As she hurried across the roof of the adjoining parking spire at midafternoon of her final day as a Liaitor, Jedrik couldn't clear her mind of the awareness that she was about to shed another mark of rank.  Stacked in the building beneath her, each one suspended by its roof grapples on the conveyor track, were the vehicles of the power merchants and their minions.  The machines varied from the giant jaigers heavy with armor and weapons and redundant engine systems, of the ruling few, down to the tiny black skitters assigned to such as herself.  Ex-minion Jedrik knew she was about to take a final ride in the machine which had released her from the morning and evening crush on the underground walkways.

She had timed her departure with care.  The ones who rode in the jaigers would not have reassigned her skitter and its driver.  That driver, Havvy, required her special attentions in this last ride, this narrow time slot which she had set aside for dealing with him.

Jedrik sensed events rushing at their own terrible pace now.  Just that morning she had loosed death against fifty Humans.  Now, the avalanche gathered power.

The parking spire's roof pavement had been poorly repaired after the recent explosive destruction of three Rim guerrillas.  Her feet adjusted to the rough paving as she hurried across the open area to the drop chute.  At the chute, she paused and glanced westward through Chu's enclosing cliffs.  The sun, already nearing its late afternoon line on the cliffs, was a golden glow beyond the God Wall's milky barrier.  To her newly sensitized fears, that was not a sun but a malignant eye which peered down at her.

By now, the rotofiles in her office would've been ignited by the clumsy intrusion of the LP toads.  There'd be a delay while they reported this, while it was bucked up through the hierarchy to a level where somebody dared make an important decision.

Jedrik fought against letting her thoughts fall into trembling shadows.  After the rotofiles, other data would accumulate.  The Elector's people would grow increasingly suspicious.  But that was part of her plan, a layer with many layers.

Abruptly, she stepped into the chute, dropped to her parking level, stared across the catwalks at her skitter dangling among the others.  Havvy sat on the sloping hood, his shoulders in their characteristic slouch.  Good.  He behaved as expected.  A certain finesse was called for now, but she expected no real trouble from anyone as shallow and transparent as Havvy.  Still, she kept her right hand in the pocket where she'd secreted a small but adequate weapon.  Nothing could be allowed to stop her now.  She had selected and trained lieutenants, but none of them quite matched her capabilities.  The military force which had been prepared for this moment needed Jedrik for that extra edge which could pluck victory from the days ahead of them.For now, I must float like a leaf above the hurricane.

Havvy was reading a book, one of those pseudodeep things he regularly affected, a book which she knew he would not understand.  As he read, he pulled at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger, the very picture of a deep intellectual involvement with important ideas.  But it was only a picture.  He gave no sign that he heard Jedrik hurrying toward him.  A light breeze flicked the pages and he held them with one finger.  She could not yet see the title, but assumed this book would be on the contraband list as was much of his reading.  That was about the peak of Havvy's risk taking, not great but imbued with a certain false glamor.  Another picture.

She could see him quite distinctly now in readable detail.  He should have looked up by now but still sat absorbed in his book.  Havvy possessed large brown eyes which he obviously believed he employed with deceptive innocence.  The real innocence went far beyond his shallow attempts at deception.  Jedrik's imagination easily played the scene should one of Broey's people confront Havvy in this pose.

"A contraband book?" Havvy would ask, playing his brown eyes for all their worthless innocence.  "I didn't think there were any more of those around.

Thought you'd burned them all.  Fellow handed it to me on the street when I asked what he was reading."

And the Elector's spy would conceal a sneer while asking, "Didn't you question such a gift?"

Should it come to that, things would grow progressively stickier for Havvy along the paths he could not anticipate.  His innocent brown eyes would deceive one of the Elector's people no more than they deceived her.  In view of this, she read other messages in the fact that Havvy had produced her key to the God Wall - this Jorj X. McKie.  Havvy had come to her with his heavy-handed conspiratorial manner:"The Rim wants to send in a new agent.  We thought you might . . ."

And every datum he'd divulged about this oddity, every question he'd answered with his transparent candor, had increased her tension, surprise, and elation.

Jedrik thought upon these matters as she approached Havvy.

He sensed her presence, looked up.  Recognition and something unexpected - a watchfulness half-shielded - came over him.  He closed his book.

"You're early."

"As I said I'd be."

This new manner in Havvy set her nerves on edge, raised old doubts.  No course remained for her except attack.

"Only toads don't break routine," she said.

Havvy's gaze darted left, right, returned to her face.  He hadn't expected this.  It was a bit more open risk than Havvy relished.  The Elector had spy devices everywhere.  Havvy's reaction told her what she wanted to know, however.  She gestured to the skitter.

"Let's go."

He pocketed his book, slid down, and opened her door.  His actions were a bit too brisk.  The button tab on one of his green-striped sleeves caught a door handle.  He freed himself with an embarrassed flurry.

Jedrik slipped into the passenger harness.  Havvy slammed the door a touch too hard.  Nervous.  Good.  He took his place at the power bar to her left, kept his profile to her when he spoke.

"Where?"

"Head for the apartment."

A slight hesitation, then he activated the grapple tracks.  The skitter jerked into motion, danced sideways, and slid smoothly down the diveway to the street.

As they emerged from the parking spire's enclosing shadows, even before the grapple released and Havvy activated the skitter's own power, Jedrik firmed her decision not to look back.  The Liaitor building had become part of her past, a pile of grey-green stones hemmed by other tall structures with, here and there, gaps to the cliffs and the river's arms.  That part of her life she now excised.  Best it were done cleanly.  Her mind must be clear for what came next.  What came next was war.

It wasn't often that a warrior force lifted itself out of Dosadi's masses to seek its place in the power structure.  And the force she had groomed would strike fear into millions.  It was the fears of only a few people that concerned her now, though, and the first of these was Havvy.

He drove with his usual competence, not overly proficient but adequate.  His knuckles were white on the steering arms, however.  It was still the Havvy she knew moving those muscles, not one of the evil identities who could play their tricks in Dosadi flesh.  That was Havvy's usefulness to her and his failure.  He was Dosadi-flawed, corrupted.  That could not be permitted with McKie.

Havvy appeared to have enough good sense to fear her.  Jedrik allowed this emotion to ferment in him while she studied the passing scene.  There was little traffic and all of that was armored.  The occasional tube access with its sense of weapons in the shadows and eyes behind the guard slits - all seemed normal. It was too soon for the hue and cry after an errant Senior Liaitor.