"They know.  And there's trouble coming."

"Trouble?"

"Gowachin against Human."

This appalled McKie, and he wondered if this were the source of those forebodings which Aritch and aides would not explain:  destruction of Dosadi from within.  But Bahrank continued:

"There's a growing separation between Humans and Gowachin, worse than it's ever been.  You may be the last Human to ride with me."

Aritch and company had prepared McKie for Dosadi's violence, hunger, and distrust, but they'd said nothing about species against species . . . only that someone they refused to name could destroy the place from within.  What was Bahrank trying to say?  McKie dared not expose his ignorance by probing, and this inability dismayed him.

Bahrank, meanwhile, nosed their machine out of a narrow passage onto a wider street which was crowded by carts, each piled with greenery.  The carts moved aside slowly as the armored vehicle approached, hatred plain in the eyes of the Humans who moved with the carts.  The press of people astonished McKie:  for every cart (and he lost count of them within a block) there were at least a hundred people crowding around, lifting arms high, shouting at the ring of people who stood shoulder to shoulder around each cart, their backs to the piled contents and obviously guarding those contents.

McKie, staring at the carts, realized with a shocked sense of recognition that he was staring at carts piled with garbage.  The crowds of people were buying garbage.

Again, Bahrank acted the part of tour guide.

"This is called the Street of the Hungry.  That's very select garbage, the best."

McKie recalled one of Aritch's aides saying there were restaurants in Chu which specialized in garbage from particular areas of the city, that no poison-free food was wasted.

The passing scene compelled McKie's attention:  hard faces, furtive movements, the hate and thinly suppressed violence, all of this immersed in a normal commercial operation based on garbage.  And the numbers of these people!  They were everywhere around:  in doorways, guarding and pushing the carts, skipping out of Bahrank's path.  New smells assaulted McKie's nostrils, a fetid acridity, a stink such as he had never before experienced.  Another thing surprised him:  the appearance of antiquity in this Warren.  He wondered if all city populations crowded by threats from outside took on this ancient appearance.  By ConSentient standards, the population of Chu had lived here only a few generations, but the city looked older than any he'd ever seen.

With an abrupt rocking motion, Bahrank turned their machine down a narrow street, brought them to a stop.  McKie, looking out the slit on his right, saw an arched entry in a grimy building, a stairway leading downward into gloom.

"Down there's where you meet Jedrik," Bahrank said.  "Down those stairs, second door on your left.  It's a restaurant."

"How'll I know her?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

"I . . ." McKie broke off.  He'd seen pictures of Jedrik during the Tandaloor briefings, realized now that he was trying to delay leaving Bahrank's armored cocoon.

Bahrank appeared to sense this.

"Have no fear, McKie.  Jedrik will know you.  And McKie . . ."

McKie turned to face the Gowachin.

". . . go directly to the restaurant, take a seat, wait for Jedrik.  You'll not survive long here without her protection.  Your skin's dark and some Humans prefer even the green to the dark in this quarter.  They remember Pylash Gate here.  Fifteen years isn't long enough to erase that from their minds."

Nothing about a Pylash Gate had been included in McKie's briefings and now he dared not ask.

Bahrank moved the switch which opened McKie's door.  Immediately, the stink of the street was amplified to almost overpowering proportions.  Bahrank, seeing him hesitate, spoke sharply.

"Go quickly!"

McKie descended in a kind of olfactory daze, found himself standing on the side of the street, the object of suspicious stares from all around.  The sight of Bahrank driving away was the cutting of his last link to the ConSentiency and all the familiar things which might protect him.  Never in his long life had McKie felt this much alone.

No legal system can maintain justice unless every participant -- magisters, prosecutors, Legums, defendants, witnesses, all -- risks life itself in whatever dispute comes before the bar.  Everything must be risked in the Courtarena.  If any element remains outside the contest and without personal risk, justice inevitably fails.

-Gowachin Law

Near sunset there was a fine rain which lasted well into darkness, then departed on the gorge wind which cleared Dosadi's skies.  It left the air crystalline, cornices dripping puddles in the streets.  Even the omnipresent Warren stink was diluted and Chu's inhabitants showed a predatory lightness as they moved along the streets.

Returning to headquarters in an armored troop carrier which carried only his most trusted Gowachin, Broey noted the clear air even while he wondered at the reports which had brought him racing from the Council Hills.  When he entered the conference room, Broey saw that Gar already was there standing with his back to the dark window which looked out on the eastern cliffs.  Broey wondered how long Gar had been there.  No sign of recognition passed between Gowachin and Human, but this only emphasized the growing separation of the species.  They'd both seen the reports which contained that most disturbing datum:  the killing of a Human double agent under circumstances which pointed at Broey himself.

Broey crossed to the head of the conference table, flipped the toggle which activated his communicator, addressed the screen which only he could see.

"Assemble the Council and link for conference."

The response came as a distorted buzz filtered through scramblers and suppressed by a privacy cone.  Gar, standing across the room, could make no sense out of the noises coming from the communicator.

While he waited for the Council members to come on the conference link, Broey seated himself at the communicator, summoned a Gowachin aide to the screen, and spoke in a low voice masked by the privacy cone.

"Start a security check on all Humans in positions where they might threaten us.  Use Plan D."

Broey glanced up at Gar.  The Human's mouth worked silently.  He was annoyed by the privacy cone and his inability to tell exactly what Broey was doing.  Broey continued speaking to his aide.

"I'll want the special force deployed as I told you earlier . . .  Yes . . ."

Gar pointedly turned his back on this conversation, stared out at the night.

Broey continued to address his aide in the screen.

"No!  We must include even the Humans in this conference.  Yes, that's the report Gar made to me.  Yes, I also received that information.  Other Humans can be expected to riot and drive out their Gowachin neighbors, and there'll be retaliations.  Yes, that was my thought when I saw the report."

Broey turned off the privacy cone and scrambler.  Tria had just come onto his screen with an override, interrupting the conversation with his security aide.  She spoke in a low, hurried voice with only a few words intelligible to Gar across the room.  But Broey's suspicions were becoming obvious.  He heard Tria out, then:

"Yes . . . it would be logical to suppose that such a killing was made to look like Gowachin work for . . .  I see.  But the scattered incidents which . . . Indeed?  Well, under the circumstances . . ."

He left the thought incomplete, but his words drew a line between Human and Gowachin, even at the highest levels of his Advisory Council.

"Tria, I must make my own decisions on this."

While Broey was speaking, Gar brought up a chair and placed it near the communicator, then sat down.  Broey had finished his conversation with Tria and restored the privacy circuits, however, and even though he sat nearby Gar could not penetrate their protective screen.  He was close enough now, though, to hear the buzzing of the privacy system and the sound annoyed Gar.  He did not try to conceal his annoyance.

Broey saw Gar, but gave no indication that he approved or disapproved Gar's nearness.

"So I understand," Broey said.  "Yes . . . I'll issue those orders as soon as I've finished here.  No . . .  Agreed.  That would be best."  He closed the circuit.  The annoying buzz stopped.

