“Watch what you’re doing, you fool!”
He turned more of his attention to the street, presuming this the greater danger.
The next time he glanced at her, she smiled, knowing Havvy would be unable to detect any lethal change in this gesture. He already wondered if she would attack, but guessed she wouldn’t do it while he was driving. He doubted, though, and his doubts made him even more transparent. Havvy was no marvel. One thing certain about him: he came from beyond the God Wall, from the lands of “X,” from the place of McKie. Whether he worked for the Elector was immaterial. In fact, it grew increasingly doubtful that Broey would employ such a dangerous, a flawed tool. No pretense at foolhardy ignorance of Dosadi’s basic survival lessons could be this perfect. The pretender would not survive. Only the truly ignorant could have survived to Havvy’s age, allowed to go on living as a curiosity, a possible source of interesting data … interesting data, not necessarily useful.
Having left resolution of the Havvy Problem to the ultimate moment, wringing every last bit of usefulness from him, she knew her course clearly. Whoever protected Havvy, her questions placed the precisely modulated pressure upon them and left her options open.
“What is your valued information?” she asked.
Sensing now that he bought life with every response, Havvy pulled the skitter to the curb at a windowless building wall, stopped, and stared at her.
She waited.
“McKie …” He swallowed. “McKie comes from beyond the God Wall.”
She allowed laughter to convulse her and it went deeper than she’d anticipated. For an instant, she was helpless with it and this sobered her. Not even Havvy could be permitted such an advantage.
Havvy was angry.
“What’s funny?”
“You are. Did you imagine for even a second that I wouldn’t recognize someone alien to Dosadi? Little man, how have you survived?”
This time, he read her correctly. It threw him back on his only remaining resource and it even answered her question.
“Don’t underestimate my value.”
Yes, of course: the unknown value of “X.” And there was a latent threat in his tone which she’d never heard there before. Could Havvy call on protectors from beyond the God Wall? That didn’t seem possible, given his circumstances, but it had to be considered. It wouldn’t do to approach her larger problem from a narrow viewpoint. People who could enclose an entire planet in an impenetrable barrier would have other capabilities she had not even imagined. Some of these creatures came and went at will, as though Dosadi were merely a casual stopping point. And the travelers from “X” could change their bodies; that was the single terrible fact which must never be forgotten; that was what had led her ancestors to breed for a Keila Jedrik.
Such considerations always left her feeling almost helpless, shaken by the ultimate unknowns which lay in her path. Was Havvy still Havvy? Her trusted senses answered: yes. Havvy was a spy, a diversion, an amusement. And he was something else which she could not fathom. It was maddening. She could read every nuance of his reactions, yet questions remained. How could you ever understand these creatures from beyond the Veil of Heaven? They were transparent to Dosadi eyes, but that transparency itself confused one.
On the other hand, how could the people of “X” hope to understand (and thus anticipate) a Keila Jedrik? Every evidence of her senses told her that Havvy saw only a surface Jedrik which she wanted him to see. His spying eyes reported what she wanted them to report. But the enormous interests at stake here dictated a brand of caution beyond anything she’d ever before attempted. The fact that she saw this arena of explosive repercussions, however, armed her with grim satisfaction. The idea that a Dosadi puppet might rebel against “X” and fully understand the nature of such rebellion, surely that idea lay beyond their capabilities. They were overconfident while she was filled with wariness. She saw no way of hiding her movements from the people beyond the God Wall as she hid from her fellow Dosadis. “X” had ways of spying that no one completely evaded. They would know about the two Keila Jedriks. She counted on only one thing: that they could not see her deepest thoughts, that they’d read only that surface which she revealed to them.
Jedrik maintained a steady gaze at Havvy while these considerations flowed through her mind. Not by the slightest act did she betray what went on in her mind. That, after all, was Dosadi’s greatest gift to its survivors.
“Your information is valueless,” she said.
He was accusatory. “You already knew!”
What did he hope to catch with such a gambit? Not for the first time, she asked herself whether Havvy might represent the best that “X” could produce? Would they knowingly send their dolts here? It hardly seemed possible. But how could Havvy’s childish incompetence command such tools of power as the God Wall implied? Were the people of “X” the decadent descendants of greater beings?
Even though his own survival demanded it, Havvy would not remain silent.
“If you didn’t already know about McKie … then you … you don’t believe me!”
This was too much. Even for Havvy it was too much and she told herself: despite the unknown powers of “X,” he will have to die. He muddies the water. Such incompetence cannot be permitted to breed.
It would have to be done without passion, not like a Gowachin male weeding his own tads, but with a kind of clinical decisiveness which “X” could not misunderstand.
For now, she had arranged that Havvy take her to a particular place. He still had a role to perform. Later, with discreet attention to the necessary misdirections, she would do what had to be done. Then the next part of her plan could be assayed.
All persons act from beliefs they are conditioned not to question, from a set of deeply seated prejudices. Therefore, whoever presumes to judge must be asked: “How are you affronted?” And this judge must begin there to question inwardly as well as outwardly.
