More has to be said about the Conference itself.
It was considered a success. Remarkably so. Even though it was only one of very many conferences and discussions about the situations of a large number of Colonised Planets whose problems, in one or another, we shared, everybody taking part felt that it marked a new level in co-operation. And the further it receded into the past, the more we all able to see it had been extraordinary, and this not because of the unexpectedly fortuitous new epoch on Rohanda. Committees, conferences, discussions followed one after another through the millennia: it was to that particular one, on Colony 10, we were always referring back, as if there had been some particular and unrepeatable spring of life and vigour there we had not been able to approach again. I am now going to say, with equal emphasis and confidence, that the Conference was a failure.
What Sirius understood of the resolutions, the agreements, the verbal formulations, was not the same as the understandings of Canopus. This was not evident then. It did not even begin to be evident for a very long time. It is not seen now, except by a small number of us Sirians.
By now it will have become clear, I think, that this report of mine is an attempt at a re-interpretation of history, from a certain point of view.
An unpopular point of view, even now: until recently, impossible.
Until recently, I have been among those who would have made it impossible: this I must say now, and clearly: I am not claiming that I am one who has been preserving an individual (and seditious!) view of history in secrecy, because of an oppressive conformity in the official way of looking at things. Far from it. If there is, if there has been, a minority of individuals who have in fact maintained a view different from the official one, then these will have considered me as a bastion of orthodoxy. This is not an apology I am making. We all see truths when we can see them. When we do, it is always a temptation to consider those who have not yet seen them as quite intrinsically and obdurately stupid.
In throwing in my lot with this minority—if it exists—I am doing so in the expectation of strong criticism—but not, I hope, of worse.
I shall deal once with what I consider to be the root of the problem: that long-ago war between Canopus and Sirius.
It ended in a Truce… the anniversary of which occasion we still celebrate. The beastliness and horror have been formalised in tales of heroic exploits that we teach our young. The fact is that Canopus won this war, and, at the moment when they might reasonably have been expected to humiliate us and to exact tribute and retribution, they summoned our thoroughly defeated leaders, returned to us our Colonised Planets, which they were in position to retain for themselves, informed us that we must stay behind our boundaries, offered us co-operation and friendship, and announced that this agreement would be described as a Truce, so that we not suffer ignominy in the eyes of our fellow states and empires.
A very long time later, and quite recently, I asked my Canopean friend Klorathy, head of their Colonial Administration, what he and others like him now felt about this magnanimous and high-flown behaviour, in view of the fact that we, Sirius, had never given them credit for it, but on the contrary had done everything to expunge from our books, and even—apparently—from our memories, any hint that Canopus had won that war and had then behaved as no empire has ever—to my knowledge—behaved anywhere. His was that “it was too early yet to say what the results would be and he preferred to withhold judgement.”
I record this typically Canopean remark. Without comment. Without comment at this place.
I said earlier that Canopus had not shown much interest in the results of our experiments on Rohanda, or on any other planet, for that matter.
Just as we did not understand their attitude at the end of the great war between us, so we did not, do not, understand their indifference to our work.
This is because they, in their own work, have gone so far beyond us. They never had anything to learn from us. But we have consistently interpreted their attitude as one of dissimulation, believing them to be pretending indifference, out of pride, while secretly ferreting out any information they could, even sending spies into our territories and making use of our work without acknowledgement.
Our set of mind has been one that has consistently led us into wrong judgement.
Let us take an example. That the Conference was on Colony 10 and that it was from here the colonisers for Rohanda were chosen was merely a coincidence. Yet we were all talking about the “cleverness” of Canopus in making sure that we met these vigorous and formidable people, so that we would not be tempted to overrun our boundaries on Rohanda. And this belief of ours, crystallised at the Conference—I was one of those responsible, and am in a position to admit to the harm done—continued on into our sojourn on the planet, influencing us in all kinds of ways. But it was quite simply nonsense: we had suggested their Planet 10 ourselves. This is the kind of error suspicion leads us all into.
There are many more examples I could give, but I will deal with the two main factors, or themes, of this Conference: that is, as we were affected. We supplied to Canopus outlines of the experiments proposed, but did not see then—were not prepared to see!—to what an extent these were to be conditioned by what Canopus proposed to do.
That was at the beginning of the 20,000 years during which we were to profit by Rohanda’s great time, under the influence of Canopus. It was not until later that Canopus decided to speed up her plan, because of her Planet 8, which was due to reach an untimely end because of unforeseen cosmic changes. Canopus was then thinking in terms of 50,000 and not 20,000 years, in which to advance the Colony 10 individuals to a certain level. She informed us that she planned two phases. First, a general heightening and consolidation of these Colony 10 volunteers up to a determined point. (That they were volunteers struck us then as laughable, though it was not long before we were employing the same policy, instead of conscripting.) This predetermined point—and we were offered full information and details—would be marked by what they called a “Lock”—that is, a synchronisation between Canopus and Rohanda that would bring the planet into harmony with their Empire as a whole. Harmony of a particular kind.
This, then, was the first theme, one unfamiliar to us at that time. Unfamiliar, I am going to risk saying, even now: for when we use words like harmony, good fellowship, co-operation—which we do plentifully and all the time in relation to our Empire—we do not mean by them what Canopus means. At the Conference, being told Canopus proposed to develop the Colony 10 volunteers, to stabilise them, to make use of their evolution to advance the Canopean Empire, what we understood from this was no more than the sort of development, stabilisation, evolution, advance, that we associated with our own territories.
The second theme was how Canopus proposed to achieve these admirable results. For we were given—or offered, for we did not make use of this opportunity—the information we wanted.