The Making of the Representative for Planet 8

  It was on that journey, while we huddled together as the light went, that one of us – Marl, he who had once been the expert breeder of now extinct animals – did not settle down immediately with the rest of us, but piled a snowdrift higher with his hands, making a windbreak that would save us from some discomfort. Marl had always been a strong and well-built man, and even now was able to move with some lightness and purpose, his movements precise, a pleasure to watch. We were watching: saw in that face, thinned as all our faces were, a concentration and an effort that brought us all up again to our feet – to determination, to self-discipline. And that night and the succeeding nights we all built walls, which grew higher, so that we sheltered deep inside a circle of piled snow that grew inwards at its top; and soon we spent our nights inside domes of packed snow. These on calmer nights remained firm above and around us, but when the blizzards came they blew away into the storm. And so we learned to pack the snow hard into massive pieces and piled them up; and knew that we had found a way of making some kind of dwelling for our homeless ones, who could not any longer stay in the tall buildings, and who were so unwelcome in the overcrowded households. Masson, the chief of the Representatives for Housing and Sheltering, was at work throughout the journey, mostly with Marl, packing snow this, way and that way, using chunks of ice as strengtheners, experimenting with apertures and placing them high and low – finally making short tunnels that we crept along into the snowhouses, so that our bodies’ heat would not be wasted.

  So that journey accomplished more than only making sure our wall still stood firm and whole. And we were reminded that effort of one kind often brings as a reward accomplishments and knowledge that have not been envisaged at all. And we returned to our various hometowns and settlements with the determination to rouse our torpid peoples to effort – effort almost of any sort.

  I, and Marl, and Klin, he who had once brought into being so many delightful varieties of fruit, and the girl Alsi, went around and about and in and out of dwellings and households, exhorting and talking, and pleading.

  How many times did I enter a dark building, where a small glow of light lit up what seemed like a herd of beasts asleep on the floor. But they were our people, deep inside the animal pelts; and faces lifted unwillingly from under covering arms, or out of hoods of fur, and eyes watched me as I strode about, trying to impress on them that vigorous movement was indeed still possible. The eyes moved slowly, their gleam being extinguished at every moment as sleep closed them, then I saw them glitter again … it was like coming at dusk on a hillside where a herd of our great beasts had lain down to rest and, seeing us come near, they lifted their heads and stared, wondering if this time we were a danger, and then, deciding not, the shine of many pairs of eyes vanished as they turned away the great heavily horned heads. Oh, it was so stuffy and unpleasant in our dwellings now! How I disliked having to make my way into them, and stand there, trying to look alert and awake, when the foetid atmosphere, the general torpor, the cold, dulled my mind and made me want only to lie down with them all and sleep away my life – until Canopus came.

  ‘Is Canopus here yet?’ – I heard, everywhere, from these dark smelly interiors, and this anxious needy cry seemed to ring in my ears all the time as I went about my work.

  We had managed to arouse enough young and strong people to extend the sheds and runs where Alsi was breeding the snow animals. These covered a large area near our town; and the system Alsi had worked out was in operation in all our towns. Being creatures of the cold, they did not need much shelter. We provided for them something like the caves which we believed were their original breeding places, made out of rock and piled with lichens and moss. The animals were kept in bounds by walls of the half-frozen earth of the tundra. They were now as important a source of food as the herds of great beasts. Feeding them was a problem we did not expect to solve. Vegetable matter of some sort was what they had to have, and their need for it competed with ours. They had learned to accept a diet of lichens, mosses, and the new kinds of low-growing tough plants that now were the planet’s chief vegetation. But these were what we too were eating, made into broths and stews of all kinds, when we could not stand for one more minute the monotony of meat. But what these animals gave us was meat – again meat; but at least, because they seemed to thrive on so little, the return from them was greater than if we ate the lichens and the bitter woody plants.

  To breed them was economic, was sensible. But we did not like them. Had no affection for them.

  In captivity they had become clumsy, slow-moving animals, their whiteness dimmed by the necessary and inevitable dirt of their pens and caves. I often stood there beside Alsi, to watch them. She, this most capable and inventive tender of animals, did not like her work. She wore, often enough, a rueful sort of grimace on that pleasant broad face of hers; and her eyes that shone out of the deep hood of fur had an apology in them. For what? I knew, well enough! So did we all. When Alsi, Klin, or Marl, or myself, had about us a certain look of deprecation, defensiveness, it was because we did not like what we had to do!

  Imprisonment had changed, too, the nature of these creatures: they were unlikeable and unresponsive, and their bright expressionless blue eyes stared back at us from the soiled white faces. But in her own quarters, which she shared with brothers and a sister, Alsi had two of these little creatures as pets. And there they played and bounded about, and were delightfully affectionate. They greeted the approach of any one of us with little trills of pleasure, and they loved to nestle close or to creep into the folds of a coat or a scarf, where they lay blinking soft blue eyes that were all mischief and friendliness. Such was the real nature of the beasts we had made unpleasant prisoners.

