This, then, was the first theme, one unfamiliar to us at that time. Unfamiliar, I am going to risk saying, even now: for when we use words like harmony, good fellowship, co-operation—which we do plentifully and all the time in relation to our Empire—we do not mean by them what Canopus means. At the Conference, being told Canopus proposed to develop the Colony 10 volunteers, to stabilise them, to make use of their evolution to advance the Canopean Empire, what we understood from this was no more than the sort of development, stabilisation, evolution, advance, that we associated with our own territories.

The second theme was how Canopus proposed to achieve these admirable results. For we were given—or offered, for we did not make use of this opportunity—the information we wanted.

We did not accept because we were handicapped by being resentful, even though the general euphoria of the Conference succeeded in masking these unfortunate emotions. The northern areas were plentifully stocked with certain species of primate. In these were upright, using tools and weapons, with the beginnings of semi-permanent settlement. This type of animal, at this level of evolution, is always of value, both for experiment and in training for simple tasks. There were none in Isolated Southern Continent II; and while there were some apes in Southern Continent I, they were at a low level of evolution, suitable for experiment, but of no use at for work.

We saw Canopus “as usual” grabbing the best of everything, for not once did remind ourselves that there no reason we should ever have been allowed on Rohanda at all. It was not we who had discovered this planet.

Canopus told us that certain rapid and desirable developments of the Colony 10 colonists would be because of a “symbiosis” between them and the apes, and that the apes, too, would be benefited. We saw this “symbiosis” in terms of beneficial cultural exchange and, more specifically, as the superior immigrants being set free for higher tasks by using the apes as servants.