Briefing for a Descent Into Hell - Doris May Lessing [53]
The conference was already nearly over, with not much more than the Briefing to come. Already those who were not in on the Descent were getting up and collecting their gear.
Minna Erve was still speaking. “In short, this is the worst yet. The computers have checked and doublechecked —and checked again. This was on advice from on High—” here the Light pulsed in acknowledgement—“but there is no doubt. The balance of planetary forces already exercises strong adverse pressures, which will reach a peak in about ten to fifteen years from now. Their years, of course. Before you leave, I’d like you to watch this second film, Forecast (Detail).”
Delegates glanced at each other, but sat down again. Minna might be overconscientious, but it was true enough that until most of them had reached here and had been hit by the atmosphere of this particular conference, they had not really appreciated the urgency.
They had already seen the Forecast film, showing Earth as an item in its place in the solar system. Earth had showed it was under pressure, as it and the other planets moved into the expected positions, first of all by the increased activity of the surface. This was slight to begin with, but earthquakes, tidal waves, excessive movements of all kinds become increasingly noticeable. The weather, always inhospitable to life on that planet, became more extreme. The icecaps melted slightly, causing havoc along the seaboards. The Comet added its quota of disturbance to the already delicate-enough balances between Earth and its neighbours. The representatives of Mars and Venus had sat with particularly long faces. What happened anywhere in the System (and of course, beyond) affected everyone, but near neighbours were bound to feel it first: the last time Earth was in a crisis, both Mars and Venus had suffered, and the memory of that time was still strong. But it had not been possible for any delegates, not even those from Pluto and Neptune, to whom the Earth’s inhabitants were alien indeed, to watch the end of the Forecast film without awe.
But this was Forecast (Detail); Earth in closeup, by herself, and without even the Moon. The previous film, showing Earth and Moon as—as it were—an atom of the molecule, had brought home first the change in the seasons, weather, crustal activity, vegetation. This film, on a smaller and slower scale, showed the drastic increase of population as Forests and Plant Life and Animal Life diminished, and deserts spread. For as animal and bird life dwindled, human beings multiplied, to preserve the balance. Organic life, necessary in the cosmic balance, had to be maintained on Earth, and as humans killed and destroyed the organic life of which they were a part, their own increase kept the balance. But their aggressiveness and irrationality increased steadily. As usual it was a total process—one strand or factor not to be separated from another. It was not that human aggression and irresponsibility increased because of the population explosion, and that this explosion was because of the planetary movements—all these were strands in a single process.
The delegates watched with steadily deepening grimness as wars, previously kept fairly local, got worse and enlarged. Towards the end the destruction ceased to have even a pretence of consistency. Nations became allies in one decade who had been enemies the last; enemies who had been devoting every technical resource to mutual slaughter suddenly became allies. But the technical devices were out of control; the instruments of mass slaughter and destruction took over. As that planetary position was reached that was by now designated everywhere in the System as FIRST CLASS EMERGENCY, the increasingly poisoned atmosphere on Earth, the emanations of mass Death and Fear, reflected back and affected—first of all, Mars and Venus; and their imbalance in its turn spread out to the other planets—and, as was signalled by the presence of the Sun Himself, to the Sun Himself.
By the time the planets had moved out of the Danger position, changes