I intervened. To do this I closed my hand over the Signature, and used it. I said to them that those who decided to stay would be committing Disobedience. For the first time in their history they would not be in conformity with Canopean Law.
They broke in with the arguments, the logics, of the debased modes.
They said, among other things, that their staying could only make things better for the Natives because they, the Giants, "knew local conditions," whereas outsiders did not. They said that if the Natives were going to be betrayed by Canopus, then they, the Giants, would have no part in it.
I said that if the Giants stayed, even some of them, then the modified Canopean plan would be at risk. That the Giants would not be fitted "to lead and guide" the Natives, as they kept insisting they were, because their powers, too, would be depleted - were already depleted - could they not see their behaviour now was proof of a falling away? But no, they had already forgotten what they had been, dissension and enmity were already natural to them.
I said that disobedience to the Master Plan was always, everywhere, the first sign of the Degenerative Disease... and looked to find noble faces, and comprehending eyes that were so no longer, for on to the faces had come peevishness and self-assertion, and into the eyes, vagueness.
The next few days were all faction-fighting, argument, and raised voices.
I was everywhere I could be, with my hidden Signature. By putting forth every power I had, I managed to beam to the Canopean spacecraft that they must not expect to descend and find the Giants waiting to be taken off: things had gone beyond that. They must expect to have to go into every city and argue and persuade and if necessary to capture by force. By then the resistance to my transmissions spacewards was so great I feared nothing clear would get through. But later I learned they had understood the essentials. And in most of the cities, particularly those of the central area, it had been understood at least that there was a crisis and that spacecraft were approaching. The lift-off was nothing like the smooth planned thing that had been envisaged. In every city was argument and refusal to leave, before a bewildered submission - this at best; and in some, Canopean troops had to use force.
I did not know immediately what had happened: I had to piece information together later.
Meanwhile, in the Round City, Jarsum headed a group who refused to go at all. He showed the noblest self-sacrifice in staying. He knew that his fellows, and himself, the disobedient Giants, risked their very beings, their souls - yet he would stay. The tall white Giant with her bizarre and disturbing beauty stayed, and with her others who were her progeny, all of them sports and showing the strangest combinations of physical characteristics. She said that she was a genetic freak, and could have no place on the planet where the Giants were being taken.
How did she know this? I asked, pointing out that the galaxy included varieties of creatures she had never dreamed of. But "she knew it." Bad enough that she had had to live out her life among people different from herself, always an alien, without having to start all over again.
This while we were waiting for the spacecraft's arrival.
Meanwhile, discussions went on about what to tell the Natives.
The Giants were showing a yearning, passionate, protecting concern for their erstwhile charges which contrasted absolutely with their former strength of confidence. At every moment I was confronted with Jarsum, or another Giant, all great accusing eyes, and tragic faces. How can you treat the poor things like this! was what I was meant to feel. And every practical discussion was interrupted by heavy sighs, looks of reproach, murmurs about cruelty and callousness. But in spite of this, I was able to arrange that some songs and tales should be made, and taken by suitable individuals among the Natives from city to city, which would transmit and inform at least the basics of the new situation.
And these emissaries were informed that in each city they must seek out a few representative Natives and tell them that they must prepare for crisis, for a period of hardship and deprivation, that they must wait for other messengers to come and instruct.
The Giants arranged this. They had to. The Natives knew the Giants as their mentors and could not suddenly see them otherwise.
But the Giants were leaving - went the songs.
And so on. These were not exactly the words I would have chosen, but they adequately expressed the indignation of the Giants on their own behalf, displaced to the Natives.
Meanwhile, I was making contacts among the Natives, carefully, slowly, testing one individual and then another. An interesting fact was that at the beginning the Giants were worse and more quickly affected than the Natives, who continued comparatively normal for longer. The higher, more finely tuned organisms had to submit first. This gave me time to communicate what I could. But the innate difficulty or contradiction of this task is obvious: I had to tell these unfortunates that due to circumstances entirely beyond their control and for which they bore no responsibility at all, they would become less than shadows of their former selves. How could they possibly take this in! They had not been programmed for failure, disaster! They were less equipped even than the Giants for bad news. And the more detailed and factual the information, the more I could count on its being distorted. The essence of the situation was that these were minds which very shortly would have to deform what I said, begin to invent, reprocess.
It was as if I had been given the task of telling someone in perfect health that he would shortly become a moron, but that he must do his best to remember some useful facts, which were a... b... c...
One morning, a good third of the Giants had disappeared. No one knew where to. The ones that remained waited submissively by the landing place where the spacecraft would descend - which happened, shortly afterwards. Three of our largest craft came down, and several thousand Giants left. Suddenly, no Giants, none, not one.
The Natives saw the descent of the spacecraft, watched the Giants crowd in, watched the great shining machines lift off and dart away into the clouds.
went the songs, and for days the Natives crowded around the landing spaces, looking up into the skies, singing. Of course they believed that their Giants would return. These rumours were soon everywhere and bred the appropriate songs.
I could not find out where the disobedient Giants were.
The Natives now entered all the tall buildings which had previously been the Giants' homes and functional buildings, and made them their own. This was not good for the exact dispositions of the Round City. I told them this. They had accepted me as one with a certain amount of authority, though of course nothing on the same level as their Giants, but by now most were not capable of accepting information. Already, sense and straightforwardness were being met with a vague wandering stare, or restless belligerent looks that were the first sign of the Degeneration.