The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (25 page)

‘Why do you Canopeans hate us so much?' he whined. ‘What have we done? Why are we worse than anyone else? All planets have their times and turns at taking what they can get. But Canopus is always there, helping them. Even at their worst. When Volyen was at the height of its Empire, did Canopus turn its back on the Volyens?' He was running along beside us, even dropped to all fours for a few moments – and then was up, was running along in front of us, backwards.

‘Yes,' I said, ‘but you've never been anything but a thieving, lying planet.'

‘But you say yourself,' he yapped, ‘that Empires rise and fall – they have their laws, they can't help themselves.'

‘Yes, but you can help yourself, Shammat.'

‘What?' said Incent, indignant, stopping dead. ‘These animals better than –'

And Krolgul stopped and stood with one knuckle on the ground, so that he peered upwards, his eyes all hungry desperation.

‘Why can we help ourselves? Why – what are you saying, Canopus?'

‘You have put yourselves into opposition from the beginning of your history, Shammat. From your first moment as a planet, you looked at Canopus as the best and brightest – and decided to steal from everyone, but mostly from us. You have studied us, you have thought about us, you think about us Shammat-year in, Shammat-year out. You know a great deal about us. You know very well what you should do and what you should not. When you lie and steal and connive and intrigue, you know what you are doing.'

They stopped Krolgul, still with one fist on the earth, peering up at me, his eyes wavering.

‘Look here!' said Incent, all indignation. ‘You can't say that. They
don't
know. All their workings against us, their spitefulness during the fall of Volyen, was for nothing, came to nothing, because they
didn't
know, they had no idea how
soon Sirius would invade, so that all their efforts would be wasted.'

‘No, no, no,' said Krolgul hurriedly, anxious, avid. ‘No, we didn't. And you let us go on, you didn't warn …' And he began prancing and capering in frustrated rage.

‘Listen to him,' Incent jeered. ‘“You let us go on,” he says, just as if he wasn't doing everything to undo us, doing everything to destroy us, using me as a sort of pump or siphon to steal Canopean power. “You let us go on,” indeed!' And he kicked out at Krolgul, who yelped and stood rubbing the place where Incent's boot had landed.

Incent was astonished at himself, afraid to look at me, ashamed to look at Krolgul, who, mysteriously emboldened and encouraged, was giving him quick triumphant glances and edging closer, pushing out his backside as if to invite another kick.

‘There's more than one way to feed Shammat on Canopus,' I said.

‘Oh, Klorathy, I am sorry, what can I do? There's no end to my foolishness.' Incent was on the edge of tears.

Krolgul, seeing that this opportunity had passed, stood upright again, but seemed to wait for more.

‘Krolgul,' I said, ‘because you have thought of nothing but Canopus for so long, you have learned a good deal about the Purpose, the Law, the Alignments. Yet you never use them for anything but ill. Have you ever – has Shammat ever – asked what would happen if Shammat went to Canopus and said, “Teach us, we are no longer thieves”?'

At this Shammat sidled and smirked and writhed and grinned, but at the same time he looked startled, and I knew that one day …

I said to him softly, ‘Shammat, it might surprise you to know that you understand more about us than any planet in the Galaxy; as much as the Five of Sirius who languish in their exile, waiting for their collapsing Empire to understand them. There are many ways to the path of the
Purpose. When are you going to understand what it is you could be doing?'

‘This animal,' moaned Incent, ‘these horrible Shammats, oh, no, Klorathy, you can't possibly …

And, indeed, Krolgul was dancing there in horrible triumph, looking like an ape or a spider, all limbs and eyes, and he was chanting: ‘Better than … better than … we're better than …

‘I didn't say that, or anything near it,' I said. ‘“Better” I didn't say.'

But Krolgul, in a frenzy of self-congratulation, rushed off and away, yelping and squealing. ‘Better … best …

Incent was silent for a while. ‘Klorathy, tell me, what good could that have done him – done them?'

‘He'll remember it,' I said. ‘He'll think about it when he's by himself.'

Incent, as he walked quietly there beside me towards Ormarin, was far from the cocky, delighted person who had stood waiting for my spacecraft to land. He looked sober, even tired.

‘I wish I didn't know that,' he said. ‘It's hard to bear, having to think of Shammat like that. Bad enough to learn to be on one's guard every minute of the day and night, let alone having to remember that animal is … that animal is … that animal is …

‘That animal is?'

A silence, a long one. We were in sight of Ormarin's house before Incent said, ‘I've been his prey. What does that make me?'

You will see that Incent is what I had hoped he would become; his lessons here, on and through Volyen, have achieved what we planned when we discussed his future. Frail, he is – very; vulnerable, unstable, far from being immune to what Krolgul will try to trick him into. But he will never again writhe around in ecstasies of enjoyable suffering, never again be the eager victim of words. And I
can report that all our agents have come through this ordeal well, strengthened and tempered, and can take on greater responsibilities.

But I have yet to report on Volyendesta itself.

Sirius, when it was functioning as an Empire, had different plans for each of the Volyen's parts. PE 70 and 71 were destined to supply armies for the invasion of Volyenadna, and afterwards for the invasion of further parts of the Galaxy. These planets will certainly follow paths of conquest, but on their own account. Volyenadna's fate had been planned for it to remain as an occupied planet indefinitely, to ensure the supply of minerals. Sirius did not expect Volyen to put up much resistance, either to invasion or to occupation, because of the number of Sirian agents, and because of the degree to which the general population was softened by admiration for the Sirian Virtue. Besides, Sirius thought little of the Volyen people, believed them to be weakened beyond redemption by easy living.

Volyendesta was where their greatest efforts were concentrated. They had planned to establish an HQ here, to govern the planets that were once ‘Volyen' and to undertake further Empire-building.

