"We've not yet secured any of that substance, sir, although we're still trying."

"I want success, not excuses.  Who's in charge of that?"

"Kidge, sir.  He's very efficient in this . . ."

"Is Kidge available?"

"One moment, sir.  I'll put him on."

Kidge had a phlegmatic Gowachin face and rumbling voice.

"Do you want a status report, sir?"

"Yes."

"My Rim contacts believe the addictive substance is derived from a plant called 'tibac.'  We have no prior record of such a plant, but the outer Rabble has been cultivating it lately.  According to my contacts, it's extremely addictive to Humans, even more so to us."

"No record?  What's its origin?  Do they say?"

"I talked personally to a Human who'd recently returned from upriver where the outer Rabble reportedly has extensive plantations of this 'tibac.'  I promised my informant a place in the Warrens if he provides me with a complete report on the stuff and a kilo packet of it.  This informant says the cultivators believe tibac has religious significance.  I didn't see any point in exploring that."

"When do you expect him to deliver?"

"By nightfall at the latest."

Broey held his silence for a moment.  Religious significance.  More than likely the plant came from beyond the God Wall then, as Kidge implied.  But why?  What were they doing?

"Do you have new instructions?" Kidge asked.

"Get that substance up to me as soon as you can."

Kidge fidgeted.  He obviously had another question, but was unwilling to ask it.  Broey glared at him.

"Yes?  What is it?"

"Don't you want the substance tested first?"

It was a baffling question.  Had Kidge withheld vital information about the dangers of this tibac?  One never knew from what quarter an attack might come.  But Kidge was held in his own special bondage.  He knew what could happen to him if he failed Broey.  And Jedrik had handled this stuff.  But why had Kidge asked this question?  Faced with such unknowns, Broey tended to withdraw into himself, eyes veiled by the nictating membrane while he weighed the possibilities.  Presently, he stirred, looked at Kidge in the screen.

"If there's enough of it, feed some to volunteers -- both Human and Gowachin.  Get the rest of it up to me immediately, even while you're testing, but in a sealed container."

"Sir, there are rumors about this stuff.  It'll be difficult getting real volunteers."

"You'll think of something."

Broey broke the connection, returned to the outer room to make his political peace with Gar and Tria.  He was not ready to blunt that pair . . . not yet.

They were sitting just as he'd left them.  Tria was speaking:

". . . the highest probability and I have to go on that."

Gar merely nodded.

Broey seated himself, nodded to Tria, who continued as though there'd been no hiatus.

"Clearly, Jedrik's a genius.  And her Loyalty Index!  That has to be false, contrived.  And look at her decisions:  one questionable decision in four years.  One!"

Gar moved a finger along the red line on the chart.  It was a curiously sensuous gesture, as though he were stroking flesh.

Broey gave him a verbal prod.

"Yes, Gar, what is it?"

"I was just wondering if Jedrik could be another . . ."

His glance darted ceilingward, back to the chart.  They all understood his allusion to intruders from beyond the God Wall.

Broey looked at Gar as though awakening from an interrupted thought.  What'd that fool Gar mean by raising such a question at this juncture?  The required responses were so obvious.

"I agree with Tria's analysis," Broey said.  "As to your question . . ."  He gave a Human shrug.  "Jedrik reveals some of the classic requirements, but . . ."  Again, that shrug.  "This is still the world God gave us."

Colored as they were by his years in the Sacred Congregation, Broey's words took on an unctuous overtone, but in this room the message was strictly secular.

"The others have been such disappointments," Gar said.  "Especially Havvy."  He moved the statuette to a more central position on the chart.

"We failed because we were too eager," Tria said, her voice snappish.  "Poor timing."

Gar scratched his chin with his thumb.  Tria sometimes disturbed him by that accusatory tone she took toward their failures.  He said:

"But . . . if she turns out to be one of them and we haven't allowed for it . . ."

"We'll look through that gate when we come to it," Broey said.  "If we come to it.  Even another failure could have its uses.  The food factories will give us a substantial increase at the next harvest.  That means we can postpone the more troublesome political decisions which have been bothering us."

Broey let this thought hang between them while he set himself to identifying the lines of activity revealed by what had happened in this room today.  Yes, the Humans betrayed unmistakable signs that they behaved according to a secret plan.  Things were going well, then:  they'd attempt to supersede him soon . . . and fail.

A door behind Tria opened.  A fat Human female entered.  Her body bulbed in green coveralls and her round face appeared to float in a halo of yellow hair.  Her cheeks betrayed the telltale lividity of dacon addiction.  She spoke subserviently to Gar.

"You told me to interrupt if . . ."

"Yes, yes."

Gar waved to indicate she could speak freely.  The gesture's significance did not escape Broey.  Another part of their set piece.

"We've located Havvy but Jedrik's not with him."

Gar nodded, addressed Broey:

"Whether Jedrik's an agent or another puppet, this whole thing smells of something they have set in motion."

Once more, his gaze darted ceilingward.

"I will act on that assumption," Tria said.  She pushed her chair back, arose.  "I'm going into the Warrens."

Broey looked up at her.  Again, he felt his talons twitch beneath their sheaths.  He said:

"Don't interfere with them."

Gar forced his gaze away from the Gowachin while his mind raced.  Often, the Gowachin were difficult to read, but Broey had been obvious just then:  he was confident that he could locate Jedrik and he didn't care who knew it.  That could be very dangerous.

Tria had seen it, too, of course, but she made no comment, merely turned and followed the fat woman out of the room.

Gar arose like a folding ruler being opened to its limit.  "I'd best be getting along.  There are many matters requiring my personal attention."

"We depend on you for a great deal," Broey said.

He was not yet ready to release Gar, however.  Let Tria get well on her way.  Best to keep those two apart for a spell.  He said:

"Before you go, Gar.  Several things still bother me.  Why was Jedrik so precipitate?  And why destroy her records?  What was it that we were not supposed to see?"

"Perhaps it was an attempt to confuse us," Gar said, quoting Tria.  "One thing's sure:  it wasn't just an angry gesture."

"There must be a clue somewhere," Broey said.

"Would you have us risk an interrogation of Havvy?"

"Of course not!"

Gar showed no sign that he recognized Broey's anger.  He said:

"Despite what you and Tria say, I don't think we can afford another mistake at this time.  Havvy was . . . well . . ."

"If you recall," Broey said, "Havvy was not one of Tria's mistakes.  She went along with us under protest.  I wish now we'd listened to her."  He waved a hand idly in dismissal.  "Go see to your important affairs."  He watched Gar leave.

