I had to get them away. What I had to tell them would seem impossible, preposterous. They must leave this city, this beautiful home of theirs, with its perfect symmetries, and its synchronized gardens, its subtle patterns that mirrored the movements of the stars - they must all leave and at once, if they did not want to go mad. But they did not know what madness was! Yet some were already mad. One of them would shake and shake a pain-filled head, and put up both hands to it with that gesture: What is this? I don't believe it! - and then let out howls of pain and start running, rushing everywhere, howling as if pain were something he could leave behind. Or they might find a spot, or a building where the pain was less, for the intensities of the disorder of the vibrations were not the same everywhere. And then these people would stay in the comparatively comfortable place they had found and would not leave.
As for me, I had not felt like this since I had been in a similarly afflicted place, our poor colony which it had been hoped this planet would replace.
I found David. He was lying face down, on a pavement, his hands over his ears. I forced him up and told him what must be done. Without much energy or purpose, he did at last find friends, his wife, grown-up children with their children. It was a group of about fifty I addressed, and he turned my words into song as I talked. On each face were the grimaces of pain, nausea, and they felt dizzy, and they leaned against walls or lay down anywhere, and groaned. I begged them to leave the city, to leave at once, before its vibrations killed them. I said if they would leave the horrible emanations of this place and go into the surrounding savannahs and forests, these pains would leave them. But they must run quickly through the Stones. Before they went, they must each tell as many of their friends as they could, for the safety and the future of them all.
All this was to the accompaniment of cries of disbelief, refusal, while people resisted, groaned, wept. By now thousands of Natives were staggering about, or rolling on the pavements.
Suddenly, the group I had first addressed ran out of the deadly place, through the neglected gardens, and into the Stones where the pain was so much intensified that some went back and jumped into the river and drowned, willingly, eagerly, because of what they were suffering. But some, hugging themselves, holding their heads, clutching their stomachs, ran on, crouching as if keeping low to the earth would help them, and there, outside the horrid circle of radiations, they flung themselves down among the first trees of the forests and wept in relief. For the pain had left them.
They called out to those left behind. Some heard and followed. I went around among the others, telling them that many of their fellows had left and were safe. And soon everyone went. They left behind them houses, homes, furniture, food, clothing, left their culture, their civilisation, left everything they had accomplished. This small multitude, coming together among the trees and grasses, saw that they were surrounded by animals, who stood watching with their intelligent wondering eyes. They were stripped of everything, as helpless as if they were still what they had been millennia ago, poor beasts trying to raise themselves to their hind legs.
Some of them, when they had recovered from the deadliness of what they had fled from, ran back to the peripheral gardens through the Stones, and collected vegetables and fruit and seeds, working frantically, for as long as it was possible before the pains became unbearable. A few of the really hardy returned to the city itself, where, screaming and vomiting, they reeled in and out of the houses, dragging out warmth, and shelter - bedding, clothes, utensils of all kinds. In this way enough was brought to feed them, keep them warm. But these excursions back into the city had their black side, too, as will be seen: even then it was noticeable that some of those who had subjected themselves to the Stones' emanations seemed to want to feel them again.
Shelters were being made in the forest from boughs, sheaves, of grass, even packed earth. Fire had been carried from the city in an earthenware pot, and was guarded day and night in the form of a great fire which was the focal point of this settlement of - savages. Ground had been marked out and was being dug for new gardens. Attempts were being made to duplicate the workshops and factories of the cities, but they could no longer remember their crafts, which in any case depended on the powers and technology of the Giants.
The animals had begun to move away. The first hunters were killing them by walking up to one and plunging in a knife: they had never learned fear, these mild intelligent creatures of the Time of the Giants - for this was the name of the time just passed, how everyone referred to what had been lost. But the animals, learning fear, were moving away at first reluctantly, with the same wondering disbelieving look as the Natives had when they first felt the new pains. And then, being stalked and chased, troops and bands and herds of the beautiful beasts, infinitely more varied and adapted than Shikasta ever knew afterwards, began a rapid movement out and away. There would be the sounds of thundering herds, and we knew another part of the animal population had fled.
Meanwhile, I had to try to visit all the cities, where I hoped that instinct had taken the inhabitants out and to safety. Perhaps there was enough of the communal mind left to have allowed the other cities to sense what was happening at the Round City? I and David and some others went first of all to the Crescent City, where we found bands of people wandering about outside in the fertile fields of the great river delta. They told us that their city was "full of demons," but that many of the population had not left, for "there had been no one to tell them to go, they were waiting for the Giants to come." Those who had escaped were making reed huts, and the ground had been cleared for spring planting. The animals had left. We had passed through flocks of every kind moving away from the deadly environs of the Crescent City, and from the creatures moving on two legs who had become their enemies.
To shorten this part of my account: We went from city to city, splitting ourselves into several bands; from the Square City to the City of the Triangle, from the Diamond City to the Octagon, from the City of the Oval to the Rectangular City - and on, and on. It took a full term of the Shikastan journey around its sun. The bands that set forth did not remain as they had been, for some decided to stay with settlements that attracted them, some sickened and died, some, finding a particularly beautiful forest or river, could not leave there: but about a hundred or so, with those who joined, wishing to be of use, or impelled by the new restlessness which was such a feature of this Shikasta, journeyed incessantly for a year, and found that everywhere was the same. The cities were all empty. Not one was anything but a death-trap or a madhouse. Where people had stayed, they had killed themselves or were idiots.
Around each were the new settlements of Natives living in every kind of roughly contrived hut, eating meat they had hunted, wearing skins, tending gardens and fields of grain. If there were any clothes left from their city past, these were being hoarded, were already part of ritual. The storytellers were singing of the Gods who had taught them all they knew, and - for this had been fed into the tales at the beginning - would "come again."
When we got back to the Round City, meaning to walk outside the edge of the Stones, the vibrations had become so bad that we had to make a wide detour. For miles around, there was no life, no animals, no birds. And the vegetation was withering. The settlements we had left had been moved well out and away.