—“The Question” from Ritual of the Courtarena Guide to Servants of the Box
“One might suspect you of trying to speak under water,” McKie, accused.
He still sat opposite Aritch in the High Magister’s sanctus, and this near-insult was only one indicator marking the changed atmosphere between them. The sun had dropped closer to the horizon and its spiritual ring no longer outlined Aritch’s head. The two of them were being more direct now, if not more candid, having explored individual capacities and found where profitable discourse might be directed.
The High Magister flexed his thigh tendons.
Knowing these people from long and close observation, McKie realized the old Gowachin was in pain from prolonged inactivity. That was an advantage to be exploited. McKie held up his left hand, enumerated on his fingers:
“You say the original volunteers on Dosadi submitted to memory erasure, but many of their descendants are immune to such erasure. The present population knows nothing about our ConSentient Universe.”
“As far as the present Dosadi population comprehends, they are the only people on the only inhabited planet in existence.”
McKie found this hard to believe. He held up a third finger.
Aritch stared with distaste at the displayed hand. There were no webs between the alien fingers!
McKie said, “And you tell me that a DemoPol backed up by certain religious injunctions is the primary tool of government there?”
“An original condition of our experiment,” Aritch said.
It was not a comprehensive answer, McKie observed. Original conditions invariably changed. McKie decided to come back to this after the High Magister had submitted to more muscle pain.
“Do the Dosadi know the nature of the Caleban barrier which encloses them?”
“They’ve tried rocket probes, primitive electromagnetic projections. They understand that those energies they can produce will not penetrate their ‘God Wall.’”
“Is that what they call the barrier?”
“That or ‘The Heaven
ly Veil.’ To some degree, these labels measure their attitude toward the barrier.”
“The DemoPol can serve many governmental forms,” McKie said. “What’s the basic form of their government?”
Aritch considered this, then:
“The form varies. They’ve employed some eighty different governmental forms.”
Another nonresponsive answer. Aritch did not like to face the fact that their experiment had assumed warlord trappings. McKie thought about the DemoPol. In the hands of adepts and with a population responsive to the software probes by which the computer data was assembled, the DemoPol represented an ultimate tool for manipulation of a populace. The ConSentiency outlawed its use as an assault on individual rights and freedoms. The Gowachin had broken this prohibition, yes, but a more interesting datum was surfacing: Dosadi had employed some eighty different governmental forms without rejecting the DemoPol. That implied frequent changes.
“How often have they changed their form of government?”
“You can divide the numbers as easily as I,” Aritch said. His tone was petulant.
McKie nodded. One thing had become quite clear.
“Dosadi’s masses know about the DemoPol, but you won’t let them remove it!”
Aritch had not expected this insight. He responded with revealing sharpness which was amplified by his muscle pains.
“How did you learn that?”
“You told me.”
“I?”
“Quite plainly. Such frequent change is responsive to an irritant—the DemoPol. They change the forms of government, but leave the irritant. Obviously, they cannot remove the irritant. That was clearly part of your experiment—to raise a population resistant to the DemoPol.”
“A resistant population, yes,” Aritch said. He shuddered.
“You’ve fractured ConSentient Law in many places,” McKie said.
“Does my Legum presume to judge me?”
“No. But if I speak with a certain bitterness, please recall that I am a Human. I embrace a profound sympathy for the Gowachin, but I remain Human.”
“Ahhhh, yes. We must not forget the long Human association with DemoPols.”
“We survive by selecting the best decision makers,” McKie said.
“And a DemoPol elevates mediocrity.”
“Has that happened on Dosadi?”
“No.”
“But you wanted them to try many different governmental forms?”
The High Magister shrugged, remained silent.
“We Humans found that the DemoPol does profound damage to social relationships. It destroys preselected portions of a society.”
“And what could we hope to learn by damaging our Dosadi society?”
“Have we arrived back at the question of expected benefits?”
Aritch stretched his aching muscles.
“You are persistent, McKie. I will say that.”
McKie shook his head sadly.
“The DemoPol was always held up to us as the ultimate equalizer, a source of decision-making miracles. It was supposed to produce a growing body of knowledge about what a society really needed. It was thought to produce justice in all cases despite any odds.”
Aritch was irritated. He leaned forward, wincing at the pain of his old muscles.
“One might make the same accusations about the Law as practiced everywhere except on Gowachin worlds!”
McKie suppressed a sharp response. Gowachin training had forced him to question assumptions about the uses of law in the ConSentiency, about the inherent rightness of any aristocracy, any power bloc whether majority or minority. It was a BuSab axiom that all power blocs tended toward aristocratic forms, that the descendants of decision makers dominated the power niches. BuSab never employed offspring of their agents.
Aritch repeated himself, a thing Gowachin seldom did.
