Cubs of the Wolf Page 9

owe you apologies," said Venor. "We hope you are not harmed in anyway."

  Cameron stared around uncertainly. Joyce clutched his hand. "How didwe--?" Cameron stammered.

  "Teleportation is the descriptive term in your language, I believe,"said Venor. "It was rather urgent that you come without further delay sowe resorted to it. Nothing else would do in the face of Marthasa'saction. Sit down if you will, please. If you wish to rest or eat, yourquarters are ready."

  "Our quarters--! Then you _did_ expect us back. You knew this was goingto happen exactly as it has!"

  "Yes, I knew," said Venor quietly. "I planned it this way when wordfirst came to us of your visit."

  "I think we are entitled to explanations," Cameron said at last. "Weseem 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 ofteleportation to hit him. He closed his eyes in a moment's reaction offright. He didn't want to believe it--and knew he must. TheseIdealists--who could master galaxies and tame the wild Markovians--wasthere anything they could not do?

  "Not a game," Venor protested. "We planned this because we wanted you tosee what you have seen. We wanted a man of Earth to know what we havedone."

  "But don't the Markovians realize the foolishness of deporting usbecause we stumbled onto the relationship between you and them? And ifyou are in control how can they issue such an order--unless you wantit?"

  "Our relationship is more complex than that. There are different levelsof control. We operate the one that brought you here--" He let Cameronconsider the implication of the unfinished statement.

  Then he continued, "To understand the Markovians' reason for deportingyou, consider that on Earth men have tamed wolves and made faithful,loyal dogs who can be trusted. Dogs who have forever lost the knowledgetheir ancestors were fierce marauders ready to rip and tear the flesh ofany man or beast that came their way.

  "Consider the dogs only a generation or two from the vicious wolves whowere their forebears. The old urges have not entirely died, yet theywant to know man's affection and trust. Could you remind them of whattheir kind once was without stirring up torment within them?

  "So it is with the Markovians. They are peaceful and creative, but onlya few generations behind them are pirates who were not fit to sit in theCouncils of civilized beings. They have no tradition of culture tosupport them. It knocks the props out from under them, so to speak, tohave it known what lies behind them. They cannot be friends with such aman. They cannot even endure the knowledge among themselves."

  "Then I was right!" Cameron exclaimed. "Their phony history _was_ set upto deceive their own people as well as others."

  "Yes. The dog would destroy all evidence of his wolf ancestry. It hasbeen an enormous project, but the people of the Nucleus have been at ita long time. They have concocted a consistent history which leaves outall evidence of their predatory ancestry. The items of reality whichwere possible to leave have been retained. The gaps between have beenbridged by fictionized accounts of glorious undertakings anddiscoveries. Most of the Markovian science has been taken from othercultures, but now their history boasts of heroes and discoverers whonever lived and who were responsible for all the great science theyenjoy."

  "But nothing stable can be built upon such an unhealthy foundation ofself-deception!" Cameron protested.

  "It is not unhealthy--not at the present moment," said Venor. "The timewill come when it, too, will be thrust aside and a tremendous effort ofscholarship will extract the elements of truth and find that which wassuppressed. But the Markovians themselves will do it--a generation ofthem who can afford to laugh at the fears and fantasies of theirancestors."

  "This tells us nothing of how you were able to make a creative peopleout of a race of pirate marauders," said Cameron.

  "I gave you the key," said Venor. "It was one used long ago by your ownpeople before it was abandoned.

  "How was the savage wolf tamed to become the loyal, friendly dog? Didancient man try to exterminate the wolves that came to his caves andcarried off his young? Perhaps he tried. But he learned, perhapsaccidentally, another way of conquest. He found the wolf's cubs, andlearned to love them. He brought the cubs home and cared for themtenderly and his own children played with them and fed them and lovedthem.

  "It took time, but eventually there were no more wild wolves to troubleman, because he had discovered a great friend, the dog. And man plus dogcould handle wolf with ease. Dog forgot in time what his forebears wereand became willing to defend man against his own kind--because man lovedhim.

  "It happened again and again. Agricultural man hated the wild horse thatate 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 intodecency!" Cameron protested.

  "No," Venor agreed. "It is too difficult ordinarily at that level, andwasteful 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 evenpirates 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 evolutionaryemotion. It is pure savagery in its destructive power, a thousand timesmore 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 hisintegrity as an entity. The wolf cub never becomes an adult wolf. Hebecomes Dog.

  "It is not a doctrine of weakness, but the ultimate weapon ofdestruction. It can be used to induce any orientation desired in themind of the enemy. He'll do everything you want him to--because he hasyour love."

  * * * * *

  "How did you apply that to the Markovians?" asked Joyce in almost awhisper.

  "It was one of the most difficult programs we have ever undertaken,"said Venor. "There were comparatively few of us and such a tremendouspopulation of Markovians. We had predicted long ago, even before theorganization of the Council, the situation would grow critical anddangerous. By the time the Council awoke to the fact and started itsfutile debates we had made a strong beginning.

  "We arranged to be in the path of a Markovian attack on one of theworlds where our work was completed. The Markovians were only too happyto take us into slavery and use us as victims in their brutal sports."

  "You didn't deliberately fall into a trap where you allowed yourselvesto 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 wewouldn't have lasted very long. And, obviously, it would have beenplain stupid. There is one key that must not be forgotten: An effectiveuse of love requires an absolute superiority on the levels attainable bythe individual to be tamed. So, in this case, we had to have power tokeep the Markovians from slaughtering us or we would have been unable toaccomplish our purpose.

  "Teleportation is of obvious use here. Likewise, psychosomatic controlsthat can handle any ordinary wound we might permit them to inflict. Wegave them the illusion of slaughtering and torturing us, but our numbersdid not dwindle."

  "Why did you give them such an illusion?" Joyce asked. "And you say you_permitted_ them to inflict wounds--?"

  Venor nodded. "We were in their households, you see, employed as slavesand assigned the care of their young. The cubs of the wolf were giveninto our hands to love--and to tame.

  "These Markovian children were witnesses to the supposed torture andkilling of those who loved them. It was a tremendous psychic impact andserved to drive their influence toward the side of the slaves. And eventhe adults slowly recognized the net loss to them of doing away withservants so skilled and useful in household tasks and caring for theyoung. The games and brutality vanished spontaneo
usly within a shorttime. Markovians, young and old, simply didn't want them any longer.

  "During the maturity of that first generation of young on whom weexpended our love our position became more secure. These were no longerwolves. They had become dogs, loyal to those who had loved them, and wecould use them now against their own kind. Influences to abandon piracyagainst other peoples began to spread throughout the Nucleus.

  "Today the Markovians are no longer a threat capable of holding theCouncil worlds in helpless fear. They long ago ceased theirdepredations. Their internal stability is rising and is almost at thepoint where we shall be able to leave them. Our work here is