"Jedrik means to set Gowachin against Human, Human against Gowachin," Gar said.

"If so, it's been a long time in secret preparation," Broey said.

His words implied many things:  that there was conspiracy in high places, that the situation had achieved dangerous momentum without being detected, that all of the inertial forces could not now be anticipated.

"You expect it to get worse," Gar said.

"Hopefully."

Gar stared at him for a long period, then:

"Yes.

It was clear that Broey wanted a well-defined condition to develop, one which would provide clear predictions of the major consequences.  He was prepared for this.  When Broey understood the situation to his own satisfaction, he'd use his own undeniable powers to gain as much as possible during a period of upset.

Gar broke the silence.

"But if we've misunderstood Jedrik's intent --"

"It helps us when the innocent suffer," Broey said, paraphrasing part of an old axiom which every Dosadi knew.

Gar completed the thought for him.

"But who's innocent?"

Before Broey could respond, his screen came alight with the assembled faces of his Council, each face in its own little square.  Broey conducted the conference quickly, allowing few interruptions.  There were no house arrests, no direct accusations, but his words and manner divided them by species.  When he was through, Gar imagined the scrambling which must be going on right then in Chu while the powerful assembled their defenses.

Without knowing how he sensed this, Gar felt that this was exactly what Jedrik had wanted, and that it'd been a mistake for Broey to increase the tensions.

After turning off the communicator, Broey sat back and addressed himself to Gar with great care.

"Tria tells me that Jedrik cannot be found."

"Didn't we expect that?"

"Perhaps."  Broey puffed his jowls.  "What I don't understand is how a simple Liaitor could elude my people and Tria."

"I think we've underestimated this Jedrik.  What if she comes from . . ."  His chin jerked ceilingward.

Broey considered this.  He'd been supervising the interrogation of Bahrank at a secure post deep in the Council Hills when the summons to headquarters had interrupted.  The accumulating reports indicated a kind of trouble Chu had known at various times, but never at this magnitude.  And Bahrank's information had been disappointing.  He'd delivered this Rim infiltrator named McKie to such and such an address.  (Security had been unable to check this in time because of the riots.)  Bahrank's beliefs were obvious.  And perhaps the Rimmers were trying to build their own city beyond the mountains.  Broey thought this unlikely.  His sources in the Rim had proved generally trustworthy and his special source was always trustworthy.  Besides, such a venture would require gigantic stocks of food, all of it subject to exposure in the regular accounting.  That, after all, was the Liaitor function, why he had . . .  No, that was not probable.  The Rim subsisted on the lowest of Chu's leavings and whatever could be wrested from Dosadi's poisonous soil.  No . . .  Bahrank was wrong.  This McKie was peculiar, but in quite another way.  And Jedrik must've known this before anyone else -- except himself.  The paramount question remained:  who'd helped her?

Broey sighed.

"We have a long association, Gar.  A person of your powers who has worked his way from the Rim through the Warrens . . ."

Gar understood.  He was being told that Broey looked upon him with active suspicion.  There'd never been any real trust between them, but this was something else:  nothing openly spoken, nothing direct or specific, but the meaning clear.  It was not even sly; it was merely Dosadi.

For a moment, Gar didn't know which way to turn.  There'd always been this possibility in his relationship with Broey, but long acceptance had lulled Gar into a dangerous dependency.  Tria had been his most valuable counter.  He needed her now, but she had other, much more demanding, duties at this juncture.

Gar realized now that he would have to precipitate his own plans, calling in all of the debts and dependencies which were his due.  He was distracted by the sound of many people hurrying past in the outer hall.  Presumably, things were coming to a head faster than expected.

Gar stood up, stared vaguely out the windows at those dark shadows in the night which were the Rim cliffs.  While waiting for Broey, Gar had watched darkness settle there, watched the spots of orange appear which were the Rim's cookfires.  Gar knew those cookfires, knew the taste of the food which came from them, knew the flesh-dragging dullness which dominated existence out there.  Did Broey expect him to flee back to that?  Broey would be astonished at the alternatives open to Gar.

"I will leave you now," Broey said.  He arose and waddled from the room.  What he meant was:  "Don't be here when I return."

Gar continued to stare out the windows.  He seemed lost in angry reverie.  Why hadn't Tria reported yet?  One of Broey's Gowachin aides came in, fussed over papers on a corner table.

It was actually no more than five minutes that Gar remained standing thus.  He shook himself presently, turned, and let himself out of the room.

Scarcely had he set foot in the outer passage than a troop of Broey's Gowachin shouldered their way past him into the conference room.  They'd been waiting for him to leave.

Angry with himself for what he knew he must do, Gar turned left, strode down the hall to the room where he knew he'd find Broey.  Three Gowachin wearing Security brassards followed him, but did not interfere.  Two more Gowachin guarded Broey's door, but they hesitated to stop him.  Gar's power had been felt here too long.  And Broey, not expecting Gar to follow, had failed to issue specific orders.  Gar counted on this.

Broey, instructing a group of Gowachin aides, stood over a table cluttered with charts.  Yellow light from fixtures directly overhead played shifting shadows on the charts as the aides bent over the table and made notes.  Broey broke off at the intrusion, his surprise obvious.

Gar spoke before Broey could order him removed.

"You still need me to keep you from making the worst mistake of your life."

Broey straightened, did not speak, but the invitation for Gar to continue was there.

"Jedrik's playing you like a fine instrument.  You're doing precisely what she wants you to do."

Broey's cheeks puffed.  The shrug angered Gar.

"When I first came here, Broey, I took certain precautions to insure my continued health should you ever consider violence against me."

Again, Broey gave that maddening Gowachin shrug.  This was all so mundane.  Why else did this fool Human continue alive and at liberty?

"You've never been able to discover what I did to insure myself against you," Gar said.  "I have no addictions.  I'm a prudent person and, naturally, have means of dying before your experts on pain could overcome my reason.  I've done all of the things you might expect of me . . . and something more, something you now need desperately to know."

"I have my own precautions, Gar."

"Of course, and I admit I don't know what they are."

"So what do you propose?"

Gar gave a little laugh, not quite gloating.

"You know my terms."

Broey shook his head from side to side, an exquisitely Human gesture.

"Share the rule?  I'm astonished at you, Gar."

"Your astonishment hasn't reached its limits.  You don't know what I've really done."

"Which is?"

"Shall we retire to a more private place and discuss it?"

Broey looked around at his aides, waved for them to leave.

"We will talk here."

Gar waited until he heard the door close behind him on the last of the departing aides.

"You probably know about the death fanatics we've groomed in the Human enclaves."

"We are prepared to deal with them."

"Properly motivated, fanatics can keep great secrets, Broey."

"No doubt.  Are you now going to reveal such a secret?"

"For years now, my fanatics have lived on reduced rations, preserving and exporting their surplus rations to the Rim.  We have enough, megatons of food out there.  With a whole planet in which to hide it, you'll never find it.  City food, every bit of it and we will . . ."

"Another city!"

"More than that.  Every weapon the city of Chu has, we have."

