their hind legs.
Some of them, when they had recovered from the deadliness of what they had fled from, ran back to the peripheral gardens through the Stones, and collected vegetables and fruit and seeds, working frantically, for as long as it was possible before the pains became unbearable. A few of the really hardy returned to the city itself, where, screaming and vomiting, they reeled in and out of the houses, dragging out warmth and shelter – bedding, clothes, utensils of all kinds. In this way enough was brought to feed them, keep them warm. But these excursions back into the city had their black side, too, as will be seen: even then it was noticeable that some of those who had subjected themselves to the Stones’ emanations seemed to want to feel them again.
Shelters were being made in the forest from boughs, sheaves of grass, even packed earth. Fire had been carried from the city in an earthenware pot, and was guarded day and night in the form of a great fire which was the focal point of this settlement of – savages. Ground had been marked out and was being dug for new gardens. Attempts were being made to duplicate the workshops and factories of the cities, but they could no longer remember their crafts, which in any case depended on the powers and technology of the Giants.
The animals had begun to move away. The first hunters were killing them by walking up to one and plunging in a knife: they had never learned fear, these mild intelligent creatures of the Time of the Giants – for this was the name of the time just passed, how everyone referred to what had been lost. But the animals, learning fear, were moving away, at first reluctantly, with the same wondering disbelieving look as the Natives had when they first felt the new pains. And then, being stalked and chased, troops and bands and herds of the beautiful beasts, infinitely more varied and adapted than Shikasta ever knew afterwards, began a rapid movement out and away. There would be the sounds of thundering herds, and we knew another part of the animal population had fled.
Meanwhile, I had to try to visit all the cities, where I hoped that instinct had taken the inhabitants