I then concluded that it was the northern areas that must hold the beneficial influences, and I was bitter, believing that Canopus had withheld from us information about them so we would not resent their claiming them.
It this anger that was responsible for my next decision.
It must be remembered that Isolated Southern Continent II had no indigenous apes of any size; and that those on S.C. I were all small and far from even standing on two legs. Our use of the Lombis and of the people from Colony 22 had been well enough as far as it went but these were both such small races they were classified in our system as dwarves. I made a survey of all the races throughout our Empire, but at last wondered why I was taking this trouble, when what I wanted lay to hand for the taking… I instructed one of our fast liaison craft to make a reconnaissance of the Northwest fringes of the main landmass and then to direct a large cargo craft to kidnap an entire community of natives, without alerting the colonists who would then be sure to inform Canopus. After all, if our aircraft were not seen the colonists could report only that the natives had gone—had decided to escape from a tutelary supervision unwelcomed by them. All this was done, and I was delivered an entire community of seventy natives, males, females, and young. They were treated at all times with kindness.
We put them, not on the plain vacated by the Lombis, which was too large and was needed by us for other purposes, but on high wooded terrain not far from our own headquarters. There was no reason why they should not be aware of us; this experiment did not resemble that of ours with the Lombis. They at once made shelters for themselves of a quite advanced kind, using bricks of sunbaked earth, and well-dressed thatch for roofing. They showed no signs of distress at this arbitrary disruption of their lives but, on the contrary, were ready to be friendly and—because of their relationship with the Canopean colonists—to be taught. But while I forbade them to be used as servants or labourers in any way whatever—thus copying what I had understood of the Canopean experiment—I also forbade them to be made pets, or to be allowed inside our houses or to be taught any further skills, for it seemed to me that they had already been shown more than they could use. They knew, theoretically, for instance, about planting seeds and tubers for food, and about keeping animals for meat and milk, but were careless and forgetful in these, showing signs of letting aptitudes slide away from them altogether. Remembering that the settlements of colonists in the north were at a distance from their charges, and that contact was seldom, I believed I was following this example in not pressing our tutelage. At this stage the natives were slightly shorter than our own average height, at about seven or eight R-feet. They were upright, never descended to all fours, kept their dwellings clean, ate meat and vegetables and fruit, and milked a species of deer, but not with any system.
This little colony of northern animals was a most important factor of our relations with Canopus, and of subsequent developments on Rohanda. But this did not seem to us so at the time. Far from it. Yet we could hardly forget these creatures, who lived so close to us, always visible, and of much interest to us and our visitors in their comings and goings. They multiplied, but not very much; and their settlements spread, but never did more than cover the hills that were first allotted to them. Nor did we cease to monitor their development because this was where our preoccupation with Canopus and its work focussed. But while several thousand years passed, we were involved in many other experiments, all over this wonderful and rich continent, and these took up our attention.
I shall mention the one that did have an indirect effect on long-term Rohandan development.
Millions of females throughout our Empire, forbidden to produce young because of our population-reduction programmes, craved this experience while subscribing to a prohibition whose necessity they understood. We had more volunteers than we could use for our various eugenic attempts.
Prefabricated buildings of a high standard were space-lifted in from our manufacturing Planet 3, and placed on the terrain that the Lombis occupied. These were filled with females, already impregnated, from various of our planets. The fathers had also been chosen. Our need was to produce a strain that would adapt easily to widely varied conditions on different planets. While we were restricted by the nature of the conditions on our Mother Planet to planets that fell within certain atmospheric limits, these limits proved to be much broader than we had envisaged in the early days of our Empire. Species could learn to adapt: some much more others. But our experience had been that if representatives of one species had adapted to certain conditions, then these did not necessarily take to further adaptation. We wished to breed technicians who would be available for work on different planets, of differing atmospheres, sometimes with little or no time for adaptation or acclimatisation. These all-purpose, hardy, multifunctional technicians in fact were absolutely essential in certain outlying parts of our Empire.
The females on what we now called the Lombi plain numbered fifty thousand. They were supervised as much as was necessary to prevent them from escaping, to supply them with first-class medical care, and to monitor the growth of their young, with the appropriate testing and analysis.
These females regarded themselves as favoured and privileged: indeed they were. They knew themselves to be of superb fitness and condition. They had been told by the highest among our Colonial Service, which is itself the highest function of our Empire, how much their services were valued. But in spite of all this, we knew a degree of watchfulness had to be maintained: this, the reproductive instinct, being the strongest there is, it could take—had taken, in the past—many surprising forms; and we did not want any of them escaping with their young when the time came to give them up. For they all knew that this must be when the young had attained five R-years.
This was one reason the breeding station was on Rohanda, which was a long from our Mother Planet and visited by none except our craft and those of Canopus. (Or so we believed then—but of that later.) It would not be possible for them to escape either by spacecraft or out of the Lombi plain, for there were guards stationed all around a vast periphery, well out of sight, who had been trained in every manifestation of the maternal instinct in desperation.
The other reason this station was here, well out of the way, was that such experiments always aroused opposition. This phenomenon is so well known that I will do no more draw than attention to it. Even when females have volunteered for this type of service, even when the experiments are crowned with success, and the results are shown in new breeds and strains that fulfill everything expected of them and are heaped with honours, and whose functioning is remarked and followed with approval and admiration from everywhere in our Empire—even so there is criticism, and of a certain kind, which I have learned to recognise. It is always marked by a sharp painful note, or tone, that signals a feeling of loss—and not only a personal loss, not at alclass="underline" this is why I for one have taken pains to notice this cry or protest, which is so much more than personal. I can only put it like this: that it seems as if—I do not see how we can conclude anything else—when such deliberate, controlled experiments take place, to produce definitely envisaged stocks or strains, it is felt—most deeply and profoundly, and by the most responsible and evolved of our peoples—that some other possibility been lost.
As if randomness and chance in themselves are a good and a blessing and even a means of acquiring something not yet defined… I am stating my own personal opinion here, arrived at after much reflection.