Broey's ventricle lips went almost green with anger.

"So you never really left the Rim?"

"The Rim-born cannot forget."

"After all that Chu has done for you . . ."

"I'm glad you didn't mention blasphemy."

"But the Gods of the Veil gave us a mandate!"

"Divide and rule, subdivide and rule even more powerfully, fragment and rule absolutely."

"That's not what I meant."  Broey breathed deeply several times to restore his calm.  "One city and only one city.  That is our mandate."

"But the other city will be built."

"Will it?"

"We've dug in the factories to provide our own weapons and food.  If you move against our people inside Chu, we'll come at you from the outside, shatter your walls and . . ."

"What do you propose?"

"Open cooperation for a separation of the species, one city for Gowachin, one for Human.  What you do in Chu will be your own business then, but I'll tell you that we of the new city will rid ourselves of the DemoPol and its aristocracy."

"You'd create another aristocracy?"

"Perhaps.  But my people will die for the vision of freedom we share.  We no longer provide our bodies for Chu!"

"So that's why your fanatics are all Rim-born."

"I see that you don't yet understand, Broey.  My people are not merely Rim-born; they are willing, even eager, to die for their vision."

Broey considered this.  It was a difficult concept for a Gowachin, whose Graluz guilt was always transformed into a profound respect for the survival drive.  But he saw where Gar's words must lead, and he built an image in his mind of fleshly Human waves throwing themselves onto all opposition without inhibitions about pain, death, or survival in any respect.  They might very well capture Chu.  The idea that countless Rim immigrants lived within Chu's walls in readiness for such sacrifice filled him with deep disquiet.  It required strong self-control to conceal this reaction.  He did not for an instant doubt Gar's story.  It was just the kind of thing this dry-fleshed Rimmer would do.  But why was Gar revealing this now?

"Did Jedrik order you to prepare me for . . ."

"Jedrik isn't part of our plan.  She complicates matters for us, but the kind of upset she's igniting is just the sort of thing we can exploit better than you."

Broey weighed this with what he knew about Gar, found it valid as far as it went, but it still did not answer the basic question.

"Why?"

"I'm not ready to sacrifice my people," Gar said.

That had the ring of partial truth.  Gar had shown many times that he could make hard decisions.  But numbered among his fanatic hordes there doubtless were certain skills he'd prefer not losing -- not yet.  Yes, that was the way Gar's mind worked.  And Gar would know the profound respect for life which matured in a Gowachin breast after the weeding frenzy.  Gowachin, too, could make bloody decisions, but the guilt . . . oh, the guilt . . .  Gar counted on the guilt.  Perhaps he counted too much.

"Surely, you don't expect me to take an open and active part in your Rim city project?"

"If not open, then passive."

"And you insist on sharing the rule of Chu?"

"For the interim."

"Impossible!"

"In substance if not in name."

"You have been my advisor."

"Will you precipitate violence between us with Jedrik standing there to pick up whatever she can gain from us?"

"Ahhhhhh . . ." Broey nodded.

So that was it!  Gar was not part of this Jedrik thing.  Gar was afraid of Jedrik, more afraid of her than he was of Broey.  This gave Broey cause for caution.  Gar was not easily made fearful.  What did he know of this Jedrik that Broey did not know?  But now there was a sufficient reason for compromise.  The unanswered questions could be answered later.

"You will continue as my chief advisor," Broey said.

It was acceptable.  Gar signified his consent by a curt nod.

The compromise left an empty feeling in Broey's digestive nodes, though.  Gar knew he'd been manipulated to reveal his fear of Jedrik.  Gar could be certain that Broey would try to neutralize the Rim city project.  But the magnitude of Gar's plotting went far beyond expectations, leaving too many unknowns.  One could not make accurate decisions with insufficient data.  Gar had given away information without receiving an equal exchange.  That was not like Gar.  Or was that a correct interpretation of what'd happened here?  Broey knew he had to explore this, risking one piece of accurate information as bait.

"There's been a recent increase of mystical experiences by Gowachin in the Warrens."

"You know better than to try that religious nonsense on me!"

Gar was actually angry.

Broey concealed his amusement.  Gar did not know then (or did not accept) that the God of the Veil sometimes created illusions in his flock, that God spoke truly to his anointed and would even answer some questions.

Much had been revealed here, more than Gar suspected.  Bahrank had been right.  And Jedrik would know about Gar's Rim city.  It was possible that Jedrik wanted Broey to know and had maneuvered Gar into revealing the plot.  If Gar saw this, that would be enough to make him fearful.

Why didn't the God reveal this to me? Broey wondered.  Am I being tested?

Yes, that had to be the answer, because there was one thing certain now:

This time, I'll do what the God advises.

People always devise their own justifications.  Fixed and immovable Law merely provides a convenient structure within which to hang your justifications and the prejudices behind them.  The only universally acceptable law for mortals would be one which fitted every justification.  What obvious nonsense.  Law must expose prejudice and question justification.  Thus, Law must be flexible, must change to fit new demands.  Otherwise, it becomes merely the justification of the powerful.

-Gowachin Law (The BuSab Translation)

It required a moment after Bahrank drove away for McKie to recover his sense of purpose.  The buildings rose tall and massive over him, but through a quirk of this Warren's growth, an opening to the west allowed a spike of the silvery afternoon sunlight to slant into the narrow street.  The light threw hard shadows on every object, accented the pressure of Human movement.  McKie did not like the way people looked at him:  as though everyone measured him for some private gain.

Slowly, McKie pressed through the passing throng to the arched entry, observing all he could without seeming to do so.  After all those years in BuSab, all of the training and experience which had qualified him for such a delicately powerful agency, he possessed superb knowledge of the ConSentiency's species.  He drew on that knowledge now, sensing the powerful secrecy which governed these people.  Unfortunately, his experience also was replete with knowledge of what species could do to species, not to mention what a species could do to itself.  The Humans around him reminded him of nothing more than a mob about to explode.

Moving with a constant readiness to defend himself, he went down a short flight of stairs into cool shadows where the foot traffic was lighter but the smells of rot and mold were more pronounced.

Second door on the left.

He went to the doorway to which Bahrank had directed him, peered into the opening:  another stairway down.  Somehow, this dismayed him.  The picture of Chu growing in his mind was not at all what Aritch's people had drawn.  Had they deliberately misled him?  If so, why?  Was it possible they really didn't understand their monster?  The array of answers to his questions chilled him.  What if a few of the observers sent here by Aritch's people had chosen to capitalize on whatever power Dosadi provided?

In all of his career, McKie had never before come across a world so completely cut off from the rest of the universe.  This planet was alone, without many of the amenities which graced the other ConSentient worlds:  no common access to jumpdoors, no concourse of the known species, none of the refined pleasures nor the sophisticated traps which occupied the denizens of other worlds.  Dosadi had developed its own ways.  And the instructors on Tandaloor had returned time and again to that constant note of warning -- that these lonely primitives would take over the ConSentiency if released upon the universe.

"Nothing restrains them.  Nothing."

