Jedrik glanced out the doorway. "You're sure about her?"
"The pattern's there."
"The faceted eyes, can that be disguised?"
"There are ways: contact lenses or a rather delicate operation. I've been trained to detect such things, however, and I can tell you that the one who trained her is not Gar."
She looked at him.
"Broey?"
"A Graluz would be a great place to conceal a creche but . . ." He shook his head. ". . . I don't think so. From what you tell me about Broey . . ."
"Gowachin," she agreed. "Then who?"
"Someone who influenced her when she was quite young."
"Do you wish to interrogate the prisoners?"
"Yes, but I don't know their potential value."
She stared at him in open wonder. His had been an exquisitely penetrating Dosadi-style statement. It was as though a McKie she thought she knew had been transformed suddenly right in front of her eyes. He was not yet sufficiently Dosadi to trust completely, but she'd never expected him to come this far this quickly. He did deserve a more detailed assessment of the military situation and the relative abilities of Tria and Gar. She delivered this assessment in the Dosadi way: barebones words, swift, clipped to an essential spareness which assumed a necessary broad understanding by the listener.
Absorbing this, McKie sensed where she limited her recital, tailoring it for his abilities. In a way, it was similar to a response by his Daily Schedule back on Central Central. He could see himself in her attitudes, read her assessment of him. She was favoring him with a limited, grudging respect tempered by a certain Fondness as by a parent toward a child. And he knew that once they returned to the other room, the fondness would be locked under a mask of perfect concealment. It was there, though. It was there. And he dared not betray her trust by counting on that fondness, else it would be locked away forever.
"I'm ready," he said.
They returned to the command post, McKie with a clearer picture of how to operate here. There was no such thing as mutual, unquestioning trust. You always questioned. You always managed. A sort of grudging respect was the nearest they'd reveal openly. They worked together to survive, or when it was overwhelmingly plain that there was personal advantage in mutual action. Even when they united, they remained ultimate individualists. They suspected any gift because no one gave away anything freely. The safest relationships were those in which the niches of the hierarchy were clear and solidly held - minimum threat from above and from below. The whole thing reminded McKie of stories told about behavior in Human bureaucracies of the classical period before deep space travel. And many years before he had encountered a multispecies corporation which had behaved similarly until the ministrations of BuSab had shown them the error of their ways. They'd used every dirty trick available: bribing, spying and other forms of covert and overt espionage, fomenting dissent in the opposition, assassination, blackmail, and kidnapping. Few in the ConSentiency had not heard of InterRealm Supply, now defunct.
McKie stopped three paces from the prisoners.
Tria spoke first.
"Have you decided what to do with us?"
"There's useful potential in both of you," McKie said, "but we have other questions."
The "we" did not escape Tria or Gar. They both looked at Jedrik, who stood impassively at McKie's shoulder.
McKie addressed himself to Gar.
"Is Tria really your daughter, your natural child?"
Tria appeared surprised and, with his new understanding, McKie realized she was telling him she didn't care if he saw this reaction, that it suited her for him to see this. Gar, however, had betrayed a flicker of shock. By Dosadi standards, he was dumbfounded. Then Tria was not his natural daughter, but until this moment, Tria had never questioned their relationship.
"Tell us," McKie said.
The Dosadi spareness of the words struck Gar like a blow. He looked at Jedrik. She gave every indication of willingness to wait forever for him to obey, which was to say that she made no response either to McKie's words or Gar's behavior.
Visibly defeated, Gar returned his attention to McKie.
"I went with two females, only the three of us, across the far mountains. We tried to set up our own production of pure food there. Many on the Rim tried that in those days. They seldom came back. Something always happens: the plants die for no reason, the water source runs dry, something steals what you grow. The Gods are jealous. That's what we always said."
He looked at Tria, who studied him without expression.
"One of the two women died the first year. The other was sick by the following harvest season, but survived through the next spring. It was during that harvest . . . we went to the garden . . . ha! The garden! This child was there. We had no idea of where she'd come from. She appeared to be seven or eight years old, but her reactions were those of an infant. That happens often enough on the Rim - the mind retreats from something too terrible to bear. We took her in. Sometimes you can train such a child back to usefulness. When the woman died and the crop failed, I took Tria and we headed back to the Rim. That was a very bad time. When we returned . . . I was sick. Tria helped me then. We've been together ever since."
McKie found himself deeply touched by this recital and hard put to conceal his reaction. He was not positive that he did conceal it. With his new Dosadi awareness, he read an entire saga into that sparse account of events which probably were quite ordinary by Rim standards. He found himself enraged by the other data which could be read into Gar's words.
PanSpechi trained!
That was the key. Aritch's people had wanted to maintain the purity of their experiment: only two species permitted. But it would be informative to examine PanSpechi applications. Simple. Take a Human female child. Put her exclusively under PanSpechi influence for seven or eight years. Subject that child to selective memory erasure. Hand her over to convenient surrogate parents on Dosadi.
