The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe #2)

The attack by those who want to die - this is the attack against which you cannot prepare a perfect defense.

- Human aphorism

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.

"Pcharky knows something valuable he hopes to trade for his freedom."

"How'd you know?"

"It's obvious.  I'll tell you something else:  he came here of his own free will . . . for whatever purpose."

"You learn quickly, McKie."

She was laughing at him and he glared at her.

"All right!  I don't know that purpose, but it may be that you only think you know it."

For the briefest flicker, something dangerous glared from her eyes, then:

"Your jumpdoors have brought us many fools, but Pcharky is one of the biggest fools.  I know why he came.  There've been many like him.  Now . . . there is only one.  Broey, for all of his power, cannot search out his own Pcharky.  And Keila Jedrik is the one who frustrates him."

Too late, she realized that McKie had goaded her into this performance.  How had he done that?  He'd almost found out too much too soon.  It was dangerous to underestimate this naive intruder from beyond the God Wall.

Once more, she'd begun probing for things he had not yet revealed.  Time had protected him.  Aides had come urging an early inspection of the new weapons.  They were needed.

Afterward, they'd gone to the command post and then to breakfast in a Warren dining room.  All through breakfast, he'd plied her with questions about the fighting.  How extensive was it?  Could he see some of the prisoners?  Were they using the weapons built from the patterns in his kit?  Were they winning?

Sometimes she merely ignored his questions.  Most of her answers were short, distracted.  Yes.  No.  No.  Yes.  McKie realized she was answering in monosyllables to fend him off.  He was a distraction.  Something important had been communicated to her and he'd missed it.  Although this angered him, he tried to mask the emotion, striving to penetrate her wall of concern.  Oddly, she responded when he changed his line of questioning to the parents of the three children and the conversation there.

"You started to designate a particular place:  'Beyond the . . .'  Beyond what?"

"It's something Gar, thinks I don't know.  He thinks only his death fanatics have that kind of rapport with the Rim."

He stared at her, caught by a sudden thought.  By now, he knew much about Gar and Tria.  She answered his questions about them with candor, often using him openly to clarify her own thoughts.  But - death fanatics?

"Are these fanatics homosexual?"

She pounced.

"How'd you know?"

"A guess."

"What difference would it make?"

"Are they?"

"Yes."

McKie shuddered.

She was peremptory.

"Explain!"

"When Humans for any reason go terminal where survival of their species is concerned, it's relatively easy to push them the short step further into wanting to die."

"You speak from historical evidence?"

"Yes."

"Example."

"With rare exceptions, primitive Humans of the tribal eras reserved their homosexuals as the ultimate shock troops of desperation.  They were the troops of last resort, sent into battle as berserkers who expected, who wanted, to die."

She had to have the term berserkers explained, then showed by her manner that she believed him.  She considered this, then:

"What does your ConSentiency do about this susceptibility?"

"We take sophisticated care to guide all natural sexual variants into constructive, survival activities.  We protect them from the kinds of pressures which might tip them over into behavior destructive of the species."

Only later had McKie realized she had not answered his question:  beyond what?  She'd rushed him off to a conference room where more than twenty Humans were assembled, including the two parents who'd made the chart about Tria and Gar.  McKie realized he didn't even know their names.

It put him at a disadvantage not knowing as many of these people by sight and name as he should.  They, of course, had ready memories of everyone important around them and, when they used a name, often did it with such blurred movement into new subjects that he was seldom sure who had been named.  He saw the key to it, though.  Their memories were anchored in explicit references to relative abilities of those around them, relative dangers.  And it wasn't so much that they concealed their emotions as that they managed their emotions.  Nowhere in their memories could there be any emotive clouding such as thoughts of love or friendship.  Such things weakened you.  Everything operated on the strict basis of quid pro quo, and you'd better have the cash ready - whatever that cash might be. McKie, pressed all around by questions from the people in the conference room, knew he had only one real asset:  he was a key they might use to open the God Wall.  Very important asset, but unfortunately owned by an idiot.

Now, they wanted his information about death fanatics.  They milked him dry, then sent him away like a child who has performed for his elders but is sent to his room when important matters are brought up for discussion.