“Law is delusion and fakery, McKie, everywhere except on the Gowachin worlds! You give your law a theological aura. You ignore the ways it injures your societies. Just as with the DemoPol, you hold up your law as the unvarying source of justice. When you …”
“BuSab has …”
“No! If something’s wrong in your societies, what do you do? You create new law. You never think to remove law or disarm the law. You make more law! You create more legal professionals. We Gowachin sneer at you! We always strive to reduce the number of laws, the number of Legums. A Legum’s first duty is to avoid litigation. When we create new Legums, we always have specific problems in mind. We anticipate the ways that laws damage our society.”
It was the opening McKie wanted.
“Why are you training a Wreave?”
Belatedly, Aritch realized he had been goaded into revealing more than he had wanted.
“You are good, McKie. Very good.”
“Why?” McKie persisted. “Why a Wreave?”
“You will learn why in time.”
McKie saw that Aritch would not expand on this answer, but there were other matters to consider now. It was clear that the Gowachin had trained him for a specific problem; Dosadi. To train a Wreave as Legum, they’d have an equally important problem in mind … perhaps the same problem. A basic difference in the approach to law, species differentiated, had surfaced, however, and this could not be ignored. McKie well understood the Gowachin disdain for all legal systems, including their own. They were educated from infancy to distrust any community of professionals, especially legal professionals. A Legum could only tread their religious path when he completely shared that distrust.
Do I share that distrust?
He thought he did. It came naturally to a BuSab agent. But most of the ConSentiency still held its professional communities in high esteem, ignoring the nature of the intense competition for new achievements which invariably overcame such communities: new achievements, new recognition. But the new could be illusion in such communities because they always maintained a peer review system nicely balanced with peer pressures for ego rewards.
“Professional always means power,” the Gowachin said.
The Gowachin distrusted power in all of its forms. They gave with one hand and took with the other. Legums faced death whenever they used the Law. To make new law in the Gowachin Courtarena was to bring about the elegant dissolution of old law with a concomitant application of justice.
Not for the first time, McKie wondered about the unknown problems a High Magister must face. It would have to be a delicate existence indeed. McKie almost formed a question about this, thought better of it. He shifted instead to the unknowns about Dosadi. God Wall? Heavenly Veil?
“Does Dosadi often accept a religious oligarchy?”
“As an outward form, yes. They currently are presided over by a supreme Elector, a Gowachin by the name of Broey.”
“Have Humans ever held power equal to Broey’s?”
“Frequently.”
It was one of the most responsive exchanges that McKie had achieved with Aritch. Although he knew he was following the High Magister’s purpose, McKie decided to explore this.
“Tell me about Dosadi’s social forms.”
“They are the forms of a military organization under constant attack or threat of attack. They form certain cabals, certain power enclaves whose influences shift.”
“Is there much violence?”
“It is a world of constant violence.”
McKie absorbed this. Warlords. Military society. He knew he had just lifted a corner of the real issue which had brought the Gowachin to the point of obliterating Dosadi. It was an area to be approached with extreme caution. McKie chose a flanking approach.
“Aside from the military forms, what are the dominant occupations? How do they perceive guilt and innocence? What are their forms of punishment, of absolution? How do they …”
“You do not confuse me, McKie. Consider, Legum: there are better ways to answer such questions.”
Brought up short by the Magister’s chiding tone, McKie fell into silence. He
glanced out the oval window, realizing he’d been thrown onto the defensive with exquisite ease. McKie felt the nerves tingling along his spine. Danger! Tandaloor’s golden sun had moved perceptibly closer to the horizon. That horizon was a blue-green line made hazy by kilometer after kilometer of hair trees whose slender female fronds waved and hunted in the air. Presently, McKie turned back to Aritch.
Better ways to answer such questions.
It was obvious where the High Magister’s thoughts trended. The experimenters would, of course, have ways of watching their experiment. They could also influence their experiment, but it was obvious there were limits to this influence. A population resistant to outside influences? The implied complications of this Dosadi problem daunted McKie. Oh, the circular dance the Gowachin always performed!
Better ways.
Aritch cleared his ventricle passages with a harsh exhalation, then:
“Anticipating the possibility that others would censure us, we gave our test subjects the Primary.”
Devils incarnate! The Gowachin set such store on their damned Primary! Of course all people were created unequal and had to find their own level!
McKie knew he had no choice but to plunge into the maelstrom.
“Did you also anticipate that you’d be charged with violating sentient rights on a massive scale?”
Aritch shocked him by a brief puffing of jowls, the Gowachin shrug.
McKie allowed himself a warning smile.
“I remind the High Magister that he raised the issue of the Primary.”
“Truth is truth.”
McKie shook his head sharply, not caring what this revealed. The High Magister couldn’t possibly have that low an estimation of his Legum’s reasoning abilities. Truth indeed!
“I’ll give you truth: the ConSentiency has laws on this subject to which the Gowachin are signatories!”
Even as the words fell from his lips, McKie realized this was precisely where Aritch had wanted him to go. They’ve learned something from Dosadi! Something crucial!