Yes, on the basis of the Human's behavior it was reasonable to assume he knew nothing as yet about this infiltrator Bahrank was bringing through the gates.  Gar would've concealed such valuable information, would not have dared raise the issue of a God Wall intrusion . . .  Or would he?  Broey nodded to himself.  This must be handled with great delicacy.

We will now explore the particular imprint which various governments make upon the individual.  First, be sure you recognize the primary governing force.  For example, take a careful look at Human history.  Humans have been known to submit to many constraints:  to rule by Autarchs, by Plutarchs, by the power seekers of the many Republics, by Oligarchs, by tyrant Majorities and Minorities, by the hidden suasions of Polls, by profound instincts and shallow juvenilities.  And always, the governing force as we wish you now to understand this concept was whatever the individual believed had control over his immediate survival.  Survival sets the pattern of imprint.  During much of Human history (and the pattern is similar with most sentient species) Corporation presidents held more survival in their casual remarks than did the figurehead officials.  We of the ConSentiency cannot forget this as we keep hatch on the Multiworld Corporations.  We dare not even forget it of ourselves.  Where you work for your own survival, this dominates your imprint, this dominates what you believe.

-Instruction Manual Bureau of Sabotage

Never do what your enemy wants you to do, McKie reminded himself.

In this moment, Aritch was the enemy, having placed the binding oath of Legum upon an agent of BuSab, having demanded information to which he had no right.  The old Gowachin's behavior was consistent with the demands of his own legal system, but it immediately magnified the area of conflict by an enormous factor.  McKie chose a minimal response.

"I'm here because Tandaloor is the heart of the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch, who'd been sitting with his eyes closed to emphasize the formal client-Legum relationship, opened his eyes to glare at McKie.

"I remind you once that I am your client."

Signs indicating a dangerous new tension in the Wreave servant were increasing, but McKie was forced to concentrate his attention on Aritch.

"You name your self client.  Very well.  The client must answer truthfully such questions as the Legum asks when the legal issues demand it."

Aritch continued to glare at McKie, latent fire in the yellow eyes.  Now, the battle was truly joined.

McKie sensed how fragile was the relationship upon which his survival depended.  The Gowachin, signatories to the great ConSentiency Pact binding the species of the known universe, were legally subject to certain BuSab intrusions.  But Aritch had placed them on another footing.  If the Gowachin Federation disagreed with McKie/Agent, they could take him into the Courtarena as a Legum who had wronged a client.  With the entire Gowachin Bar arrayed against him.  McKie did not doubt which Legum would taste the knife.  His one hope lay in avoiding immediate litigation.  That was, after all, the real basis of Gowachin Law.

Moving a step closer to specifics, McKie said:

"My Bureau has uncovered a matter of embarrassment to the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch blinked twice.

"As we suspected."

McKie shook his head.  They didn't suspect, they knew.  He counted on this:  that the Gowachin understood why he'd answered their summons.  If any Sentiency under the Pact could understand his position, it had to be the Gowachin.  BuSab reflected Gowachin philosophy.  Centuries had passed since the great convulsion out of which BuSab had originated, but the ConSentiency had never been allowed to forget that birth.  It was taught to the young of every species.

"Once, long ago, a tyrannical majority captured the government.  They said they would make all individuals equal.  They meant they would not let any individual be better than another at doing anything.  Excellence was to be suppressed or concealed.  The tyrants made their government act with great speed 'in the name of the people.'  They removed delays and red tape wherever found.  There was little deliberation.  Unaware that they acted out of an unconscious compulsion to prevent all change, the tyrants tried to enforce a grey sameness upon every population.

"Thus the powerful governmental machine blundered along at increasingly reckless speed.  It took commerce and all the important elements of society with it.  Laws were thought of and passed within hours.  Every society came to be twisted into a suicidal pattern.  People became unprepared for those changes which the universe demands.  They were unable to change.

"It was the time of brittle money, 'appropriated in the morning and gone by nightfall,' as you learned earlier.  In their passion for sameness, the tyrants made themselves more and more powerful.  All others grew correspondingly weaker and weaker.  New bureaus and directorates, odd ministries, leaped into existence for the most improbable purposes.  These became the citadels of a new aristocracy, rulers who kept the giant wheel of government careening along, spreading destruction, violence, and chaos wherever they touched.

"In those desperate times, a handful of people (the Five Ears, their makeup and species never revealed) created the Sabotage Corps to slow that runaway wheel of government.  The original corps was bloody, violent, and cruel.  Gradually, the original efforts were replaced by more subtle methods.  The governmental wheel slowed, became more manageable.  Deliberation returned.

"Over the generations, that original Corps became a Bureau, the Bureau of Sabotage, with its present Ministerial powers, preferring diversion to violence, but ready for violence when the need arises."

They were words from McKie's own teens, generators of a concept modified by his experiences in the Bureau.  Now, he was aware that this directorate composed of all the known sentient species was headed into its own entropic corridors.  Someday, the Bureau would dissolve or be dissolved, but the universe still needed them.  The old imprints remained, the old futile seeking after absolutes of sameness.  It was the ancient conflict between what the individual saw as personal needs for immediate survival and what the totality required if any were to survive.  And now it was the Gowachin versus the ConSentiency, and Aritch was the champion of his people.

McKie studied the High Magister carefully, sensitive to the unrelieved tensions in the Wreave attendant.  Would there be violence in this room?  It was a question which remained unanswered as McKie spoke.

"You have observed that I am in a difficult position.  I do not enjoy the embarrassment of revered teachers and friends, nor of their compatriots.  Yet, evidence has been seen . . ."

He let his voice trail off.  Gowachin disliked dangling implications.

Aritch's claws slid from the sheaths of his webbed fingers.

"Your client wishes to hear of this evidence."

Before speaking, McKie rested his hand on the latch of the box in his lap.

"Many people from two species have disappeared.  Two species:  Gowachin and Human.  Singly, these were small matters, but these disappearances have been going on for a long time -- perhaps twelve or fifteen generations by the old Human reckoning.  Taken together, these disappearances are massive.  We've learned that there's a planet called Dosadi where these people were taken.  Such evidence as we have has been examined carefully.  It all leads to the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch's fingers splayed, a sign of acute embarrassment.  Whether assumed or real, McKie could not tell.

"Does your Bureau accuse the Gowachin?"

"You know the function of my Bureau.  We do not yet know the location of Dosadi, but we'll find it."

Aritch remained silent.  He knew BuSab had never given up on a problem.

