Part 8 (1/2)
”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 more 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 ident.i.ty. He continues to live, but he has lost his integrity as an ent.i.ty. The wolf cub never becomes an adult wolf. He becomes Dog.
”It is not a doctrine of weakness, but the ultimate weapon of destruction. It can be used to induce any orientation desired in the mind of the enemy. He'll do everything you want him to--because he has your love.”
”How did you apply that to the Markovians?” asked Joyce in almost a whisper.
”It was one of the most difficult programs we have ever undertaken,”
said Venor. ”There were comparatively few of us and such a tremendous population of Markovians. We had predicted long ago, even before the organization of the Council, the situation would grow critical and dangerous. By the time the Council awoke to the fact and started its futile debates we had made a strong beginning.
”We arranged to be in the path of a Markovian attack on one of the worlds where our work was completed. The Markovians were only too happy to take us into slavery and use us as victims in their brutal sports.”
”You didn't deliberately fall into a trap where you allowed yourselves to 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 we wouldn't have lasted very long. And, obviously, it would have been plain stupid. There is one key that must not be forgotten: An effective use of love requires an absolute superiority on the levels attainable by the individual to be tamed. So, in this case, we had to have power to keep the Markovians from slaughtering us or we would have been unable to accomplish our purpose.
”Teleportation is of obvious use here. Likewise, psychosomatic controls that can handle any ordinary wound we might permit them to inflict. We gave them the illusion of slaughtering and torturing us, but our numbers did 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 slaves and a.s.signed the care of their young. The cubs of the wolf were given into our hands to love--and to tame.
”These Markovian children were witnesses to the supposed torture and killing of those who loved them. It was a tremendous psychic impact and served to drive their influence toward the side of the slaves. And even the adults slowly recognized the net loss to them of doing away with servants so skilled and useful in household tasks and caring for the young. The games and brutality vanished spontaneously within a short time. Markovians, young and old, simply didn't want them any longer.
”During the maturity of that first generation of young on whom we expended our love our position became more secure. These were no longer wolves. They had become dogs, loyal to those who had loved them, and we could use them now against their own kind. Influences to abandon piracy against other peoples began to spread throughout the Nucleus.
”Today the Markovians are no longer a threat capable of holding the Council worlds in helpless fear. They long ago ceased their depredations. Their internal stability is rising and is almost at the point where we shall be able to leave them. Our work here is about finished.”
”Surely all this was unnecessary!” Joyce said. ”With your powers of teleportation and other psionic abilities you must possess it should have been easy for you to _control_ the Markovians directly, force them to cease their piracy--”
”Of course,” said Venor. ”That would have been so much easier for us.
And so futile. The Markovians would have learned nothing through being taken over by us and operated externally. They would have remained the same. But it was our desire to change them, teach them, accomplish genuine learning within them. It is always longer and more difficult this way. The results, however, are more lasting!”
”_Who_ are you people--_what_ are you?” Cameron said with sudden intensity. ”You have teleportation--and how many other unknown psychic powers? You have forced us to believe you can tame such a vicious world as the Markovian Nucleus once was.
”But where is there a life of your own? With all your powers you must live at the whim of other cultures. Where is _your_ culture? Where is your own purpose? In spite of all you have, your life is a parasitical one.”