JOYCE
Zlenon was Marthasa's son, who held the position of Chief Historian at the research library. He was more slender and darker than his father, and lacking in his volubility and glad-handedness.
He greeted Cameron's request with a tolerant smile. "You have to be quite specific, Mr. Wilder, when you say you would like to know about the history of the Markovian Nucleus. You understand the Nucleus consists of over a hundred worlds and has a composite history extending back more than thirty thousand of your years in very minute detail."
Cameron countered with a helpless shrug and smile. "I'm afraid I'll have to depend on your good nature to guide me through such a mass. I don't intend to become a student of Markovian history, of course, but perhaps you have adequate summaries with which a stranger could start. Going backward, let us say, for perhaps two or three hundred Terran years?"
"Of course—some very excellent ones are available—" He moved toward the reading table nearby and began punching a selection of buttons.
As Cameron and Joyce moved to follow, Marthasa waved a hand expansively and started out the other way. "I can see you're going to be set for a while. I'll just leave you here, and send the car back after I reach the house. Don't be late for dinner."
They nodded and smiled and turned to Zlenon. The Markovian was watching them with pin-point eyes. "I wondered if there was anyparticularproblem in which you might be interested," he said calmly. "If there is—?"
Cameron shook his head hastily. "No—certainly not. Just general information—"
The Historian turned his attention to the table and began explaining its use to the Terrans, showing how they could obtain recording of any specific material they wished to choose. It would appear in either printed or pictorial form or could be had on audio if they wanted it. Once he was certain they could make their own selections he left them to their study.
"This is the best break we could possibly have hoped for," Joyce whispered as Zlenon disappeared from their sight. "We can get anything we want in the whole library if I understand the operation of this gadget the way I think I do."
"That's the way it looks to me," Cameron answered. "But don't get your hopes too high. There must be a catch in it somewhere, the way they were trying to shoo us away from coming here."
They punched the buttons for the history of the planet they were on, scanning slowly from the present to earlier years. There were endless accountings of trading and commercial treaties between members of the Nucleus as shifts of economic balance occurred. There were stories of explorations and benevolent contacts with races on the outer worlds. Details of their most outstanding scientific discoveries, which seemed to come with profligate rapidity—
Cameron whipped back through the pages of the histories, searching only for a single item, one clue to the swift evolution from barbarism to peaceful co-operation. After an hour he was in the middle of that critical period when the Council despaired of its inability to cope with the Markovian menace.
But the stories of commerce and invention and far-flung exchange with other peoples continued. Nowhere was there any reference to the violence of the period. They went back two hundred—five hundred years—beyond the time when Council members first made contact with the Nucleus.
There was nothing.
Cameron sat back in complete puzzlement as it became apparent that it was useless to go back further. "The normal thing would be for them to brag all over the place about their great conquests. Even races who become comparatively civilized citizens ordinarily let themselves go when it comes to history. If they've had a long record of conquest and bloodshed, they say so with plenty of chest pounding. Of course, it's padded out to reflect their righteous conquest over tyranny, but it's always there insomeform.
"But nothing up to now has been normal about the development of the Markovian problem and this really tops it off—the complete omission of any reference to their armed conquests."
"Maybe this planet didn't participate very much. Perhaps only a small number of the Nucleus worlds were responsible for it," said Joyce.
Cameron shook his head. "No. The Council records show that the Nucleus as a unit was responsible, and that virtually all the worlds are specifically mentioned. And even if this one had been out of it completely you could still expect references to it because there was constant interchange with most of the other planets. We can try another one, though—"
They tried one more, then a half dozen in quick scanning. They swept through a summarization of the Nucleus as a whole during that critical period.
There was nothing to show that the Markovians had ever been anything but peace-loving citizens intent on pursuit of science, commerce, and the arts.
"This could have been rigged for our special benefit," said Joyce thoughtfully as they ended the day's futile search. "They didn't want to apply enough pressure to keep us from coming, but they did want to make sure we wouldn't find out anything about their past."
Cameron shook his head slowly. "It couldn't have been done in the time they've had. Simply cutting out what they didn't want to show us wouldn't have done it. There's too much cross reference to all periods involved. It's a complete phony, but it's not something done on the spur of the moment just for our benefit. It's too good for that."
"Maybe they've had it for alongtime—just in case somebody like us should come along."
"It's possible, but I don't think that's right either," said Cameron. "I can't give you any reason for thinking so—except the phoniness goes deeper than merely deceiving an investigator. Somehow I have the feeling that the Markovians are even deceiving themselves!"
They left the building and took the car back to the house of Marthasa without seeing Zlenon again. Their Markovian host was waiting. Cameron thought he sensed a trace of tension in Marthasa that wasn't there before as he led them to seats in the garden.