McKie raised the blue box.

"Having thrust this upon me, you've made me guardian of your fate, client.  You've no rights to inquire as to my methods.  I will not follow old law."

Aritch nodded.

"It was my argument that you'd react thus."

He raised his right hand.

The rhythmic "death flexion" swept over the Wreave and her fighting mandibles darted from her facial slit.

At the first movement from her, McKie whipped open the blue box, snatched out book and knife.  He spoke with a firmness his body did not feel:

"If she makes the slightest move toward me, my blood will defile this book."  He placed the knife against his own wrist.  "Does your Servant of the Box know the consequences?  The history of the Running Phylum would end.  Another Phylum would be presumed to've accepted the Law from its Giver.  The name of this Phylum's last High Magister would be erased from living thought.  Gowachin would eat their own eggs at the merest hint that they had Running Phylum blood in their veins."

Aritch remained frozen, right hand raised.  Then:

"McKie, you are revealed as a sneak.  Only by spying on our most sacred rituals could you know this."

"Did you think me some fearful, pliable dolt, client?  I am a true Legum.  A Legum does not have to sneak to learn the Law.  When you admitted me to your Bar you opened every door."

Slowly, muscles quivering, Aritch turned and spoke to the Wreave:

"Ceylang?"

She had difficulty speaking while her poison-tipped fighting mandibles remained extruded.

"Your command?"

"Observe this Human well.  Study him.  You will meet again."

"I obey."

"You may go, but remember my words."

"I remember."

McKie, knowing the death dance could not remain uncompleted, stopped her.

"Ceylang!"

Slowly, reluctantly, she looked at him.

"Do observe me well, Ceylang.  I am what you hope to be.  And I warn you:  unless you shed your Wreave skin you will never be a Legum."  He nodded in dismissal.  "Now, you may go."

In a fluid swish of robes she obeyed, but her fighting mandibles remained out, their poison tips glittering.  Somewhere in her triad's quarters, McKie knew, there'd be a small feathered pet which would die presently with poison from its mistress burning through its veins.  Then the death dance would be ended and she could retract her mandibles.  But the hate would remain.

When the door had closed behind the red robe, McKie restored book and knife to the box, returned his attention to Aritch.  Now, when McKie spoke, it was really Legum to client without any sophistry, and they both knew it.

"What would tempt the High Magister of the renowned Running Phylum to bring down the Arch of Civilization?"

McKie's tone was conversational, between equals.

Aritch had trouble adjusting to the new status.  His thoughts were obvious.  If McKie had witnessed a Cleansing Ritual, McKie had to be accepted as a Gowachin.  But McKie was not Gowachin.  Yet he'd been accepted before the Gowachin Bar . . . and if he'd seen that most sacred ritual . . .

Presently, Aritch spoke.

"Where did you see the ritual?"

"It was performed by the Phylum which sheltered me on Tandaloor."

"The Dry Heads?"

"Yes."

"Did they know you witnessed?"

"They invited me."

"How did you shed your skin?"

"They scraped me raw and preserved the scrapings."

Aritch took some time digesting this.  The Dry Heads had played their own secret game of Gowachin politics and now the secret was out.  He had to consider the implications.  What had they hoped to gain?  He said:

"You wear no tattoo."

"I've never made formal application for Dry Heads membership."

"Why?"

"My primary allegiance is to BuSab."

"The Dry Heads know this?"

"They encourage it."

"But what motivated them to . . ."

McKie smiled.

Aritch glanced at a veiled alcove at the far end of the sanctum, back to McKie.  A likeness to the Frog God?

"It'd take more than that."

McKie shrugged.

Aritch mused aloud:

"The Dry Heads supported Klodik in his crime when you . . ."

"Not crime."

"I stand corrected.  You won Klodik's freedom.  And after your victory the Dry Heads invited you to the Cleansing Ritual."

"A Gowachin in BuSab cannot have divided allegiance."

"But a Legum serves only the Law!"

"BuSab and Gowachin Law are not in conflict."

"So the Dry Heads would have us believe."

"Many Gowachin believe it."

"But Klodik's case was not a true test."

Realization swept through McKie:  Aritch regretted more than a lost bet.  He'd put his money with his hopes.  It was time then to redirect this conversation.

"I am your Legum."

Aritch spoke with resignation.

"You are."

"Your Legum wishes to hear of the Dosadi problem."

"A thing is not a problem until it arouses sufficient concern."  Aritch glanced at the box in McKie's lap.  "We're dealing with differences in values, changes in values."

McKie did not believe for an instant this was the tenor of Gowachin defense, but Aritch's words gave him pause.  The Gowachin combined such an odd mixture of respect and disrespect for their Law and all government.  At the root lay their unchanging rituals, but above that everything remained as fluid as the seas in which they'd evolved.  Constant fluidity was the purpose behind their rituals.  You never entered any exchange with Gowachin on a sure-footed basis.  They did something different every time . . . religiously.  It was their nature.  All ground is temporary.  Law is made to be changed.  That was their catechism.  To be a Legum is to learn where to place your feet.

"The Dry Heads did something different," McKie said.

This plunged Aritch into gloom.  His chest ventricles wheezed, indicating he'd speak from the stomach.

"The people of the ConSentiency come in so many different forms:  Wreaves (a flickering glance doorward), Sobarips, Laclacs, Calebans, PanSpechi, Palenki, Chithers, Taprisiots, Humans, we of the Gowachin . . . so many.  The unknowns between us defy counting."

"As well count the drops of water in a sea."

Aritch grunted, then:

"Some diseases cross the barriers between species."

McKie stared at him.  Was Dosadi a medical experiment station?  Impossible!  There would be no reason for secrecy then.  Secrecy defeated the efforts to study a common problem and the Gowachin knew it.

"You are not studying Gowachin-Human diseases."

"Some diseases attack the psyche and cannot be traced to any physical agent."

McKie absorbed this.  Although Gowachin definitions were difficult to understand, they permitted no aberrant behavior.  Different behavior, yes; aberrant behavior, no.  You could challenge the Law, not the ritual.  They were compulsive in this regard.  They slew the ritual deviant out of hand.  It required enormous restraint on their part to deal with another species.

Aritch continued:

"Terrifying psychological abrasions occur when divergent species confront each other and are forced to adapt to new ways.  We seek new knowledge in this arena of behavior."

McKie nodded.

One of his Dry Head teachers had said it:  "No matter how painful, life must adapt or die."