And there was more: Aritch lied when he said he knew little about the Rim, that the Rim was outside the experiment.
As these thoughts went through his head, McKie returned to the small adjoining room. Jedrik followed. She waited while he assembled his thoughts.
Presently, McKie looked at her, laid out his deductions. When he finished, he glanced at the doorway.
"I need to learn as much as I can about the Rim."
"Those two are a good source."
"But don't you require them for your other plans, the attack on Broey's corridor?"
"Two things can go forward simultaneously. You will return to their enclave with them as my lieutenant. That'll confuse them. They won't know what to make of that. They will answer your questions. And in their confusion they'll reveal much that they might otherwise conceal from you."
McKie absorbed this. Yes . . . Jedrik did not hesitate to put him into peril. It was an ultimate message to everyone. McKie would be totally at the mercy of Gar and Tria. Jedrik was saying, "See! You cannot influence me by any threat to McKie." In a way, this protected him. In an extremely devious Dosadi way, this removed many possible threats to McKie, and it told him much about what her true feelings toward him could be. He spoke to this.
"I detest a cold bed."
Her eyes sparkled briefly, the barest touch of moisture, then, arming him:
"No matter what happens to me, McKie - free us!"
***
Given the proper leverage at the proper point, any sentient awareness may be exploded into astonishing self-understanding.
- from an ancient Human mystic
"Unless she makes a mistake, or we find some unexpected advantage, it's only a matter of time until she overruns us," Broey said.
He sat in his aerie command post at the highest point of the dominant building on the Council Hills. The room was an armored oval with a single window about fifteen meters away directly in front of Broey looking out on sunset through the river's canyon walls. A small table with a communicator stood just to h
is left. Four of his commanders waited near the table. Maps, position boards, and the other appurtenances of command, with their attendants, occupied most of the room's remaining space.
Broey's intelligence service had just brought him the report that Jedrik had taken Gar and Tria captive.
One of his commanders, slender for a Gowachin and with other deprivation marks left from birth on the Rim, glanced at his three companions, cleared his throat.
"Is it time to capitulate?"
Broey shook his head in a Human gesture of negation.
It's time I told them, he thought.
He felt emptied. God refused to speak to him. Nothing in his world obeyed the old mandates.
We've been tricked.
The Powers of the God Wall had tricked him, had tricked his world and all of its inhabitants. They'd . . .
"This McKie," the commander said.
Broey swallowed, then:
"I doubt if McKie has even the faintest understanding of how she uses him."
He glanced at the reports on his communicator table, a stack of reports about McKie. Broey's intelligence service had been active.
"If we captured or killed him . . ." the commander ventured.
"Too late for that," Broey said.
"Is there a chance we won't have to capitulate?"
"There's always that chance."
None of the four commanders liked this answer. Another of them, fat and silky green, spoke up:
"If we have to capitulate, how will we know the . . ."
"We must never capitulate, and we must make certain she knows this," Broey said. "She means to exterminate us."
There! He'd told them.
They were shocked but beginning to understand where his reasoning had led him. He saw the signs of understanding come over their faces.
"The corridor . . ." one of them ventured.
Broey merely stared at him. The fool must know they couldn't get more than a fraction of their forces onto the Rim before Jedrik and Tria closed off that avenue. And even if they could escape to the Rim, what could they do? They hadn't the faintest idea of where the damned factories and food stores were buried.
"If we could rescue Tria," the slim commander said.
Broey snorted. He'd prayed for Tria to contact him, to open negotiations. There'd been not a word, even after she'd fallen back into that impossible enclave. Therefore, Tria had lost control of her people outside the city. All the other evidence supported this conclusion. There was no contact with the Rim. Jedrik's people had taken over out there. Tria would've sent word to him the minute she recognized the impossibility of her position. Any valuable piece of information, any counter in this game would've leaped into Tria's awareness, and she'd have recognized who the highest bidder must be.
Who was the highest bidder? Tria, after all, was Human.
Broey sighed.
And McKie - an idiot savant from beyond the God Wall, a weapons expert. Jedrik must've known. But how? Did the Gods talk to her? Broey doubted this. Jedrik gave every evidence of being too clever to be sucked in by trickster Gods.
More clever, more wary, more Dosadi than I.
She deserved the victory.
Broey arose and went to the window. His commanders exchanged worried glances behind him. Could Broey think them out of this mess?
A corner of his slim corridor to the Rim was visible to Broey. He could not hear the battle, but explosive orange blossoms told him the fighting continued. He knew the gamble Jedrik took. Those Gowachin beyond the God Wall, the ones who'd created this hellish place, were slow - terrifyingly slow. But eventually they would be unable to misunderstand Jedrik's intentions. Would they step in, those mentally retarded Gowachin out there, and try to stop Jedrik? She obviously thought they would. Everything she did told Broey of the care with which Jedrik had prepared for the stupids from Outside. Broey almost wished her success, but he could not bear the price he and his people would have to pay.
