se 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."

Venor smiled gently. "Is not the parent--or the teacher--the servant of
the child?" he said. "Has it not always been so if a species is to rise
very far in its conquest of the Universe?

"But this does not mean that the parent or teacher has no life