The Making of the Representative for Planet 8

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The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 is the fourth in a series of novels with the overall title 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'; the first is Shikasta (1979); the second The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980); the third The Sirian Experiments (1981); and the fifth The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1983).

You ask how the Canopean Agents seemed to us in the times of The Ice.

It was usually Johor who came, but whichever one of them it was, arrived without prior warning and apparently casually, stayed for a short or a long time, and during these agreeable visits - for we always looked forward to them -gave us advice, showed us how we could more effectively use the resources of our planet, suggested devices, methods, techniques. And then left without saying when we might expect to see Canopus again.

The Canopean Agents were not much unlike each other. I and the few others who had been taken to other Colonized Planets for instruction or training of various kinds knew that the officials of the Canopean Colonial Service were to be recognized by an authority they all had. But this was an expression of inner qualities, and not of a position in a hierarchy. On these other planets the Canopeans were always distinguishable from the natives, once we had learned what to look for. And this made us more aware of what it was they brought to our own Planet 8.

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