The Sirian Experiments

We had come up against a problem, central to the development of our Empire, which the Lombi Experiment was directly concerned with. It was this: as soon as we had colonized a new planet that already had on it an indigenous population, and even if these were at the beginning not more advanced than apes, or other types of animal, almost at once they saw themselves as defrauded of benefits and advances that they were entitled to. Over and over again we had seen this development. Our administrators would arrive on such a planet, and it could still be in a condition of first-degree savagery, and in no time at all, it was clear that a process of rapid social evolution had been begun, which might express itself in many ways, one of which was rebellions and revolts that at the start, and before we understood the causes, had to be put down by force. For it was then believed that this impulse towards self-betterment was due to crude envy and primitive emulation, and was regarded unsympathetically. It was only later that we saw that we were observing a force for growth that would constantly uplift and progress all the peoples of our Empire. It was not at all just a question of ‘they have such and such good things, and we want them, too’, but of an irrepressible evolvement. Very soon in our career as the makers of Empire, we knew that if we established ourselves on even the most barbarous of planets, with the intention of using its inhabitants in various necessary ways for the good of our Empire as a whole, then it must be expected that in a very short time these savages would demand – at which point they would be freely given – all the advantages at our disposal. Our Empire could be regarded as a mechanism for the advancement of an almost unlimited number of planets, in different stages of development, towards a civilized norm. Towards uniformity? – an unwanted and undesirable uniformity? That is a different question; a crucial one, certainly, but not our concern here.

What we were considering, at the time Rohanda’s new phase began, was why and how the mechanism worked that our mere appearance on a planet began this remarkable process. It was one that we found embarrassing, unwanted. We needed peoples at different levels. We already had billions of privileged peoples entitled to every benefit of technology. We did not want to discover, and then colonize, planet after planet of savages or semisavages who then, it seemed almost at once, would become privileged citizens. In short, we needed a reservoir or bank of populations whom we could use for ordinary, heavy, undifferentiated work.

We had recently found, and explored, Planet 24. This was in a solar system distant from both ours and Rohanda’s: too distant to be conveniently incorporated in our Empire in a closely interacting bond. Visits would have to be infrequent, and strictly functional. But it was a productive and fertile place, with an atmosphere, and an indigenous population of animals of a common – and useful – kind. They were of simian type, using four legs or two according to need, were both vegetarian and carnivorous and extremely strong and vigorous. They had long but not overthick hair on their heads, shoulders, and backs, but very little in front. They were endowed with powerful shoulders and arms. They were squat, and shorter than any of the species we had discovered anywhere. Compared to the peoples of our Mother Planet they were a third of our height. They lived in a variety of patterns, in tribes, smaller groups, in families, even as solitaries. They knew fire. They hunted. They were at the very beginnings of an agriculture. It will be seen that their main characteristic was adaptability.

It was decided that our technicians should from first contact with them adapt themselves to their level, their ways. There was to be no attempt at our usual practice of maintaining a clear-cut, well-defined level of Sirian living – which we did both as self-discipline and as an example. The problem was the physical difference. We chose Colonial Service officials from C.P. 22 who, because of their experience with backward self-sufficient agriculture, could be expected to find conditions on 24 at least recognizable, and who fortuitously were a small, stockily built people. They were instructed to approach the Lombis in a way that would give no indication of any sort of superiority in thought or practice. It was these researchers who established our knowledge of the Lombis.

Another controversy arose at this point. Previously it had been our practice to space-lift as many males, or females without young, as we needed. But not both. There had been disquiet at the inhumanity of this practice recently. I was involved in the widespread self-questioning: it was no longer possible for us to use newly conquered peoples without considering their emotional and mental, as well as their physical, welfare. To accommodate families on 23, and then on Rohanda, would add difficulties to our attempts, but would also enhance and widen the experiment. Our faction in the Colonial Service won the day. We defeated a compromise suggestion of taking sterilized females, and adopted a further compromise: of taking not equal numbers of males and females, but two-thirds males to one-third females. There were advantages to this: not least that it was something not yet tried by us before.

Fifty thousand of these animals were space-lifted to 23, where conditions contrasted in every way with what they had been used to, and both males and females were set to work to set up the space domes. This involved their working, to start with, in heavy equipment, of the standard type for such environments, which they could discard only when the domes were operational. This was not without interest: taking animals who had learned to spit meat over a fire, but not yet to use cooking pots, and putting them into space-age suits and machines. They were able, after instruction, to manage both.

Our technicians were always with them, on exactly the same level, eating as they did, deliberately refraining from any show of difference or superiority.

