Shikasta by Doris Lessing Page B

not seen a citizen of Canopus for thousands of years, for we had relied on the reports of these conscientious administrators. And here was Canopus announcing a physical presence, but from the mouth of a Native. As for me, I was surprised to find in myself childishness. Looking up at these immense people was to be reminded of impulses I had not consciously remembered. I wanted to reach for their hands and to be held, supported; wanted to be lifted up to the level of those benign faces, wanted all kinds of comforts and soothings that I did not
really
want at all – so that I was ashamed, and even indignant. And those conflicts of different levels of memory in me reinforced the woe I was truly feeling, which was because of what I had to say to them. And, besides, I was not well. Normally I would have spent time in Zone Six, as preparation. I was suddenly faint, and the Giants saw it. Before they could hold me up, which they were about to do, and which I did not want, for it would only feed this long-forgotten infant in me, I sat myself down on the plinth of the column, and from this even lower level looked up at these towering men behind whom the trees did not seem much taller, and made myself say, ‘I have news for you. Bad news.’
    â€˜We were told to expect you,’ was the answer.
    I sat absorbing this, making my faintness an excuse for silence.
    What
had they been told to expect? What had Canopus allowed them to know?
    It was not the case that everything in the Canopean mind was instantly the property of the Giant mind – and vice versa. No, it was all more precise and specific than that.
    The aim of the Pre-Lock Phase on Rohanda had been to develop the powers – for want of a better word – of the planet, through the symbiosis of the Giants and the Natives, so that the Planet Rohanda, that is, the physical being of the planet itself, could be linked, through the Giant/Native match, with the Canopean System. During this phase, which was so much shorter than had been expected, there had been little
mental
flow back and forth, Canopus to Rohanda, but there had been occasional flickerings, moments of communication: nothing that could be relied upon, or taken up and developed.
    When the Lock took place the powers, vibrations (whatever word you like, since all are inaccurate and approximate) of Rohanda were fused with Canopus, and through Canopus with its subsidiaries, planets, and stars.
    But it had not been that the very moment the Lock took place the Giant mind had achieved an instant, and total, and
steady
fusion with Canopus. From that time on, Rohanda was a function of the functioning of Canopus, but nothing could be considered as accomplished and to be taken for granted. The maintenance of the Lock depended on continuous care. First of all, the placing and watching and monitoring of the Stones, which had to be constantly realigned – slightly, of course, but with so many that was an arduous and demanding task. And then the building of the cities; and with each new mathematical entity created and maintained, the Lock was strengthened and each city had to be watched, adapted, and all this with the aid of the Natives, who were being taught everything, the moment they could take it in. And above all, what was being transmitted was how to watch their own development, and constantly to feed and adjust it, so that what they did would always be in harmony, in phase, with Canopus, the ‘vibrations’ of Canopus.
    Canopean strength was beamed continually into Rohanda. Rohanda’s new, always deepening strengths were beamed continually back to Canopus. Because of this precise and expert exchange of emanations, the prime object and aim of the galaxy were furthered – the creation of ever-evolving Sons and Daughters of the Purpose.
    But these interchanges of substance were infinitely varied and variable. The ‘mind’ shared between Rohanda and Canopus did not mean that every thought