I bought myself a mask of the kind worn by these unfortunates in their streets, to protect themselves from the poisons manufactured by their machines, and which often made them blind, or ill, or silly, and I went walking around and about that city, unable to bring myself yet to summon my Traveller, for I was thinking of Klorathy, of Canopus. I wanted—I am afraid this was the truth—some sort of reassurance; for while I had been showing firmness and confidence with Tafta, I could not help feeling myself undermined by the familiar dry sorrow at the waste of it, the dreadful squandering waste of it all. I remembered Nasar and how he had learned to contain his pain on behalf of this sad place, and I was thinking of the things he had said, and how much I had learned. I was wishing I might see him again. How much it would reassure me to see him, and to exchange a few words. What would he be thinking now, my old friend Nasar—my old friend Canopus?

I was on the edge of the city, looking at a building, and thinking that it pleased me. It was simple enough, a dwelling place, and built of the local stone. There was nothing remarkable about it, yet it drew me. It was built on a small rocky hill that rose clear from the city’s dirty fumes. I saw that on the steps stood a young man, wearing the familiar uniform of tight trousers and singlet, but I could not see his face, for though he was turned towards me, he was wearing a mask. Nasar, Nasar, was ringing in my mind, and I said aloud: “Nasar, I am sure that it is you.”

We were like two snouted creatures, and he took off his mask, and I took off mine. We went higher up the hill, to be more above the fumes, since our eyes had at once begun to redden and water.

“Well, Sirius.”

“Did you build this place? Are you an architect?”

“I am an architect among other things.”

We stood looking the building, side by side. It was really very pleasant. The horrible dissonances of the rest of the city seemed to disappear, and only this house remained.

“Those who live here will be sane?”

“I am living here. I suppose I am saner than most,” said he, on the familiar note Nasar note, and I laughed.

“Ah, Canopus, but why, why, why?”

“Are you still asking why, Ambien?”

“Don’t you?”

He hesitated, and I rccognised in this something I knew well: he was not able to communicate what he was thinking to me, Sirius. I was not up to it! He said: “Ambien, has it not occurred to you that there are useful questions, and those that are not? Not at all! Not in the slightest degree!”

“It is hard to accept.”

“Won’t you accept it from Nasar—who knows all about useless rebellions?” And he laughed again, looking into my eyes, so that we remembered our time together in Koshi.

“Perhaps I am not strong enough for that truth.”

“Then so much the worse for you. And we none of us have any choice… or do you want to remain of those who make up any kind of solution or answer for themselves, and take refuge in it, because they are too weak for patience?”

And I could not help laughing, thinking of the long ages of his patience.

But as I laughed, I began to cough, and he was coughing, too.

He put back his mask and so did I. Again two snouted monsters, we faced each other, Nasar and I.

“Ambien, listen to me.”

“When did I ever do anything else?”

“Good. After watching us at work for the long time you have been involved with us, are you still able to believe that we deal in failure?”

“No.”

“Remember that then. Remember it.”

He made a jaunty little gesture of farewell, and went up the steps into his house.

I then left Rohanda, without going back to its moon.

The Four were waiting for me.

This time it was not possible to put them off. They had to have some sort of information.

After a good deal of thought, I dispatched this message to Klorathy. (We always used their term, Shikasta, for Rohanda in such exchanges.)

Private letter sent through the Diplomatic Bag.

In haste. Have just been looking through our reports from Shikasta. In case—which is unlikely, I know—you have not got this information, Shammat called a meeting of all its agents in one place. This in itself seems to us symptomatic of something long suspected by us—and I know, too. Conditions on Shikasta are affecting Shammatans even more than Shikastans, or affecting them faster. Their general mentation seems to be deteriorating rapidly. They suffer from hectivity, acceleration, arrhythmictivity. Their diagnosis of situations, as far as they are capable and within the limits of their species, is adequate. Adequate for certain specific situations and conditions. The conclusions they are drawing from analyses are increasingly wild. That Shammat should order this meeting, exposing its agents to such danger, shows the Mother Planet is affected; as much as that the local agents should obey an obviously reckless order.

This condition of Shammat and its agents, then, seems to us likely to add to the spontaneous and random destructivity to be expected of Shikasta at this time.

As if we needed anything worse!

Our intelligence indicates that you are weathering the Shikastan crisis pretty well—not that anything else was ever expected of you. If all continues to go well, when may we expect a visit? As always we look forward to seeing you.

Shortly after this, I was called by the Four, who had of course read this and discussed it.

“Why is it that you do not tell us what has really happened between you and Klorathy?”

“Between Sirius and Canopus.”

They were not so much annoyed at this, as alarmed.

I had a vision of our mind, the mind of the Five—five globules or cells nestling together in a whole, and one of them pulsing at a different rate. And the Four shrinking closer while the one, me, vibrated more wildly, because of the space around it.

“You tell us nothing. Nothing.”

“I tell you everything I can.”

“Ambien, you are going to have to tell us. Because if we cannot produce, as whole—we the Five—a consistent and convincing reason for our activities on Rohanda, then we are all threatened.”

“You have the remedy,” I said, looking at each in turn, steadily.

“But we obviously don’t want to use it.”

“Do you really imagine that all I have to do is to find a formula, a set of words, some phrases strung together—and then you would nod your heads and say: Oh of course, that’s it! and then you would release them to the Empire and everyone would be happy?”

This meeting, I have to emphasise, was at the height of the debate, which still continues, and threatens to destroy our foundations.

What foundations?

What uses, what purposes?

What service? What function?

At length I said to the Four that to explain to them as they wanted would mean my talking for a year or writing a book.

“Well, why not write a book, Ambien?”

I saw that many purposes would be served by this.

“It comes hard to an old bureaucrat, to write a history of the heart, rather than of events,” I said.

The jokes made between those who have been very close and who are so no longer are indeed painful. They sent me on extended leave. In other words, I am under planet arrest, on Colonised Planet 13.

I would do exactly the same in their place. In my view the institution of the Five, now—I hope, temporarily—the Four, is the most valuable regulator of our Empire. It should not be destroyed. I make a point of saying this, hoping that my millennia-long service and experience will not be entirely dismissed.

It is hard for me to be confined to this one planet, accustomed as I have been to range at will through the Galaxy, but I am not complaining. I feel it is a privilege for me to be allowed to write this account of what I know is a unique experience.