These technicians continued to be recruited from C.P. 22. This caused a good deal of unrest throughout the Service, though its necessity was appreciated: only 22 produced the individuals of a build approximating the Lombis’. Involvement in such experiments was always competed for. There was not enough to occupy our clamouring and idealistic youngsters. The term of service for the technicians was restricted to six months (Rohandan time) for two reasons. One was to give as many young people as possible their chance; the other was the contradictory one that none could have endured it for longer. To live on a day-to-day level with the Lombis was to regress to a past that our planets liked to think they had gone beyond forever.

During their time on C.P. 23, the Lombis were not pressured or indoctrinated in any way whatsoever.

Previously, our practice had been to find out the structure of belief on a planet, and then use these ‘Gods’ – whatever form they took – in appropriate ways. For instance, we would have told the Lombis that their ‘Gods’ needed them to perform special duties in distant skies. But as far as we could see, they had not reached the stage of gods and deities.

We told them nothing. Our technicians were among them on 24 for a time, without explanation – and none could easily have been given, within their language structure, which was primitive. When our spaceships descended on 24, they took the fifty thousand from different areas so that social patterns would not be too badly disrupted. On 23 they were simply told what they had to do, put into space suits already being used by our exemplars, shown where they were to eat and rest. When the first domes were up, they were given the use of them. All without any information beyond the utilitarian. The atmosphere on that planet inside the domes, strictly controlled, approximated that of their own. No physical shock could have been experienced on that score. Their food was also arranged with this in view.

It was much too soon to watch for signs of a demand for ‘higher things’, for any such impulses in them were bound to be absorbed by these new habits of living they were learning. An immediate and expected development was fierce competition for the females, and a certain amount of belligerence.

Their term on C.P. 23 lasted five Rohanda years, during which they were supervised and instructed by the Planet 22 technicians, who were always changing, always lived exactly as they did, and who explained nothing at all of the reasons for what was happening to them.

Then these Lombis were all, again without explanation, space-lifted to Southern Continent I. Their task was the same: to create the physical conditions for others to use; but not controlled domes and environments, since this was Rohanda. As they arrived on the planet and were released from the spacecraft, our observers were there – but concealed from them.

The Rohandan atmosphere is not dissimilar from that of C.P. 24, but it has 5 per cent more oxygen.

I have to record that the observers – among whom I was one – felt more than a little disquiet as the poor creatures emerged on to the grassy, watered plains. They had been for all that time – to them it must have seemed interminable – on 23, either within the domes, or outside working in their cumbersome space suits. There were skies inside the domes – but false skies, which they knew, since they had made them; there was vegetation, but none they had not put there; there was water that they had set moving. Here they stood on earth that was not all sand and rock and gravel, but was grassed and fertile, under real skies … as they came pouring down the spacecraft steps they let out hoarse cries of wonder and gratitude, and then flung themselves down on the grass and rolled there, and then clutched each other and – so it sounded – laughed and, when we looked closely at their broad, hairy faces through our powerful lenses, wept: we saw the tears roll. Tears are not part of our own functioning on our Mother Planet, but they are of some among our family of species. We had not known that these animals wept; no mention had been made of it. And then they danced, slowly, solemnly, thousands upon thousands of them, holding up their arms, lifting their ape faces to the skies and celebrating their joy at returning to – normality? Was that what they thought, we wondered? That this was their own home again?

So it turned out. They believed that they were home, since trees and blue skies and grasses and freedom from clumsy machinery and space equipment were their home; and did not realize for some time that this was not a part of their own planet but another planet.

When they did, they were not given time to develop negative reactions.

After an interval while they were allowed to rush about and to dance and to let out strange – and surely rhythmic – grunts and cries, a time while they were permitted to enjoy their freedom, they were again rounded up, divided into companies, and set to work. Forest had to be cleared for, first of all, settlements of our colonizers; and then when this was accomplished, wider tracts cleared for the planting of crops, and the siting of laboratories. When one station was ready with its buildings, its cleared fields, its laboratories, then the entire work force was lifted off again to another site further south. As soon as they left, but not before, since these animals were not to see creatures more evolved than themselves, the first contingent of agriculturalists came in from our Mother Planet. They had been chosen by lottery; such was the fierceness of the competition for this work, it was the only method that could be guaranteed not to cause resentment.

Ten different agricultural stations were established on Southern Continent I. These were enough not only to supply all of 23, but later there were plentiful supplies of what were luxury products, at luxury prices, for our Home Planet. The setting up of these took over a hundred R-years.

The average life of the Lombis was 200 R-years. As always, when establishing a species on another planet, the way this would affect a life-term was a major consideration. We had come to expect random and wild fluctuation at the beginning, and thereafter unforeseen variations in life-term. The Lombis were no exception. During the first few R-years, some died for no apparent reason (some race-psychologists classed these deaths under the heading of Mal-Adaptation due to Life Disappointment), and the young that were born seemed likely to be set for longer life-terms. There was also a quite unforeseen increase in height and girth.

