Broey stared at the blank face of his communications screen.  He'd been tricked again.  He knew it.  That damnable Human female!  Violence in the city teetered on the edge of full-scale war:  Gowachin against Human.  And still nothing, not even a hint at the location of Gar's Rim stores, the blasphemous factories.  It was an unstable condition which could not continue much longer.

His communications screen came alive with a report:  violent fighting near Gate Twenty-One.  Broey glanced at the map.  That made it more than one hundred clearly defined battles between the species along an unresolved perimeter.  The report spoke of new weapons and unsuccessful attempts to capture specimens.

Gate Twenty-One?

That wasn't far from the place where McKie had been paraded through . . .

Several things slipped into a new relationship in Broey's mind.  He looked at his aide, who stood waiting obediently at the map.

"Where's Gar?"

Aides were summoned, sent running.  Gar was not to be found.

"Tria?"

She, too, was unavailable.

Gar's fanatics remained neutral, but more of Jedrik's pattern was emerging.  Everything pointed to an exquisite understanding of the weakness implicit in the behavior of Gar and Tria.

And I thought I was the only one who saw that!

Broey hesitated.

Why would the God not speak to him other than to say "I am watched."

Broey felt tricked and betrayed in his innermost being.  This had a cleansing effect on his reason.  He could only depend on himself.  And he began to sense a larger pattern in Jedrik's behavior.  Was it possible that Jedrik shared his goals?  The possibility excited him.

He looked at the aides who'd come running with the negative information about Gar and Tria, began to snap orders.

"Get our people out of all those Warrens, except that corridor to the northeast.  Reinforce that area.  Everyone else fall back to the secondary walls.  Let no Humans inside that perimeter.  Block all gates.  Get moving!"

This last was shouted as his aides hesitated.

Perhaps it already was too late.  He realized now that he'd allowed Jedrik to bait and distract him.  It was clear that she'd created in her mind an almost perfect simulation model of Broey.  And she'd done it from a Liaitor position!  Incredible.  He could almost feel sorry for Gar and Tria.  They were like puppets dancing to Jedrik's strings.

I was no better.

It came over him that Jedrik's simulation probably encompassed this very moment of realization.  Admiration for her permeated him.

Superb!

Quietly, he issued orders for the sequestering of Gowachin females within the inner Graluz bastions which he'd had the foresight to prepare.  His people would thank him for that.

Those who survived the next few hours.

By the third morning, McKie felt that he might have lived all of his life on Dosadi.  The place demanded every element of attention he could muster.

He stood alone in Jedrik's room, staring absently at the unmade bed.  She expected him to put the place in order before her return.  He knew that.  She'd told him to wait here and had gone away on urgent business.  He could only obey.

Concerns other than an unmade bed distracted him, though.  He felt now that he understood the roots of Aritch's fears.  The Gowachin of Tandaloor might very well destroy this place, even if they knew that by doing so they blasted open that bloody region where every sentient hid his most secret fears.  He could see this clearly now.  How the Running Phylum expected him to avoid that monstrous decision was a more elusive matter.

There were secrets here.

McKie sensed Dosadi like a malignant organism beneath his feet, jealously keeping those secrets from him.  This place was the enemy of the ConSentiency, but he found himself emotionally siding with Dosadi.  It was betrayal of BuSab, of his Legum oath, everything.  But he could not prevent that feeling or recognition of it.  In the course of only a few generations, Dosadi had become a particular thing.  Monstrous?  Only if you held to your own precious myths.  Dosadi might be the greatest cleansing force the ConSentiency had ever experienced.

The whole prospect of the ConSentiency had begun to sicken him.  And Aritch's Gowachin.  Gowachin Law?  Stuff Gowachin Law!

It was quiet in Jedrik's room.  Painfully quiet.

He knew that out on the streets of Chu there was violent warfare between Gowachin and Human.  Wounded had been rushed through the training courtyard while he was there with Jedrik.  Afterward, she'd taken him to her command post, a room across the hall and above Pcharky's cage.  He'd stood nearby, watched her performance as though she were a star on an entertainment circuit and he a member of the audience.  It was fascinating.  Broey will do this.  Broey will give that order.  And each time, the reports revealed how precisely she had anticipated her opponent.

Occasionally, she mentioned Gar or Tria.  He was able to detect the subtle difference in her treatment of that pair.

On their second night together, Jedrik had aroused his sexual appetites softly, deftly.  She had treated him to a murmurous compliance, and afterward had leaned over him on an elbow to smile coldly.

"You see, McKie:  I can play your game."

Shockingly, this had opened an area of awareness within him which he'd not even suspected.  It was as though she'd held up his entire previous life to devastating observation.

And he was the observer!

Other beings formed lasting relationships and operated from a secure emotional base.  But he was a product of BuSab, the Gowachin . . . and much that had gone before.  It had become increasingly obvious to him why the Gowachin had chosen him to groom for this particular role.

I was damaged and they could rebuild me the way they wanted!

Well, the Gowachin could still be surprised by what they produced.  Dosadi was evidence of that.  They might not even suspect what they'd actually produced in McKie.

He was bitter with a bitterness he knew must've been fermenting in him for years.  The loneliness of his own life with its central dedication to BuSab had been brought to a head by the loneliness of this imprisoned planet.  An incredible jumble of emotions had sorted themselves out, and he felt new purpose burning within him.

Power!

Ahhhh . . . that was how it felt to be Dosadi!

He'd turned away from Jedrik's cold smile, pulled the blankets around his shoulder.

Thank you, loving teacher.

Such thoughts roamed through his mind as he stood alone in the room the following day and began to make the bed.  After her revelation, Jedrik had resumed her interest in his memories, napping only to awaken him with more questions.

In spite of his sour outlook, he still felt it his duty to examine her behavior in every possible light his imagination could produce.  Nothing about Dosadi was too absurd.  He had to build a better picture of this society and its driving forces.

Before returning to Jedrik's room, he'd made another tour of the training courtyard with her.  There'd been more new weapons adapted from his kit, and he'd realized the courtyard was merely Jedrik's testing ground, that there must be many more training areas for her followers.

McKie had not yet revealed to her that Aritch's people might terminate Dosadi's people with violence.  Shed been centering on this at dawn.  Even while they shared the tiny toilet cubicle off her room she'd pressed for answers.

For a time, McKie had diverted her with questions about Pcharky.  What were the powers in that cage?  At one point, he'd startled her.