Report on the Threatened City

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Doris Lessing. Report on the Threatened City

Report on the Threatened City. Doris Lessing. From The Temptation of Jack Orkney: Collected Stories Volume Two

Report on the Threatened City. PRIORITY FLASH ONE

PRIORITY

Summary of Background to Mission

Summary of Objective this Mission

The Nature of the Problem

An Impossible Fact

The Landing

War-Making Patterns

Rational Action Impossible

Subservient Populations

First Attempt at a Warning

Incapacity for Fear

Second Attempt at a Warning

Phase I Abandoned

Phase II Attempted

Necessity to Condense Report, Power Failing

Capture by the Authorities

Humour as a Mechanism

The Jettisoning of Phases I, II and III

Inability to Assess Truth

Adaptation to their Norm for their Dominant Animals

The Institute

A Basic Mechanism

Indifference to Loss of Life

Their Education

Barbaric Method of Town Planning Unique in Our System, but See Histories of Planets 2 and 4

The Institute Found Not Useful

Failure with the Young

Despair of the Young

Mass Suicides

Laughter, Functions of, See Above

Departure from the Planet

Military Sector III to HQ (Top Confidential)

Air Force 14 to Centre

Air Force 14 to Centre

About the Author

Read on

Mara and Dann

Memoirs of a Survivor

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Table of Contents

Title Page

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Our unmanned craft have been landing on their planet for centuries and have taken various shapes, been of varying substances. These landings were at long intervals until one year ago. These intervals were because, except for its unique destructiveness and belligerence, this species is not the most remarkable or interesting of those made available to our study by our Technological Revolution in its Space Phase. But 12 times recently, each during a period when their planet was at full light potential, we have landed craft, and each time close to the place in question. This was easy, because the terrain is semi-desert and lightly populated. We chose material for the craft that would manifest as their substance light – which is why we always used maximum their planet light as landing times. These craft were visible, if at all, as strong moonlight. The craft we were using on this present mission, the 13th in this series, is of higher concentration, since it is manned.

We landed as planned. The sky was clear, the light of their moon strong. We knew at once that we were visible, because a herd of their young was near, some 50 or 60 of them, engaged in a mating ritual that involved fire, food and strong sound, and as we descended, they dispersed. Tapping their mind streams established that they believed our machine was extra-terrestrial but that they were indifferent – no, that is not an exact description, but remember, we are trying to describe a mind state that none of us could have believed was possible. It was not that they were indifferent to us but that indifference was generalized throughout their processes, felt by us as a block or a barrier. After the young creatures had gone, we surveyed the terrain and discovered that we were on high land rising to mountains, inland from the water mass on the edge of which stands the city. A group of older specimens arrived. We know now that they live nearby and are all some variety or other of agriculturalist. They stood quite close, watching the craft. An examination of their minds showed a different type of block. Even at that early stage, we were able to establish a difference in texture between their thought streams and those of the young, which we later understood amounted to this: the older ones felt a responsibility or a power to act, as members of society, while the young ones were excluded or had decided to exclude themselves. As this area of the planet turned into the sunlight, it was clear to us that our craft ceased to be visible, for two of these older creatures came so close we were afraid they would actually enter the concentration. But they showed an awareness of our presence by other symptoms – headache and nausea. They were angry because of this damage being done to them – which they could have alleviated by moving farther off; but at the same time, they were feeling pride. This reaction highlighted the differences betwen them and the young – the pride was because of what they thought we represented; for, unlike the young, they believed we were some kind of weapon, either of their own land mass or of a hostile one, but from their own planet.

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