This was the largest experiment in eugenics ever undertaken by us. Its success was due not least to the Rohandan atmosphere, the Rohandan isolation from other influences, our distance from the centre. When the fifty R-years of the experiment were over, and the breeding station was finally dismantled, we congratulated ourselves that in that time not one of the successive inputs of females had escaped, and that we had not again contributed to the Rohandan species.
For five thousand R-years we did not investigate conditions in the northern Canopean areas: it will be remembered that we believed we had before us millions of years of a stable environment. We were informed that Canopus was sending a special mission, as they had reason to believe their plans more successful than had been envisaged. The report of this mission was sent to us: it recommended the immediate implementation of something they called a “Lock”.
Again it has to be emphasised that we did not understand the bases of the Canopean work. We did not know what this “Lock” was: though this did not mean we were not aware that there was regular contact between Canopus and Rohanda. But we assumed this was on the lines of the various types of electrical communication used by us with our own planets near enough for these methods. They also talked about a “degenerative disease,” but without specification. These two concepts were not understood by us at all, until recently: are not understood now generally. We might have asked questions: Canopus was always ready to answer them. We might asked ourselves questions, since we believed our technology was as advanced as that of Canopus. But we did not. The reason was the same: various forms of pride. What was in the body of the report inflamed us with disbelief and suspicion.
The natives who still enjoyed their well-supervised and comfortable lives so close to us were nowhere near the level described in the report on the northern hemisphere.
We had chosen disbelief—but not entirely, for again I decided on some investigations of our own.
It happened that at that time Ambien I was visiting me.
In our long distant early youth we been aligned for the purpose of producing our allotted four progeny—that was before the reduction of general population levels. Ambien I had decided after our progeny were grown to enter into another alignment with a female who subsequently worked with me on various projects when we had reached general-service-age. The eight products of the alignments had formed bonds of various kinds and, in short, the personal aspects of our lives had been satisfactory.
Ambien I had been on the committee that first considered what our work would be on Rohanda, and had been involved with it ever since. His visit to me was partly old friendship and partly investigative: I not been back to our Home Planet for millennia: this was because I was thoroughly happy on Rohanda, enjoyed my work, and thought it too pleasant a place to abandon for service leave. Members of the Colonial Service, even members of the Five, visiting us for any reason always made excuses to stay. In short, Rohanda had become my home.
When we had had time to satisfy our accumulated curiosity about each other’s doings, after what had been a good lapse of time, I asked him if he would undertake a spying mission to the northern areas. He agreed readily. More than once he had been in the teams that “opened up” new planets, and he had always enjoyed this type of rough dangerous work. We did not expect danger from this particular enterprise, but at least it would be a break from routine. He took a liaison ship to the extreme south of the central landmass, where he dismissed it. Altogether he was away ten R-years.
He travelled extensively over the central landmass, where there were everywhere settlements of colonists and natives, always positioned at short distances from each other. He went on foot, boat, and sometimes by using suitable animals. Ambien I and myself are of course of the same general species, but his particular subspecies are broadly built, brown of skin, with straight black hair. I, being fair of skin and hair and very slight in build, could not go anywhere near the Northern areas without discovery. But he, while being much shorter than the colonists—who were rapidly increasing in height, and were now twice the size of the original Colony 10 species—was rather taller than the natives, and could not hope to be taken for one of them. He at first avoided close contact with them, but seeing that he could not get the information we needed this way, approached them in settlement after settlement, and found no hostility at all—at the most, curiosity.
At first he put this down to innate good nature due to the favourable conditions they lived in, and lack of challenge. But then, though reluctantly, he came to believe they had visitors of other kinds. Not colonists, who were unmistakable because of their size. (They from this time were referred to as Giants by Canopeans, and I shall do the same.) If not colonists, then who? Was it possible the dwarf races of the Isolated Northern Continent had grown large and were making island-hopping journeys across that ocean? We were soon to learn differently: but it was this speculation that made him decide to visit the Northern Continent on his way back to me.
What he found everywhere on the central landmass corroborated the Canopean report. The native stock had improved so far beyond what they had been seven or eight thousand before, it was not easy to believe them the same species. They were practising agriculture, understood the use of animals, and their dwellings were not only built in well-planned settlements but were even being ornamented with designs in sophisticated colours. They had begun to wear clothes, too, and these were well made and often dyed.
It was the Giants’ settlements that could not be explained. They were living on a level not very much higher than the natives; and on Colony 10 they had evolved to the stage of advanced cities.
Ambien I’s survey was complete, he instructed the liaison ship to fly down over Isolated Northern Continent, to see what had happened to the Lombis and the stock from C.P. 22. But he could find no sign of them. We had a rough idea of where they ought to be, from Hoppe’s information—but nothing. We concluded that they must have succumbed to some epidemic, since there was no sign of settlement by natives or Giants either.
We had to come to terms with the facts about the Canopean work in the north. The captured native stock so happily living on their hillsides where they were always under our inspection could not be said to have regressed. They had not developed. They had abandoned attempts to care for and use other animals, but hunted skillfully and intelligently. They grew a few roots for food, but not grains. They picked leafy plants from the wild, but did not plant any. They wore animal pelts but no art used in their preparation. The shacks and huts they lived in were adequate.
We did not understand what had happened to make the difference.
Again I was ready to conclude that the Canopean north was in some way better endowed, but Ambien I reminded me that the Giants actively instructed the natives on their visits, whereas we had pursued a policy of noninterference.
We decided to divide our stock of natives into two, and establish a colony of them at a distance from us, so that there could be no contact. This new colony would be energetically supervised and taught by us in the practical arts. Ambien I undertook this task: it was one he was particularly well fitted for.
He built himself a shelter in the new village, and settled down with them as an instructor.
This attempt was a failure. He was not able to teach them anything they could retain. That is, he taught them a variety of crafts, which they seemed to understand—but in a short time everything was forgotten. After a period of intensive work, he had to confess that the new colony was not much better off than the first one.