"It's not hard to imagine Marthasa doing it," said Joyce. "A scimitar between his teeth would be completely in character!" "If all goes well, you will probably see just that--figuratively speaking, of course. Where a cultural shift has been so great as this one you are certain to see evidence of both levels in conflict with one another. It's like a geologic fault line. Once we learn enough about the current mores the anomalies will stand out in full view. That's what we want to watch for." "One thing that's out of character right now is his offer of assistance through his son, the Chief Historian," said Joyce. "That doesn't check with the previous invitations to stay home. Once they let us have access to their historical records we'll have them pegged." "We haven't got it yet," said Cameron. "We can't be sure just what they'll let us see. But for my money I'd just as soon tackle the question of the Ids. Sal Karone is twice the man Marthasa is, yet he acts like he has no will of his own when the Markovian is around." "The Roman-slave relationship," said Joyce. "The Markovians probably conquered a large community of the Ids in their pirate days and brought them here as slaves. And I'll bet they are very much aware that the Ids are the better men. Marthasa knows it. That's why he has to put on a show in front of Sal Karone. He's the old Roman merchant struggling to keep up his conviction of superiority before the Greek scholar slave." "The Ids aren't supposed to be slaves. According to the little that's known they are completely free. I'm going to get Marthasa's version of it, anyway. Fothergill and the Foundation can't object to that much investigation of the Ids." He found the Markovian completely willing to talk about his _sargh_. On the last day of the voyage they managed to be alone for a time without the presence of Sal Karone. Marthasa shook his head in answer to Cameron's question. "No, the _sargh_ is not a slave--not in the sense I believe you mean it. None of the Ids are. It's a matter of religion with them to be attached to us the way they are. They have some incomprehensible belief that their existence is of no value unless they are serving their fellow beings. Since that means _all_ of them they can't be satisfied by serving each other so they have to pick on some other race. "I don't recall when they first showed up in the Nucleus, but it's been many generations ago. There've been Ids in my family for a half dozen generations anyway." "They had space flight, so they came under their own power?" Cameron asked incredulously. "No. Nothing like that. You can't imagine _them_ building spaceships can you? They migrated at first as lowest-class passengers on the commercial lines. Nobody knows just where they came from. They don't even know their home worlds. At first we tried to persuade them to go somewhere else, but then we saw how useful they could be with their fanatic belief in servitude.