When he considered the sonabarriers, Broey's thoughts grew hard and clear.  The sonabarriers were one of Gar's damned affectations!  Let the birds finish it.

But Gar insisted a few bodies be left around to make the point for the Rim survivors that their attacks were hopeless.

The bones by themselves would be just as effective.

Gar was bloody minded.

Broey turned and glanced across the room past his two Human companions.  Two of the walls were taken up by charts bearing undulant squiggles in many colors.  On a table at the room's center lay another chart with a single red line.  The line curved and dipped, ending almost in the middle of the chart.  Near this terminus lay a white card and beside it stood a Human male statuette with an enormous erection which was labeled "Rabble."  It was a subversive, forbidden artifact of Rim origin.  The people of the Rim knew where their main strength lay:  breed, breed, breed . . .

The Humans sat facing each other across the chart.  They fitted into the space around them through a special absorption.  It was as though they'd been initiated into the secrets of Broey's citadel through an esoteric ritual both forbidding and dangerous.

Broey returned to his chair at the head of the table, sat down, and quietly continued to study his companions.  He experienced amusement to feel his fighting claws twitch beneath their finger shields as he looked at the two.  Yes - trust them no more than they trusted him.  They had their own troops, their own spies - they posed real threat to Broey but often their help was useful.  Just as often they were a nuisance.

Quilliam Gar, the Human male who sat with his back to the windows, looked up as Broey resumed his seat.  Gar snorted, somehow conveying that he'd been about to silence the voder himself.

Damned carrion birds! But they were useful . . . useful.

The Rim-born were always ambivalent about the birds.

Gar rode his chair as though talking down to ranks of the uninformed.  He'd come up through the educational services in the Convocation before joining Broey.  Gar was thin with an inner emaciation so common that few on Dosadi gave it any special notice.  He had the hunter's face and eyes, carried his eighty-eight years as though they were twice that.  Hairline wrinkles crawled down his cheeks.  The bas-relief of veins along the backs of his hands and the grey hair betrayed his Rim origins, as did a tendency to short temper.  The Labor Pool green of his clothing fooled very few, his face was that well known.

Across from Gar sat his eldest daughter and chief lieutenant, Tria.  She'd placed herself there to watch the windows and the cliffs.  She'd also been observing the carrion birds, rather enjoying their sounds.  It was well to be reminded here of what lay beyond the city's outer gates.

Tria's face held too much brittle sharpness to be considered beautiful by any except an occasional Gowachin looking for an exotic experience or a Warren laborer hoping to use her as a step out of peonage.  She often disconcerted her companions by a wide-eyed, cynical stare.  She did this with an aristocratic sureness which commanded attention.  Tria had developed the gesture for just this purpose.  Today, she wore the orange with black trim of Special Services, but without a brassard to indicate the branch.  She knew that this led many to believe her Broey's personal toy, which was true but not in the way the cynical supposed.  Tria understood her special value:  she possessed a remarkable ability to interpret the vagaries of the DemoPol.

Indicating the red line on the chart in front of her, Tria said, "She has to be the one.  How can you doubt it?"  And she wondered why Broey continued to worry at the obvious.

"Keila Jedrik," Broey said.  And again:  "Keila Jedrik."

Gar squinted at his daughter.

"Why would she include herself among the fifty who . . ."

"She sends us a message," Broey said.  "I hear it clearly now."  He seemed pleased by his own thoughts.

Gar read something else in the Gowachin's manner.

"I hope you're not having her killed."

"I'm not as quick to anger as are you Humans," Broey said.

"The usual surveillance?" Gar asked.

"I haven't decided.  You know, don't you, that she lives a rather celibate life?  Is it that she doesn't enjoy the males of your species?"

"More likely they don't enjoy her," Tria said.

"Interesting.  Your breeding habits are so peculiar."

Tria shot a measuring stare at Broey.  She wondered why the Gowachin had chosen to wear black today.  It was a robe-like garment cut at a sharp angle from shoulders to waist, clearing his ventricles.  The ventricles revolted her and Broey knew this.  The very thought of them pressing against her . . .  She cleared her throat.  Broey seldom wore black; it was the happy color of priestly celebrants.  He wore it, though, with a remoteness which suggested that thoughts passed through his mind which no other person could experience.

The exchange between Broey and Tria worried Gar.  He could not help but feel the oddity that each of them tried to present a threatening view of events by withholding some data and coloring other data.

"What if she runs out to the Rim?" Gar asked.

Broey shook his head.

"Let her go.  She's not one to stay on the Rim."

"Perhaps we should have her picked up," Gar said.

Broey stared at him, then:

"I've gained the distinct impression that you've some private plan in mind.  Are you prepared to share it?"

"I've no idea what you . . ."

"Enough!" Broey shouted.  His ventricles wheezed as he inhaled.

Gar held himself very quiet.

Broey leaned toward him, noting that this exchange amused Tria.

"It's too soon to make decisions we cannot change!  This is a time for ambiguity."

Irritated by his own display of anger, Broey arose and hurried into his adjoining office, where he locked the door.  It was obvious that those two had no more idea than he where Jedrik had gone to ground.  But it was still his game.  She couldn't hide forever.  Seated once more in his office, he called Security.

"Has Bahrank returned?"

A senior Gowachin officer hurried into the screen's view, looked up.

"Not yet."

"What precautions to learn where he delivers his cargo?"

"We know his entry gate.  It'll be simple to track him."

"I don't want Gar's people to know what you're doing."

"Understood."

"That other matter?"

"Pcharky may have been the last one.  He could be dead, too.  The killers were thorough."

"Keep searching."

Broey put down a sense of disquiet.  Some very unDosadi things were happening in Chu . . . and on the Rim.  He felt that things occurred which his spies could not uncover.  Presently, he returned to the more pressing matter.

"Bahrank is not to be interfered with until afterward."

"Understood."

"Pick him up well clear of his delivery point and bring him to your section.  I will interview him personally."

"Sir, his addiction to . . ."

"I know the hold she has on him.  I'm counting on It."

"We've not yet secured any of that substance, sir, although we're still trying."

"I want success, not excuses.  Who's in charge of that?"

"Kidge, sir.  He's very efficient in this . . ."

"Is Kidge available?"

"One moment, sir.  I'll put him on."

Kidge had a phlegmatic Gowachin face and rumbling voice.

"Do you want a status report, sir?"

"Yes."

"My Rim contacts believe the addictive substance is derived from a plant called 'tibac.'  We have no prior record of such a plant, but the outer Rabble has been cultivating it lately.  According to my contacts, it's extremely addictive to Humans, even more so to us."

"No record?  What's its origin?  Do they say?"

"I talked personally to a Human who'd recently returned from upriver where the outer Rabble reportedly has extensive plantations of this 'tibac.'  I promised my informant a place in the Warrens if he provides me with a complete report on the stuff and a kilo packet of it.  This informant says the cultivators believe tibac has religious significance.  I didn't see any point in exploring that."