The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. Doris Lessing

was my clue to say, ‘But luckily we do …’ but I had decided against the subject of Canopus, for the time being. I saw his eyes most shrewdly and thoughtfully at work on my face; he knew a good deal more than he was saying, and more, perhaps, than he was admitting to himself.

      ‘You don’t want to know the rest?’ I asked.

      ‘It is all a bit of a shock; you must realize that.’

      ‘What I am going to say now is in your histories, though certainly very differently from how it appears in ours. I shall continue, then. Moon II – you – and Moon I were occupied for several V-centuries by Volyen. It was not entirely a bad thing. Moon II, this planet, was sunk in barbarism, so thoroughly had your former subjects from Volyen defeated you. Volyen’s inhabitants, so recently your slaves, were full of confidence, knew all kinds of skills and techniques, most of them learned from you. You could say that it was they who preserved your inheritance for you, at least partly. These qualities were introduced, reintroduced if you like, and maintained by Volyens – though interbreeding soon made it hard to say what was native and what Volyen in what had become a vigorous new people. And the same process was going on in the more temperate parts of Volyenadna. Even faster there, because the awful hardships of life on that icy planet had always produced strong and enduring people. Very soon Moon I, or Volyenadna, partly threw off, partly absorbed its Volyen invaders, and then conquered Volyen, and settled this planet.’

      ‘One of my ancestors,’ said he, with pride, ‘was a Westerman from Volyenadna.’

      ‘I can see it in you,’ said I.

      He looked modest, while holding out his hands for me to admire. They are very large strong hands, the distinguishing mark of Westermen from Volyenadna.

      ‘Mind you, we gave them a good fight, it wasn’t just a walkover,’ he boasted.

      ‘No, an army of one thousand Volyendestans met them as they landed, and every one of the Volyendestans was killed. You died to a man, all blasted to cinders by the weapons of Moon I.’

      ‘That’s right. Our Gallant One Thousand. And as for the invaders, nine-tenths of us were killed, even though the Volyendestans had only primitive weapons in comparison.’

      ‘What a massacre that was – of both invaders and invaded.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘A glorious chapter in the annals of both sides.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I was admiring today the two memorials standing side by side in your main town square, commemorating that glorious day, one for the Gallant One Thousand, the Volyendestans, or Moon II, and the other for the Heroic Volyenadnans, or Moon I. Your ancestors, whose blood runs in your veins. Together, of course, with the blood of the Volyens, and many others.’

      He was regarding me steadily, with a thoughtful expression tinged with bitterness.

      ‘Right, mate,’ he said. ‘I know you well enough by now. What is it you are warning me about?’

      ‘Well, what do you think, Ormarin?’

      ‘You really think Sirius will …?’

      ‘You are weak, divided, declining.’

      ‘We’ll fight them on the –’

      ‘Yes, yes, but don’t you think …’

      ‘How is it you are so sure of it, if you aren’t a Sirian agent, that is? I’m beginning to think –’

      ‘No, I am not, Ormarin. And I am sure that you don’t really think anything of the kind. Why should I have to have any special sources of information to enable me to see what is obvious? When a planet is weak, divided, declining, nearly always it is taken over by a stronger planet or group of planets. If not Sirius, then some other power. What makes you think you are immune to this law, Ormarin?’

      Down in the valley dark was falling. The hundreds of slave labourers were being pushed into a double file on the new road by the guards who ran and scampered all around them: they were being marched off for the night.

      ‘Poor creatures,’ he said suddenly, his voice hot with pity. ‘And is that going to be our fate?’

      I said, ‘The Sirian Empire is well past its peak. It has been expanding slowly, for – But if I told you how many millenniums, would you be able to take it in? Your history covers a few thousand of your years. The Sirian Empire is the greatest in size in our galaxy. There have been periods when its growth was checked, periods when it was reduced, because of indecision on the part of the rulers of Sirius. But, looked at overall, it has grown. This last period is one of frenetic and frantic unplanned growth, because of the internal battles going on inside the Sirian ruling classes. It is an interesting fact that the theory governing the Sirian Empire at this time does not include the idea of expansion! Expansion is not on its agenda. They are not stupid, the Sirians, or not all of them: some at least know they are not in control of what they do, and they have just begun to understand that such a thing is possible, that an Empire may control its development according to … but that is another story.’ I was watching his face for a glimmer of understanding, and if he had showed any sign I would have gone on to talk of Canopus, and what governs us. But there was nothing there but the strain of trying to follow ideas, if not beyond him, at least too new for easy assimilation. ‘Recently – talking comparatively, of course – Sirius has conquered several new planets, not as a result of a planned and considered decision, no, but because of some hasty decision made to meet an emergency.’

      ‘Hasty,’ murmured Ormarin, indicating the fine road below us, along which the slave labourers were being marched to their barracks for the night.

      ‘The decision to build this road was made a year ago – a Sirian year. When Volyen conquered the two planets that Sirius considered were part of their Empire.’

      ‘You didn’t finish that history.’

      ‘The Westermen, those unscrupulous conquerors of whose blood you are so proud, created here and on Volyen a highly structured society of multifarious skills.’ Here I saw him smile wryly down at those formidable Westerman hands. ‘But, as always has to happen, Moon I and its two colonies lost impetus … This time it was Volyen’s turn to rise again and conquer. A quite interesting little Empire it has been, the recent Volyen Empire, with some mild ideas of justice, not indifferent to the welfare of its inhabitants, at least in theory, trying to absorb into its ruling classes the upper echelons of the conquered …’

      I saw him begin to feel ashamed, and heard him sigh.

      ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you could have chosen to live in the compounds and barracks with the natives, rather than compromise, but you didn’t …’

      ‘Oh, believe me,’ said he, in the hoarse, suffering voice I had almost deliberately invoked, ‘I have lain awake night after night, hating myself.’

      ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I said, ‘but the fact is, you did do what you’ve done, and as a result your position on this planet is a key one. And when the Sirians invade –’

      But I had miscalculated. The stimulus had been too much.

      He leaped to his feet on the now dark hill, with the stars coming up bright behind him – one of them Volyen, his present master – and, holding up his right fist, his Westerman or Volyenadnan fist, he orated: ‘I stand here as a free man, breathing free air, my feet on my own soil! Rather than submit to the tyrannies of alien invaders I will pick up stones from the hillside if need be, and sticks from the forest, and fight until death overcomes me and –’

      ‘Ormarin!’ I tried to interrupt. ‘What have all those fine words got to do with your situation? For one thing, you have efficient modern weapons, you free peoples of the Volyen Empire …’ But it was no use.

      ‘Who with real manhood in his veins would choose to live as a slave when he can die on his feet