That was, perhaps, an overstatement.  Some things did restrain the Dosadi physically.  But they were not held back by the conventions or mores of the ConSentiency.  Anything could be purchased here, any forbidden depravity which the imagination might conceive.  This idea haunted McKie.  He thought of this and of the countless substances to which many Dosadi were addicted.  The power leverage such things gave to the unprincipled few was terrifying.

He dared not pause here wrestling with his indecisions, though.  McKie stepped into the stairwell with a boldness which he did not feel, following Bahrank's directions because he had no choice.  The bottom landing was a wider space in deep shadows, one dim light on a black door.  Two Humans dozed in chairs beside the door while a third squatted beside them with what appeared to be a crude projectile weapon in his hands.

"Jedrik summoned me," McKie said.

The guard with the weapon nodded for him to proceed.

McKie made his way past them, glanced at the weapon:  a length of pipe with a metal box at the back and a flat trigger atop the box held by the guard's thumb.  McKie almost missed a step.  The weapon was a dead-man bomb!  Had to be.  If that guard's thumb relaxed for any reason, the thing no doubt would explode and kill everyone in the stairwell.  McKie glanced at the two sleepers.  How could they sleep in such circumstances?

The black door with its one dim light commanded his attention now.  A strong smell of highly seasoned cooking dominated the other stinks here.  McKie saw that it was a heavy door with a glittering spyeye at face level.  The door opened at his approach.  He stepped through into a large low room crowded -- jammed! -- with people seated on benches at trestle tables.  There was barely room for passage between the benches.  And everywhere that McKie looked he saw people spooning food into their mouths from small bowls.  Waiters and waitresses hurried through the narrow spaces slapping down bowls and removing empties.

The whole scene was presided over by a fat woman seated at a small desk on a platform at his left.  She was positioned in such a way that she commanded the entry door, the entire room, and swinging doors at the side through which the serving people flowed back and forth.  She was a monstrous woman and she sat her perch as though she had never been anywhere else.  Indeed, it was easy for McKie to imagine that she could not move from her position.  Her arms were bloated where they squeezed from the confines of short-sleeved green coveralls.  Her ankles hung over her shoe tops in folds.

Take a seat and wait.

Bahrank had been explicit and the warning clear.

McKie looked for an opening on the benches.  Before he could move, the fat woman spoke in a squeaky voice.

"Your name?"

McKie's gaze darted toward those beady eyes in their folds of fat.

"McKie."

"Thought so."

She raised a dimpled finger.  From somewhere in the crush a young boy came hurrying.  He could not have been over nine years old but his eyes were cold with adult wisdom.  He looked up to the fat woman for instructions.

"This is the one.  Guide him."

The boy turned and, without looking to see if McKie followed, hurried down the narrow pathway where the doors swung back and forth to permit the passage of the servitors.  Twice, McKie was almost run down by waiters.  His guide was able to anticipate the opening of every door and skipped aside.

At the end of this passage, there was another solid black door with spyeye.  The door opened onto a short passage with closed doors on both sides, a blank wall at the end.  The blank wall slid aside for them and they descended into a narrow, rock-lined way lighted by widely spaced bulbs overhead.  The walls were damp and evil smelling.  Occasionally, there were wide places with guards.  They passed through several guarded doors, climbed up and went down.  McKie lost track of the turns, the doors, and guard posts.  After a time, they climbed to another short hallway with doors along its sides.  The boy opened the second door on the right, waited for McKie to enter, closed the door.  It was all done without words.  McKie heard the boy's footsteps recede.

The room was small and dimly lighted by windows high in the wall opposite the door.  A trestle table about two meters long with benches down both sides and a chair at each end almost filled the space.  The walls were grey stone and unadorned.  McKie worked his way around to the chair at the far end, sat down.  He remained seated there silently for several minutes, absorbing this place.  It was cold in the room:  Gowachin temperature.  One of the high windows behind him was open a crack and he could hear street noises:  a heavy vehicle passing, voices arguing, many feet.  The sense of the Warren pressing in upon this room was very strong.  Nearer at hand from beyond the single door, he heard crockery banging and an occasional hiss as of steam.

Presently, the door opened and a tall, slender woman entered, slipping through the door at minimal opening.  For a moment as she turned, the light from the windows concentrated on her face, then she sat down at the end of the right-hand bench, dropping into shadows.

McKie had never before seen such hard features on a woman.  She was brittle rock with ice crystal eyes of palest blue.  Her black hair was closely cropped into a stiff bristle.  He repressed a shudder.  The rigidity of her body amplified the hard expression on her face.  It was not the hardness of suffering, not that alone, but something far more determined, something anchored in a kind of agony which might explode at the slightest touch.  On a ConSentient world where the geriatric arts were available, she could have been any age between thirty-five and one hundred and thirty-five.  The dim light into which she had seated herself complicated his scrutiny, but he suspected she was younger than thirty-five.

"So you are McKie."

He nodded.

"You're fortunate Adril's people got my message.  Broey's already searching for you.  I wasn't warned that you were so dark."

He shrugged.

"Bahrank sent word that you could get us all killed if we're not careful with you.  He says you don't have even rudimentary survival training."

This surprised McKie, but he held his silence.

She sighed.  "At least you have the good sense not to protest.  Well . . . welcome to Dosadi, McKie.  Perhaps I'll be able to keep you alive long enough for you to be of some use to us."

Welcome to Dosadi!

"I'm Jedrik as you doubtless already know."

"I recognize you."

This was only partly true.  None of the representations he'd seen had conveyed the ruthless brutality which radiated from her.

A hard smile flickered on her lips, was gone.

"You don't respond when I welcome you to our planet."

McKie shook his head.  Aritch's people had been specific in their injunction:

"She doesn't know your origin.  Under no circumstances may you reveal to her that you come from beyond the God Wall.  It could be immediately fatal."

McKie continued to stare silently at her.

A colder look came over Jedrik's features, something in the muscles at the corners of the mouth and eyes.

"We shall see.  Now:  Bahrank says you carry a wallet of some kind and that you have currency sewn into your clothing.  First, hand me the wallet."

My toolkit?

She reached an open hand toward him.

"I'll warn you once, McKie.  If I get up and walk out of here you'll not live more than two minutes."

Every muscle quivering protest, he slipped the toolkit from its pocket, extended it.

"And I'll warn you, Jedrik:  I'm the only person who can open this without being killed and the contents destroyed."

She accepted the toolkit, turned its flat substance over in her hands.

"Really?"

McKie had begun to interest her in a new way.  He was less than she'd expected, yet more.  Naive, of course, incredibly naive.  But she'd already known that of the people from beyond the God Wall.  It was the most suitable explanation.  Something was profoundly wrong in the Dosadi situation.  The people beyond the Veil would have to send their best here.  This McKie was their best?  Astonishing.

She arose, went to the door, rapped once.

McKie watched her pass the toolkit to someone outside, heard a low-voiced conversation, neither half of it intelligible.  In a flashing moment of indecision, he'd considered trying for some of the toolkit's protective contents.  Something in Jedrik's manner and the accumulation of unknowns all around had stopped him.