Jedrik had the time-edge on him. She had McKie. She had played McKie like a superb instrument. And what would McKie do when he realized the final use Jedrik intended to make of him? Yes . . . McKie was a perfect tool for Jedrik. She'd obviously waited for that perfect instrument, had known when it arrived.
Gods! She was superb!
Broey scratched at the nodes between his ventricles. Well, there were still things a trapped people could do. He returned to his commanders.
"Abandon the corridor. Do it quietly, but swiftly. Fall back to the prepared inner walls."
As his commanders started to turn away, Broey stopped them.
"I also want some carefully selected volunteers. The fix we're in must be explained to them in such a way that there's no misunderstanding. They will be asked to sacrifice themselves in a way no Gowachin has ever before contemplated."
"How?"
It was the slender one.
Broey addressed himself to this one. A Gowachin born on the Rim should be the first to understand.
"We must increase the price Jedrik's paying. Hundreds of their people for every one of ours."
"Suicide missions," the slender one said.
Broey nodded, continued:
"One more thing. I want Havvy brought up here and I want orders issued to increase the food allotment to those Humans we've held in special reserve."
Two of his commanders spoke in unison:
"They won't sacri . . ."
"I have something else in mind for them."
Broey nodded to himself. Yes indeed. Some of those Humans could still serve his purposes. It wasn't likely they could serve him as McKie served Jedrik, but there was still a chance . . . yes, a chance. Jedrik might not be certain of what Broey could do with his Humans. Havvy, for example. Jedrik had certainly considered and discarded Havvy. In itself, that might be useful. Broey waved for his commanders to leave and execute his orders. They'd seen the new determination in him. They'd pass that along to the ones beneath them. That, too, would serve his purposes. It would delay the moment when his people might suspect that he was making a desperate gamble.
He returned to his communicator, called his search people, urged them to new efforts. They might still achieve what Jedrik obviously had achieved with Pcharky . . . if they could find a Pcharky.
***
Knowledge is the province of the Legum, just as knowledge is a source of crime.
- Gowachin Law
Mckie told himself that he might've known an assignment from Jedrik could not be simple. There had to be Dosadi complications.
"There can be no question in their minds that you're really my lieutenant."
"Then I must be your lieutenant."
This pleased her, and she gave him the bare outline of her plan, warning him that the upcoming encounter could not be an act. He must respond as one who was fully aware of this planet's demands.
Night fell over Chu while she prepared him and, when they returned to the command post where Gar and Tria waited, the occasion presented itself as Jedrik had told him it would. It was a sortie by Broey's people against Gate Eighteen. Jedrik snapped the orders at him, sent him running.
"Find the purpose of that!"
McKie paused only to pick up four waiting guards at the command post door, noting the unconcealed surprise in Gar and Tria. They'd formed a particular opinion of McKie's position and now had to seek a new assessment. Tria would be most upset by this, confused by self-doubts. McKie knew Jedrik would immediately amplify those doubts, telling Gar and Tria that McKie would go with them when he returned from Gate Eighteen.
"You must consider his orders as my orders."
Gate Eighteen turned out to be more than a minor problem. Broey had taken the gate itself and two buildings. One of the attackers, diving from an upper window into one of Jedrik's best units, had blown himself up with a nasty lot of casualties.
"More than a hundred dead," a breathless courier told him.
McKie didn't like the implications of a suicide attack,
but couldn't pause to assess it. They had to eliminate this threat. He gave orders for two feints while a third force blasted down one of the captured buildings, smothering the gate in rubble. That left the other captive building isolated. The swiftness of this success dazzled Jedrik's forces, and the commanders snapped to obedience when McKie issued orders for them to take captives and bring those captives to him for interrogation.
At McKie's command, one of his original four guards brought a map of the area, tacked it to a wall. Less than an hour had passed since he'd left Jedrik, but McKie felt that he'd entered another world, one even more primitive than that surrounding the incredible woman who'd set all of this in motion. It was the difference between second- and third-hand reports of action and the physical feeling of that action all around him. Explosions and the hissing of flamers down on the streets jarred his awareness.
Staring at the map, McKie said, "This has all the marks of a trap. Get all but a holding force out of the area. Tell Jedrik."
People scurried to obey.
One of the guards and two sub-commanders remained. The guard spoke.
"What about this place?"
McKie glanced around him. It was a square room with brown walls. Two windows looked out on the street away from the battle for the isolated building near the gate. He'd hardly looked at the room when they'd brought him here to set up his command post. Four streets with isolated holdouts cushioned him from the main battle. They could shoot a cable bridge to another building if things became hot here. And it'd help morale if he remained in the danger area.
He spoke to one of the sub-commanders:
"Go down to the entry. Call all the elevators down there and disable all but one. Stand by that one with a holding force and put guards in the stairway. Stand by yourself to bring up captives. Comment?"
"I'll send up two cable teams and make sure the adjoining buildings are secure."
Of course! McKie nodded.
Gods! How these people reacted in emergencies. They were as direct and cutting as knives.
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