Gods!  She was superb!

Broey scratched at the nodes between his ventricles.  Well, there were still things a trapped people could do.  He returned to his commanders.

"Abandon the corridor.  Do it quietly, but swiftly.  Fall back to the prepared inner walls."

As his commanders started to turn away, Broey stopped them.

"I also want some carefully selected volunteers.  The fix we're in must be explained to them in such a way that there's no misunderstanding.  They will be asked to sacrifice themselves in a way no Gowachin has ever before contemplated."

"How?"

It was the slender one.

Broey addressed himself to this one.  A Gowachin born on the Rim should be the first to understand.

"We must increase the price Jedrik's paying.  Hundreds of their people for every one of ours."

"Suicide missions," the slender one said.

Broey nodded, continued:

"One more thing.  I want Havvy brought up here and I want orders issued to increase the food allotment to those Humans we've held in special reserve."

Two of his commanders spoke in unison:

"They won't sacri . . ."

"I have something else in mind for them."

Broey nodded to himself.  Yes indeed.  Some of those Humans could still serve his purposes.  It wasn't likely they could serve him as McKie served Jedrik, but there was still a chance . . . yes, a chance.  Jedrik might not be certain of what Broey could do with his Humans.  Havvy, for example.  Jedrik had certainly considered and discarded Havvy.  In itself, that might be useful.  Broey waved for his commanders to leave and execute his orders.  They'd seen the new determination in him.  They'd pass that along to the ones beneath them.  That, too, would serve his purposes.  It would delay the moment when his people might suspect that he was making a desperate gamble.

He returned to his communicator, called his search people, urged them to new efforts.  They might still achieve what Jedrik obviously had achieved with Pcharky . . . if they could find a Pcharky.

Mckie told himself that he might've known an assignment from Jedrik could not be simple.  There had to be Dosadi complications.

"There can be no question in their minds that you're really my lieutenant."

"Then I must be your lieutenant."

This pleased her, and she gave him the bare outline of her plan, warning him that the upcoming encounter could not be an act.  He must respond as one who was fully aware of this planet's demands.

Night fell over Chu while she prepared him and, when they returned to the command post where Gar and Tria waited, the occasion presented itself as Jedrik had told him it would.  It was a sortie by Broey's people against Gate Eighteen.  Jedrik snapped the orders at him, sent him running.

"Find the purpose of that!"

McKie paused only to pick up four waiting guards at the command post door, noting the unconcealed surprise in Gar and Tria.  They'd formed a particular opinion of McKie's position and now had to seek a new assessment.  Tria would be most upset by this, confused by self-doubts.  McKie knew Jedrik would immediately amplify those doubts, telling Gar and Tria that McKie would go with them when he returned from Gate Eighteen.

"You must consider his orders as my orders."

Gate Eighteen turned out to be more than a minor problem.  Broey had taken the gate itself and two buildings.  One of the attackers, diving from an upper window into one of Jedrik's best units, had blown himself up with a nasty lot of casualties.

"More than a hundred dead," a breathless courier told him.

McKie didn't like the implications of a suicide attack, but couldn't pause to assess it.  They had to eliminate this threat.  He gave orders for two feints while a third force blasted down one of the captured buildings, smothering the gate in rubble.  That left the other captive building isolated.  The swiftness of this success dazzled Jedrik's forces, and the commanders snapped to obedience when McKie issued orders for them to take captives and bring those captives to him for interrogation.

At McKie's command, one of his original four guards brought a map of the area, tacked it to a wall.  Less than an hour had passed since he'd left Jedrik, but McKie felt that he'd entered another world, one even more primitive than that surrounding the incredible woman who'd set all of this in motion.  It was the difference between second- and third-hand reports of action and the physical feeling of that action all around him.  Explosions and the hissing of flamers down on the streets jarred his awareness.

Staring at the map, McKie said, "This has all the marks of a trap.  Get all but a holding force out of the area.  Tell Jedrik."

People scurried to obey.

One of the guards and two sub-commanders remained.  The guard spoke.

"What about this place?"

McKie glanced around him.  It was a square room with brown walls.  Two windows looked out on the street away from the battle for the isolated building near the gate.  He'd hardly looked at the room when they'd brought him here to set up his command post.  Four streets with isolated holdouts cushioned him from the main battle.  They could shoot a cable bridge to another building if things became hot here.  And it'd help morale if he remained in the danger area.

He spoke to one of the sub-commanders:

"Go down to the entry.  Call all the elevators down there and disable all but one.  Stand by that one with a holding force and put guards in the stairway.  Stand by yourself to bring up captives.  Comment?"

"I'll send up two cable teams and make sure the adjoining buildings are secure."

Of course!  McKie nodded.

Gods!  How these people reacted in emergencies.  They were as direct and cutting as knives.

"Do it," McKie said.

He had less than a ten-minute wait before two of Jedrik's special security troops brought up the first captive, a young Gowachin whose eyelids bore curious scars - scroll-like and pale against the green skin.

The two security people stopped just inside the doorway.  They held the Gowachin firmly, although he did not appear to be struggling.  The sub-commander who'd brought them up closed the door as he left.

One of the captors, an older man with narrow features, nodded as he caught McKie's attention.

"What'll we do with him?"

"Tie him in a chair," McKie instructed.

He studied the Gowachin as they complied.

"Where was he captured?"

"He was trying to escape from that building through a perimeter sewage line."

"Alone?"

"I don't know.  He's the first of a group of prisoners.  The others are waiting outside."

They had finished binding the young Gowachin, now took up position directly behind him.

McKie studied the captive.  He wore black coveralls with characteristic deep vee to clear the ventricles.  The garment had been cut and torn in several places.  He'd obviously been searched with swift and brutal thoroughness.  McKie put down a twinge of pity.  The scar lines on the prisoner's eyelids precluded anything but the most direct Dosadi necessities.

"They did a poor job removing your Phylum tattoos," McKie said.  He'd already recognized the scar lines:  Deep Swimmers.  It was a relatively unimportant Phylum, small in numbers and sensitive about their status.

The young Gowachin blinked.  McKie's opening remark had been so conversational, even-toned, that the shock of his words came after.  Shock was obvious now in the set of the captive's mouth.

"What is your name, please?" McKie asked, still in that even, conversational way.

"Grinik."