  Sometimes I went out by myself when there was soft snow falling, and stood quite still, and soon I saw a gentle darting movement which was not the blowing or settling of the snowflakes. If I stared long enough, my eyes attuned to what I hoped to see, this subtle shadowy movement took shape, and I was looking at the little snow animals, wild ones, that seemed to lift, and settle, and then run through the white fall, and then float up among the snow. Yes, I have seen that: how they ran and were airborne, sometimes for long distances, as if they were birds using air currents. And they alighted more softly than birds; and then a white plumy shape came into vision again quite high above the ground, at the level of my own gaze. For the flash of a moment blue alert friendly eyes shone into mine, and then there was a fast turning movement, like that of a water creature, and the white soft thing was floating away among the white blowing feathery particles. And I had met Alsi out there, doing the same: refreshing ourselves with this delightfulness, this soft delicious play in the snow – reminding ourselves of the real nature of the poor animals whom we had deprived. But what did they live on? There were few droppings from the great birds who lived on them, and these were usually covered over almost at once by fresh snowfalls. The lichens on the rocks and the plants had to be dug out by us from under snow. We came to believe, Alsi and I, that these creatures were nourished by snow; or, if we did not believe it, we enjoyed playing with the idea, making for ourselves a small place in our minds where fantasy and improbability could be enjoyed; and this was a resting place and a restorative for us, living as we did amidst a grinding necessity that narrowed us and pressed us down.

  And then Canopus did come to us. Canopus came at last. It was Johor who came, but what I saw first was a tall figure in thick clothes standing not far from the pens and caves of our snow animals, looking into our town, with an alertness and interest that made me say at once, That is a stranger. For animation of any kind at all had to strike me as unusual. Then he turned his head towards me, and I saw his brown healthy face, already greying because of the crumbs of snow on his skin and his eyebrows, and I said: ‘Johor!’ And he said: ‘Doeg!’

  By then I was sleeping in a snow dome, or snow hut, thus relieving the pressure on space for others, but it was not a place I spent time in unless for sleep. Johor said: ‘
Oh, it is cold! Where can we go?’

  There was a long low shed near the animals’ pens that Alsi used to store food and bedding for them, and I said: ‘In there …’ And already I was feeling that my strong expectations for release were about to be killed dead, for there was nothing in his manner that signalled to me: Yes, now it is all over, your ordeal is over, and you are about to be set free. On the contrary, there was a stricture in his manner, a holding back, and an expression in his eyes that I recognized. For I saw it often enough, among ourselves, among us Representatives. He was feeling that pressure of patience that is born from watching others suffer, knowing that nothing one may say will alter the suffering, knowing that you yourself are a part of what they experience as pain. For of course we, the Representatives, making decisions, all of which had to be difficult and with oppressive results, were felt, by the people, as burdensome. It was we who said: ‘No, not yet.’ Who said: ‘Wait.’ Said: ‘Do not sleep in all day in your dark rooms, but rouse yourselves, work, do anything – no, bear the burden of your consciousness, your knowledge, do not lose it in sleep.’ Said: ‘So it is and thus it must be – at least, for a time.’ And this was nothing to do with us as individuals, for whoever they chose to represent them in this or that function, must say: ‘No.’ And: ‘This is all there is.’ And: ‘You must do without.’

  So what I saw in Johor’s eyes was what I saw every day; and what I knew others saw in mine. I knew already that there were no fleets of rescue ships waiting somewhere just out of my line of sight on the tundra. I knew he had come to us alone.

  I asked, knowing what he would say: ‘Your Space Traveller?’

  He said gently: ‘I have sent it away. I shall be with you for – quite a little time.’

  I turned my face well away from him, knowing that he could not see it inside the deep fur, for I could not hide then what I felt.

  We went into the shed. It was a long low place, with openings along one wall that led into the runs of the animals where food could be pushed in. Sacks of springy tough plants from the tundra were piled up and the smell from them was sharp and pleasant. I sat on one, enjoying the freshness, and Johor sat near. He brought out from his pockets some small red fruits, which I had not seen, and he held them out towards me on his palm. My hands went out to them as if I was going to grab and snatch, and, seeing my hands do this, I could not help shuddering at myself, and turning my face away. That gesture, which I could not help, said clearly enough what we all were now, what we had come to, and of course Johor had taken in its meaning.

  Now he pushed back the hood from his head, and I saw him clearly. He had not changed. I enjoyed looking at the healthy gleam of the brown skin, the quick alertness of healthy eyes. I knew my eyes were feeding on the sight: I understood what those words meant, to feed on sight. And I pushed my head back and loosened my heavy coat, and his eyes took in what there was to be gathered from my face.

  He nodded, and sighed.

  I said: ‘If you have no fleet of Space Travellers, then there are no supplies of fresh food.’

  And he slightly shook his head.

  ‘And yet we are not to be taken off from here at once?’

  I knew I leaned forward to search his face, and he remained still, letting me look into his face and his eyes.