All over this planet they built roads, bases, whole towns that would be Sirian. Everywhere are camps and settlements where suffer the slaves who have built the roads, the bases, the towns. They come from many different planets and are at different levels of evolution, but during this period of their shared suffering they have developed networks that ignore their differences and which are used to plan their deliverance, plan uprisings and revolutions – against Sirius. But Sirius is not yet here.

Volyendesta is from end to end in a condition of waiting, for the Sirian invasion. It is also full of refugees from Volyen, who are occupying the towns and bases planned for the Sirians.

In other words, unlike PE 70 and 71 (Maken and Slovin),
unlike Volyenadna, like Volyen – but much more than Volyen – this planet is full, crammed, with differing races, kinds, types, nations, classes, sorts, genders, breeds, strains, tribes, clans, sects, castes, varieties, grades, even species; all of them united by
waiting.

On the Mother Planet of Sirius the factions wage war by every means. They fight one another in the streets, they argue interminably in council chambers and parliaments and hidden rooms, they intrigue, change sides, promise eternal brotherhood, kill one another. The Questioners are indisputably on top, looked at from a formal, legal point of view, but the possessors of the ‘Virtue' simply issue orders and commands, according to how things strike the leaders and commanders at any given moment. The Sirian Empire disintegrates. An outlying planet of the Empire is instructed to invade another, which is rebelling, but before it can invade, a different order is issued. Planets simply announce their secession, their independence. Within each planet rages war, actual or verbal, as the former administrations that took orders from Sirius fight the new rulers, who despise them as stooges and cowards. Planets announce independence under one government, which can be overthrown the next day, and continue independent but with different aims, such as that they plan, or do not plan, to invade a richer neighbour or to invite co-operation. There are as many new alliances between planets only just released from Sirian bondage as there are invasions, as many treaties as there are ultimatums – Sirius is dead, submit to us! – while they struggle and fight and make war. Change is the rule of the moment: everything shifts and changes as you look. And everywhere is Shammat, is Puttiora, at work by every means, stirring up disagreement, strife, war, feeding off the effluvia of disintegration.

It is known that the invasion of Volyendesta has been imminent several times, but by different planets.

Ormarin has come into his own. All his manifold qualities
are being put into use …
‘at last,'
as he himself quietly exults. For one thing, the contradiction he has never been able to resolve, which has always tormented him: events have healed it. He speaks now for the millions of the slaves, is invited to their secret meetings, unites the Volyen refugees in plans to withstand and survive invasion, is everywhere … and was away when Incent and I arrived at his headquarters.

We decided to go to the Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases to visit Grice, who is a patient in Rhetorical Logic. I confess I was nervous about Incent, and told him so. He was full of confidence, and even insisted on being taken at once to Basic Rhetoric, where we watched through the observation glass some sufferers in the grip of the same symptoms that had afflicted him such a short time ago. Mostly refugees from Volyen, about twenty or so young males and females, in a variety of clothing that looked like attempts at uniforms, sat in a huddle on the floor, swaying back and forth and from side to side chanting a lament, or dirge, of the most dispiriting sort, that had the words:

The tune of this dirge originated V-millenniums ago on Volyen during its time as a Volyenadnan colony, to express the hopelessness of slaves.

‘A strange thing,' I said to Incent, ‘that
words
of an energetic kind should be thought to outweigh such a dismal chant.'

He was silent, his whole person expressing certain only-too-familiar emotions.

The poor sufferers, still re-enacting that moment when
their amateur defences were smashed by the invading Motzans, were intoning:

Incent was weeping. ‘Oh, have you ever seen anything so
moving?'
he demanded.

‘Incent, stop it at once. Do you want to have to go through that whole course of treatment again?'

‘No, no, of course not. I'm sorry.' And he pulled himself together.

‘Do you think I can trust you in Logic?' I inquired.

‘Yes, yes, of course you can.'

‘And it is hardly so
moving
as Basic … Well, let's see.'

Before the Motzans invaded Volyen, we had offered a lift to anyone who would leave. Grice was hanging around the courts, a lean, green, cadaverous figure with rapt eyes, who muttered incessantly phrases like: ‘If a equals b, then c must equal d. If you take a pound of pickled peppers then it follows as the night the day that … Let A stand for Truth, and B for Lies, then C is …

We took him, Incent and I, by the arms so that he would be conscious of our being there, and said, ‘Grice, you are ill. Come with us.'

‘Ill? I'm Governor Grice, and I'm suing Volyen for … Who's that? Oh, it's you, Incent. Did the Trial go against us? It's you, Klorathy? But I'm in the right, aren't I? Just look at me, Klorathy; look, Incent. What a mess! It's all their fault. If just once in my life I'd been taken in hand and made to face up to anything …

‘We'll take you in hand, Grice, don't worry,' said Incent, nearly succumbing to his emotions because of Grice's state.

‘After all, there's nothing wrong with my genetic codes! I
had them checked! So why does
everything
I touch go wrong?'

‘Not everything, Gricey,' said Incent, stroking and patting him. ‘You may think that was a bit of a farce in there, but –'

‘A farce, you say? It was the only constructive thing I've ever done in my life.'

‘Yes, yes, and one of these V-years, but that will be long after we both are dead –'

‘And the sooner the soil of Volyen is rid of my useless weight …

‘Yes, yes, yes,' said Incent. ‘But I was going to say that all that nonsense in there, it will one day lead to those Peers of yours' establishing a new way of –'

‘Nonsense, yes, that's it. I'm the stuff that nonsense is made of.'

I arranged for his transportation to Volyendesta and had him taken to the Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases.

In a large white room, with a plain black floor, and no furnishings but some simple chairs, and of course our Logics, we found Grice sitting all by himself. Clearly he was already much improved, and absorbed in his therapy: