By now, she knew about the sixty-hour limit and would suspect its significance.  Less than sixty hours.  And the Dosadi could make extremely complex projections from limited data.  Witness this Broey simulation.

The figure in the focus was talking to a fat Human female who held a tube which McKie recognized as a communicator for field use.

Jedrik spoke across the room to Gar.

"She still with him?"

"Addicted."

A two-sentence exchange, and it condensed an entire conversation about possible uses of that woman.  McKie did not ask addicted to what.  There were too many such substances on Dosadi, each with peculiar characteristics, often involving odd monopolies with which everyone seemed familiar.  This was a telltale gap in Aritch's briefings:  the monopolies and their uses.

As McKie absorbed the action in the focus, the reasons behind this session became more apparent.  Broey was refusing to believe the report from Havvy.

And there was Havvy in the focus.

Jedrik favored McKie with one flickering glance as Havvy-simulation appeared.  Certainly.  She factored McKie into her computations.

McKie compressed his lips.  She knew Havvy would contaminate me.  They couldn't say "I love you" on this damned planet.  Oh, no.  They had to create a special Dosadi production number.

"Most of the data for this originated before the breakup," McKie said.  "It's useless.  Rather than ask the computer to play pretty pictures for us, why don't we examine our own memories?  Surely, somewhere in the combined experiences with Broey . . ."

A chuckle somewhere to the left stopped him.

Too late, McKie saw that every seat in the room had an arm keyed to the simulations.  They were doing precisely what he'd suggested, but in a more sophisticated way.  The figures at the focus were being adjusted to the combined memories.  There was such a keyed arm at McKie's right hand.  He suddenly realized how tactless and lecturing he still must appear to these people.  They didn't waste energy on unnecessary words.  Anyone who did must be subnormal, poorly trained or . . . or not from Dosadi.

"Does he always state the obvious?" Gar asked.

McKie wondered if he'd blown his lieutenancy, lost the opportunity to explore the mystery of the Rim, but . . . no, there wasn't time for that now.  He'd have to penetrate the Rim another way.

"He's new," Jedrik said.  "New is not necessarily naive, as you should know."

"He has you doing it now," Gar said.

"Guess again."

McKie put a hand to the simulation controls under his right hand, tested the keys.  He had it in a moment.  They were similar to such devices in the ConSentiency, an adaptation from the DemoPol inputs, no doubt.  Slowly, he changed the Broey at the focus, heavier, the sagging jowls and node wattles of a breeding male Gowachin.  McKie froze the image.

"Tentative?" Gar asked.

Jedrik answered for him.

"It's knowledge he brought here with him."  She did something to her controls, stopped the projection, and raised the room lights.

McKie noted that Tria was nowhere in the room.

"The Gowachin have sequestered their females somewhere," McKie said.  "That somewhere should not be difficult to locate.  Send word to Tria that she must not mount her attack on Broey's corridor just yet."

"Why delay?" Gar demanded.

"Broey will have all but evacuated the corridor by now." McKie said.

Gar was angry and showing it.

"Not a single one of them has gone through that Rim gate."

"Not to the Rim," Jedrik said.

It was clear to her now.  McKie had supplied the leverage she needed.  It was time now to employ him as she'd always intended.  She glanced at McKie.

"We have unfinished business.  Are you ready?"

He held his silence. How could he answer such a Dosadi-weighted question?  There were so many things left unspoken on this planet, only the native-born could understand them all.  McKie felt once more that he was a dull outsider, a child of dubious potential among normal adults.

Jedrik arose, looked across at Gar.

"Send word to Tria to hold herself in readiness for another assignment.  Tell Broey.  Call him on an open line.  We now have an excellent use for your fanatics.  If only a few of your people fight through to that Graluz complex, it'll be enough and Broey will know it."

McKie noted that she spoke to Gar with a familiar teaching emphasis.  It was the curiously weighted manner she'd once used with McKie, but no longer found necessary.  His recognition of this amused her.

"Come along, McKie.  We haven't much time."

For almost an hour after the morning meal, Aritch observed Ceylang as she worked with the McKie simulator.  She was pushing herself hard, believing Wreave honor at stake, and had almost reached the pitch Aritch desired.

Ceylang had set up her own simulator situation:  McKie interviewing five of Broey's Gowachin.  She had the Gowachin come to McKie in surrender, hands extended, the webbed fingers exposed to show that the talons were withdrawn.

Simulator-McKie merely probed for military advantages.

"Why does Broey attack in this fashion?"

Or he'd turn to some places outside the h-focus of the simulator.

"Send reinforcements into that area."

Nothing about the Rim.

Earlier, Ceylang had tried the issue with a prisoner simulation where the five Gowachin tried to confuse McKie by presenting a scenario in which Broey massed his forces at the corridor.  The makings of a breakout to the Rim appeared obvious.

Simulator-McKie asked the prisoners why they lied.

Ceylang cleared the simulator and sat back.  She saw Aritch at the observation window, opened a channel to him.

"Something has to be wrong in the simulation.  McKie cannot be led into questioning the purposes of the Rim."

"I assure you that simulation is remarkable in its accuracy.  Remarkable."

"Then why . . ."

"Perhaps he already knows the answer.  Why don't you try him with Jedrik?  Here. . ."  Aritch operated the controls at the observer station.  "This might help.  This is a record of McKie in recent action on Dosadi."

The simulator presented a view down a covered passage through a building.  Artificial light.  Darkness at the far end of the passage.  McKie, two blocky guards in tow, approached the viewers.

Ceylang recognized the scene.  She'd watched this action at Gate Eighteen from several angles, had seen this passage empty before the battle, acquainting herself with the available views.  As she'd watched it then, the passage had filled with Human defenders.  There was a minor gate behind the viewer and she knew the viewer itself to be only a bright spot, a fleck of glittering impurity in an otherwise drab brick over the gate's archway.

Now, the long passage seemed strange to Ceylang without its throng of defenders.  There were only a few workmen along its length as McKie passed.  The workmen repaired service pipes in the ceiling.  A cleanup crew washed down patches of blood at the far end of the passage, the high-water mark of the Gowachin attack.  An officer leaned against a wall near the viewer, a bored expression on his face which did not mislead Ceylang.  He was there to watch McKie.  Three soldiers squatted nearby rolling hexi-bones for coins which lay in piles before each man.  Every now and then, one of the gamblers would pass a coin to the watching officer.  A repair supervisor stood with his back to the viewer, notebook in hand, writing a list of supplies to complete the job.  McKie and his guards were forced to step around these people.  As they passed, the officer turned, looked directly into the Viewer, smiled.