n
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 the _cubs_--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