"We don't like to boast about the Nucleus," he said with his customary volubility, "but we have to admit we are proud of our science and technology. Few civilizations in the Universe can match it. That's not to disparage the fine accomplishments of the Terrans, you understand, but it's onlynaturalthat out here on these older worlds—"
They listened half attentively, trying in their imaginations to pierce the armor he used to defend so frantically the thing the Markovians did not want the outer worlds to know anything about.
The talk went on during mealtime. Marthasa's wife caught the spirit of it and they both regaled the Terrans with accounts of the grandeur of Markovian exploits. Cameron grew more and more depressed by it, and as they retired to their rooms early he began to realize how absolutely complete was the impasse into which they had been driven.
"They've let us in," he said to Joyce. "They've shown us the history they've written of themselves. There's no way in the Universe we can stand up and boldly challenge that history and call them the liars we know they are."
"But they must know of the histories written on other Council worlds about their doings," said Joyce. "Maybe we could reach a point where we could at least ask about them. Ask how it is that other histories show that a hundred and twenty years ago a fleet of Markovian ships swept unexpectedly out of space and looted and decimated the planet Lakcaine VI. Ask why the Markovian history says only that the Nucleus concluded six new commercial treaties to the benefit of all worlds concerned in that period, without any mention of Lakcaine VI."
"When you start asking questions like that you've got to be ready to run. And if it fizzles out you've lost all chance of coming back for a second try. That could fizzle out because they simply deny the validity of all history outside their own."
"Then we might as well pack and go home if you're not going to challenge any of this stuff they hand out. We won't find the answer by standing around and takingtheirword on everything."
"I forgot to tell you one thing," Cameron said slowly. "We may not have to take their word for it. Someone else here knows the truth of the situation, also."
"Who?"
"The Ids." He told her then of the warning Sal Karone had given him aboard the ship on the way to the Nucleus, the statement that "My Masters are a people who cannot yet be understood by the men of other worlds."
"The Ids know what the Markovians are and what they are trying to hide. I had almost overlooked that simple fact."
"But you can't go out and challenge them to tell the truth any more than you can the Markovians!" Joyce protested. "Because Sal Karone went out of his way to warn you doesn't mean he's going to get real buddy-buddy and tell you everything you want to know."
"No, of course not. But there's one little difference between him and the Markovians. He has admitted openly that he knows why we're here. None of the Markovians have done that yet. We don't have to challenge him because there already exists the tacit understanding that something is decidedly phony.
"And besides, he invited us to come and visit the Id communities outside the city. I think that's an invitation we should accept just as soon as possible."
IV
Sal Karone had not repeated his invitation that the Terrans visit the Id communities, but he showed no adverse reaction when Cameron said they would like to take him up on his previous offer.
"You will be very welcome," he said. A soft smile lightened his features. "I will notify my leaders you will come."
With a start, Cameron realized that the existence of any kind of community probably implied leaders, but he had ignored this in view of Marthasa's insistence that the Ids had no culture of their own. He wondered just how untrue that assertion might be.
For the first time, he sensed genuine disapproval in the attitude of Marthasa when he mentioned plans to go with Sal Karone to the Id centers. "There's nothing out there you'd want to see," the Markovian said. "Their village is only a group of crude huts in the forest. It'll be a waste of your time to go out there when there's so much else we could show you."
"Sal Karone suggested the visit before we arrived," said Cameron. "He'd be hurt if we turned him down. Perhaps just to satisfy him—"
Angry indecision hid behind Marthasa's eyes. "Well—maybe that makes it different," he said finally. "We try to do everything possible to make the Ids happy. It's up to you if you want to waste your time on the visit."
"I think I do. Sal Karone has been very attentive and pleasant to us. It's a small favor in return."
Early in the morning, two days later, they left with Sal Karone directing them to the Idealist center. They discovered that the term, at the edge of the city, was a mere euphemism. It was a long two-hour trip at the high speed of which the Markovian cars were capable.
The city itself vanished, and a thickly wooded area took its place during the last half of the journey, reminding them of the few remote, peaceful forests of Earth. Then, as the car slowed, they left the highway for a rough trail that led for a number of miles back into the forest. They came at last into a clearing circled by rough wooden dwellings possessing all the appearance of crude, primitive existence on little more than a subsistence level.
"This is the village of our Chief," said Sal Karone. "He will be pleased to explain all you may wish to know about the Idealist Way."
Cameron was shocked almost beyond speech by his first sight of the clearing. He had tried to prepare for the worst, but he had told himself that the Markovian's estimate of the Ids could not be true. Now he was forced to admit that it was. In contact with all the skills of their Masters, which they would certainly be permitted to learn if they wanted to, the Ids chose primitive squalor when they were on their own.
Their serenity could be little more than the serenity of the savage who has no wants or goals and is content to merely serve those whose ambitions are greater. It was the serenity and peacefulness of death. The Ids had died—as a race—long ago. The Markovians were loud, boastful, and obnoxious, but that could be discounted as the awkwardness of youth in a race that would perhaps be very great in the Universe at a time when the Ids were wholly forgotten.
