"You'll have your answer to that question when we've done this thing."
A Dosadi response, ambiguous, heavy with alternatives.
He glanced around the room, found it hard to believe that he'd known this place only these few days. His attention returned to the shimmering rods. Another trap?
He knew he was wasting precious time, that he'd have to go through with this. But what would it be like to find himself in Jedrik's flesh, wearing her body as he now wore his own? PanSpechi transferred an ego from body to body. But something unspeakable which they would not reveal happened to the donor.
McKie took a trembling breath.
It had to be done. He and Jedrik shared a common purpose. She'd had many opportunities to use Pcharky simply to escape or to extend her life . . . the way, he realized now, that Broey had used the Dosadi secret. The fact that she'd waited for a McKie forced him to believe her. Jedrik's followers trusted her - and they were Dosadi. And if he and Jedrik escaped, Aritch would find himself facing a far different McKie from the one who'd come so innocently across the Rim. They might yet stay Aritch's hand.
The enticement had been real, though. No doubting that. Shed an old body, get a new one. And the Rim had been the major source of raw materiaclass="underline" strong, resilient bodies. Survivors.
"What do I do?" he asked.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and she spoke from beside him.
"You are very Dosadi, McKie. Astonishing."
He glanced at her, saw what it had cost her to move here from the door. He slipped a hand around her waist, eased her to a sitting position on the bed and within reach of the rods.
"Tell me what to do."
She stared at the rods, and McKie realized it was rage driving her, rage against Aritch, the embodiment of "X," the embodiment of a contrived fate. He understood this. The solution of the Dosadi mystery had left him feeling empty, but on the edges there was such a rage as he'd never before experienced. He was still BuSab, though. He wanted no more bloodshed because of Dosadi, no more Gowachin justifications.
Jedrik's voice interrupted his thoughts and he saw that she also shared some of his misgivings.
"I come from a long line of heretics. None of us doubted that Dosadi was a crime, that somewhere there was a justice to punish the criminals."
McKie almost sighed. Not the old Messiah dream! Not that! He would not fill that role, even for Dosadi.
It was as though Jedrik read his mind. Perhaps, with that simulation model of him she carried in her head, this was exactly what she did.
"We didn't expect a hero to come and save us. We knew that whoever came would suffer from the same deficiencies as the other non-Dosadi we saw here. You were so . . . slow. Tell me, McKie, what drives a Dosadi?"
He almost said, "Power."
She saw his hesitation, waited.
"The power to change your condition," he said.
"You make me very proud, McKie."
"But how did you know I was . . ."
"McKie!"
He swallowed, then: "Yes, I guess that was the easiest part for you."
"It was much more difficult finding your abilities and shaping you into a Dosadi."
"But I might've been . . ."
"Tell me how I did it, McKie."
It was a test. He saw that. How had she known absolutely that he was the one she needed?
"I was sent here in a way that evaded Broey."
"And that's not easy." Her glance flickered ceilingward. "They tried to bait us from time to time. Havvy . . ."
"Compromised, contaminated . . ."
"Useless. Sometimes, a stranger looks out of Havvy's eyes."
"My eyes are my own."
"The first thing Bahrank reported about you."
"But even before that . . ."
"Yes?"
"They used Havvy to tell you I was coming . . . and he told you that you could use my body. He had to be truthful with you up to a point. You could read Havvy! How clever they thought they were being! I had to be vulnerable . . . really vulnerable."
"The first thing . . ."
". . . you found out about me." He nodded. "Suspicions confirmed. All of that money on my person. Bait. I was someone to be eliminated. I was a powerful enemy of your enemies."
"And you were angered by the right things."
"You saw that?"
"McKie, you people are so easy to read. So easy!"
"And the weapons I carried. You were supposed to use those to destroy yourselves. The implications . . ."
"I would've seen that if I'd had first-hand experience of Aritch. You knew what he intended for us. My mistake was to read your fears as purely personal. In time . . ."
"We're wasting time."
"You fear we'll be too late?"
Once more, he looked at the shimmering rods. What was it Pcharky did? McKie felt events rushing over him, engulfing him. What bargain had Jedrik really driven with Pcharky? She saw the question on his face.
"My people knew all along that Pcharky was just a tool of the God who held us prisoner. We forced a bargain on that God - that Caleban. Did you think we would not recognize the identity between the powers of that cage and the powers of our God Wall? No more delays, McKie. It's time to test our bargain."
***
Geriatric or other life extension for the powerful poses a similar threat to a sentient species as that found historically in the dominance of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Both assume prerogatives of immortality, collecting more and more power with each passing moment. This is power which draws a theological aura about itself: the unassailable Law, the God-given mandate of the leader, manifest destiny. Power held too long within a narrow framework moves farther and farther away from the adaptive demands of changed conditions. The leadership grows ever more paranoid, suspicious of inventive adaptations to change, fearfully protective of personal power and, in the terrified avoidance of what it sees as risk, blindly leads its people into destruction.
"Very well. I'll tell you what bothers me," Ceylang said. "There are too many things about this problem that I fail to understand."
From her seated position, she looked across a small, round room at Aritch, who floated gently in a tiny blue pool. His head at the pool's lip was almost on a level with Ceylang's. Again, they had worked late into the night. She understood the reasons for this, the time pressures were quite apparent, but the peculiar Gowachin flavor of her training kept her in an almost constant state of angry questioning.
This whole thing was so un-Wreave!
Ceylang smoothed the robe over her long body. The robe was blue now, one step away from Legum black. Appropriately, there was blue all around her: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, Aritch's pool.
The High Magister rested his chin on the pool's edge to speak.
"I require specific questions before I can even hope to penetrate your puzzlement."
"Will McKie defend or prosecute? The simulator . . ."
"Damn the simulator! Odds are that he'll make the mistake of prosecuting. Your own reasoning powers should . . ."
"But if he doesn't?"
"Then selection of the judicial panel becomes vital."
Ceylang twisted her body to one side, feeling the chairdog adjust for her comfort. As usual, Aritch's answer only deepened her sense of uncertainty. She voiced that now.
"I continue to have this odd feeling that you intend me to play some role which I'm not supposed to discover until the very last instant."