“In this charming place,” said he, “there are three roles for a woman. One is to be a whore. One, the wife of a high official, or at least a trader or merchant. Or you may be a servant or working woman of some kind. You would not choose, I am sure, the first.” The way he said this had a laugh behind it that I simply did not know how to take. The second is out of your reach—for you are not here with a permit or passport and must conceal yourself. Therefore, I can only suggest that you pose as my servant. This would be entirely within the customs and mores of Koshi. What you wear indoors does not matter, though if someone arrives unexpectedly you must cover yourself up absolutely, but wear appropriate clothes underneath in case you are searched.” He nodded at a chest and left. I found in it a plain blue skirt, baggy blue trousers, and a long tunic. And that was the last I saw of Nasar for several days.
What had I expected?
That I should spend time with Klorathy, that he would instruct me, and explain… all that I could not work out for myself, but felt continually on the edge of discovering.
I did not go out, but observed the town from my high vantage point, and from windows at many levels in the building. In the foodshop below, I excited notice. It was staffed by women wearing the same clothes as I did, short skirt over trousers, and the loose tunic; their hair tied in cloth. My unbound fair hair interested them: I was from the far Northwest, they said, and assumed I was a descendant of the survivors of the “events,” which they referred to as “The Great Punishment.” Some Adalantalanders had escaped somehow, had made their way east, and had helped to settle these great cities of the far eastern plains. They had a reputation for beauty, for wisdom—they were priestesses and shamanesses; and no fair or blue-eyed child could be born anywhere without being called “child of the lost islands of the great oceans of the west.” But I was no true daughter of Adalantaland—I was too thin, my locks were too sparse, my eyes were not sea blue. But my earrings, which I wore at certain hours of certain days, announced my true lineage, so these serving women knew: and they told everybody that the merchant on the top floor had as his serving maid a slave from the Northwest fringes. This I did not want, and wrapped my head thereafter so my earrings did not show, and tried to be inconspicuous, and took at one time as much food as was practical up the stairs so as to keep my visits few, though I wanted very much to talk with these cheerful slaves. For that is what they were. The females of this culture were truly enslaved, in that they did not know they were. They had never questioned that males should run everything, make laws, decide who should marry and how, and dispose of the futures of children. The dispossession of the true role of females had taken place so long ago they did not know it had ever happened. Their reverence for the old Adalantaland was all that remained to them of a real inkling of what females could do and be. And that had become “magic,” and “witchcraft.” Their highest ambition and possibility was to marry a man in a good position: or to give birth to sons who would prove themselves. I longed to study the warps and distortions in the female psyche that this displacement of their true function had caused: I wanted to study them in depth and in such way that I could return home with a contribution to our Studies in Perverted Psychology. But first things first.
I kept myself private and retired to the windows where I could look north and see—so I fancied—the white beginnings of the icecaps, and south to great mountains where the snows lay again. It getting colder daily, and I wrapped myself in my black cloth for the sake of warmth, and sat many hours quietly, thinking of the questions I was going to ask… Klorathy? Well, then, Nasar.
There were specific and definite things I wanted to know. It seemed to me that long ages had gone into my wanting to know them, that this wanting had fed a need that now could not any longer be put off.
And I imagined what would happen, how I would frame questions, how they would be answered, in all kinds of ways. And imagined, too, how they would not be answered, for I was already set to expect checks and delays.
One evening, when I had sat a long time in a window opening gazing over the rich suburbs and wondering who were the rich and powerful ones of this culture, and able—not all that inaccurately either—to picture them because of their victims and subjects I had seen in the streets, from the windows, and in the persons of the women downstairs in the foodshops; when I had watched in myself the melancholies and sadness that went with this “season” of the rapidly darkening days, so that there was less light in any day than there was night; when I had repeated in myself over and over again what I wanted to know, so I could ask sensibly and well—in came Nasar, unexpectedly, and flung himself down on a low seat, opening a package of food he had brought from the shop below, eating rapidly and in a way that I had never seen in Klorathy. He unceremoniously thrust a lump of some sweet stuff towards me and said “Have some,” and wiped his mouth roughly and lolled back, his hands locked behind his head, staring up and out at the sky that showed through the windows high in the ceilings. It was a cool sky and clouds fled past. I was utterly overthrown again, because he was so similar to Klorathy.
I sat myself down carefully, and said to him, beginning my cross-examination: “Are you a relative of Klorathy?”
This he took as a shock, or a check. He set his eyes direct on me, and gave me his attention:
“Well, lovely lady,” said he, and stopped. I remember how he briefly shut his eyes, sighed, and seemed to fight with himself. He said, in a different voice, patient, but too patient, there was much too much effort in it and he was speaking as from out of a dream or trance: “We come from the same planet, Klorathy and I. We are all similar in appearance.” And there was, again, that flicker of restless laugh—and then a turning aside of the eyes, a sort of painful grimace, a quick shaking of the head, as if thoughts were being shaken away. Then he looked at me again.