It was a profound revelation about how Gowachin applied their insight to themselves.  Law changed, but it changed on a foundation which could not be permitted the slightest change.  "Else, how do we know where we are or where we have been?"  But encounters with other species changed the foundation.  Life adapted . . . willingly or by force.

McKie spoke with care.

"Psychological experiments with people who've not given their informed consent are still illegal . . . even among the Gowachin."

Aritch would not accept this argument.

"The ConSentiency in all of its parts has accumulated a long history of scientific studies into behavioral and biomedical questions where people are the final test site."

McKie said:

"And the first issue when you propose such an experiment is 'How great is the known risk to the subjects?' "

"But, my dear Legum, informed consent implies that the experimenter knows all the risks and can describe them to his test subjects.  I ask you:  how can that be when the experiment goes beyond what you already know?  How can you describe risks which you cannot anticipate?"

"You submit a proposal to many recognized experts in the field," McKie said.  "They weigh the proposed experiment against whatever value the new knowledge is expected to uncover."

"Ahh, yes.  We submit our proposal to fellow researchers, to people whose mission, whose very view of their own personal identity is controlled by the belief that they can improve the lot of all sentient beings.  Tell me, Legum:  do review boards composed of such people reject many experimental proposals?"

McKie saw the direction of the argument.  He spoke with care.

"They don't reject many proposals, that's true.  Still, you didn't submit your Dosadi protocol to any outside review.  Was that to keep it secret from your own people or from others?"

"We feared the fate of our proposal should it run the gauntlet of other species."

"Did a Gowachin majority approve your project?"

"No.  But we both know that having a majority set the experimental guidelines gives no guarantee against dangerous projects."

"Dosadi has proved dangerous?"

Aritch remained silent for several deep breaths, then:

"It has proved dangerous."

"To whom?"

"Everyone."

It was an unexpected answer, adding a new dimension to Aritch's behavior.  McKie decided to back up and test the revelation.  "This Dosadi project was approved by a minority among the Gowachin, a minority willing to accept a dangerous risk-benefit ratio."

"You have a way of putting these matters, McKie, which presupposes a particular kind of guilt."

"But a majority in the ConSentiency might agree with my description?"

"Should they ever learn of it."

"I see.  Then, in accepting a dangerous risk, what were the future benefits you expected?"

Aritch emitted a deep grunt.

"Legum, I assure you that we worked only with volunteers and they were limited to Humans and Gowachin."

"You evade my question."

"I merely defer an answer."

"Then tell me, did you explain to your volunteers that they had a choice, that they could say 'no'?  Did you tell them they might be in danger?"

"We did not try to frighten them . . . no."

"Was any one of you concerned about the free destiny of your volunteers?"

"Be careful how you judge us, McKie.  There is a fundamental tension between science and freedom -- no matter how science is viewed by its practitioners nor how freedom is sensed by those who believe they have it."

McKie was reminded of a cynical Gowachin aphorism:  To believe that you are free is more important than being free.  He said:

"Your volunteers were lured into this project."

"Some would see it that way."

McKie reflected on this.  He still did not know precisely what the Gowachin had done on Dosadi, but he was beginning to suspect it'd be something repulsive.  He could not keep this fear from his voice.

"We return to the question of expected benefits."

"Legum, we have long admired your species.  You gave us one of our most trusted maxims:  No species is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its own interests."

"That's no longer sufficient justification for . . ."

"We derive another rule from your maxim:  It is wise to guide your actions in such a way that the interests of other species coincide with the interests of your species."

McKie stared at the High Magister.  Did this crafty old Gowachin seek a Human-Gowachin conspiracy to suppress evidence of what had been done on Dosadi?  Would he dare such a gambit?  Just how bad was this Dosadi fiasco?

To test the issue, McKie asked:

"What benefits did you expect?  I insist."

Aritch slumped.  His chairdog accommodated to the new position.  The High Magister favored McKie with a heavy-lidded stare for a long interval, then:

"You play this game better than we'd ever hoped."

"With you, Law and Government are always a game.  I come from another arena."

"Your Bureau."

"And I was trained as a Legum."

"Are you my Legum?"

"The binding oath is binding on me.  Have you no faith in . . ."

McKie broke off, overwhelmed by a sudden insight.  Of course!  The Gowachin had known for a long time that Dosadi would become a legal issue.

"Faith in what?" Aritch asked.

"Enough of these evasions!" McKie said.  "You had your Dosadi problem in mind when you trained me.  Now, you act as though you distrust your own plan."

Aritch's lips rippled.

"How strange.  You're more Gowachin than a Gowachin."

"What benefits did you expect when you took this risk?"

Aritch's fingers splayed, stretching the webs.

"We hoped for a quick conclusion and benefits to offset the natural animosities we knew would arise.  But it's now more than twenty of your generations, not twelve or fifteen, that we've grasped the firebrand.  Benefits?  Yes, there are some, but we dare not use them or free Dosadi from bondage lest we raise questions which we cannot answer without revealing our . . . source."

"The benefits!" McKie said.  "Your Legum insists."

Aritch exhaled a shuddering breath through his ventricles.

"Only the Caleban who guards Dosadi knows its location and she is charged to give access without revealing that place.  Dosadi is peopled by Humans and Gowachin.  They live in a single city they call Chu.  Some ninety million people live there, almost equally divided between the two species.  Perhaps three times that number live outside Chu, on the Rim, but they're outside the experiment.  Chu is approximately eight hundred square kilometers."

The population density shocked McKie.  Millions per kilometer.  He had difficulty visualizing it.  Even allowing for a city's vertical dimension . . . and burrowing . . .  There'd be some, of course, whose power bought them space, but the others . . .  Gods! Such a city would be crawling with people, no escaping the pressure of your fellows anywhere except on that unexplained Rim.  McKie said as much to Aritch.

The High Magister confirmed this.

"The population density is very great in some areas.  The people of Dosadi call these areas 'Warrens' for good reason."

"But why?  With an entire planet to live on . . ."

"Dosadi is poisonous to our forms of life.  All of their food comes from carefully managed hydroponics factories in the heart of Chu.  Food factories and the distribution are managed by warlords.  Everything is under a quasi-military form of management.  But life expectancy in the city is four times that outside."

"You said the population outside the city was much larger than . . ."

"They breed like mad animals."

"What possible benefits could you have expected from . . ."

"Under pressure, life reveals its basic elements."

McKie considered what the High Magister had revealed.  The picture of Dosadi was that of a seething mass.  Warlords . . .  He visualized walls, some people living and working in comparative richness of space while others . . .  Gods!  It was madness in a universe where some highly habitable planets held no more than a few thousand people.  His voice brittle, McKie addressed himself to the High Magister.

"These basic elements, the benefits you sought . . . I wish to hear about them."

Aritch hitched himself forward.

"We have discovered new ways of association, new devices of motivation, unsuspected drives which can impose themselves upon an entire population."

"I require specific and explicit enumeration of these discoveries."

"Presently, Legum . . . presently."

Why did Aritch delay?  Were the so-called benefits insignificant beside the repulsive horror of such an experiment?  McKie ventured another tack.

"You say this planet is poisonous.  Why not remove the inhabitants a few at a time, subject them to memory erasure if you must, and feed them out into the ConSentiency as new . . ."

"We dare not!  First, the inhabitants have developed an immunity to erasure, a by-product of those poisons which do get into their diet.  Second, given what they have become on Dosadi . . .  How can I explain this to you?"

"Why don't the people just leave Dosadi?  I presume you deny them jumpdoors, but rockets and other mechanical . . ."

"We will not permit them to leave.  Our Caleban encloses Dosadi in what she calls a 'tempokinetic barrier' which our test subjects cannot penetrate."

"Why?"

"We will destroy the entire planet and everything on it rather than loose this population upon the ConSentiency."

"What are the people of Dosadi that you'd even contemplate such a thing?"

Aritch shuddered.

"We have created a monster."

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.

-Attributed to an ancient Human journalist

As she hurried across the roof of the adjoining parking spire at midafternoon of her final day as a Liaitor, Jedrik couldn't clear her mind of the awareness that she was about to shed another mark of rank.  Stacked in the building beneath her, each one suspended by its roof grapples on the conveyor track, were the vehicles of the power merchants and their minions.  The machines varied from the giant jaigers heavy with armor and weapons and redundant engine systems, of the ruling few, down to the tiny black skitters assigned to such as herself.  Ex-minion Jedrik knew she was about to take a final ride in the machine which had released her from the morning and evening crush on the underground walkways.

She had timed her departure with care.  The ones who rode in the jaigers would not have reassigned her skitter and its driver.  That driver, Havvy, required her special attentions in this last ride, this narrow time slot which she had set aside for dealing with him.

Jedrik sensed events rushing at their own terrible pace now.  Just that morning she had loosed death against fifty Humans.  Now, the avalanche gathered power.

The parking spire's roof pavement had been poorly repaired after the recent explosive destruction of three Rim guerrillas.  Her feet adjusted to the rough paving as she hurried across the open area to the drop chute.  At the chute, she paused and glanced westward through Chu's enclosing cliffs.  The sun, already nearing its late afternoon line on the cliffs, was a golden glow beyond the God Wall's milky barrier.  To her newly sensitized fears, that was not a sun but a malignant eye which peered down at her.

By now, the rotofiles in her office would've been ignited by the clumsy intrusion of the LP toads.  There'd be a delay while they reported this, while it was bucked up through the hierarchy to a level where somebody dared make an important decision.

Jedrik fought against letting her thoughts fall into trembling shadows.  After the rotofiles, other data would accumulate.  The Elector's people would grow increasingly suspicious.  But that was part of her plan, a layer with many layers.

Abruptly, she stepped into the chute, dropped to her parking level, stared across the catwalks at her skitter dangling among the others.  Havvy sat on the sloping hood, his shoulders in their characteristic slouch.  Good.  He behaved as expected.  A certain finesse was called for now, but she expected no real trouble from anyone as shallow and transparent as Havvy.  Still, she kept her right hand in the pocket where she'd secreted a small but adequate weapon.  Nothing could be allowed to stop her now.  She had selected and trained lieutenants, but none of them quite matched her capabilities.  The military force which had been prepared for this moment needed Jedrik for that extra edge which could pluck victory from the days ahead of them.For now, I must float like a leaf above the hurricane.

Havvy was reading a book, one of those pseudodeep things he regularly affected, a book which she knew he would not understand.  As he read, he pulled at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger, the very picture of a deep intellectual involvement with important ideas.  But it was only a picture.  He gave no sign that he heard Jedrik hurrying toward him.  A light breeze flicked the pages and he held them with one finger.  She could not yet see the title, but assumed this book would be on the contraband list as was much of his reading.  That was about the peak of Havvy's risk taking, not great but imbued with a certain false glamor.  Another picture.

She could see him quite distinctly now in readable detail.  He should have looked up by now but still sat absorbed in his book.  Havvy possessed large brown eyes which he obviously believed he employed with deceptive innocence.  The real innocence went far beyond his shallow attempts at deception.  Jedrik's imagination easily played the scene should one of Broey's people confront Havvy in this pose.

"A contraband book?" Havvy would ask, playing his brown eyes for all their worthless innocence.  "I didn't think there were any more of those around.

Thought you'd burned them all.  Fellow handed it to me on the street when I asked what he was reading."

And the Elector's spy would conceal a sneer while asking, "Didn't you question such a gift?"

Should it come to that, things would grow progressively stickier for Havvy along the paths he could not anticipate.  His innocent brown eyes would deceive one of the Elector's people no more than they deceived her.  In view of this, she read other messages in the fact that Havvy had produced her key to the God Wall -- this Jorj X. McKie.  Havvy had come to her with his heavy-handed conspiratorial manner:"The Rim wants to send in a new agent.  We thought you might . . ."

And every datum he'd divulged about this oddity, every question he'd answered with his transparent candor, had increased her tension, surprise, and elation.

Jedrik thought upon these matters as she approached Havvy.

He sensed her presence, looked up.  Recognition and something unexpected -- a watchfulness half-shielded -- came over him.  He closed his book.

"You're early."

"As I said I'd be."

This new manner in Havvy set her nerves on edge, raised old doubts.  No course remained for her except attack.

"Only toads don't break routine," she said.

Havvy's gaze darted left, right, returned to her face.  He hadn't expected this.  It was a bit more open risk than Havvy relished.  The Elector had spy devices everywhere.  Havvy's reaction told her what she wanted to know, however.  She gestured to the skitter.

"Let's go."

He pocketed his book, slid down, and opened her door.  His actions were a bit too brisk.  The button tab on one of his green-striped sleeves caught a door handle.  He freed himself with an embarrassed flurry.

Jedrik slipped into the passenger harness.  Havvy slammed the door a touch too hard.  Nervous.  Good.  He took his place at the power bar to her left, kept his profile to her when he spoke.

"Where?"

"Head for the apartment."