Jedrik returned to her seat empty-handed.  She stared at him a moment, head cocked to one side, then:

"I'll say several things to you.  In a way, this is a test.  If you fail, I guarantee you'll not survive long on Dosadi.  Understood?"

When McKie failed to respond, she pounded a fist on the table.

"Understood?"

"Say what you have to say."

"Very well.  It's obvious to me that those who instructed you about Dosadi warned you not to reveal your true origin.  Yet, most of those who've talked to you for more than a few seconds suspect you're not one of us -- not from Chu, not from the Rim, not from anywhere on Dosadi."  Her voice took on a new harshness.  "But I know it.  Let me tell you, McKie, that there's not even a child among us who's failed to realize that the people imprisoned on Dosadi did not originate here!"

McKie stared at her, shocked.

Imprisoned.

As she spoke, he knew she was telling him the truth.  Why hadn't Aritch or the others warned him?  Why hadn't he seen this for himself?  Since Dosadi was poison to both Human and Gowachin, rejected them, of course they'd know they hadn't originated here.

She gave him time to absorb this before continuing.  "There are others among us from your realm, perhaps some we've not identified, better trained.  But I was taught to act only on certainty.  Of you I'm certain.  You do not originate on Dosadi.  I've put it to the question and I've the present confirmation of my own senses.  You come from beyond the God Wall.  Your actions with Bahrank, with Adril, with me . . ." She shook her head sadly.

Aritch set me up for this!

This thought brought back a recurrent question which continued to nag McKie; BuSab's discovery of the Dosadi experiment.  Were the Gowachin that clumsy?  Would they make such slips?  The original plan to conceal this project must have been extensive.  Yet, key facts had leaked to BuSab agents.  McKie felt overwrought from asking himself the same questions over and over without satisfaction.  And now, Jedrik's pressures compounded the burden.  The only suitable answer was that Aritch's people had done everything with the intent of putting him in this position.  They'd deliberately leaked information about Dosadi.  And McKie was their target.

To what purpose?

"Can we be overheard?" he asked.

"Not by my enemies on Dosadi."

He considered this.  She'd left open the question of whether anyone from beyond the God Wall might eavesdrop.  McKie pursed his lips with indecision.  She'd taken his toolkit with such ridiculous ease . . . yet, what choice had he?  They wouldn't get anything from the kit and someone out there, one of Jedrik's underlings, would die.  That could have a useful effect on Jedrik.  He decided to play for time.

"There're many things I could tell you.  So many things.  I hardly know where to begin."

"Begin by telling me how you came through the God Wall."

Yes, he might be able to confuse her with a loose description of Calebans and jumpdoors.  Nothing in her Dosadi experience could've prepared Jedrik for such phenomena.  McKie took a deep breath.  Before he could speak there was a rap on the door.

Jedrik raised a hand for silence, leaned over, and opened the door.  A skinny young man with large eyes beneath a high forehead and thin blond hair slipped through, placed McKie's toolkit on the table in front of Jedrik.

"It wasn't very difficult," he said.

McKie stared at the kit in shock.  It lay open with all of its contents displayed in perfect order.

Jedrik gestured the youth to the seat opposite her.  She reached for a raygen.

McKie could no longer contain himself.

"Careful!  That's dangerous!"

"Be still, McKie.  You know nothing of danger."

She removed the raygen, examined it, replaced it neatly, looked at the young man.

"All right, Stiggy.  Tell me."

The youth began removing the items from the toolkit one by one, handling each with a knowledgeable correctness, speaking rapidly.

McKie tried hard to follow the conversation, but it was in a code he could not understand.  The expressions on their faces were eloquent enough, however.  They were elated.  Whatever Stiggy was saying about the dangerous toys in McKie's toolkit, his revelations profited both of them.

The uncertainties which had begun during McKie's ride with Bahrank reached a new intensity.  The feeling had built up in him like a sickness:  disquiet stomach, pains in his chest, and, lastly, an ache across his forehead.  He'd wondered for a time if he might be the victim of some new disease native to Dosadi.  It could not be the planet's food because he'd eaten nothing yet.  The realization came over him as he watched Jedrik and Stiggy that his reactions were his own reasoning system trying to reject something, some assumption or set of assumptions which he'd accepted without question.  He tried to empty his mind, not asking any questions in particular.  Let come into his awareness what may.  It would all have a fresh appraisal.

Dosadi requires you to be coldly brutal in all of your decisions.  No exceptions.

Well . . . he'd let go of the toolkit in the belief that someone would die trying to open it.  But he'd issued a warning.  That warning could've helped them.  Probably did.

I must become exactly like them or I cannot survive -- let alone succeed.

At last, McKie felt Aritch's fear of Dosadi, understood the Gowachin desperation.  What a terrible training ground for the recognition and use of power!

Jedrik and Stiggy finished their conversation over the toolkit.  Stiggy closed the kit, arose with it in one hand, speaking at last in words McKie understood.

"Yes, we must lose no time."

Stiggy left with the kit.

Jedrik faced McKie.  The toolkit and its contents had helped answer the most obvious question about McKie and his kind.  The people beyond the God Wall were the degenerate descendants of those who'd invented such devices.  It was the only workable explanation.  She felt almost sorry for this poor fool.  But that was not a permissible emotion.  He must be made to understand that he had no choice but to obey her.

"Now, McKie, you will answer all of my questions."

"Yes."

It was utter submission and she knew it.

"When you've satisfied me in all matters," she said, "then we'll eat and I'll take you to a place where you'll be reasonably safe."

The Family/Clan/Factions of the Rim are still responding to their defeat in the mass attempt on our defenses of last Decamo.  They appear severely chastened.  Small police actions are all that we need anticipate over the next planning period.  Further, our operatives in the Rim find no current difficulties in steering the F/C/F toward a natural and acceptable cultural rejection of economic developments which might lead them to improved food production.

-From a Dosadi Bureau of Control document

An angry Broey, full out and uninhibited anger, was something to see and quite a number of his Gowachin aides had seen this emotional display during the night.  It was now barely dawn.  Broey had not slept in two days; but the fourth group of his aides stood before him in the sanctum to receive the full spate of his displeasure.  The word had already gone out through their ranks and they, like the others, did not try to hide their fear or their anxious eagerness to restore themselves in Broey's good graces.

Broey stood near the end of the long table where, earlier, he had met with Gar and Tria.  The only visible sign of his long sleepless hours was a slight pitting of the fatty nodes between his ventricles.  His eyes were as sharp as ever and his voice had lost none if its bite.

"What I'd like explained is how this could happen without a word of warning.  And it's not just that we failed to detect this, but that we continued to grind out complacent reports, reports which went exactly contrary to what actually was happening."

The aides massed at the other end of the table, all standing, all fidgeting, were not assuaged by Broey's use of "we."  They heard him clearly.  He was saying:  "You!  You!  You!"

"I will be satisfied by nothing less than an informant," Broey said.  "I want a Human informant, either from Chu or from the Rim.  I don't care how you get this informant.  We must find that store of city food.  We must find where they have started their blasphemous Rim city."

