ations," 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 history _was_ set 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 bee