"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?"