The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire - Doris Lessing

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And it was not only of Volyen affairs but of Sirius and ourselves as well that I was introduced to a very different view.

       So different there was a point when I realized, and with what shock and distress I hardly dare to say, that my attitude was no longer consistent with that of a loyal servant of Canopus.

       I am prepared to offer my resignation. What shall I do?

       Your always grateful pupil,

       Incent.

      I did not reply to this, though, of course, had he resigned I would have asked him to reconsider. But he did not. I heard he was sufficiently involved with the rebel forces on Volyendesta, to the point where he was wounded in the arm and had to be hospitalized. Since I was due in the Volyen system, I decided to wait till I had seen him.

      Volyen itself seethes with emotions of all kinds, its four colonies no less – to the extent that there is nowhere I could place Incent hoping he would be free from the stimulus of words long enough to recover his balance. No, I had either to send him home to Canopus with the recommendation that he was unfit for Colonial Service, and this I was reluctant to do – as you know, I am always unwilling to waste such experiences in young officials who might be strengthened by them in the long run – or to regard it as a case where we must decide to exercise patience.

      Of course we can decide to submit him to the Total Immersion Cure, but that does seem rather a last resort. Meanwhile, he is still in hospital.

       THE HISTORY OF THE VOLYEN EMPIRE. SUMMARY CHAPTER. (EXCERPTS.)

      This is the largest planet of a Class 18 Star situated on the remotest verges of the Galaxy, on the outside edge of its outer spiral arm. It is in a very poor position for Harmonic Cosmic Development; and for this reason it has never been part of the Canopean Empire. We did not do more than maintain Basic Surveillance for thirty thousand Canopean years. At the beginning of this period an evolutionary leap had taken the population from Type 11 to Type 4 (that is to say, Galactian Basic), and a predominantly gathering-and-hunting type soon developed agriculture, trade, and the beginnings of metallurgy, and built towns. There was little contact between Volyen and near planets. Then, because of a cosmic disturbance resulting from the violent ‘soul-searchings’ of the neighbouring Sirian Empire, the population increased rapidly, material development accelerated, and a ruling caste came to dominate the entire planet, making slaves of nine-tenths of the population. All the planets in that sector were similarly affected, and there began a period of history during which they have been invading and settling one another, as short-lived and unstable ‘Empires,’ for twenty-one C-years.

      Volyen has several times been dominant, and several times a subject.

      The Sirian Empire, like us, had never made any attempt to absorb Volyen. During Volyen’s stable period, Sirius was more or less stable and had made a decision not to expand. When Sirian influences upset the balances of Volyen, it was because of the turmoil, from end to end of the Sirian Empire, attendant upon the conflict between the two parties known as the Conservers and the Questioners, a conflict that split even the governing oligarchy of Sirius, the Five. Some of their outlying planets rebelled, and were instantly punished. Some asked to be permitted to secede and become self-governing. There were reprisals. These energetic, not to say savage, measures caused the Questioners to redouble their protests and demands that Sirius should be studying its own nature and potentialities from points of view not exploitative. For a short period the Conservers were dominant, and the Questioners were also punished. While all this upheaval went on, the fact that Volyen, in a dominant phase again, had developed its armies and sent them out to conquer its two moons, or planet’s planets, went virtually unnoticed. When Volyen dubbed itself the Volyen Empire, Sirius, like us, merely noted the fact, as we had done before. But when Volyen expanded beyond its own planets and sent armies into the two other planets of its solar system, Sirius did take notice. For these two planets had been for S-millenniums subjects of sharp debate and disagreement. When the Sirian Empire, long before this time, had made a decision not to expand further, it was these two planets (Maken and Slovin) that had been next on the list for conquest and colonization. Neither we nor Sirius had named these planets; in their system they were designated PE 70 and PE 71 (Possible Expansion). The Questioners volubly, not to say violently, objected to having any attention whatsoever paid to this ‘Empire,’ which from their point of view was useless because of its backwardness, but they were overruled. The decision of the Sirian governing body, the Four, to ‘punish’ Volyen, and to claim PE 70 and PE 71, marked the beginning of a renewed Sirian expansion, which was nothing like the planned and controlled developments of Sirian expansion under the Five but was the result of internal convulsions. The Sirian Empire made a wild surge outwards, intensifying its own instability, and leading inevitably to its collapse.

      NOTE BY ARCHIVIST. Klorathy arrived in the Volyen ‘Empire’ when its two planets and Sirian PE 70 and PE 71 were in revolt and rebellion against Volyen, and before Sirius invaded.

      Apologies. I have been engaged in cultivating Shammat on Volyen’s planets, found myself afflicted by brief attack of Shammatis, put myself into Restorative Detention while it lasted, and came out to deal with Incent, as a priority. This because of the key role he is now in with Shammat. I told you Incent was hospitalized for a flesh wound. I had him transferred to the Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases, and went to visit him there.

      I positioned this hospital on Volyendesta because of probability forecasts that Volyen itself, as its ‘Empire’ collapses, will be savagely overrun, whereas Volyendesta will be little affected. As indication of the healthy state of Volyendesta: Agent 23 was able to have the hospital built and equipped by the rebellious party that is led by a rather remarkable character, one Ormarin, of whom more later, on whose comparative freedom from illusions I am learning to rely. The concept of the hospital, as I explained it to him, amounting to a (for him) completely new outlook on (as he put it, in the current Volyen mode) ‘the nature of the class struggle’ – but we must not expect too much too soon – caused in him a sharp but fortunately short attack of Elation. You will of course have seen that his agreement to build this hospital was partly due to a misunderstanding of our purposes. By the time he had really understood, the place was up and in use. There followed the routine riots and protests. But the effort at attempting to understand this hospital, the discussions and debates, some of them violent: this process itself caused the creation of a new faction, political in expression, which came to support and strengthen Ormarin.

      Volyendesta is a watery planet, with a large, rapidly circumgyrating moon afflicting its inhabitants with a vast variety of unstable moods; but the sheer effort needed to cope with these conditions has evolved a breed (partly originating, as you will recall, from the Volyen stock) able to withstand rapid changes of emotional condition while ostensibly succumbing to them. On my first visit to this planet I was disheartened by its inhabitants’ violent reactions to everything, but soon came to see that these could be regarded, rather, as surface storms over a comparatively untouched interior. And I saw that a few of the inhabitants had even been able to use this condition of constant stimulation to evolve and strengthen inner calm. Ormarin is one.

      I went straight to the Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases. This, on advice from Ormarin which Agent 23 was quick to take, is called by them the Institute for Historical Studies. I was in the guise of a lecturer visiting the place to judge whether I wished to take up an appointment.

      The site was chosen after consultation with their geographers to provide the maximum opportunities for natural stimulation. It is on a short and very high peninsula on a stormy coast, where the ocean is permanently in a tumultuous roar, and where its moon has full effect. Immediately behind the peninsula the mainland affords, within achievable limits, extremes of terrain. On one side rise grandiose and gloomy mountains, full of the graves of overambitious mountaineers. On the other reach

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