Cameron felt depressed by the sight. He began to doubt the wisdom of his coming here in hope of finding an answer to the Markovian deception. The warning of Sal Karone on shipboard seemed now like nothing more than a half ignorant demonstration of loyalty toward the Markovian Masters. Possibly there had been some talk which the Id had overheard and he had taken it upon himself to warn the Terrans—knowing perhaps nothing of the matter which the Markovians were reluctant to expose.
If he could have done so gracefully, Cameron felt he would have turned and gone back without bothering with the interview. His curiosity about the Ids themselves had all but vanished. The answer to their situation was obvious. And he had maintained such high hope that somehow his expectation in them would be fulfilled during this visit.
There was a satisfying cleanliness apparent in everything as Sal Karone led them to the largest of the buildings. Joyce seemed to be enjoying herself as she surveyed the surroundings with an interest Cameron had lost.
As they entered the doorway a thin, straight old man with a white beard arose from a chair and approached them in greeting. The ancient, conventional, patriarchal order, Cameron thought. He could see the whole setup in a nutshell right now. Squalid communities like this where the too-old and the too-young were nurtured on the calcified traditions to which nothing was ever added. The able serving in the homes of the Markovians, providing sustenance for themselves and those who depended on them. The Markovians were generous indeed in not referring to the Ids as slaves. There was little else they could ever be called.
The Chief was addressed as Venor by Sal Karone, who introduced them. "It is kind of you to include our village in your visit to the Nucleus," said Venor. "There are many more spectacular things to see."
"There is often greatest wisdom in the least spectacular," said Cameron, trying to sound like a sage. "Sal Karone was kind enough to invite us to your center and said there was much you could show us."
"The things of the soul are not possible toshow," said Venor gently. "We wish there were time that we might teach you some of the great things our people have learned in their long wanderings. I am told that your profession and your purpose in being here is the study of races and their actions and the things they have learned."
With a start, Cameron came to greater attention. He was certain he had never given any such information in the presence of Sal Karone or Marthasa. Yet even Venor knew he was a sociologist! Here was the first knowledge that must lie behind the evidence of the undercurrent of objections of the Markovian representative in the Council and Premier Jargla.
And this primitive patriarch was in possession of it.
Relations between the individuals of this planet were something far more complex than Cameron had assumed. He hesitated a moment before speaking. Just why had this bait been so innocently thrown to him? Marthasa had never mentioned it. Yet had the Markovians asked for an attempt to get an admission from him for their own purposes? And what purposes—?
He abandoned caution, and nodded. "Yes, that is the thing I am interested in. I had hoped to study the history and ways of the Markovians. As Sal Karone has told me, they don't want strangers to make such a study. You are perhaps not so unwilling to be known—?"
"We wish the entire Universe might know of us and be as we are."
"You hardly make that possible, subjugating your identity so completely to that of another race. The worlds will never know of you unless you become strong and unified as a people and obtain a name of your own."
"Our name is known," said Venor. "We are the Idealists. You will not find many worlds on which we are unknown, and they call us the ones who serve. Even on your world you have the saying of a philosopher who taught that any who would be master should become the servant of all. Your people once understood it."
"Not as a literal undertaking," said Cameron. "You can't submerge your entire racial identity as you have done. That is not what the saying meant."
"To us it does," said Venor solemnly. "We would master the Universe—and therefore we must serve it. That is the core of the law of the Idealists."
Cameron let his gaze scan through the window to the small clearing in the thick forest, to the circle of wooden houses.We would master the Universe—he restrained a smile.
"You cannot believe this," said Venor, "because you have never understood the mark of the servant or the mark of the master. How often is there difficulty in distinguishing one from the other!"
And how often do the illusions of the mind ease the privations of the body, Cameron thought. So that was the source of the Idealist serenity. Wherever they went they considered themselves the masters through service—and conversely, those they served became the slaves, he supposed. It was a pleasant, easy philosophy that hurt no one. Except the ones who believed it. They died the moment they accepted it, for all initiative and desire were gone.
"The master is he who guides the destiny of a man or a race," said Venor almost in meditation. "He is not the man who gathers or disperses the wealth, or who builds the cities and the ships to the stars. The master is he who teaches what must be done with these things and how a people shall expend their lives."
"And the Markovians do this, in obedience to you?" said Cameron whimsically.
"Wherever my people are," answered Venor, "strife ceases and peace comes. Who can do this is master of worlds."
There was a strange solemnity about the voice and figure of the old Idealist that checked the sense of ridiculousness in Cameron. It seemed somehow strangely moving.
"You believe the worlds are better," he asked gently, "just because you are there?"
"Yes," said Venor, "because we are there."
