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 that they had 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 have tamed you — 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 Ids had tamed 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 declared persona non grata before we even get a good start! They'll remember that back 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 because I mentioned 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. We knew why 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's what 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 his sargh. 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!