"Certain delicacies of the Dosadi condition must be overlooked. We are now, all of us, abject supplicants . . . and we are dealing with people who do not speak as we speak, act as we act . . ."
"Yes." He pointed upward. "The mentally retarded ones. We are in danger then."
It was not a question. Broey peered upward, as though trying to see through the ceiling and intervening floors. He drew in a deep breath.
"Yes."
Again, it was compressed communication. Anyone who could put the God Wall there could crush an entire planet. Therefore, Dosadi and all of its inhabitants had been brought to a common subjection. Only a Dosadi could have accepted it this quickly without more questions, and Broey was an ultimate Dosadi.
McKie turned to Jedrik. When he spoke, she anticipated every word, but she waited him out.
"Tell your people to stop all attacks."
He faced Broey.
"And your people."
Broey looked from Jedrik to McKie, back to Jedrik with a puzzled expression openly on his face, but he obeyed.
"Which communicator?"
***
Where pain predominates, agony can be a valued teacher.
McKie and Jedrik had no need to discuss the decision. It was a choice which they shared and knew they shared through a memory-selection process now common to both of them. There was a loophole in the God Wall and even though that wall now blanketed Dosadi in darkness, a Caleban contract was still a Caleban contract. The vital question was whether the Caleban of the God Wall would respond.
Jedrik in McKie's body stood guard outside her own room while a Jedrik-fleshed McKie went alone into the room to make the attempt. Who should he try to contact? Fannie Mae? The absolute darkness which enclosed Dosadi hinted at an absolute withdrawal of the guardian Caleban. And there was so little time.
McKie sat cross-legged on the floor of the room and tried to clear his mind. The constant strange discoveries in the female body he now wore interfered with concentration. The moment of exchange left an aftershock which he doubted would ever diminish. They had but to share the desire for the change now and it occurred. But this different body - ahh, the multiplicity of differences created its own confusions. These went far beyond the adjustments to different height and weight. The muscles of his/her arms and hips felt wrongly attached. The bodily senses were routed through different unconscious processes. Anatomy created its own patterns, its own instinctual behavior. For one thing, he found it necessary to develop consciously monitored movements which protected his/her breasts. The movements were reminiscent of those male adjustments by which he prevented injury to testes. These were movements which a male learned early and relegated to an automatic behavior pattern. The problem in the female body was that he had to think about such behavior. And it went far beyond the breast-testes interlock.
As he tried to clear his mind for the Caleban contact, these webbed clusters of memory intruded. It was maddening. He needed to clear away bodily distractions, but this female body demanded his attention. In desperation, he hyperventilated and burned his awareness into a pineal focus whose dangers he knew only too well. This was the way to permanent identity loss if the experience were prolonged. It produced a sufficient clarity, however, that he could fill his awareness with memories of Fannie Mae.
Silence.
He sensed time's passage as though each heartbeat were a blow.
Fear hovered at the edges of the silence.
It came to him that something had put a terrible fear into the God Wall Caleban.
McKie felt anger.
"Caleban! You owe me!"
"McKie?"
The response was so faint that he wondered whether it might be his hopes playing tricks on him.
"Fannie Mae?"
"Are you McKie?"
That was stronger, and he recognized the familiar Caleban presence in his awareness.
"I am McKie and you owe me a debt."
"If you are truly McKie . . . why are you so . . . strange . . . changed?"
"I wear another body."
McKie was never sure, but he thought he sensed consternation. Fannie Mae responded more strongly then.
"I remove McKie from Dosadi now? Contract permits."
"I will share Dosadi's fate."
"McKie!"
"Don't argue with me, Fannie Mae. I will share Dosadi's fate unless you remove another node/person with me."
He projected Jedrik's patterns then, an easy process since he shared all of her memories.
"She wears McKie's body!"
It was accusatory.
"She wears another body," McKie said. He knew the Caleban saw his new relationship with Jedrik. Everything depended now on the interpretation of the Caleban contract.
"Jedrik is Dosadi," the Caleban protested.
"So am I Dosadi . . . now."
"But you are McKie!"
"And Jedrik is also McKie. Contact her if you don't believe me."
He broke the contact with an angry abruptness, found himself sprawled on the floor, still twitching. Perspiration bathed the female body which he still wore. The head ached.
Would Fannie Mae do as he'd told her? He knew Jedrik was as capable of projecting his awareness as he was of projecting hers. How would Fannie Mae interpret the Dosadi contract?
Gods! The ache in this head was a burning thing. He felt alien in Jedrik's body, misused. The pain persisted and he wondered if he'd done irreparable harm to Jedrik's brain through that intense pineal focus.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright, got to his feet. The Jedrik legs felt weak beneath him. He thought of Jedrik outside that door, trembling in the zombielike trance required for this mind-to-mind contact. What was taking so long? Had the Calebans withdrawn?
Have we lost?
He started for the door but before he'd taken the second step, light blazed around him. For a fractional heartbeat he thought it was the final fire to consume Dosadi, but the light held steady. He glanced around, found himself in the open air. It was a place he recognized immediately: the courtyard of the Dry Head compound on Tandaloor. He saw the familiar phylum designs on the surrounding walls: green Gowachin script on yellow bricks. There was the sound of water splashing in the corner pool. A group of Gowachin stood in an arched entry directly ahead of him and he recognized one of his old teachers. Yes - this was a Dry Head sanctum. These people had protected him, trained him, introduced him to their most sacred secrets.
The Gowachin in the shadowed entry were moving excitedly into the courtyard, their attention centered on a figure sprawled near them. The figure stirred, sat up.
McKie recognized his own body there.
Jedrik!
It was an intense mutual need. The body exchange required less than an eyeblink. McKie found himself in his own familiar body, seated on cool tiles. The approaching Gowachin bombarded him with questions.
"McKie, what is this?"
"You fell through a jumpdoor!"
"Are you hurt?"
He waved the questions away, crossed his legs, and fell into the long-call trance focused on that bead in his stomach. That bead Bildoon had never expected him to use!
As it was paid to do, the Taprisiot waiting on CC enfolded his awareness. McKie rejected contact with Bildoon, made six calls through the responsive Taprisiot. The calls went to key agents in BuSab, all of them ambitious and resourceful, all of them completely loyal to the agency's mandate. He transmitted his Dosadi information in full bursts, using the technique derived from his exchanges with Jedrik - mind-to-mind.
There were few questions and those easily answered.