There was a pathos about it that fired Cameron's anger. On scores of worlds there were primitive groups like this one, blinding themselves with a glory that didn't exist, in the grip of ancient, meaningless traditions. The younger ones—like Sal Karone—were intelligent, worth salvaging, but they could never be lifted out of this mire of false belief unless they could be shown how empty it was.
"Nothing you have said explains the mystery of how this great thing is accomplished," said Cameron almost angrily. "Even if we wanted to believe it were true, it is still as utterly incomprehensible as before we came."
"There is a saying among us," said Venor kindly. "Translated into your tongue it would be: How was the wild dog tamed, and a saddle put upon the fierce stallion?"
Stubbornly, then, Venor would say no more about the philosophy of the Idealists. He spoke freely of the many other worlds upon which the Idealists lived and served, and he affirmed the tradition that they did not even know the place of their origin, the planet that might have been their home world.
He was evasive, however, when Cameron asked when the first contact was made between his people and the Markovians. There was something that the Ids, too, were holding back, the sociologist thought, and there was no apparent reason for it.
Recklessly, he decided nothing could be lost by attempting to blast for it. "Why have the Markovians consistently lied to us?" he said. "They've given us their history—and if your people know the feelings of other worlds they know this history is a lie. Only a few generations ago the Markovians pirated and plundered these worlds, and now they pose as little tin gods with a silver halo. Why?"
Sal Karone stood by with a look of horror on his face, but Venor made no sign of alarm at this forbidden question. He merely inclined his held slowly and repeated, "How was the wild dog tamed, and a saddle put upon the fierce stallion?"
That was the end of the interview. The Ids insisted, however, that he inspect the rest of the village and they personally guided the Terrans on the tour. Cameron's trained eye took in at a glance, however, the evidence supporting his previous conclusion. The artifacts and buildings demonstrated a primitive forest culture. The other individuals he saw were almost entirely the old and very young—the ones unsuitable as servants to the Markovians. Venor explained that family life among them paralleled in general that of the Masters. Whole Idealist families lived and served as units in the Markovian household. Exceptions existed in the case of Sal Karone and others of his age who were separated from their families and had not yet begun their own.
As they returned to the car Venor took their hands. He pressed Cameron's warmly and looked into his eyes with deep sincerity. "You have made us glad by your presence," he said. "And when the time comes for you to return, we shall repay all the pleasure you have given us."
"I'm afraid we won't be able to do that," said Cameron. "We appreciate your hospitality, but I'm sure time will not permit us to visit you again, as much as we'd like to." In the past few minutes he had reached the conclusion that further research on this whole planet was futile. The best thing they could do was go somewhere else in the Nucleus and make a fresh start.
Venor shook his head, smiling. "We will see each other again, Joyce and Cameron. I feel that the day will be very soon."
It was senseless to let himself be irritated by the senile patriarch who spoke out of a world of illusion but Cameron could not help feeling nettled as he started back to the city. Somehow it seemed impossible to regard Venor as merely a specimen for sociological research. The Chief of the Idealists reached out of his unreal world and made his contact with the Terrans a personal thing—almost as if he had spent all his life waiting for their coming. There was a sense of intimacy against which Cameron rebelled, and yet it was not an unpleasant thing.
Cameron's mind oscillated between the annoyance of Venor's calm assertion that they would be back shortly, and the nonsense of the Id belief that they controlled the civilizations in which they were servants. How was the wild dog tamed, and a saddle put upon the fierce stallion?
He smiled faintly to himself, wondering if the Markovians were fully aware that the Ids regarded them as tamed dogs and saddled stallions. They couldn't help knowing, of course, but it was hard to imagine Marthasa and his wife being very much amused by such an estimate. The situation would be intolerable, however, if it were met by anything except amusement. It might be a mildly explosive subject, but he was going to find out about that one small item before moving on, anyway, Cameron decided.
Sal Karone was strangely silent during the whole of the return trip. He offered no comments and made only brief, noncommittal replies to questions about the country through which they passed. He seemed depressed by the results of their visit. Probably because the violation of his warning to not question the lives of the Markovians. It was a curious evidence of their completely unreal, proprietary attitude in respect to their Masters. They'd have to investigate Marthasa's response as thoroughly as possible. There seemed to be no taboo on discussion of the Ids with him.
His annoyance at their acceptance of the invitation to the Id village appeared to have vanished as he greeted them upon their return. "We delayed eating, thinking you'd be back in time. If you'll join us in the dining room as soon as you're ready—?"
The villa of Marthasa seemed different after the day's experience with the Ids, although Cameron was certain nothing had changed either in a physical way or in their relations with the Markovians. It was as if his senses had been somehow sharpened to detect an undercurrent of feeling of which he had previously been unaware. Glancing at Joyce, he sensed she felt the same.