  ‘We are not to be taken off,’ I said at last, and I heard my words ring out in the cold silence, and each word seemed to sink through the air, as if the air itself rejected them: the substance of my words was being refused by the air, and what I felt was this: If my words are true, then what is rejecting them?

  ‘What has happened?’ I said at last, and my voice was wild and angry.

  He began to speak, and failed.

  I said: ‘There is a paradise somewhere, we see it when we look up out of this sordid place, we see it shining in our cold skies, or rather we see its mother, a fruitful star. Rohanda will be our home, Rohanda the generous one, Rohanda the planet where everything thrives, and where a race of people are being grown like particularly promising plants, grown by Canopus, to act one day as hosts for us, for the poor inhabitants of Planet 8, who also have been nurtured by Canopus, made and grown and fed by Canopus, so that they and we may come together in a match, and make of Rohanda a planet that Canopus itself will wonder over and admire. On that lovely planet wait for us even now warm oceans, and sunny fields and pleasant forests full of fruit and hillsides where grain is gold and white and rippling green as the soft winds move. On Rohanda there are storehouses full of the soft light clothes that will cover us and the fresh light food we will eat and everything, everything, everything we will look at will be coloured, we will live again among the colours of living things, we will see the infinite shades of green, and yellow and red – our eyes will again be fed with scarlet and gold and purple, and when we look up into the deeps of the skies our eyes will fill with blue, blue, blue, so that when we look into each other’s eyes we will no longer see a crazed glare of white where colour has been bled out by whiteness, white, white, always white or grey or brown … yes, Canopus? Is that what you have come to tell us?’

  ‘No,’ he said at last.

  ‘Well then? How is Rohanda? Have you planned that another species, another of your genetic creations is to enjoy Rohanda?’

  ‘Canopus keeps its word,’ he said, though his voice sounded strange enough.

  ‘When it can?’ I said.

  ‘When it can.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Rohanda has … suffered the same fate as Planet 8, though not as terribly and suddenly.’

  ‘Rohanda is no longer lovely and fruitful?’

  ‘Rohanda is … Shikasta, the broken one, the afflicted.’

  And now it began to come into me, what he was saying, my whole self was absorbing it, and I stilled my indignation, my wild rejection of what he was telling me. I sat there in my thick wad of hide, and I heard a keening cry come out of me – the same that had come from the populations when we stood around the lake, our sacred place, and knew we were going to destroy it.

  I could not still this lament, not at once, not for wanting to, because I was thinking of the thousands of low dark dwellings everywhere on our little world where our people huddled like beasts, dreaming of sunny days and soft winds – dreaming of Rohanda and of their regeneration.

  Johor did not move away, or spare me, or himself. He continued to sit there, quite close, his face open to my eyes.

  And when I was at last quiet he said: ‘And Canopus does keep its word.’

  ‘When you can.’

  ‘In one way if not in another.’

  I knew perfectly well that the implications of this were too difficult for me to take in then. The words had that ring to them that words do when presenting to you for the first time truths with which you are going to have to become familiar – whether you want to or not! Oh yes, I was listening, and I knew it, to some new possibilities of growth being offered to me. Which I was going to have to aspire to … to grow towards … to take in.

  But sorrowful indignation was still surging and sweeping in me, and I said to him: ‘On the other side of the planet, in Mandel, the great city, which we could emerge into if we could burrow straight through from here to there, is a civil war. They are killing each other. The dead are lying in heaps and mountains all around the city, because there is no way of burying them in the frozen soil, nor do we have any means of burning them for we have no fuel. The living – if you can call it living – go about what they have to do, surrounded by piles of their dead. And these are people who until such a short time ago did not have a word for murder. Or for war.’

  He sighed – and suffered. But he did not turn his face away.

  ‘How are we going to tell them, Johor?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Are you going to tell them – you, Canopus? … No, for that is not your way. You will be with us for a little, and soon we, the Representatives, will understand that everyone knows it already, but we will not
know how this has happened.’

  And now I was silent a long while, for my mind seemed to want to open itself to something – I felt the pressure of some truth working there in its depths.

  ‘Johor, what is it I have to understand?’

  ‘Have you ever thought what being a Representative is?’

  ‘Do you imagine I have not lain awake at nights over it, have not thought, and wondered! Of course I have. That is what my life has been! Am I doing as I should for the best, making the good and proper decisions, working rightly and well with the other Representatives, expressing them as they …’

  And my mind faded out again, into a place where truth was waiting for me.

  ‘As they express me?’ I asked at last.

  ‘How did you become a Representative? When was it? Can you remember?’

  ‘Funnily enough, it was only recently that I asked myself the same question. And it isn’t easy to say exactly when it was. But I suppose you could say it was when several of us youngsters were assigned to work on a new section of the wall. We had to dig out the earth for the foundations. About twenty of us. Well, I became a spokesman for all of us.’

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  ‘That is what is hard to say. I feel it was probably a series of chances. Any one of them could have become spokesman, and at different times all of them were.’

  ‘Any one of them could have represented the others?’