Thus, his true identity a secret known only to one Daan, and she one who would not reveal it, the major hurdle of Stephen Duane's great impersonation was overcome.
The Daan's Supreme Council accepted himself and his credentials for what they purported to be, strove to discern no human lineaments beneath his cleverly wrought mask, and freely granted that privilege for which Duane pleaded: the right of visiting the marshland slave camp wherein labored earthmen and women transported hither from Earth.
Standing before the Council, Steve experienced his first disappointment in the Daans. Under the circumstances, "disappointment" was perhaps a curious word to use, even to himself. Yet it was the only one to describe his feelings. Up to this time he had felt bitterness toward the Venusians for what they had done to Earth, had hated certain members of the master race for the brutal way they had treated their human slaves; but despite these personal animosities he had been forced to concede an intellectual approval of their skill, their culture, and above all, their superb scientific accomplishments.
Yet now he found himself standing not in such a trim, functional chamber as had been the council hall of Nedlunplaza. The palace of the Supreme Council on Daan was a sybaritic pleasure-dome which on Earth had had its counterpart centuries before Stephen Duane first drew breath.
It was in such a court as this the effete emperors of imperial France had dallied with glamorous mistresses while starving subjects fell plague-ridden in the gutters. Surrounded by such pleasures had the last Roman tyrants squandered their heritage in riotous abandon. Here was such opulence as had rotted the heart of Saladan's kingdom, Priam's, Cleopatra's, and the sea-girdling empire of Phillip.
Duane needed no textbook to tell him the history of the Daans. He knew what had happened; the evidence lay before his eyes.
The Venusians had been a mighty race. Only a strong and stout-hearted people could have raised from the morass of this eternally fog-veiled planet such cities and such sciences. Only daring and stalwart people could have accomplished those wonders the Daans accepted as commonplaces. Labor had played its part in this rise to superiority; labor of back and brain. Sweat of muscle and furrow of brow had created an empire. But now those who had striven so mightily were gone, leaving behind a languorous and unappreciative race to despoil the glories their forefathers had so magnificently wrought.
The present Daan empire was a spoiled, stagnant civilization. It dwelt amidst splendors created for it by vanished generations, reveled greedily amongst luxuries earned by the sweat of predecessor's brows. That was why slave labor was imported from Earth; to lift the burden of honest toil from hands become too proud and soft to fend for themselves.
Those Daans who maintained the scattered outposts on Earth were perhaps the last atavistic remnants of a once-great race. They, at least, could and did work for themselves; had the strength and the courage to wage incessant conflict for possession of a territory precious to the mother land.