Shikasta. Doris Lessing

of the central landmass, then this has to be thought of as different in kind and degree from one where sparse populations are widely spread, perhaps only just self-sufficient, where a single city whose main purpose was trade and not groups of cities in an imperial bond defined an area or areas, and where one or two of our agents could reach all the inhabitants of a large part of Shikasta simply by quite modest efforts in the course of a limited stay.

      Over the many thousand years of the Period of the Exhorten or Cautioners we observe this series of events, constantly repeated:

      It was observed by us, or reported to us, that the link between Canopus and Shikasta was weakening beyond safe levels.

      This was followed by reports that a culture, a city, a tribe, or groups of individuals vital to our interests were falling away from what had been established as a bond.

      It was urgently necessary to strengthen the link, the bond, by restoring selected individuals to suitable ways of life, thus regenerating and vitalizing areas, cultures, or cities.

      We sent down a technician, or two, or several. It might happen that all but one or two would be working quietly, unknown to the populace.

      This one would have to be born, through Zone Six, and bred in the ordinary way by suitable parents, in order that what was said by – usually – him could take effect.

      A note on sexual choice. Of course developed individuals with us are androgynous, to put it into the nearest Shikastan terminology possible: we do not have emotional or physical or psychological characteristics that are considered as appertaining to one sex rather than another, as is normal on the more backward planets. There have been many of our envoys who have manifested as ‘female’, but since the time of the falling away of the Lock, before when males and females were equal everywhere on Shikasta and neither exploited the other, the females have been in subjection, and this has led to problems which on the whole are considered by our envoys as an unnecessary added difficulty to already difficult enough tasks. [See CHAPTER 9, this volume, ‘Manifestations of Envoys as Female for Local Cultural Purposes’.]

      As our envoy or representative grew to maturity in the chosen culture, he, or she, would become notable for a certain level of perception and understanding demonstrated in conduct which was nearly always at odds with the local ideas and practices.

      Those individuals who were drawn to our envoy, by liking, or – as often happened – first by antagonism overcome by a growth of understanding which became liking, formed a core or nucleus which could be used to strengthen and maintain the link, the bond.

      In the earlier times, these individuals were often many, and could form quite strong subcultures of their own. Or, spread among whole populations, formed a strong enough yeast to raise the whole mass to standards of decent and wholesome living in conformity with the general needs of Canopus. Then, as time passed, because of the growth of populations everywhere, which meant always less of the substance-of-we-feeling to go around, and because of the always growing strength of Shammat, there were fewer and fewer individuals who could respond, or who, having responded initially, were able to maintain this response as a living and constantly renewed contact with us, with Canopus. In a city where the mass of the population had sunk to total self-interest, it was common that there might be one, or two, of our link-individuals, no more, desperately struggling to survive. Sometimes whole civilizations had none, had never had any, of this ‘yeast’; or, if our efforts had been successful in seeding a few, they were quickly driven out, or destroyed, or themselves succumbed from the weight of the pressures on them. Sometimes it was only in madhouses or as outcasts in the deserts that these valuable individuals could survive at all.

      It has not been unknown for some of our own envoys, not more than a few, however, to fall victim of these pressures, either temporarily or permanently. In the latter case, they were subjected to long periods of rehabilitation on their return to Canopus, or sent to a suitable colonized planet to recover.

      During the entire period under review, religions of any kind flourished. Those that concern us most here took their shape from the lives or verbal formulations of our envoys. This happened more often than not, and can be taken as a rule: every one of our public cautioners left behind a religion, or cult, and many of the unknown ones did, too.

      These religions had two main aspects. The positive one, at their best: a stabilization of the culture, preventing the worst excesses of brutality, exploitation, and greed. The negative: a priesthood manipulating rules, regulations, with punitive inflexibility; sometimes allowing, or exacerbating, excesses of brutality, exploitation, and greed. These priesthoods distorted what was left of our envoys’ instruction, if it was understood by them at all, and created a self-perpetuating body of individuals totally identified with their invented ethics, rules, beliefs, and who were always the worst enemies of any envoys we sent.

      These religions were a main difficulty in the way of maintaining Shikasta in our system.

      They have often been willing agents of Shammat.

      At no time during this period was it possible for an envoy to approach any part of Shikasta without having to outwit, stave off, or in some way make harmless, these representatives of ‘God’, ‘the Gods’, or whatever was the current formulation. Often our emissaries have been persecuted, or murdered, or worse – for everything of their instruction, vital and necessary to that particular place and time, was distorted. Very often the grip a ‘religion’ had on a culture, or even a whole continent, was so pervasive that our agents could make no impact there at all, but had to work elsewhere on Shikasta where conditions were less monolithic, perhaps even – according to current ideas – more primitive. Many times in the history of Shikasta our bond has been maintained by a culture or subculture considered contemptible by the ruling power, which was nearly always a combination of the military and a religion: the military using the priests, or the priests the military.

      For long periods of the history of Shikasta we can sum up the real situation thus: that in such and such a place, a few hundred, or even a handful, of individuals, were able with immense difficulty to adapt their lives to Canopean requirements, and thus saved the future of Shikasta.

      The longer this process continued, the harder it was for our agents to make their way through the meshes of the emotional and intellectual formulations originating from former visitors. Shikasta was an olla podrida of cults, beliefs, religions, creeds, convictions; there was no end to them, and each of our envoys had to take into account the fact that even before he, she, was dead, his instruction would have already taken flight into fantasy, or been hardened into dogma: each knew that this newly minted, fresh, flexible method, adapted for that particular phase, would, before he had finished his work, have been captured by the Shikastan Law, and become mechanical, useless. She, he, would be working against not only a thousand past frozen formulations, but his own … An envoy put it like this: it was as if he were running a race at the top of his speed, to keep ahead of his own words and actions springing up just behind him, and turning into enemies – what had been alive and functional a few minutes ago was already dead and used by the dead. By the representatives and captives of Shammat who, in this particular epoch, brought itself to a height of beastliness, of effective destructiveness, and almost entirely on what was channelled off from Shikasta. Shammat representatives were always on Shikasta, just as ours were. Shammat captured whole cultures, civilizations, so that they were never anything but out of our reach. Shammat was, from its own point of view, an entirely successful colonizer of Shikasta. But never entirely, never totally. This was not possible.

      The major religions of the last days were all founded by Grade I emissaries. The last of these religions remained somewhat less riven and sectarian than the others. It was on its popular level a simple, emotional religion, and its basis was a scripture whose lowest reach of understanding – the level on which the religion was stabilized – was all threats and promises, for this was all that Shikastans by now could respond to. By then, very few of them could respond to anything, except in terms of personal gain, or loss. Or, if such individuals by prolonged and painstaking contact and instruction did learn that what was needed from her, him, was not on the level of gain or loss, then this had to be at a later stage, for the early stages of attraction to Canopean influences were always seen as everything was seen on