"Watchdogs of justice, very dangerous role," he agreed.
"You know our feelings of outrage," she said.
"And I know what it is to have loving parents."
"Remember that when you talk to Bildoon."
Once more, McKie found himself on the bed, his old familiar body around him.
Presently, he felt the mental tendrils of a Taprisiot call, sensed Bildoon's awareness in contact with him. McKie wasted no time. The shadow forces were taking the bait.
"I have located Dosadi. The issue will come to the Court arena. No doubt of that. I want you to make the preliminary arrangements. Inform the High Magister Aritch that I make the formal imposition of the Legum. One member of the judicial panel must be a Gowachin from Dosadi. I have a particular Gowachin in mind. His name is Broey."
"Where are you?"
"On Tandaloor."
"Is that possible?"
McKie masked his sadness. Ahhh, Bildoon, how easily you are read.
"Dosadi is temporarily out of danger. I have taken certain retaliatory precautions."
McKie broke the contact.
Jedrik spoke in a musing voice.
"Ohh, the perturbations we spread."
McKie had no time for such reflections.
"Broey will need help, a support team, an extremely reliable troop which I want you to select for him."
"Yes, and what of Gar and Tria?"
"Let them run free. Broey will pick them up later."
***
Communal/managed economics have always been more destructive of their societies than those driven by greed. This is what Dosadi says: Greed sets its own limits, is self-regulating.
McKie looked around the Legum office they'd assigned him. Afternoon smells from Tandaloor's fern jungles came in an open window. A low barrier separated him from the Courtarena with its ranks of scats all around. His office and adjoining quarters were small but fitted with all requisite linkages to libraries and the infrastructure to summon witnesses and experts. It was a green-walled space so deceptively ordinary that its like had beguiled more than one non-Gowachin into believing he knew how to perform here. But these quarters represented a deceptive surface riding on Gowachin currents. No matter that the ConSentient Pact modified what the Gowachin might do o here, this was Tandaloor, and the forms of the frog people dominated.
Seating himself at the single table in the office space, McKie felt the chairdog adjust itself beneath him. It was good to have a chairdog again after Dosadi's unrelenting furniture. He flipped a toggle and addressed the Gowachin face which appeared on the screen inset into his table.
"I require testimony from those who made the actual decision to set up the Dosadi experiment. Are you prepared to meet this request?"
"Do you have the names of these people?"
Did this fool think he was going to blurt out: "Mrreg"?
"If you force me to it," McKie warned, "I will bind Aritch to the Law and extract the names from him."
This had no apparent effect on the Gowachin. He addressed McKie by name and title, adding:
"I leave the formalities to you. Any witness I summon must have a name."
McKie suppressed a smile. Suspicions confirmed. This was a fact which the watchful Gowachin in the screen was late recognizing. Someone else had read the interchange correctly, however. Another, older, Gowachin face replaced the first one on the screen.
"What're you doing, McKie?"
"Determining how I will proceed with this case."
"You will proceed as a Legum of the Gowachin Bar."
"Precisely."
McKie waited.
The Gowachin peered narrowly at him from the screen.
"Jedrik?"
"You are speaking to Jorj X. McKie, a Legum of the Gowachin Bar."
Belatedly, the older Gowachin saw something of the way the Dosadi experience had changed McKie.
"Do you wish me to place you in contact with Aritch?"
McKie shook his head. They were so damned obvious, these underlings.
"Aritch didn't make the Dosadi decision. Aritch was chosen to take the blow if it came to that. I will accept nothing less than the one who made that ultimate decision which launched the Dosadi experiment.
The Gowachin stared at him coldly, then:
"One moment. I will see what I can do."
The screen went blank, but the audio remained. McKie heard the voices.
"Hello . . . Yes, I'm sorry to interrupt at this time."
"What is it?"
That was a deep and arrogant Gowachin voice, full of annoyance at the interruption. It was also an accent which a Dosadi could recognize in spite of the carefully overlaid masking tones. Here was one who'd used Dosadi.
The voice of the older Gowachin from McKie's screen continued:
"The Legum bound to Aritch has come up with a sensitive line of questioning. He wishes to speak to you."
"To me? But I am preparing for Laupuk."
McKie had no idea what Laupuk might be, but it opened a new window on the Gowachin for him. Here was a glimpse of the rarified strata which had been concealed from him all of those years. This tiny glimpse confirmed him in the course he'd chosen.
"He is listening to us at this time."
"Listening . . . why?"
The tone carried threats, but the Gowachin who'd intercepted McKie's demands went on, unwavering:
"To save explanations. It's clear that he'll accept nothing less than speaking to you. This caller is McKie, but . . ."
"Yes?"
"You will understand."
"I presume you have interpreted things correctly. Very well. Put him on."
McKie's screen flickered, revealed a wide view of a Gowachin room such as he'd never before seen. A far wall held spears and cutting weapons, streamers of colorful pennants, glistening rocks, ornate carvings in a shiny black substance. All of this was backdrop for a semireclining chairdog occupied by an aged Gowachin who sat spraddle-legged being anointed by two younger Gowachin males. The attendants poured a thick, golden substance onto the aged Gowachin from green crystal flasks. The flasks were of a spiral design. The contents were gently massaged into the Gowachin's skin. The old Gowachin glistened with the stuff and when he blinked - no Phylum tattoos.
"As you can see," he said, "I'm being prepared for . . ."
He broke off, recognizing that he spoke to a non-Gowachin. Certainly, he'd known this. It was a slow reaction for a Dosadi.
"This is a mistake," he said.
"Indeed." McKie nodded pleasantly. "Your name?"
The old Gowachin scowled at this gaucherie, then chuckled.
"I am called Mrreg."
As McKie had suspected. And why would a Tandaloor Gowachin assume the name, no, the title of the mythical monster who'd imbued the frog people with a drive toward savage testing? The implications went far beyond this planet, colored Dosadi.
"You made the decision for the Dosadi experiment?"
"Someone had to make it."
That was not a substantive answer, and McKie decided to take it to issue. "You are not doing me any favors! I now know what it means to be a Legum of the Gowachin Bar and I intend to employ my powers to their limits."
It was as though McKie had worked some odd magic which froze the scene on his screen. The two attendants stopped pouring unguent, but did not look toward the pickup viewer which was recording their actions for McKie. As for Mrreg, he sat utterly still, his eyes fixed unblinking upon McKie.
McKie waited.
Presently, Mrreg turned to the attendant on his left. "Please continue. There is little time."
McKie took this as though spoken to himself.
"You're my client. Why did you send a proxy?"