After some time of this, they came out of the Stones, their limbs and heads jerking, as if they were truly diseased, and they danced and twitched their way back to their home.
I noticed that both David and Sais showed signs of wanting to "try it and see" - for they had forgotten, or so it seemed, what those discords could do. I said to them, No, no, they must not - and led them back to the Giants.
There a feast was in progress, with mounds of roast meat, and they were singing and dancing. I understood that the Giants who had gone to the Stones went to fetch back, in themselves, the power of the disharmonies, which they were using like alcohol to fuel this revelry.
I reminded them of our presence and asked for fruit.
I asked Jarsum to come and talk with us, alone, under the trees. He came, but as if drunk or half asleep.
I spoke of Canopus again.
He accepted it. He listened. But nothing much was getting past the fogs and silliness of that poor brain.
I produced the Signature and held it in front of him. I had not wanted to do this, because I had noticed that its power had uneven or sometimes contradictory effects by now.
Yes, he remembered it. He remembered something. The half-dazed eyes, reddened and narrowed, as if with drink, peered close, and the great trembling hands came out to touch it. And he did something I had never seen on this noble planet, that could not have happened on Rohanda - he bent and prostrated himself and poured sand on his head. And David and Sais copied him: they did it eagerly, pleased with themselves for learning this new attractive thing.
I led the way back to the settlement, telling Jarsum that he must make everyone come. He did, but more than half had gone out to dance among the Stones, and we had to wait for them to come back.
Then I stood before them, in a space among the lean-to fragmentary buildings, and I held out the Signature, so that it shone and dazzled, and sent its gleams everywhere into their eyes, their faces.
I said that Canopus forbade them to go near the Stones. It was an order. And I made the Signature flash and shiver.
I said that Canopus forbade them to use each other or the other creatures of the planet as servants, unless these servants were treated as well as they would treat themselves, as equals at all times.
I said that Canopus forbade them to kill animals unless it was for food, and then only with care and without cruelty. They must plant crops, I said, and must harvest fruit and nuts.
I said that they might not waste the fruits of the earth, and each might take only what was needed, no more.
They must not use violence with each other.
Above all, over and above all these prohibitions, was the first one: never, never, must they go into the old cities, or use those stones for building other settlements, and they must not intoxicate themselves in these ways if they ever again came across places or things, that held the capacity to intoxicate. They were destroying themselves in these practices, and Canopus was displeased.
Then I put away the Signature, and I went up to Jarsum, who was prostrate, trembling, the white Giant beside him, and I said, "Farewell. And I will come to you again. And until that time remember the Laws of Canopus."
And I and David and Sais walked away, not looking back. I had forbidden them to, for fear this might weaken an effect which I believed was weak enough, and when we were deep in the trees on the foothills of the mountains, I asked these two companions of mine what had happened.
They did not reply. They were awed.
When I pressed them David said that I had knowledge of something called Canopus.
Sais? Perhaps it would be better with her?
I made a trial. I waited until we had gone up one range of foothills and down into a pleasant valley full of trickling streams and bright plants, and I asked them again if they had understood what had happened with the Giants.
David had that look on him which was so familiar by now, a sullenness, as if he were being asked for too much. Then he turned his eyes away and pretended to be watching a bird on a branch.
Sais was looking at me attentively.
"What do you know of Canopus?" I asked.
She said that Canopus was an angry man, and he did not want anyone to dance where there were stones. He did not want hunting bands to kill more animals than they needed for meat. He did not want...
Well, she got through it, and I decided to concentrate on her. As we walked, I drilled her and I drilled her, and David her father ambled on, sometimes singing to amuse himself, for we bored him in our intensity, or sometimes listening, and chiming in with a phrase or two: "Canopus doesn't want..."
And so we went on, day after day, wandering on among the foothills and valleys of the Great Mountains, until I felt the presence of Shammat growing stronger, and knew I must make these two go away from me.
I made a solemn and fearful thing of the occasion. They were to undertake a task of the utmost importance - for me, but above all, for Canopus. They were to go from place to place over Shikasta, everywhere there were settlements, and they were to repeat everything I had said. Sais was to be the spokesman, but David was to be her protector. And I gave her the Signature, saying that they must regard this as more important than - but what? Life? They did not have that conception: the thought of death as an ever-present threat was not in them. This came from Canopus, I said. It was the very substance and being of Canopus and must be guarded at all times, even if they were to lose their lives doing it. Thus I held Death before them, using it to create in these creatures a sorrow and a vigilance where there had been none.
Sais put the Signature reverently into her belt and kept her hand there on it, as she stood in front of me, her eyes on my face, listening.
When they reached a settlement, I said, she must first of all speak of Canopus, and if the word was enough to revive old memories and associations, and if her hearers could listen because of that word alone, then she could give her message and go. Only if she could get no one to listen, or if it seemed that she and her father might be harmed, then she might show the Signature. And when they had been everywhere, and spoken with everyone, even hunting bands they met, or solitary farmers or fishermen in the forests or by rivers, then they must bring the Signature back to me.
And then I spoke to her carefully and slowly about the concept of a task, something which had to be done - for I was afraid that this might have lapsed from her mind altogether. This journey of hers, I said, the act of making it, and carrying the Signature and guarding it, would develop her, would bring out in her something that was buried and clouded over. And when I left Shikasta, I said - telling them for the first time that I was going to leave - she would be responsible for keeping the Laws, and for passing them on. I saw panic in both of them, at the idea that I would be leaving them, but I said that they would be without me now for months, longer, and would learn they could maintain themselves and the Laws without me. We separated there, and I watched them go off, and my will went with her: You can do it, you can, you can, I was whispering, then saying, then shouting, as they went out of sight and hearing among the enormous trees of that wonderful forest. I would not see them for at least a Shikastan journey around its sun.
And now for the Shammat transmitter.
If I have ever been in a paradise, it was there. Neither Natives nor Giants had ever lived in that region. The forests were as they had grown, and the trees were some of them thousands of years old. There were flowers everywhere, and little streams. And the birds and animals did not know they should be afraid of this new animal, and came wandering up to sniff me, and they lay down by me, for company. That night I lay by the bank of a stream, with animals coming down to drink, and the worst I feared was that some great deer might tread on me in the dark. Tigers, lions did not know I was prey. Herds of elephants stretched out their trunks to me and then went on.
My lingering there, taking in the sane breath of the trees, and communing with the animals was for a purpose. I was now not armed with the Signature, and I had to confront the power of Shammat.