"I have the feeling that we missed something," she said, as they changed clothes to join Marthasa and his wife. "There was something Venor wanted us to know and wouldn't say. I would almost like to go back there again before we go away."
Cameron was surprised at his own annoyance with Joyce's statement. It reflected the impressions in his own mind which he was trying to ignore. "Nonsense," he said. "There's no use trying to read great profundity in the words of an old patriarch of the woods. He's nothing except what he appears to be."
The Markovians talked easily of Venor and the rest of the Ids. "We have tried to get him to join us in the city," said Marthasa as the meal began, "but he won't hear of it. It seems to give him a sense of importance to live out there alone with his retinue and have the other Ids come to him with their problems. He's a kind of arbiter and patriarch to all of them for many miles around."
While Marthasa talked Cameron tried to bring his awareness of all the varied facets of the problem together and see it whole, as he now understood it. The Markovians, a vast pirate community, had voluntarily abandoned freebooting for reasons yet to be discovered. They had turned their backs upon it so forcibly that they hid even the history of their depredations. And one of their last acts must have been the capture of a large colony of Idealists who were forced into servitude. Now the Ids compensated their enslavement by the religious belief that service made them masters over the ex-pirates, convincing themselves thattheyhad changed the Markovians, taming them like wild dogs, saddling them as fierce stallions—
Cameron wondered if he dared, and then dismissed the thought that there could be any risk. It was too ridiculous!
There was even a half-malicious smile on his lips as he broke into Marthasa's conversation. "One of the things that made me very curious today," he said, "was the general reaction of your people to the Idealist illusion that they havetamedyou—as expressed in their aphorism about how was the wild dog—?"
He never finished. Across the table the faces of the Markovians had frozen in sudden bitterness. The shield of friendliness vanished under the cold glare from their eyes.
Marthasa's lips seemed to curl as he whispered, "So you came like all the rest! And we wanted so much to believe you were honest. A study! A chance to find material for lies about the Nucleus to spread among all the Council worlds."
He continued almost sadly, "You will be confined to your quarters until transfer authorities can arrange for your return to Earth. And you may be sure that never again will such a scheme get one of your kind into the Nucleus again."
But there was no hint of sadness in his wife's face. She glared coldly. "I said they should never had been permitted to come!"
Cameron rose in sudden bewildered protest. "I assure you we have no intention—" he began.
And then he stopped. In one moment of incredible clarity while they stood there, eyes locked in bitter stares, he understood. He knew the myth was not a myth. It was cold, unbelievable reality. The Idshadtamed the Markovians.
In a moment of fear he wondered if it were anything more than a thin shell that could be shattered by a whisper from a stupid dabbler in cultures, who really knew nothing at all about the profession to which he pretended.
V
As if upon some secret signal Sal Karone appeared from the serving room at their left.
"Our visitors are no longer our guests," Marthasa said sharply with accusing eyes still upon Cameron. "They will remain in their rooms until time for deportation.
"I trust it will not be necessary to use force," he said directly to Cameron.
"Of course not. But won't you let me explain—won't you even allow an apology for breaking a taboo we did not understand?"
"Is it not taboo among all civilized peoples, including your own, to invent and spread lies about those who wish you only well?"
It was useless to argue, Cameron saw. He turned, taking Joyce's arm, and allowed Sal Karone to lead them back to their rooms. As they paused at the doorway the Id spoke without expression on his dark face. "This is not a good thing, Cameron Wilder. It would have been best for you to have considered my warning."
He turned and stepped away, locking the door behind him.
Joyce slumped on the bed in dejection. "This is a fine fix we've got ourselves into, being declaredpersona non gratabefore we even get a good start! They'll rememberthatback home when A Study of the Metamorphosis of the Markovian Nucleus is mentioned in professional circles!"
"Don't rub it in," Cameron said, half angrily. "How was I to know that was such a vicious taboo? It can't be any secret to the Markovians that the Ids look upon them as tamed. Why should they get their hackles up becauseImentioned it?"
"All I know is we're washed up as of now. What do we do when we get back home?"
Cameron stood with his back to her, looking through the windows to the garden beyond. "I'm not thinking of that," he said. "Can't you see we haven't failed? We've almost got it—the thing we came to find. Weknewwhy the Markovians suddenly became good Indians. The Ids actually did tame them. We've got to find out how such an apparently impossible thing could be done."
"Do you really believe that's what happened?" asked Joyce.
Cameron nodded. "It's the only thing there is to believe. If it weren't true, Marthasa and his wife would have laughed it off as nonsense. Getting all huffy and talking about deportation for cooking up lies is the best proof you could ask for that we hit pay dirt. Don't ask me how I think the Ids could do it.That'swhat I'm going to find out."
"How?"
"I don't know."
But he did have an idea that if he could somehow get word to the old Id chieftain help could be had. He knew he was straining to believe things he wanted to believe, yet it seemed as if this were almost the very thing Venor had tried to convey the day before but had left unspoken.