“Am I going to see Klorathy this time?”
“One Canopean is the same as another,” he said, and it was like the ghost of a derisive quote.
“You are not like Klorathy,” I said doggedly, surprised that I said it. And knew I had not meant it kindly.
He looked surprised, then laughed—sadly, I could have sworn to that—and said gently: “No, you are right. At this moment, at this time, I am indeed not remotely like Klorathy.”
I did not know what to say.
“I want to ask questions of somebody…” and this was desperate. I was becoming amazed at myself—the tone of this interview or exchange was different from any I had ever known. I, Ambien II, age-long high official of Sirius, with all that meant of responsibility and effectiveness—I did not recognise myself.
It seemed to me, however, that incompetent as I was being, he was arrested by me, and returned to something different from… I could not yet say to myself, simply, that he was in a bad, recognisably wrong and bad state. I said that at this moment at least I could see something in him of Klorathy.
“Ask, fair Sirian.” This I did not like but able to swallow it—because of the element of caricature in what he said, the manner of it.
“First of all. I met a man on the very first evening I was here. I disliked everything about him…” I described him, physically, and waited.
“You must surely be able to work that out for yourself. We are under the aegis of Puttiora here. As I believe you were told. That was one of them. They know everything that happens. Who comes into the city and who goes out. But you passed their test.”
“What test?”
“Obviously, you were of Canopus, and therefore you were not molested.”
“I am not, however.”
“They are an ignorant lot.”
“Why do you tolerate their rule?” I asked, fierce, hot, incredulous. “Why?”
“A good question, fair Sirian. Why? I ask it myself. Every hour of every day. Why? Why do we put up with the nasty, stinking, loathsome, horrible…” and he got up, literally sick and choking, and went to the window and leaned out. From far below I heard the clamour of evening, and imagined the flare-lit streets, the poor posturing women, the sale of flesh, the fighting, the drinking.
At that point there was a very long silence. I could have, then, said things I did not until later. But this was Canopus and so… and when he turned a hunted haunted face towards me, and sighed, and then laughed, and then shook his head, and then put his face in his hands and then flung himself down again, and yet was unable to stay still for even a moment, I said to myself that this was a man disgusted by Shammat.
“Very long term, the perspectives of Canopus, you must learn to understand that,” he said at last.
“And very long term are the perspectives of Sirius,” I said, with dignity. For if there was one thing I understood, it was that… empires and the running of them… but he stared and laughed—he laughed until he flung himself back and lay exhausted, staring at the ceiling.
The thought was in my mind that this was a man who was in very deep situational trouble. And I suppressed it.
“Very well,” I said, “for reasons of long-term development, you tolerate Shammat, you tolerate Puttiora and allow them to believe they are in control. Very well. But what are you doing here?”
“A good question again, fair Sirian.”
I said, "You do not have to call me that. I have a name. But it doesn’t matter. What I want to know is, what is the function of Canopus? What are you?” And I was leaning forward, twisting my hands together, so that they cracked—all my limbs are thin and frail, and I sustain breaks easily. I was using enough strength to break bones. I sat back, carefully relaxing myself.
He was watching me thoughtfully, with respect.
“You are right to ask that question.”
“But you are not going to answer it?”
At this he started up, leaning forward, gazing at me as if incredulous. “Can’t you see…” he began—and then lay back again, silent.
“See what?” But he said nothing. “Why do you stop? Why is it that you will never answer? Why is it I always get so far and then you won’t answer?”
He was gazing at me from where he reclined. I could have sworn that this copper man, or bronze man, that bronze-eyed, alert, smiling man was Klorathy. But he was not. The contrast was so absolute, and definite, to the extent that I said to him, not knowing I going to: “What is the matter with you?”
He laughed.
And even then I didn’t pursue it, for if I had he would have answered. He stood up. He collected himself. He smiled—oh, not at all like Klorathy.
“First of all… I have to tell you…” and he stopped, and he sighed. I saw that he was not going to say it!
“I have to go,” he said.
“Why? To work? They say you are a merchant.”
“I am a merchant. In Shammat land do as Shammat does. I am a merchant as you are a servant.” He came close to me then and bent and put out both hands and touched my earrings. “Take care of them,” said he, and sprang back, as if the touch burned him.
“Where are yours?” I asked.
“A good question. But they are on the earlobes of Shammat. They were stolen, you see. Or, more accurately, I got drunk and gave them to the earlobes of Shammat… very bad,” he said. “Not good.”
And he smiled in a way that frightened me, and left.