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liaison craft to make a reconnaissance of the Northwest fringes of the main landmass and then to direct a large cargo craft to kidnap an entire community of natives, without alerting the colonists who would then be sure to inform Canopus. After all, if our aircraft were not seen at all, the colonists could report only that the natives had gone – had probably decided to escape from a tutelary supervision unwelcomed by them. All this was done, and I was delivered an entire community of seventy natives, males, females, and young. They were treated at all times with kindness. We put them, not on the plain vacated by the Lombis, which was too large and was needed by us for other purposes, but on high wooded terrain not far from our own headquarters. There was no reason why they should not be aware of us; this experiment did not resemble that of ours with the Lombis. They at once made shelters for themselves of a quite advanced kind, using bricks of sunbaked earth, and well-dressed thatch for roofing. They showed no signs of distress at this arbitrary disruption of their lives but, on the contrary, were ready to be friendly and – because of their relationship with the Canopean colonists – to be taught. But while I forbade them to be used as servants or labourers in any way whatever – thus copying what I had understood of the Canopean experiment – I also forbade them to be made pets, or to be allowed inside our houses or to be taught any further skills, for it seemed to me that they had already been shown more than they could use. They knew, theoretically, for instance, about planting seeds and tubers for food, and about keeping animals for meat and milk, but were careless and forgetful in these, showing signs of letting aptitudes slide away from them altogether. Remembering that the settlements of colonists in the north were at a distance from their charges, and that contact was seldom, I believed I was following this example in not pressing our tutelage. At this stage the natives were slightly shorter than our own average height, at about seven or eightR-feet. They were upright, never descended to all fours, kept their dwellings clean, ate meat and vegetables and fruit, and milked a species of deer, but not with any system.
    This little colony of northern animals was a most important factor of our relations with Canopus, and of subsequent developments on Rohanda. But this did not seem to us so at the time. Far from it. Yet we could hardly forget these creatures, who lived so close to us, always visible, and of much interest to us and our visitors in their comings and goings. They multiplied, but not very much; and their settlements spread, but never did more than cover the hills that were first allotted to them. Nor did we cease to monitor their development because this was where our preoccupation with Canopus and its work focused. But while several thousand years passed, we were involved in many other experiments, all over this wonderful and rich continent, and these took up our attention.
    I shall mention the one that did have an indirect effect on long-term Rohandan development.
    Millions of females throughout our Empire, forbidden to produce young because of our population-reduction programmes, craved this experience while subscribing to a prohibition whose necessity they understood. We had more volunteers than we could ever use for our various eugenic attempts.
    Prefabricated buildings of a high standard were space-lifted in from our manufacturing Planet 3, and placed on the terrain that the Lombis had occupied. These were filled with females, already impregnated, from various of our planets. The fathers had also been comprehensively chosen. Our need was to produce a strain that would adapt easily to widely varied conditions on different planets. While we were restricted by the nature of the conditions on our Mother Planet to planets that fell within certain atmospheric limits, these limits proved to