The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

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The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire is the fifth 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 fourth The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982).

I requested leave from service on Shikasta; I find myself on a planet whose dominant feature is the same as Shikasta's. Very well! I will stick it out for this term of duty. But I hereby give notice, formally, that I am applying to be sent, when I'm finished here, to a planet as backward as you like, as challenging as you like, but not one whose populations seem permanently afflicted by self-destructive dementia.

Now for my initial report. I have been here five V-years, and can confirm recent reports that our agent Incent did succumb to an attack of Rhetoric – not, after all, unknown, and not, as I may remind you, always unwelcome if regarded as an inoculation against worse – but unfortunately he did not recover, and suffers still from a stubborn condition of Undulant Rhetoric.

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