Shikasta Read Online Free PDF Page B

individual, remembers genuine contact – the free flow of thought, ideas, information,
growth
between planet and planet across our galaxy – it is not long since the oldest of the Colony 10 immigrants died, and, in any case, their genetic memory is strong, active, developing. And all their preparations for the establishment of the Lock are made.
    A WARNING
    There are persistent rumours – mostly formalized as tales and songs told by the Natives, who get news very fast as their groups meet in the course of hunting or other expeditions – that ‘down South’ there are races of extremely warlike and hostile beings. The Giants have sent expeditions to the two main landmasses, and have found only that the species established by Sirius are flourishing. (These will be the subject of a subreport.) It is clear to usthat the Sirian tutors have caused these rumours to spread, so as to prevent our experimentees from wandering over into their territory. The Giants, who understood this, have created new legends and stories, and are doing everything to create mental sets that will keep our bargain with Sirius.
    Nothing of this is more than was to be expected, but there is something else. There are persistent rumours about ‘spies’, both among the Natives and among the Giants. These spies do not enter Giant territory, but appear quite frequently among the Natives, and everywhere over the northern hemisphere. At first the Giants believed these to be from Sirian colonies, on ordinary fact-finding missions, but they now believe there are also spies from some other empire. They are cautious about committing themselves, but repeat that the distinguishing feature of these creatures is not in appearance, but in behaviour. In short, they showed every feature of the Degenerative Disease. In our view everything we have heard can only confirm the presence of Shammat.
    OUR CONCLUSIONS
    1 The Lock may begin. We have optimum conditions.
    2 It should not be forgotten in our plans that this planet is subject to sudden and drastic change.
    3 Inquiries should be made from Sirius if spies from Shammat have been found in their territories.
    4 Attention should be directed to what Shammat is likely to be wanting. On the face of it there is no place for Shammat on this planet.
    Shortly after that the Lock was established, and was a success, making missions and special envoys unnecessary. The minds of the Giants – or to put it more accurately, factually, the Giant-mind – had become one with the mind of the Canopean System, at first partially, and tentatively, but it was an ever-growing and sensitizing current. What came through from Rohanda was all good news. To absorb the tapes and records from that period of nearly ten thousandyears is to participate in achievement, success, development. Few of our colonies have fulfilled our plans so hearteningly. The ‘spies’ of the mission’s report mentioned above seemed to fade out of the picture. It was assumed on Canopus that they were destroyed by the suddenness of the Lock – that they had not been able to stand the change to higher and finer vibrations, though we did not rule out the possibility that these creatures of Shammat had evolved, rather than died out, and possibly even in a way that might contribute to the general variety and richness of Rohanda.
    We have to look at things now rather differently. In short, it is a question, if not of apportioning blame – never a very helpful process, tending always to draw the attention away from essentials, rather than focusing it – then of knowing what went wrong, so as to avoid it on other planets. But the main cause of the disaster was what that word
dis-aster
implies: a fault in the stars. That we could not foresee, beyond acknowledging that nothing on Rohanda could be taken for granted. If there had not been that shift in stellar alignments, it would not have mattered what the Shammat agents were doing,