A slight hesitation, then he activated the grapple tracks.  The skitter jerked into motion, danced sideways, and slid smoothly down the diveway to the street.

As they emerged from the parking spire's enclosing shadows, even before the grapple released and Havvy activated the skitter's own power, Jedrik firmed her decision not to look back.  The Liaitor building had become part of her past, a pile of grey-green stones hemmed by other tall structures with, here and there, gaps to the cliffs and the river's arms.  That part of her life she now excised.  Best it were done cleanly.  Her mind must be clear for what came next.  What came next was war.

It wasn't often that a warrior force lifted itself out of Dosadi's masses to seek its place in the power structure.  And the force she had groomed would strike fear into millions.  It was the fears of only a few people that concerned her now, though, and the first of these was Havvy.

He drove with his usual competence, not overly proficient but adequate.  His knuckles were white on the steering arms, however.  It was still the Havvy she knew moving those muscles, not one of the evil identities who could play their tricks in Dosadi flesh.  That was Havvy's usefulness to her and his failure.  He was Dosadi-flawed, corrupted.  That could not be permitted with McKie.

Havvy appeared to have enough good sense to fear her.  Jedrik allowed this emotion to ferment in him while she studied the passing scene.  There was little traffic and all of that was armored.  The occasional tube access with its sense of weapons in the shadows and eyes behind the guard slits -- all seemed normal. It was too soon for the hue and cry after an errant Senior Liaitor.

They went through the first walled checkpoint without delay.  The guards were efficiently casual, a glance at the skitter and the identification brassards of the occupants.  It was all routine.

The danger with routines, she told herself, was that they very soon became boring.  Boredom dulled the senses.  That was a boredom which she and her aides constantly guarded against among their warriors.  This new force on Dosadi would create many shocks.

As Havvy took them up the normal ring route through the walls, the streets became wide, more open.  There were garden plantings in the open here, poisonous but beautiful.  Leaves were purple in the shadows.  Barren dirt beneath the bushes glittered with corrosive droplets, one of Dosadi's little ways of protecting territory.  Dosadi taught many things to those willing to learn.

Jedrik turned, studied Havvy, the way he appeared to concentrate on his driving with an air of stored-up energy.  That was about as far as Havvy's learning went.  He seemed to know some of his own deficiencies, must realize that many wondered how he held a driver's job, even for the middle echelons, when the Warrens were jammed with people violently avaricious for any step upward.  Obviously, Havvy carried valuable secrets which he sold on a hidden market.  She had to nudge that hidden market now.  Her act must appear faintly clumsy, as though events of this day had confused her.

"Can we be overheard?" she asked.

That made no difference to her plans, but it was the kind of clumsiness which Havvy would misinterpret in precisely the way she now required.

"I've disarmed the transceiver the way I did before," he said.  "It'll look like a simple breakdown if anyone checks."

To no one but you, she thought.

But it was the level of infantile response she'd come to expect from Havvy.  She picked up his gambit, probing with real curiosity.

"You expected that we'd require privacy today?"

He almost shot a startled took at her, caught himself, then:

"Oh, no!  It was a precaution.  I have more information to sell you."

"But you gave me the information about McKie."

"That was to demonstrate my value."

Oh, Havvy!  Why do you try?

"You have unexpected qualities," she said, and marked that he did not even detect the first level of her irony.  "What's this information you wish to sell?"

"It concerns this McKie."

"Indeed?"

"What's it worth to you?"

"Am I your only market, Havvy?"

His shoulder muscles bunched as his grip grew even tighter on the steering arms.  The tensions in his voice were remarkably easy to read.

"Sold in the right place my information could guarantee maybe five years of easy living -- no worries about food or good housing or anything."

"Why aren't you selling it in such a place?"

"I didn't say I could sell it.  There are buyers and then there are buyers."

"And then there are the ones who just take?" .

There was no need for him to answer and it was just as well.  A barrier dropped in front of the skitter, forcing Havvy to a quick stop.  For just an instant, fear gripped her and she felt her reflexes prevent any bodily betrayal of the emotion.  Then she saw that it was a routine stop while repair supplies were trundled across the roadway ahead of them.

Jedrik peered out the window on her right.  The interminable repair and strengthening of the city's fortifications was going on at the next lower level.  Memory told her this was the eighth layer of city protection on the southwest.  The noise of pounding rock hammers filled the street.  Grey dust lay everywhere, clouds of it drifting.  She smelled burnt flint and that bitter metallic undertone which you never quite escaped anywhere in Chu, the smell of the poison death which Dosadi ladled out to its inhabitants.  She closed her mouth and took shallow breaths, noted absently that the labor crew was all Warren, all Human, and about a third of them women.  None of the women appeared older than fifteen.  They already had that hard alertness about the eyes which the Warren-born never lost.

A young male strawboss went by trailing a male assistant, an older man with bent shoulders and straggly grey hair.  The older man walked with slow deliberation and the young strawboss seemed impatient with him, waving the assistant to keep up.  The important subtleties of the relationship thus revealed were entirely lost on Havvy, she noted.  The strawboss, as he passed one of the female laborers, looked her up and down with interest.  The worker noted his attention and exerted herself with the hammer.  The strawboss said something to his assistant, who went over and spoke to the young female.  She smiled and glanced at the strawboss, nodded.  The strawboss and assistant walked on without looking back.  The obvious arrangement for later assignation would have gone without Jedrik's conscious notice except that the young female strongly resembled a woman she'd once known . . . dead now as were so many of her early companions.

A bell began to ring and the barrier lifted.

Havvy drove on, glancing once at the strawboss as they passed him.  The glance was not returned, telling Jedrik that the strawboss had assessed the skitter's occupants much earlier.

Jedrick picked up the conversation with Havvy where they'd left it.

"What makes you think you could get more from me than from someone else?"

"Not more . . . It's just that there's less risk with you."

The truth was in his voice, that innocent instrument which told so much about Havvy.  She shook her head.

"You want me to take the risk of selling higher up?"

After a long pause, Havvy said:

"You know a safer way for me to operate?"

"I'd have to use you somewhere along the line for verification."

"But I'd be under your protection then."

"Why should I protect you when you're no longer of value?"

"What makes you think this is all the information I can get?"

Jedrik allowed herself a sigh, wondered why she continued this empty game.

"We might both run into a taker, Havvy."

Havvy didn't respond.  Surely, he'd considered this in his foolish game plan.