When their work was done on Southern Continent I, they were not returned to their own planet.

This was because, during the period between their being taken off their own planet, and the end of their term on 23, another planet had been discovered, much nearer to Sirius, not dissimilar from 24, but with only very limited and lowly evolved life-forms. It was our intention to space-lift the Lombis to this planet – Colonized Planet 25 – in order to establish on it this species, which, we hoped, would continue to be useful for general hard unskilled labour.

In other words, they were not to return home at all.

But it was not possible for them to be taken to 25 at once, because that was being used for certain limited and short-term experiments, and their presence there would be disruptive. They were therefore brought under my aegis, on to Isolated Southern Continent II, as an interim measure.

During their hundred years on S.C. I, they were in what can only be described as a social vacuum. They had not been allowed to glimpse any sign of Sirian general levels of culture. They had continued to be instructed – less and less, since they proved able pupils – by the C.P. 22 technicians, who never allowed themselves to be seen as superior in expectation to their pupils. They were not told why they were doing this work of establishing agricultural stations. Nor what happened on 23 after they left it. Nor what their destiny was to be. Some of their supervisors considered they were not capable of either asking questions or understanding the answers. Others disagreed. We took note of these comments but continued our policy, unmoved even by criticism that this whole experiment was brutal.

We were watching, closely, constantly, for signs of the familiar demand for more, for higher, for better. That was, after all, as much a purpose of their being put on 23 and then on Rohanda as the actual work they did. Meanwhile, they were set free on a particularly favoured part of Isolated S.C. II. Of course this was before the ‘events’, the changing of the angle of the axis, the slight distancing of Rohanda from the sun. Everywhere on Rohanda was hotter then, proportionately. The southern part of the continent was ideal, a paradise – for once to use emotional language of course inappropriate to this report – and I have never seen anything to equal it. The conditions were similar but better than what the Lombis had known on 24: drier, more even, without extremes of any kind. They were given a large well-wooded, fertile plain, that had a central river and its many tributaries, informed they were not to stray beyond certain limits, and left entirely to themselves. Our monitors from 22 were withdrawn.

I and my staff were established well away from them in an inaccessible place among mountains that they had no reason to approach. They were not told that their stay in this beautiful place would have a term – and probably a short one.

I was at that time much occupied with other enterprises.

This was one: observing the healthy, invigorating climate of this continent, we thought it worthwhile to transfer on to it, though temporarily, some of those who were succumbing to the mental disorders, chiefly depression and melancholy, that characterized our Dark Age. We used it, in fact, as a kind of mental hospital, or asylum. The conditions were so easy, so little effort was needed to maintain life, that all we did was to space-lift those who wished to try the experience to parts of Isolated S.C. II – of course well away from the Lombis, and leave them there to make their own shelters of branches or grass. Food was brought across from Southern Continent I. They were not permitted to hunt or harm the animals, but were allowed to fish, within limits. The idea was a deliberate return to a primeval innocence, of a kind that did not need even to be newly invented or rehearsed, for this type of fantasy, too, had its literature, and its conventions, like old-time farming. What we were doing, in fact, was really a variety of tourism, but in ideal conditions, allowing highly civilized and refined populations to experience instead of observing. Yet they could observe, too – for one thing, all kinds of animals and birds unfamiliar to them, as well as the most attractive forests and rivers. This scheme was immensely popular. From everywhere in our Empire they clamoured to be allowed a sojourn on Rohanda. Our medical profession were enthusiastic. At its height half a million were living over the southern plains, for shorter or longer periods. But I have to record a failure. The original cause of the malaise that sent them to Rohanda was not touched. Doctors who worked among the unfortunates had to conclude that if melancholy and listlessness were sometimes palliated, then restlessness, feverishness, a hectic dissatisfaction, took their place. The scheme was classed as a mistake, and ended. No one was supposed to be left behind after the final space-lift, and officially this was accomplished, but after experience in many such projects, I believe that a few eccentrics and solitaries always manage to evade vigilance and creep away to make lives for themselves. So in a small way this experiment may have affected Rohanda.

There were many other short-term experiments and they absorbed enough of our attention to prevent us from doing more with the Lombis than make sure they did not stray off their terrain.

When we were told Planet 25 would shortly become vacant, this was rather before we had expected. We at once put on order a complement of 2,000 Planet 22 technicians. Our immediate problem must be obvious: it was essential that the technicians should be able to mingle with the Lombis on their level, but we did not know what that level now was, after nearly a thousand R-years. Before the 22-ers came, we had done enough work with 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.