There was only one possibility of establishing contact, however, and that was through Sal Karone. A remote chance indeed, Cameron thought, in view of the relationship between the Markovian and hissargh. As a last resort it was worth trying, however.
It looked as if they would not have even this chance as the evening grew darker. Cameron kept watch through the windows in the hope of signaling Sal Karone in case he should appear. They hoped he might come to the room for a final check of their needs for the night as he usually did.
But he did not appear.
Cameron finally went to bed after Joyce was long asleep. He turned restlessly, beating his mind with increasing wonder as to how it could be so incredibly true that the Idealists were the actual masters of the Nucleus. That they had somehow tamed the murderous, piratical Markovians. He couldn't have known this was it!
One thing he could understood, however, was the Markovians reluctance to have visitors—and their careful watch over them. Marthasa had been more than a host, he thought. He was a guard as well, trying to keep the Terrans from discovering the unpleasant reality concerning the influence of the Ids. He had slipped in allowing the visit to Venor.
At dawn there was the sound of their door opening and Cameron whirled from his dressing, hopeful it might be Sal Karone. It was Marthasa, however, grim and distant. "I have obtained word that your deportation can be accomplished today. Premier Jargla has been informed and concurs. The Council has been notified and offers no protestations. You will ready yourselves before the evening hour."
He slammed the door behind him. Joyce turned down the covers in the other room and sat up. "I wonder if he isn't even going to feed us today?"
Cameron made no answer. He finished dressing hurriedly and kept a frantic watch for any sign of Sal Karone.
At last there was a knock on the door and the Id appeared with breakfast on a cart. Cameron exhaled with relief that it was not one of the othersarghsin the household.
Sal Karone eyed them impassively as he wheeled in and arranged the food on the table by a window. Cameron watched, estimating his chances.
"Your Chief, Venor, was very kind to us yesterday," he said quietly. "Our biggest regret in leaving is that our conversation with him must go unfinished."
Sal Karone paused. "Were there things you had yet to say to him?" he asked.
"No—there were things Venor wanted to tell us. You heard him. He wanted us to come back. It is completely impossible for us to see him again before we go?"
Sal Karone straightened and set the utensils on the table. "No, it is not impossible. I have been instructed to bring you back to the village if it should be your request."
Cameron felt a surge of eager excitement within him. "When? Our deportation is scheduled for today. How can we get there? How can we avoid Marthasa and the Markovians?"
"Stand very quietly," said Sal Karone, that sense of power and command in his voice and bearing as Cameron had seen it once before aboard the spaceship. "Now," he said. "Close your eyes."
There was a sudden wrenching twist as if two solid surfaces had slammed them from front and back, and a third force had thrust them sideways.
They opened their eyes in the wooden house of Venor, in the village of the Idealists.
"We owe you apologies," said Venor. "We hope you are not harmed in any way."
Cameron stared around uncertainly. Joyce clutched his hand. "How did we—?" Cameron stammered.
"Teleportation is the descriptive term in your language, I believe," said Venor. "It was rather urgent that you come without further delay so we resorted to it. Nothing else would do in the face of Marthasa's action. Sit down if you will, please. If you wish to rest or eat, your quarters are ready."
"Our quarters—! Then youdidexpect us back. You knew this was going to happen exactly as it has!"
"Yes, I knew," said Venor quietly. "I planned it this way when word first came to us of your visit."
"I think we are entitled to explanations," Cameron said at last. "We seem to have been pieces in a game we knew nothing about."
And it had taken this long for the full impact of Venor's admission of teleportation to hit him. He closed his eyes in a moment's reaction of fright. He didn't want to believe it—and knew he must. These Idealists—who could master galaxies and tame the wild Markovians—was there anything they could not do?
"Not a game," Venor protested. "We planned this because we wanted you to see what you have seen. We wanted a man of Earth to know what we have done."
"But don't the Markovians realize the foolishness of deporting us because we stumbled onto the relationship between you and them? And if you are in control how can they issue such an order—unless you want it?"
"Our relationship is more complex than that. There are different levels of control. We operate the one that brought you here—" He let Cameron consider the implication of the unfinished statement.
Then he continued, "To understand the Markovians' reason for deporting you, consider that on Earth men have tamed wolves and made faithful, loyal dogs who can be trusted. Dogs who have forever lost the knowledge their ancestors were fierce marauders ready to rip and tear the flesh of any man or beast that came their way.
"Consider the dogs only a generation or two from the vicious wolves who were their forebears. The old urges have not entirely died, yet they want to know man's affection and trust. Could you remind them of what their kind once was without stirring up torment within them?
"So it is with the Markovians. They are peaceful and creative, but only a few generations behind them are pirates who were not fit to sit in the Councils of civilized beings. They have no tradition of culture to support them. It knocks the props out from under them, so to speak, to have it known what lies behind them. They cannot be friends with such a man. They cannot even endure the knowledge among themselves."
