Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 107

"If human peace depended on a lie, there were those willing to
maintain the lie. Since men insisted that the Enemy had come and ruled the
Earth, we called ourselves the Enemy, and ruled. None came to dispute our
lie or wreck our peace; the worlds of the League are all sundered, the age
of interstellar flight is past; once in a century, perhaps, some ship from a
far world blunders here, like yours. There are rebels against our rule, such
as those who attacked your ship at the Barrier. We try to control such
rebels, for, rightly or wrongly, we bear and have borne for a millennium
the burden of human peace. For having told a great lie, we must now
uphold a great law. You know the law that we—men among
men—enforce: the one Law, learned in humanity's most terrible hour."
The brilliant toneless mindspeech ceased; it was like the switching off
of a light. In the silence like darkness which followed, young Orry
whispered aloud, "Reverence for Life."
Silence again. Falk stood motionless, trying not to betray in his face or
in his perhaps overheard thoughts the confusion and irresolution he felt.
Was all he had learned false? Had mankind indeed no Enemy?
"If this history is the true one," he said at last, "why do you not tell it
and prove it to men?"
"We are men," came the telepathic answer. "There are thousands upon
thousands of us who know the truth. We are those who have power and
knowledge, and use them for peace. There come dark ages, and this is one
of them, all through man's history, when people will have it that the world
is ruled by demons. We play the part of demons in their mythologies.
When they begin to replace mythology with reason, we help them; and
they learn the truth."
"Why do you tell me these things?"
"For truth's sake, and for your own."
"Who am I to deserve the truth?" Falk repeated coldly, looking across
the room into Abundibot's masklike face.
"You were a messenger from a lost world, a colony of which all
record was lost in the Years of Trouble. You came to Earth, and we, the
Lords of Earth, failed to protect you. This is a shame and a grief to us. It
was men of Earth who attacked you, killed or mindrazed all your
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