They passed a squat brown building on the left.  Their street curved upward around the building and passed through a teeming square at the next higher level.  Between two taller buildings on the right, she glimpsed a stretch of a river channel, then it was more buildings which enclosed them like the cliffs of Chu, growing taller as the skitter climbed.

As she'd known, Havvy couldn't endure her silence.

"What're you going to do?" he asked.

"I'll pay one year of such protection as I can offer."

"But this is . . ."

"Take it or leave it."

He heard the finality but, being Havvy, couldn't give up.  It was his one redeeming feature.

"Couldn't we even discuss a . . ."

"We won't discuss anything!  If you won't sell at my price, then perhaps I should become a taker."

"That's not like you!"

"How little you know.  I can buy informants of your caliber far cheaper."

"You're a hard person."

Out of compassion, she ventured a tiny lesson.  "That's how to survive.  But I think we should forget this now.  Your information is probably something I already know, or something useless."

"It's worth a lot more than you offered."

"So you say, but I know you, Havvy.  You're not one to take big risks.  Little risks sometimes, big risks never.  Your information couldn't be of any great value to me."

"If you only knew."

"I'm no longer interested, Havvy."

"Oh, that's great!  You bargain with me and then pull out after I've . . ."

"I was not bargaining!"  Wasn't the fool capable of anything?

"But you . . ."

"Havvy!  Hear me with care.  You're a little tad who's stumbled onto something you believe is important.  It's actually nothing of great importance, but it's big enough to frighten you.  You can't think of a way to sell this information without putting your neck in peril.  That's why you came to me.  You presume to have me act as your agent.  You presume too much."

Anger closed his mind to any value in her words.

"I take risks!"

She didn't even try to keep amusement from her voice.  "Yes, Havvy, but never where you think.  So here's a risk for you right out in the open.  Tell me your valuable information.  No strings.  Let me judge.  If I think it's worth more than I've already offered I'll pay more.  If I already have this information or it's otherwise useless, you get nothing."

"The advantage is all on your side!"

"Where it belongs."

Jedrik studied Havvy's shoulders, the set of his head, the rippling of muscles under stretched fabric as he drove.  He was supposed to be pure Labor Pool and didn't even know that silence was the guardian of the LP:  Learning silence, you learn what to hear.  The LP seldom volunteered anything.  And here was Havvy, so far from that and other LP traditions that he might never have experienced the Warren.  Had never experienced it until he was too old to learn.  Yet he talked of friends on the Rim, acted as though he had his own conspiratorial cell.  He held a job for which he was barely competent.  And everything he did revealed his belief that all of these things would not tell someone of Jedrik's caliber the essential facts about him.

Unless his were a marvelously practiced act.

She did not believe such a marvel, but there was a cautionary element in recognizing the remote possibility.  This and the obvious flaws in Havvy had kept her from using him as a key to the God Wall.

They were passing the Elector's headquarters now.  She turned and glanced at the stone escarpment.  Her thoughts were a thorn thicket.  Every assumption she made about Havvy required a peculiar protective reflex.  A non-Dosadi reflex.  She noted workers streaming down the steps toward the tube entrance of the Elector's building.  Her problem with Havvy carried an odd similarity to the problem she knew Broey would encounter when it came to deciding about an ex-Liaitor named Keila Jedrik.  She had studied Broey's decisions with a concentrated precision which had tested the limits of her abilities.  Doing this, she had changed basic things about herself, had become oddly non-Dosadi.  They would no longer find Keila Jedrik in the DemoPol. No more than they'd find Havvy or this McKie there.  But if she could do this . . .

Pedestrian traffic in this region of extreme caution had slowed Havvy to a crawl.  More of the Elector's workers were coming up from the Tube Gate One exit, a throng of them as though released on urgent business.  She wondered if any of her fifty flowed in that throng.

I must not allow my thoughts to wander.

To float like an aware leaf was one thing, but she dared not let herself enter the hurricane . . . not yet. She focused once more on the silent, angry Havvy.

"Tell me, Havvy, did you ever kill a person?"

His shoulders stiffened.

"Why do you ask such a question?"

She stared at his profile for an adequate time, obviously reflecting on this same question.

"I presumed you'd answer.  I understand now that you will not answer.  This is not the first time I've made that mistake."

Again, Havvy missed the lesson.

"Do you ask many people that question?"

"That doesn't concern you now."

She concealed a profound sadness.

Havvy hadn't the wit to read even the most blatant of the surface indicators.  He compounded the useless.

"You can't justify such an intrusion into my . . ."

"Be still, little man!  Have you learned nothing?  Death is often the only means of evoking an appropriate answer."

Havvy saw this only as an utterly unscrupulous response as she'd known he would.  When he shot a probing stare at her, she lifted an eyebrow in a cynical shrug.  Havvy continued to divide his attention between the street and her face, apprehensive, fearful.  His driving degenerated, became actively dangerous.

"Watch what you're doing, you fool!"

He turned more of his attention to the street, presuming this the greater danger.

The next time he glanced at her, she smiled, knowing Havvy would be unable to detect any lethal change in this gesture.  He already wondered if she would attack, but guessed she wouldn't do it while he was driving.  He doubted, though, and his doubts made him even more transparent.  Havvy was no marvel.  One thing certain about him:  he came from beyond the God Wall, from the lands of "X," from the place of McKie.  Whether he worked for the Elector was immaterial.  In fact, it grew increasingly doubtful that Broey would employ such a dangerous, a flawed tool.  No pretense at foolhardy ignorance of Dosadi's basic survival lessons could be this perfect.  The pretender would not survive.  Only the truly ignorant could have survived to Havvy's age, allowed to go on living as a curiosity, a possible source of interesting data . . . interesting data, not necessarily useful.

Having left resolution of the Havvy Problem to the ultimate moment, wringing every last bit of usefulness from him, she knew her course clearly.  Whoever protected Havvy, her questions placed the precisely modulated pressure upon them and left her options open.

"What is your valued information?" she asked.

Sensing now that he bought life with every response, Havvy pulled the skitter to the curb at a windowless building wall, stopped, and stared at her.

She waited.

"McKie . . ." He swallowed.  "McKie comes from beyond the God Wall."

She allowed laughter to convulse her and it went deeper than she'd anticipated.  For an instant, she was helpless with it and this sobered her.  Not even Havvy could be permitted such an advantage.

Havvy was angry.

"What's funny?"

"You are.  Did you imagine for even a second that I wouldn't recognize someone alien to Dosadi?  Little man, how have you survived?"

This time, he read her correctly.  It threw him back on his only remaining resource and it even answered her question.

"Don't underestimate my value."