One of his aides, a slender young Gowachin in the front rank, ventured a cautious question which had been repeated several times by other chastened aides during the night.

"If we move too strongly against Humans in the Warrens, won't that feed the unrest that . . ."

"We'll have more riots, more turning of Gowachin against Human and Human against Gowachin," Broey agreed.  "That's a consequence we are prepared to accept."

This time they understood that Broey used the royal "we."  Broey would accept the consequences.  Some of his aides, however, were not ready to accept a war between the species within the city's walls.  One of the aides farther back in the ranks raised an arm.

"Perhaps we should use only Human troops in the Warrens.  If we . . ."

"Who would that fool?" Broey demanded.  "We have taken the proper steps to maintain our hold on Chu.  You have one task and one task only:  find that store of food and those hidden factories.  Unless we find them we're finished.  Now, get out of here.  I don't want to see any of you until you can report success!"

They filed out silently.

Broey stood looking down at the blank screen of his communicator.  Alone at last, he allowed his shoulders to slump, breathed heavily through both mouth and ventricles.

What a mess!  What a terrible mess.

He knew in his node of nodes that he was behaving precisely as Jedrik wanted him to behave.  She had left him no alternatives.  He could only admire her handling of the situation while he waited for the opening which he knew must come.  But what a magnificent intellect operated in that Human head.  And a female at that!  Gowachin females never developed such qualities.  Only on the Rim were Gowachin females used as other than breeders.  Human females, on the other hand, never ceased to amaze him.  This Jedrik possessed real leadership qualities.  Whether she was the one to take over the Electorship remained to be seen.

Broey found himself recalling those first moments of terrible awareness in the Graluz.  Yes, this was the way of the world.  If one chose the survivors by other than a terrible testing process, all would die.  It would be the end of both species.  At least, it would be the end of them on Dosadi and only Dosadi mattered.

He felt bereft, though.  He felt betrayed by his God.  Why had God failed to warn him?  And when questioned, how could God respond that only evil could penetrate the mind of a fanatic?  Wasn't God omnipotent?  Could any awareness be closed to God?  How could God be God then?

I am your God!

He could never forget that voiceless voice reverberating in his head.

Was that a lie?

The idea that they were puppets of a false god was not a new one.  But if this were the case, then the other uses of those like Pcharky eluded him.  What was the purpose of being a Gowachin in Human form or vice versa if not to elude the God of the Veil?  Quite obviously, Jedrik operated on such a premise.  What other motive could she have than to prolong her own life?  As the City was to the Rim, so was the power to elude the God (false God or true) to those of the City.  No other assumption fitted a Dosadi justification.

We are plagued by a corrupt polity which promotes unlawful and/or immoral behavior.  Public interest has no practical significance in everyday behavior among the ruling factions.  The real problems of our world are not being confronted by those in power.  In the guise of public service, they use whatever comes to hand for personal gain.  They are insane with and for power.

-From a clandestine document circulated on Dosadi

It was dark when a disguised Jedrik and undisguised McKie emerged onto the streets.  She led them down narrow passages, her mind full of things McKie had revealed.  Jedrik wore a blonde wig and puff-out disguise which made her appear heavy and hunched.

As they passed an open courtyard, McKie heard music.  He almost stumbled.  The music came from a small orchestra -- delicate tympany, soft strings, and a rich chorus of wind instruments.  He did not recognize the melody, but it moved him more deeply than any other music of his experience.  It was as though the music were played only for him.  Aritch and company had said nothing about such magnificent music here.

People still thronged the streets in numbers which astonished him.  But now they appeared to pay him little notice.

Jedrik kept part of her attention on McKie, noting the fools with their musical dalliance, noting how few people there were on the streets -- little more than her own patrols in this quarter.  She'd expected that, but the actuality held an eerie mood in the dim and scattered illumination from lighted corners.

She had debated providing McKie with a crude disguise, but he obviously didn't have the cunning to carry off the double deception she required.  She'd begun to sense a real intelligence in him, though.  McKie was an enigma.  Why had he never encountered the opportunities to sharpen that intelligence?  Sensing the sharpness in him, she could not put off the thought that she had missed something vital in his accounts of that social entity which he called the ConSentiency.  Whether this failure came from actual concealment by McKie or through his inadequacies, she was not yet willing to judge.  The enigma set her on edge.  And the mood in the streets did nothing to ease her emotions.  She was glad when they crossed the line into the area completely controlled by her own personal cell.

The bait having been trailed through the streets by one who would appear a tame underling, Jedrik allowed herself a slight relaxation.  Broey would have learned by this time about the killing of Tria's double agent.  He would react to that and to the new bait.  It was almost time for phase two of her design for Broey.

McKie followed her without question, acutely aware of every strange glance cast their way.  He was emptied of all resistance, knowing he could not survive if he failed to follow Jedrik through the smelly, repellent darkness of her streets.

The food from the restaurant sat heavily in his stomach.  It had been tasty:  a stew of odd shapes full of shredded greenery, and steaming hot.  But he could not shake the realization that his stew had been compounded of someone's garbage.

Jedrik had left him very little.  She hadn't learned of the Taprisiot, or the bead in his stomach which probably would not link him to the powers of the ConSentiency if he died.  She had not learned of the standard BuSab implantation devices which amplified his senses.  And, oddly, she had not explored many of his revelations about BuSab.  She'd seemed much more interested in the money hidden about his person and had taken possession of all of it.  She'd examined the currency carefully.

"This is real."

He wasn't sure, but he thought she'd been surprised.

"This was given to you before you were sent to Dosadi?"

"Yes."

She was a while absorbing the implications, but appeared satisfied.  She'd given him a few small currency tokens from her own pockets.

"Nobody'll bother you for these.  If you need anything, ask.  We may be able to gratify some of your needs."

It was still dark, lighted only by illumination at corners, when they came to the address Jedrik sought.  Grey light suffused the street.  A young Human male of about ten squatted with his back against the stone wall at the building's corner.  As Jedrik and McKie approached, he sprang up, alert.  He nodded once to Jedrik.

She did not acknowledge, but by some hidden signal the boy knew she had received his message.  He relaxed once more against the wall.

When McKie looked back a few paces beyond where the boy had signaled, he was gone.  No sound, no sign just gone.

Jedrik stopped at a shadowed entryway.  It was barred by an openwork metal gate flanked by two armed guards.  The guards opened the gate without words.  Beyond the gate there was a large, covered courtyard illuminated by glowing tubes on right and left.  Three of its sides were piled to the courtyard cover with boxes of various sizes -- some taller than a Human and narrow, others short and fat.  Set into the stacks as though part of the courtyard's walls was one narrow passage leading to a metal door opposite the gateway.

McKie touched Jedrik's arm.

"What's in the boxes?"

"Weapons."  She spoke as though to a cretin.

The metal door was opened from within.  Jedrik led McKie into a large room at least two stories tall.  The door clanged shut behind them.  McKie sensed several Humans along the courtyard wall on both sides of him, but his attention had been captured by something else.

