The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

report from am 5.

Salud! Servus, as Krolgul would say – and does say, since here he is, stirring it up. Mind you, he is not having it as easy as he likes, because the situation here is pretty clear-cut, and what the Father of Lies likes is already muddied waters he can muddy even worse. The situation? Onto a barren planet unpopulated by higher animals came a population fleeing from another planet, their own, but taken over forcibly by a species evicted from their planet by... but the account of this invasion was sent to the Archivists. Meanwhile, the deserts and marshes of Motz have been made fruitful. They are a clever, industrious people, full of the energy that results from single-mindedness. What are their minds and efforts directed towards? One thing only, to return to their home planet. For Motz, which they have created, have made, is not their home: so their minds have been set. While levelling a mountain or draining a swamp, they are singing: One day we shall go home. Yet the usurpers on their own planet have of course no intention of leaving, unless forcibly ejected. For a long time Motz was not strong enough; recently it has become strong enough. Yet while they talk – dramatically enough – of war, they do nothing about it. The truth is, they have become Motzan, of Motz; they do not really want to 'go home.' But they can't admit it, at least not publicly. Speeches and ceremonies of all kinds allow them to dream – briefly – of 'our home.' They decided that their grievance, their just cause, had been forgotten by the Galaxy, and kidnapped Grice to publicize their cause, counting on Volyen nuking efforts to recover one who is, after all, a senior colonial official. But Volyen, as you know, has made no more than routine protests; and this is because Grice's past as a Sirian agent (admittedly an ambiguous one) makes it hard for them to know what to do. As for Motzans, that he was, is, an agent serves only for them as a guarantee of worthiness, of Virtue.

Krolgul has told them that Grice was a 'blood-sucking tyrant, on Volyenadna, and, unable to reconcile these two states of mind, after long and tortuous thought they have concluded that his tyrannical behaviour as Governor was the result of a necessary concealment of his (intrinsically) virtuous nature, so as to make his association with Sirius seem improbable. Because these revolutionaries, who call themselves the Embodiments of Sirian Virtue, believe that, 'overall and in the long term and looking at the essential situation,' Good equals Sirius, and if anything that opposes Sirius shows any signs of decency, then this can only mean (a) the phenomenon in question is showing, but of course only briefly, Sirian qualities, or (b) it isn't really good and decent at all, 'looked at from an objective point of view.' This, despite the fact that it was under the aegis of Sirius that their planet was filched from them by conquerors whose own home had been stolen; and that everywhere you look in these Sirian outlying colonies is nothing but confusion, incompetence, lying, and those particularly brutal types of tyranny that result from indecision and conflict at the source: the Mother Planet of Sirius.

These are people who cannot accommodate more than one point of view at a time because of their history, which as I've said is a single-minded concentration on one thing, to return 'home.' Faced with a fact that does not fit their current view, they attempt to turn it on its head, and, if they fail, simply push it out of sight. Krolgul inadvertently let slip that he has enjoyed perfect freedom on Volyen to run his School of Rhetoric, and since he is currently informing them that Volyen is a total tyranny, they have decided that if there is such a school, then he, Krolgul, must be in the pay of the Volyens.

'No, no,' cried Grice, 'not so. Volyen at this present moment of historical time enjoys a situation of comparative democracy and tolerance for varied viewpoints, though this is, of course, due entirely to the contradictions of historical anomalies and uneven historical evolvement...' (I hasten to remind you that I am quoting.) 'In short, Volyen itself is the pleasantest place imaginable to live in for the vast majority of its citizens,' insisted Grice, quite courageously really, seeing that the Embodiments were getting more and more resdess and uneasy as their mentations jammed under the strain of it all.

But it was no use. For Motz, like all of the surrounding planets, is in a war-fever, ready to invade 'the Volyens.' This war-fever is, of course, equated with the Virtue, and it is too much to ask of these poor bigots that they must invade the 'pleasantest planet imaginable' in order to impose Sirian Virtue, even at the behest of 'irresistible historical imperatives' (a phrase much used at this 'present moment of historical time' here).

No, it is all too much for the unfortunate Embodiments; and so they have simply shelved the problem of Grice. They have locked him up in the sociological wing of their main library, because it happens to have only one, easily guarded, entrance. There Grice is left alone, with nothing to do but read.

I have described their state of mind.

I shall now describe Grice's. He has been conditioned to believe (by the unavoidable historical accident aforementioned) that to keep an open mind, and to see several points of view simultaneously, and to accommodate 'contradictions,' is a sign of maturity. This exercise has cost him nothing but discomfort because he has never been informed that he is an animal, recendy (historically speaking) evolved from a condition of being in groups, small or large, inside which everything that will conduce to the survival of the group is an imperative, and where individuals can expect to receive what they need; while outside are enemies, who are bad, to be ignored if possible, threatened if they intrude themselves, destroyed if necessary. The minds of Volyens, in this brief period of theirs when a calm and dispassionate and disinterested inspection of possibilities is the highest they aim for, are being asked for something that challenges millions of their years of development. No, it is the passionate bigotry of the Embodiments which is what come easily; 'seeing one another's point of view' is a stage upward in evolution to be made, and then kept, only with difficulty... And there sits Grice, in daily contact with people whom he must by upbringing regard as comparatively simple-minded, and even pitiable; but longing with every fibre of bis emotional self to join. The Embodiments love one another, cherish one another, look after the weak, reward the strong, watch one another's every thought and impulse. For the only ideas they ever permit themselves are related to how they have been dispossessed of their rights, and of how they will regain these rights on 'their own place,' how they will turn this Motz into a paradise, 'just to show the Galaxy.' The Embodiments are people who have barred from their minds all the richness, the variety, the evolutionary possibilities in the Galaxy. Grice watches them, and yearns to be of them, while through his tormented mind pass feebly protesting thoughts. 'No, it isn't like that,' he keeps planning to say to them 'when the opportunity is ripe.' 'No, but that isn't true. How can you say that? I've been to that planet; it's not at all as you describe it... but look, it's a question of facts...'