Yes, of course:  the unknown value of "X."  And there was a latent threat in his tone which she'd never heard there before.  Could Havvy call on protectors from beyond the God Wall?  That didn't seem possible, given his circumstances, but it had to be considered.  It wouldn't do to approach her larger problem from a narrow viewpoint.  People who could enclose an entire planet in an impenetrable barrier would have other capabilities she had not even imagined.  Some of these creatures came and went at will, as though Dosadi were merely a casual stopping point.  And the travelers from "X" could change their bodies; that was the single terrible fact which must never be forgotten; that was what had led her ancestors to breed for a Keila Jedrik.

Such considerations always left her feeling almost helpless, shaken by the ultimate unknowns which lay in her path.  Was Havvy still Havvy?  Her trusted senses answered:  yes.  Havvy was a spy; a diversion, an amusement.  And he was something else which she could not fathom.  It was maddening.  She could read every nuance of his reactions, yet questions remained.  How could you ever understand these creatures from beyond the Veil of Heaven?  They were transparent to Dosadi eyes, but that transparency itself confused one.

On the other hand, how could the people of "X" hope to understand (and thus anticipate) a Keila Jedrik?  Every evidence of her senses told her that Havvy saw only a surface Jedrik which she wanted him to see.  His spying eyes reported what she wanted them to report.  But the enormous interests at stake here dictated a brand of caution beyond anything she'd ever before attempted.  The fact that she saw this arena of explosive repercussions, however, armed her with grim satisfaction.  The idea that a Dosadi puppet might rebel against "X" and fully understand the nature of such rebellion, surely that idea lay beyond their capabilities.  They were overconfident while she was filled with wariness.  She saw no way of hiding her movements from the people beyond the God Wall as she hid from her fellow Dosadis.  "X" had ways of spying that no one completely evaded.  They would know about the two Keila Jedriks.  She counted on only one thing:  that they could not see her deepest thoughts, that they'd read only that surface which she revealed to them.

Jedrik maintained a steady gaze at Havvy while these considerations flowed through her mind.  Not by the slightest act did she betray what went on in her mind.  That, after all, was Dosadi's greatest gift to its survivors.

"Your information is valueless," she said.

He was accusatory.  "You already knew!"

What did he hope to catch with such a gambit?  Not for the first time, she asked herself whether Havvy might represent the best that "X" could produce?  Would they knowingly send their dolts here?  It hardly seemed possible.  But how could Havvy's childish incompetence command such tools of power as the God Wall implied?  Were the people of "X" the decadent descendants of greater beings?

Even though his own survival demanded it, Havvy would not remain silent.

"If you didn't already know about McKie . . . then you . . . you don't believe me!"

This was too much.  Even for Havvy it was too much and she told herself:  despite the unknown powers of "X," he will have to die.  He muddies the water.  Such incompetence cannot be permitted to breed.

It would have to be done without passion, not like a Gowachin male weeding his own tads, but with a kind of clinical decisiveness which "X" could not misunderstand.

For now, she had arranged that Havvy take her to a particular place.  He still had a role to perform.  Later, with discreet attention to the necessary misdirections, she would do what had to be done.  Then the next part of her plan could be assayed.

All persons act from beliefs they are conditioned not to question, from a set of deeply seated prejudices.  Therefore, whoever presumes to judge must be asked:  "How are you affronted?"  And this judge must begin there to question inwardly as well as outwardly.

-"The Question" from Ritual of the Courtarena Guide to Servants of the Box

"One might suspect you of trying to speak under water," McKie accused.

He still sat opposite Aritch in the High Magister's sanctus, and this near-insult was only one indicator marking the changed atmosphere between them.  The sun had dropped closer to the horizon and its spiritual ring no longer outlined Aritch's head.  The two of them were being more direct now, if not more candid, having explored individual capacities and found where profitable discourse might be directed.

The High Magister flexed his thigh tendons.

Knowing these people from long and close observation, McKie realized the old Gowachin was in pain from prolonged inactivity.  That was an advantage to be exploited.  McKie held up his left hand, enumerated on his fingers:

"You say the original volunteers on Dosadi submitted to memory erasure, but many of their descendants are immune to such erasure.  The present population knows nothing about our ConSentient Universe."

"As far as the present Dosadi population comprehends, they are the only people on the only inhabited planet in existence."

McKie found this hard to believe.  He held up a third finger.

Aritch stared with distaste at the displayed hand.

There were no webs between the alien fingers!

McKie said, "And you tell me that a DemoPol backed up by certain religious injunctions is the primary tool of government there?"

"An original condition of our experiment," Aritch said.

It was not a comprehensive answer, McKie observed.  Original conditions invariably changed.  McKie decided to come back to this after the High Magister had submitted to more muscle pain.

"Do the Dosadi know the nature of the Caleban barrier which encloses them?"

"They've tried rocket probes, primitive electromagnetic projections.  They understand that those energies they can produce will not penetrate their 'God Wall.' "

"Is that what they call the barrier?"

"That or 'The Heavenly Veil.'  To some degree, these labels measure their attitude toward the barrier."

"The DemoPol can serve many governmental forms," McKie said.  "What's the basic form of their government?"

Aritch considered this, then:

"The form varies.  They've employed some eighty different governmental forms."

Another nonresponsive answer.  Aritch did not like to face the fact that their experiment had assumed warlord trappings.  McKie thought about the DemoPol.  In the hands of adepts and with a population responsive to the software probes by which the computer data was assembled, the DemoPol represented an ultimate tool for manipulation of a populace.  The ConSentiency outlawed its use as an assault on individual rights and freedoms.  The Gowachin had broken this prohibition, yes, but a more interesting datum was surfacing:  Dosadi had employed some eighty different governmental forms without rejecting the DemoPol.  That implied frequent changes.

"How often have they changed their form of government?"

"You can divide the numbers as easily as I," Aritch said. His tone was petulant.

McKie nodded. One thing had become quite clear.

"Dosadi's masses know about the DemoPol, but you won't let them remove it!"

Aritch had not expected this insight.  He responded with revealing sharpness which was amplified by his muscle pains.

"How did you learn that?"

"You told me."

"I?"

"Quite plainly.  Such frequent change is responsive to an irritant -- the DemoPol.  They change the forms of government, but leave the irritant.  Obviously, they cannot remove the irritant.  That was clearly part of your experiment -- to raise a population resistant to the DemoPol."

"A resistant population, yes," Aritch said.  He shuddered.

"You've fractured ConSentient Law in many places," McKie said.