Dominating the room was a gigantic cage suspended from the ceiling.  Its bars sparkled and shimmered with hidden energies.  A single Gowachin male sat cross-legged in a hammock at the cage's center.  McKie had seldom seen a ConSentient Gowachin that aged.  His nose crest was fringed by flaking yellow crusts.  Heavy wrinkles wormed their way beneath watery eyes beginning to glaze with the degeneration which often blinded Gowachin who lived too long away from water.  His body had a slack appearance, with loose muscles and pitted indentations along the nodes between his ventricles.  The hammock suspended him off the cage floor and that floor shimmered with volatile energies.

Jedrik paused, divided her attention between McKie and the old Gowachin.  She seemed to expect a particular reaction from McKie, but he wasn't certain she found what she sought.

McKie stood a moment in silent examination of the Gowachin.  Prisoner?  What was the significance of that cage and its shimmering energies?  Presently, he glanced around the room, recording the space.  Six armed Human males flanked the door through which he and Jedrik had entered.  A remarkable assortment of objects crammed the room's walls, some with purpose unknown to him but many recognizable as weapons:  spears and swords, flame-throwers, garish armor, bombs, pellet projectors . . .

Jedrik moved a pace closer to the cage.  The occupant stared back at her with faint interest.  She cleared her throat.

"Greetings, Pcharky.  I have found my key to the God Wall."

The old Gowachin remained silent, but McKie thought he saw a sparkle of interest in the glazed eyes.

Jedrik shook her head slowly from side to side, then:  "I have a new datum, Pcharky.  The Veil of Heaven was created by creatures called Calebans.  They appear to us as suns."

Pcharky's glance flickered to McKie, back to Jedrik.  The Gowachin knew the source of her new datum.

McKie renewed his speculations about the old Gowachin.  That cage must be a prison, its walls enforced by dangerous energies.  Bahrank had spoken of conflict between the species.  Humans controlled this room.  Why did they imprison a Gowachin?  Or . . . was this caged Gowachin, this Pcharky, another agent from Tandaloor?  With a tightening of his throat, McKie wondered if his own fate might be to live out his days in such a cage.

Pcharky grunted, then:

"The God Wall is like this cage but more powerful."  His voice was a husky croaking, the words clear Galach with an obvious Tandaloor accent.  McKie, his fears reinforced, glanced at Jedrik, found her studying him.  She spoke.

"Pcharky has been with us for a long time, very long.  There's no telling how many people he has helped to escape from Dosadi.  Soon, I may persuade him to be of service to me."

McKie found himself shocked to silence by the possibilities glimpsed through her words.  Was Dosadi in fact an investigation of the Caleban mystery?  Was that the secret Aritch's people concealed here?  McKie stared at the shimmering bars of Pcharky's cage.  Like the God Wall?  But the God Wall was enforced by a Caleban.

Once more, Jedrik looked at the caged Gowachin.

"A sun confines enormous energies, Pcharky.  Are your energies inadequate?"

But Pcharky's attention was on McKie.  The old voice croaked.

"Human, tell me:  Did you come here willingly?"

"Don't answer him," Jedrik snapped.

Pcharky closed his eyes.  Interview ended.

Jedrik, accepting this, whirled and strode to the left around the cage.

"Come along, McKie."  She didn't look back, but continued speaking.  "Does it interest you that Pcharky designed his own cage?"

"He designed it?  Is it a prison?"

"Yes."

"If he designed it . . . how does it hold him?"

"He knew he'd have to serve my purposes if he were to remain alive."

She had come to another door which opened onto a narrow stairway.  It climbed to the left around the cage room.  They emerged into a long hallway lined with narrow doors dimly lighted by tiny overhead bulbs.  Jedrik opened one of these doors and led the way into a carpeted room about four meters wide and six long.  Dark wood panels reached from floor to waist level, shelves loaded with books above.  McKie peered closely:  books . . . actual paper books.  He tried to recall where he'd ever before seen such a collection of primitive . . .  But, of course, these were not primitive.  These were one of Dosadi's strange recapitulations.

Jedrik had removed her wig, stopped midway in the room to turn and face McKie.

"This is my room.  Toilet there."  She pointed to an opening between shelves.  "That window . . ."  Again, she pointed, this time to an opening opposite the toilet door.  ". . . is one-way to admit light, and it's our best.  As Dosadi measures such things, this is a relatively secure place."

He swept his gaze around the room.

Her room?

McKie was struck by the amount of living space, a mark of power on Dosadi; the absence of people in the hall.  By the standards of this planet, Jedrik's room, this building, represented a citadel of power.

Jedrik spoke, an odd note of nervousness in voice and manner:

"Until recently, I also had other quarters:  a prestigious apartment on the slopes of the Council Hills.  I was considered a climber with excellent prospects, my own skitter and driver.  I had access to all but the highest codes in the master banks, and that's a powerful tool for those who can use it.  Now . . ."  She gestured.  ". . . this is what I have chosen.  I must eat swill with the lowest.  No males of rank will pay the slightest attention to me.  Broey thinks I'm cowering somewhere, a pallet in the Warrens.  But I have this . . ."  Again, that sweeping gesture.  ". . . and this."  One finger tapped her head.  "I need nothing more to bring those Council Hills crashing down."

She stared into McKie's eyes.

He found himself believing her.

She was not through speaking.

"You're definitely male Human, McKie."

He didn't know what to make of that, but her air of braggadocio fascinated him.

"How did you lose that other . . ."

"I didn't lose it.  I threw it away.  I no longer needed it.  I've made things move faster than our precious Elector, or even your people, can anticipate.  Broey thinks to wait for an opening against me?"  She shook her head.

Captivated, McKie watched her cross to the window, open a ventilator above it.  She kicked a wooden knob below the adjoining bookshelves, pulled out a section of paneling which trailed a double bed.  Standing across the bed from McKie, she began to undress.  She dropped the wig to the floor, slipped off the coveralls, peeled the bulging inner disguise from her flesh.  Her skin was pale cream.

"McKie, I am your teacher."

He remained silent.  She was long waisted, slim, and graceful.  The creamy skin was marked by two faint scars to the left of the pubic wedge.

"Take off your clothes," she said.

He swallowed.

She shook her head.

"McKie, McKie, to survive here you must become Dosadi.  You don't have much time.  Get your clothes off."

Not knowing what to expect, McKie obeyed.

She watched him carefully.

"Your skin is lighter than I expected where the sun has not darkened you.  We will bleach the skin of your face and hands tomorrow."

McKie looked at his hands, at the sharp line where his cuffs had protected his arms.  Dark skin.  He recalled Bahrank talking of dark skin and a place called Pylash Gate.  To mask the unusual shyness he felt, he looked at Jedrik, asked about Pylash Gate.

"So Bahrank mentioned that?  Well, it was a stupid mistake.  The Rim sent in shock troops and foolish orders were given for the gate's defenses.  Only one troop survived there, all dark-skinned like you.  The suspicion of treachery was natural."

"Oh."

He found his attention compelled toward the bed.  A dark maroon spread covered it.

