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"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 to show," 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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."
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.
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."
Please join us. Since my sargh told me we would be traveling together I have looked forward to your company." The term, sargh, as Cameron learned shortly was applied to all Ids attached to Markovians. It had a connotation somewhere between servant and companion. Sal Karone remained in the background, but there was no servility in his manner.
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."
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