Shikasta by Doris Lessing Page B

could look after herself – she had had to. She seemed to have no memory of having been brought up in the Round City, or of her life there with both her parents. She talked of her mother as if she had died many years before, but I discovered she had been killed hunting with a party for deer. A couple of tigers had lain in wait, and knocked her dead with blows from their great paws. Sais did not know that so recently as a year ago such a thing would have been inconceivable. Tigers were, always had been, enemies of Native-kind!
    She agreed to come with us.
    When the spaceship had first set me down on the planet, it was well to the north of the Great Mountains, on the east of the central landmass. I had walked and ridden west. Now we were walking back eastwards but to the south of the Great Mountains which are such a feature of Shikasta, towering over every other part. The foothills here were higher than the tallest mountains of the southern continents, and we climbed and climbed. All around the central peaks and masses, not one range, but range after range, chain after chain, peak after peak – a world of mountains, north and south, east and west. We looked down from immense heights into the dead Hexagonal City, with its surrounding settlements, which we could not see at all from there. But I did see something quite unexpected. Far below me, in a clearing on a mountainside,was a column, or a pylon – something that glittered, and must be of metal, and was extremely tall, though from here it looked so tiny. This must be something to do with Shammat. Besides, even from where we were high in that marvellous tonic air, I could feel an evil message coming from it to me. I did not want to expose David and Sais to it, and marked where it was, so that I could return to it alone.
    We went on down, down, giving the Shammat thing a good distance, and then standing on the slopes of a minor peak, surveying interminable plains, I saw what I expected. We were looking down into the queerest kind of settlement. It had not been put together for shelter or for warmth or for any of the familiar purposes, but was an act of impaired memory.
    A tall cylinder lacked a roof, but a couple of branches had been laid across the top. Another, square, had a ragged gap in it. A five-sided shack was leaning and crooked. Every shape and size of building were there, not one complete. The materials had been taken from the Hexagonal City. To carry great stones for several miles was not difficult for these Giants.
    What had been in their minds, though? What did they remember of the old cities? How did they explain the vicious radiations they must have submitted themselves to, and how had they been affected?
    As we three walked down and down through the wooded slopes of the lower mountains, I spoke of the Giants to David and Sais. We would soon be meeting very tall, very strong people, but no, these were not the Great Ones of the stories and ballads. We would have to be careful and on our guard at all times. It was possible they might harm us.
    Thus I tried to prepare these two for what I feared. But how to explain to those who had never known anything like it, never even heard of such a thing, what slavery was, or serfdom? They had no means of knowing, or imagining, the contempt a degenerated and effete race may use for another, different from themselves.
    We at last reached the plain, and walked towards thathaphazard settlement. The Giants were all inside their buildings. We shouted greetings when we got near, and they came out, showing fear. Then, as we did not seem to threaten them, and they could see we were half their size, first one put on an act of indignation, as if it were trying it out and looking at the others to see if it was making an effect, and then they all copied, behaving as if calling out to them at all was an impertinence. They took us into a sort of corral, so badly made that light showed through the stones. Jarsum was there. He was