Jedrik approached him around the foot of the bed.  She stopped less than a hand's width away from him . . . creamy flesh, full breasts.  He looked up into her eyes.  She stood half a head over him, an expression of cold amusement on her face.

McKie found the musky smell of her erotically stimulating.  She looked down, saw this, laughed, and abruptly hurled him onto the bed.  She landed with him and her body was all over him, hot and hard and demanding.

It was the strangest sexual experience of McKie's life.  Not lovemaking, but violent attack.  She groaned, bit at him, clawed.  And when he tried to caress her, she became even more violent, frenzied.  Through it all, she was oddly careful of his pleasure, watching his reactions, reading him.  When it was over, he lay back, spent.  Jedrik sat up on the edge of the bed.  The blankets were a twisted mess.  She grabbed a blanket, threw it across the room, stood up, whirled back to look down at him.

"You are very sly and tricky, McKie."

He drew in a trembling breath, remained silent.

"You tried to catch me with softness," she accused.  "Better than you have tried that with me.  It will not work."

McKie marshalled the energy to sit up and restore some order to the bed. His shoulder pained him where she'd scratched.  He felt the ache of a bite on his neck.  He crawled into the bed, pulled the blankets up to his chin.  She was a madwoman, absolutely mad.  Insane.

Presently, Jedrik stopped looking at him.  She recovered the blanket from across the room, spread it on the bed, joined him.  He was acutely conscious of her staring at him with an openly puzzled frown.

"Tell me about the relationships between men and women on your worlds."

He recounted a few of the love stories he knew, fighting all the while to stay awake.  It was difficult to stifle the gaping yawns.  She kept punching his shoulder.

"I don't believe it.  You're making this up."

"No . . . no.  It's true."

"You have women of your own there?"

"Women of my . . .  Well, it's not like that, not ownership . . . ahhh, not possession."

"What about children?"

"What about them?"

"How're they treated, educated?"

He sighed, sketched in some details from his own childhood.

After a while she let him go to sleep.  He awakened several times during the night, conscious of the strange room and bed, of Jedrik breathing softly beside him.  Once, he thought he felt her shoulders shaking with repressed sobs.

Shortly before dawn, there was a scream in the next block, a terrifying sound of agony loud enough to waken all but the most hardened or the most fatigued.  McKie, awake and thinking, felt Jedrik's breathing change.  He lay tense and watchful, awaiting a repetition or another sound which might explain that eerie scream.  A threatening silence gripped the night.  McKie built an image in his mind of what could be happening in the buildings around them:  some people starting from sleep not knowing (perhaps not caring) what had awakened them; lighter sleepers grumbling and sinking back into restless slumber.

Finally, McKie sat up, peered into the room's shadows.  His disquiet communicated itself to Jedrik.  She rolled over, looked up at him in the pale dawn light now creeping into the shadows.

"There are many noises in the Warrens that you learn to ignore," she said.

Coming from her, it was almost conciliatory, almost a gesture of apology, of friendship.

"Someone screamed," he said.

"I knew it must be something like that."

"How can you sleep through such a sound?"

"I didn't."

"But how can you ignore it?"

"The sounds you ignore are those which aren't immediately threatening to you, those which you can do nothing about."

"Someone was hurt."

"Very likely.  But you must not burden your soul with things you cannot change."

"Don't you want to change . . . that?"

"I am changing it."

Her tone, her attitude were those of a lecturer in a schoolroom, and now there was no doubt that she was being deliberately helpful.  Well, she'd said she was his teacher.  And he must become completely Dosadi to survive.

"How're you changing things?"

"You're not capable of understanding yet.  I want you to take it one step at a time, one lesson at a time."

He couldn't help asking himself then:

What does she want from me now?

He hoped it was not more sex.

"Today," she said, "I want you to meet the parents of three children who work in our cell."

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master.  The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

-The Dosadi Lesson:  A Gowachin Assessment

Aritch studied Ceylang carefully in the soft light of his green-walled relaxation room.  She had come down immediately after the evening meal, responsive to his summons.  They both knew the reason for that summons:  to discuss the most recent report concerning McKie's behavior on Dosadi.

The old Gowachin waited for Ceylang to seat herself, observing how she pulled the red robe neatly about her lower extremities.  Her features appeared composed, the fighting mandibles relaxed in their folds.  She seemed altogether a figure of secure competence, a Wreave of the ruling classes -- not that Wreaves recognized such classes.  It disturbed Aritch that Wreaves tested for survival only through a complex understanding of sentient behavior, rigid performance standards based on ancient ritual, whose actual origins could only be guessed; there was no written record.

But that's why we chose her.

Aritch grunted, then:

"What can you say about the report?"

"McKie learns rapidly."

Her spoken Galach had a faint sibilance.

Aritch nodded.

"I would say rather that he adapts rapidly. It's why we chose him."

"I've heard you say he's more Gowachin than the Gowachin."

"I expect him soon to be more Dosadi than the Dosadi."

"If he survives."

"There's that, yes.  Do you still hate him?"

"I have never hated him.  You do not understand the spectrum of Wreave emotions."

"Enlighten me."

"He has violated my essential pride of self.  This requires a specific reaction in kind.  Hate would only dull my abilities."

"But I was the one who gave you the orders which had to be countermanded."

"My oath of service to the Gowachin contains a specific injunction, that I cannot hold any one of my teachers responsible for either understanding or obeying the Wreave protocols of courtesy.  It is the same injunction which frees us to serve McKie's Bureau."

"You do not consider McKie one of your teachers?"

She studied him for a moment, then:

"Not only do I exclude him, but I know him to be one who has learned much about our protocols."

"What if I were to say he is one of your teachers?"

Again, she stared at him.

"I would revise my estimations of him -- and of you."

Aritch took a deep breath.

"Yet, you must learn McKie as though you lived in his skin.  Otherwise, you will fail us."

"I will not fail you.  I know the reasons you chose me.  Even McKie will know in time.  He dares not spill my blood in the Courtarena, or even subject me to public shame.  Were he to do either of these things, half the Wreave universe would go hunting him with death in their mandibles."

Aritch shook his head slowly from side to side.

"Ceylang!  Didn't you hear him warn you that you must shed your Wreave skin?"

She was a long time responding and he noted the subtle characteristics which he'd been told were the Wreave adjustments to anger:  a twitching of the jowls, tension in the pedal bifurcations . . .

Presently, she said:

"Tell me what that means, Teacher."

"You will be charged with performing under Gowachin Law, performing as though you were another McKie.  He adapts!  Haven't you observed this?  He is capable of defeating you -- and us -- in such a way, in such a way that your Wreave universe would shower him with adulation for his victory.  That cannot be permitted.  Too much is at stake."

Ceylang trembled and showed other signs of distress.

"But I am Wreave!"

"If it comes to the Courtarena, you no longer can be Wreave."

She inhaled several shallow breaths, composed herself.

"If I become too much McKie, aren't you afraid I might hesitate to slay him?"

"McKie would not hesitate."

She considered this.

"Then there's only one reason you chose me for this task."