"Then I was right!" Cameron exclaimed. "Their phony historywasset up to deceive their own people as well as others."
"Yes. The dog would destroy all evidence of his wolf ancestry. It has been an enormous project, but the people of the Nucleus have been at it a long time. They have concocted a consistent history which leaves out all evidence of their predatory ancestry. The items of reality which were possible to leave have been retained. The gaps between have been bridged by fictionized accounts of glorious undertakings and discoveries. Most of the Markovian science has been taken from other cultures, but now their history boasts of heroes and discoverers who never lived and who were responsible for all the great science they enjoy."
"But nothing stable can be built upon such an unhealthy foundation of self-deception!" Cameron protested.
"It is not unhealthy—not at the present moment," said Venor. "The time will come when it, too, will be thrust aside and a tremendous effort of scholarship will extract the elements of truth and find that which was suppressed. But the Markovians themselves will do it—a generation of them who can afford to laugh at the fears and fantasies of their ancestors."
"This tells us nothing of how you were able to make a creative people out of a race of pirate marauders," said Cameron.
"I gave you the key," said Venor. "It was one used long ago by your own people before it was abandoned.
"How was the savage wolf tamed to become the loyal, friendly dog? Did ancient man try to exterminate the wolves that came to his caves and carried off his young? Perhaps he tried. But he learned, perhaps accidentally, another way of conquest. He found the wolf's cubs, and learned to love them. He brought the cubs home and cared for them tenderly and his own children played with them and fed them and loved them.
"It took time, but eventually there were no more wild wolves to trouble man, because he had discovered a great friend, the dog. And man plus dog could handle wolf with ease. Dog forgot in time what his forebears were and became willing to defend man against his own kind—because man loved him.
"It happened again and again. Agricultural man hated the wild horse that ate his grain and trampled his fields. But he learned to love the horse, too, after a while. Again—no more wild horses."
"But you can't take a predatory, savage pirate and love him into decency!" Cameron protested.
"No," Venor agreed. "It is too difficult ordinarily at that level, and wasteful of time and resources. But I didn't say that is what happened. You don't tame a wolf by loving it, but thecubs—yes. And even pirates have cubs, who are susceptible to being loved.
"The first weapon was hate. But after learning the futility of it, sentient creatures discovered another, the succeeding evolutionary emotion. It is pure savagery in its destructive power, a thousand times more effective in annihilating the enemy.
"You've thought 'Love thy enemy' was a soft, gentle, futile doctrine! Actually, instead of merely killing the enemy it twists his personality, destroys his identity. He continues to live, but he has lost his integrity as an entity. The wolf cub never becomes an adult wolf. He becomes Dog.
"It is not a doctrine of weakness, but the ultimate weapon of destruction. It can be used to induce any orientation desired in the mind of the enemy. He'll do everything you want him to—because he has your love."
"How did you apply that to the Markovians?" asked Joyce in almost a whisper.
"It was one of the most difficult programs we have ever undertaken," said Venor. "There were comparatively few of us and such a tremendous population of Markovians. We had predicted long ago, even before the organization of the Council, the situation would grow critical and dangerous. By the time the Council awoke to the fact and started its futile debates we had made a strong beginning.
"We arranged to be in the path of a Markovian attack on one of the worlds where our work was completed. The Markovians were only too happy to take us into slavery and use us as victims in their brutal sports."
"You didn't deliberately fall into a trap where you allowed yourselves to be killed and tortured by them?" exclaimed Cameron.
Venor smiled. "The Markovians thought we did. We could hardly do that, of course. Our numbers were so small compared with theirs that we wouldn't have lasted very long. And, obviously, it would have been plain stupid. There is one key that must not be forgotten: An effective use of love requires an absolute superiority on the levels attainable by the individual to be tamed. So, in this case, we had to have power to keep the Markovians from slaughtering us or we would have been unable to accomplish our purpose.
"Teleportation is of obvious use here. Likewise, psychosomatic controls that can handle any ordinary wound we might permit them to inflict. We gave them the illusion of slaughtering and torturing us, but our numbers did not dwindle."
"Why did you give them such an illusion?" Joyce asked. "And you say youpermittedthem to inflict wounds—?"
Venor nodded. "We were in their households, you see, employed as slaves and assigned the care of their young. The cubs of the wolf were given into our hands to love—and to tame.
"These Markovian children were witnesses to the supposed torture and killing of those who loved them. It was a tremendous psychic impact and served to drive their influence toward the side of the slaves. And even the adults slowly recognized the net loss to them of doing away with servants so skilled and useful in household tasks and caring for the young. The games and brutality vanished spontaneously within a short time. Markovians, young and old, simply didn't want them any longer.
