Yet surely they could ask the machines for what they wanted to know! That seemed easier than delving all the way into the past. The knowledge-machines still obeyed men.

No, they did not! Certain areas of knowledge were blanked from public awareness. This history of the steppe-country of Asia; of the Vikings of Europe; of the Moslem Arabs, the pre-Columbian Amerinds, and pre-European Africans. What these histories entailed Alp did not know, for the other names were unfamiliar to him. Those adventures could hardly rival the activities of the steppe, regardless!

But he understood the principle: for some reason the machines had been set not to give out these histories, thus keeping the Galactics ignorant. There were many such gaps in the record, his helmet-education informed him; some histories had been taught fifty or sixty years ago but not, since.

One gap was only partial: Steppe. Because Alp had studied the history of his own people, from Turk to Kao-Kiu to Tolach to Uigur—first a minor subtribe, then an increasingly powerful nation of nomads, and finally masters of all the steppe, equals of the civilized Chinese. Alp knew a thousand years of local events in fair detail. Surely there was more in the machines, following his own time—but that of course was blank to him.

Why was this historical ignorance fostered? To understand that, he had first to understand the nature of the Game.

Then it came clear, and he knew what he had to do.

The beltways and lifts did not extend into the upper-most reaches. Alp had to take an internal elevator—and there trouble struck.

An alarm sounded as he entered.

Alp leaped back before the closing doors trapped him. He had not had experience with alarms before, but he had a lifetime's experience with mischief. His reflexes seldom betrayed him.

Now he remembered: key transports were equipped with personnel scanners. And all human clothing carried identification codes. He had plucked out much of his hair uselessly, missing what was there in his new memory to see. Obviously the police had discovered their error and put out a bulletin for the clothing of the robbed citizen. The chase was on again!