Pcharky grunted, then:

"The God Wall is like this cage but more powerful."  His voice was a husky croaking, the words clear Galach with an obvious Tandaloor accent.  McKie, his fears reinforced, glanced at Jedrik, found her studying him.  She spoke.

"Pcharky has been with us for a long time, very long.  There's no telling how many people he has helped to escape from Dosadi.  Soon, I may persuade him to be of service to me."

McKie found himself shocked to silence by the possibilities glimpsed through her words.  Was Dosadi in fact an investigation of the Caleban mystery?  Was that the secret Aritch's people concealed here?  McKie stared at the shimmering bars of Pcharky's cage.  Like the God Wall?  But the God Wall was enforced by a Caleban.

Once more, Jedrik looked at the caged Gowachin.

"A sun confines enormous energies, Pcharky.  Are your energies inadequate?"

But Pcharky's attention was on McKie.  The old voice croaked.

"Human, tell me:  Did you come here willingly?"

"Don't answer him," Jedrik snapped.

Pcharky closed his eyes.  Interview ended.

Jedrik, accepting this, whirled and strode to the left around the cage.

"Come along, McKie."  She didn't look back, but continued speaking.  "Does it interest you that Pcharky designed his own cage?"

"He designed it?  Is it a prison?"

"Yes."

"If he designed it . . . how does it hold him?"

"He knew he'd have to serve my purposes if he were to remain alive."

She had come to another door which opened onto a narrow stairway.  It climbed to the left around the cage room.  They emerged into a long hallway lined with narrow doors dimly lighted by tiny overhead bulbs.  Jedrik opened one of these doors and led the way into a carpeted room about four meters wide and six long.  Dark wood panels reached from floor to waist level, shelves loaded with books above.  McKie peered closely:  books . . . actual paper books.  He tried to recall where he'd ever before seen such a collection of primitive . . .  But, of course, these were not primitive.  These were one of Dosadi's strange recapitulations.

Jedrik had removed her wig, stopped midway in the room to turn and face McKie.

"This is my room.  Toilet there."  She pointed to an opening between shelves.  "That window . . ."  Again, she pointed, this time to an opening opposite the toilet door.  ". . . is one-way to admit light, and it's our best.  As Dosadi measures such things, this is a relatively secure place."

He swept his gaze around the room.

Her room?

McKie was struck by the amount of living space, a mark of power on Dosadi; the absence of people in the hall.  By the standards of this planet, Jedrik's room, this building, represented a citadel of power.

Jedrik spoke, an odd note of nervousness in voice and manner:

"Until recently, I also had other quarters:  a prestigious apartment on the slopes of the Council Hills.  I was considered a climber with excellent prospects, my own skitter and driver.  I had access to all but the highest codes in the master banks, and that's a powerful tool for those who can use it.  Now . . ."  She gestured.  ". . . this is what I have chosen.  I must eat swill with the lowest.  No males of rank will pay the slightest attention to me.  Broey thinks I'm cowering somewhere, a pallet in the Warrens.  But I have this . . ."  Again, that sweeping gesture.  ". . . and this."  One finger tapped her head.  "I need nothing more to bring those Council Hills crashing down."

She stared into McKie's eyes.

He found himself believing her.

She was not through speaking.

"You're definitely male Human, McKie."

He didn't know what to make of that, but her air of braggadocio fascinated him.

"How did you lose that other . . ."

"I didn't lose it.  I threw it away.  I no longer needed it.  I've made things move faster than our precious Elector, or even your people, can anticipate.  Broey thinks to wait for an opening against me?"  She shook her head.

Captivated, McKie watched her cross to the window, open a ventilator above it.  She kicked a wooden knob below the adjoining bookshelves, pulled out a section of paneling which trailed a double bed.  Standing across the bed from McKie, she began to undress.  She dropped the wig to the floor, slipped off the coveralls, peeled the bulging inner disguise from her flesh.  Her skin was pale cream.

"McKie, I am your teacher."

He remained silent.  She was long waisted, slim, and graceful.  The creamy skin was marked by two faint scars to the left of the pubic wedge.

"Take off your clothes," she said.

He swallowed.

She shook her head.

"McKie, McKie, to survive here you must become Dosadi.  You don't have much time.  Get your clothes off."

Not knowing what to expect, McKie obeyed.

She watched him carefully.

"Your skin is lighter than I expected where the sun has not darkened you.  We will bleach the skin of your face and hands tomorrow."

McKie looked at his hands, at the sharp line where his cuffs had protected his arms.  Dark skin.  He recalled Bahrank talking of dark skin and a place called Pylash Gate.  To mask the unusual shyness he felt, he looked at Jedrik, asked about Pylash Gate.

"So Bahrank mentioned that?  Well, it was a stupid mistake.  The Rim sent in shock troops and foolish orders were given for the gate's defenses.  Only one troop survived there, all dark-skinned like you.  The suspicion of treachery was natural."

"Oh."

He found his attention compelled toward the bed.  A dark maroon spread covered it.

Jedrik approached him around the foot of the bed.  She stopped less than a hand's width away from him . . . creamy flesh, full breasts.  He looked up into her eyes.  She stood half a head over him, an expression of cold amusement on her face.

McKie found the musky smell of her erotically stimulating.  She looked down, saw this, laughed, and abruptly hurled him onto the bed.  She landed with him and her body was all over him, hot and hard and demanding.

It was the strangest sexual experience of McKie's life.  Not lovemaking, but violent attack.  She groaned, bit at him, clawed.  And when he tried to caress her, she became even more violent, frenzied.  Through it all, she was oddly careful of his pleasure, watching his reactions, reading him.  When it was over, he lay back, spent.  Jedrik sat up on the edge of the bed.  The blankets were a twisted mess.  She grabbed a blanket, threw it across the room, stood up, whirled back to look down at him.

"You are very sly and tricky, McKie."

He drew in a trembling breath, remained silent.

"You tried to catch me with softness," she accused.  "Better than you have tried that with me.  It will not work."

McKie marshalled the energy to sit up and restore some order to the bed. His shoulder pained him where she'd scratched.  He felt the ache of a bite on his neck.  He crawled into the bed, pulled the blankets up to his chin.  She was a madwoman, absolutely mad.  Insane.

Presently, Jedrik stopped looking at him.  She recovered the blanket from across the room, spread it on the bed, joined him.  He was acutely conscious of her staring at him with an openly puzzled frown.

"Tell me about the relationships between men and women on your worlds."

He recounted a few of the love stories he knew, fighting all the while to stay awake.  It was difficult to stifle the gaping yawns.  She kept punching his shoulder.

"I don't believe it.  You're making this up."

"No . . . no.  It's true."

"You have women of your own there?"

"Women of my . . .  Well, it's not like that, not ownership . . . ahhh, not possession."

"What about children?"

"What about them?"

"How're they treated, educated?"

He sighed, sketched in some details from his own childhood.