"Yes . . . of course.  I see.  The Dosadi decision had to go far beyond a few phylums or a single species.  There had to be a . . . I believe you Humans call it a 'High Command.'  Yes, that would've become obvious to one as alert as you now appear.  Your many marriages deceived us, I think.  Was that deliberate?"

Secure behind his Dosadi mask, McKie decided to lie.

"Yes."

"Ahhhhhhhhh."

Mrreg seemed to shrivel into himself, but rallied.

"I see.  We were made to believe you some kind of dilettante with perverted emotions.  It'd be judged a flaw which we could exploit.  Then there's another High Command and we never suspected."

It all came out swiftly, revealing the wheels within wheels which ruled Mrreg's view of the ConSentient universe.  McKie marveled at how much more was said than the bare words.  This one had been a long time away from Dosadi and had not been born there, but there were pressures on Mrreg now forcing him to the limits of what he'd learned on Dosadi.

McKie did not interrupt.

"We didn't expect you to penetrate Aritch's role, but that was not our intent, as you know.  I presume . . ."

Whatever Mrreg presumed, he decided not to say it, musing aloud instead.

"One might almost believe you were born on Dosadi."

McKie remained silent, allowing the fear in that conjecture to fill Mrreg's consciousness.

Presently, Mrreg asked, "Do you blame all Gowachin?"

Still, McKie remained silent.

Mrreg became agitated.

"We are a government of sorts, my High Command.  People can be induced not to question a government."

McKie decided to press this nerve.

"Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough.  By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name."

"You've provided free use of jumpdoors for the Dosadi?"

McKie nodded.  "The Calebans are aware of their obligation.  Jedrik has been busy instructing her compatriots."

"You think to loose the Dosadi upon the ConSentiency and hunt down my High Command?  Have a care, McKie.  I warn you not to abandon your duties as a Legum, or to turn your back on Aritch."

McKie continued silent.

"Don't make that error, McKie.  Aritch is your client.  Through him you represent all Gowachin."

"A Legum requires a responsible client," McKie said.  "Not a proxy, but a client whose acts are brought into question by the case being tried."

Mrreg revealed Gowachin signs of deep concern.

"Hear me, McKie.  I haven't much time."

In a sudden rush of apprehension, McKie focused on the attendant with the blade who stood there partly obscuring the seated Gowachin.  Mrreg spoke in a swift spill of words.

"By our standards, McKie, you are not yet very well educated in Gowachin necessities.  That was our error.  And now your . . . impetuosity has put you into a position which is about to become untenable."

The attendant shifted slightly, arms moving up.  McKie glimpsed the blade tip at the attendant's right shoulder.

"Gowachin don't have families as do Humans or even Wreaves," Mrreg said.  "We have graduated advancement into groups which hold more and more responsibility for those beneath them.  This was the pattern adopted by our High Command.  What you see as a Gowachin family is only a breeding group with its own limited rules.  With each step up in responsibility goes a requirement that we pay an increasing price for failure.  You ask if I know the price?  Ahhh, McKie.  The breeding male Gowachin makes sure that only the swiftest, most alert of his tads survive.  A Magister upholds the forms of the Law.  The High Command answers to a . . . Mrreg.  You see?  And a Mrreg must make only the best decisions.  No failures.  Thus . . . Laupuk."

As he spoke the final word, the blade in the attendant's hands flashed out and around in a shimmering arc.  It caught the seated Gowachin at the neck.  Mrreg's head, neatly severed, was caught in the loop at the blade's tip, lifted high, then lowered onto the white apron which now was splashed with green gore.

The scene blanked out, was replaced by the Gowachin who had connected McKie with Mrreg.

"Aritch wishes to consult his Legum," the Gowachin said.

Jedrik made contact with McKie while he waited for the arrival of Aritch and Ceylang.  He had been staring absently at the ceiling, evaluating in a profoundly Dosadi way how to gain personal advantage from the upcoming encounter, when he felt the touch of her mind on his.

McKie locked himself in his body.

"No transfer."

"Of course not."

It was a tiny thing, a subtle shading in the contact which could have been overlooked by anyone with a less accurate simulation model of Jedrik.

"You're angry with me," McKie said.

He projected irony, knew she'd read this correctly.

When she responded, her anger had been reduced to irritation.  The point was not the shading of emotion, it was that she allowed such emotion to reveal itself.

"You remind me of one of my early lovers," she said.

McKie thought of where Jedrik was at this moment:  safely rocked in the flower-perfumed air of his floating island on the planetary sea of Tutalsee.  How strange such an environment must be for a Dosadi - no threats, fruit which could be picked and eaten without a thought of poisons.  The memories she'd taken from him would coat the island with familiarity, but her flesh would continue to find that a strange experience.  His memories - yes. The island would remind her of all those wives he'd taken to the honeymoon bowers of that place.

McKie spoke from this awareness.

"No doubt that early lover failed to show sufficient appreciation of your abilities, outside the bedroom, that is. Which one was it . . ."

And he named several accurate possibilities, lifting them from the memories he'd taken from Jedrik.

Now, she laughed.  He sensed the untainted response, real humor and unchecked.

McKie was reminded in his turn of one of his early wives, and this made him think of the breeding situation from which Jedrik had come - no confusions between a choice for breeding mate and a lover taken for the available enjoyment of sex.  One might even actively dislike the breeding mate.

Lovers . . . wives . . .  What was the difference, except for the socially imprinted conventions out of which the roles arose?  But Jedrik did remind him of that one particular woman, and he explored this memory, wondering if it might help him now in his relationship with Jedrik.  He'd been in his midthirties and assigned to one of his first personal BuSab cases, sent out with no oldtimer to monitor and instruct him.  The youngest Human agent in the Bureau's history ever to be released on his own, so it was rumored.  The planet had been one of the Ylir group, very much unlike anything in McKie's previous experience:  an ingrown place with deep entryways in all of the houses and an oppressive silence all around.  No animals, no birds, no insects - just that awesome silence within which a fanatic religion was reported forming.  All conversations were low voiced and full of subtle intonations which suggested an inner communication peculiar to Ylir and somehow making sport with all outsiders not privy to their private code.  Very like Dosadi in this.

His wife of the moment, safely ensconced on Tutalsee, had been quite the opposite:  gregarious, sportive, noisy.

Something about that Ylir case had sent McKie back to this wife with a sharpened awareness of her needs.  The marriage had gone well for a long time, longer than any of the others.  And he saw now why Jedrik reminded him of that one:  they both protected themselves with a tough armor of femininity, but were extremely vulnerable behind that facade.  When the armor collapsed, it collapsed totally.  This realization puzzled McKie because he read his own reaction clearly:  he was frightened.