"During the maturity of that first generation of young on whom we expended our love our position became more secure. These were no longer wolves. They had become dogs, loyal to those who had loved them, and we could use them now against their own kind. Influences to abandon piracy against other peoples began to spread throughout the Nucleus.
"Today the Markovians are no longer a threat capable of holding the Council worlds in helpless fear. They long ago ceased their depredations. Their internal stability is rising and is almost at the point where we shall be able to leave them. Our work here is about finished."
"Surely all this was unnecessary!" Joyce said. "With your powers of teleportation and other psionic abilities you must possess it should have been easy for you tocontrolthe Markovians directly, force them to cease their piracy—"
"Of course," said Venor. "That would have been so much easier for us. And so futile. The Markovians would have learned nothing through being taken over by us and operated externally. They would have remained the same. But it was our desire to change them, teach them, accomplish genuine learning within them. It is always longer and more difficult this way. The results, however, are more lasting!"
"Whoare you people—whatare you?" Cameron said with sudden intensity. "You have teleportation—and how many other unknown psychic powers? You have forced us to believe you can tame such a vicious world as the Markovian Nucleus once was.
"But where is there a life of your own? With all your powers you must live at the whim of other cultures. Where isyourculture? Where is your own purpose? In spite of all you have, your life is a parasitical one."
Venor smiled gently. "Is not the parent—or the teacher—the servant of the child?" he said. "Has it not always been so if a species is to rise very far in its conquest of the Universe?
"But this does not mean that the parent or teacher has no life of his own. You ask where is our culture? The culture ofallworlds is ours. We don't have great cities and vast fleets. The wolf cubs build these for us. They carry us across space and shelter us in their cities.
"Our own energies are expended in a thousand other and more profitable ways. We have sought and learned a few of the secrets of life and mind. With these we can move as you were moved, when we choose to do so. From where I sit I can speak with any of our kind on this planet or any world of the entire Nucleus. And a few of us, united in the effort, can touch those in distant galaxies.
"What culture would you have us acquire, that we do not have?" Venor finished.
Without answer, Cameron arose and strode slowly to the window, his back to the room. He looked out upon the rude wooden huts and the towering forest beyond. He tried to tell himself it was all a lie. Such things couldn't be. But he could feel it now with increasing strength, as if all his senses were quickening—the benign aura, the indefinable wash of power that seemed to lap at the edge of his mind.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Joyce's face, almost radiant as she, too, sensed it here in the presence of the Ids.
Love, as a genuine power, had been taught by every Terran philosopher of any social worth. But it had never really been tried. Not in the way the Ids understood it. Cameron felt he could only guess at the terrible discipline of mind it required to use it as they did. The analogy of the wolf cubs was all very well, and man had learned to go that far. But there is a difference when your own kind is involved, he thought.
Perhaps it was out of sheer fear of each other that men continued to try to sway with hate, the most primitive of all their weapons.
It's easy to hate, he thought. Love is hard, and because it is, the tough humans who can't achieve it and have the patience to manipulate it must scorn it. The truly weak ones, they're incapable of the stern and brutal self-discipline required of one who loves his enemy.
But men had known how. Back in the caves they had known how to conquer the wolf and the wild horse. Where had they lost it?
The vision of the buildings and the forest with its eternal peace was still in his eyes. What else could you want, with the whole Universe in the palm of your hand?
He turned sharply. "You tricked us into betraying ourselves to Marthasa, and you said that you planned it this way when you first heard of our coming. But you have not yet said why. Why did you want us to see what you had done?"
"You needed to have evidence from the Markovians themselves," said Venor. "That is why I led you to the point where the admission would be forced from them. The problem you came to solve is now answered, is it not? Is there anything to prevent you returning to Earth and writing a successful paper on the mystery of the Markovians?"
"You know very well there is," said Cameron with the sudden sense that Venor was laughing gently at him. "Who on Earth would believe what you have told me—that a handful of meek, subservient Ids had conquered the mighty Markovian Nucleus?"
He paused, looking at Joyce who returned his intense gaze.
"Is that all?" said Venor finally.
"No that is not all. After taking us to the heights and showing us everything that lies beyond, are you simply going to turn us away empty-handed?"
"What would you have us give you?"
"This," said Cameron, gesturing with his hand to include the circle of all of them, and the community beyond the window. "We want what you have discovered. Is your circle a closed one—or can you admit those who would learn of your ways but are not of your race?"
Venor's smile broadened as he arose and stepped toward them, and they felt the warm wave of acceptance from his mind even before he spoke. "This is what we brought you here to receive," he said. "But you had to ask for yourselves. We wanted men of Earth in our ranks. There are many races and many worlds who make up the Idealists. That is why it is said that the Ids do not know the home world from which they originally came. It is true, they do not. We are citizens of the Universe.
"But we have never been represented by a native of Earth, which needs us badly. Will you join us, Terrans?"
THE END