The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe #2)

In the classical times of several species, it was the custom of the powerful to nudge the power-counters (money or other economic tabulators, status points, etc.) into occasional violent perturbations from which the knowledgeable few profited.  Human accounts of this experience reveal edifying examples of this behavior (for which, see Appendix G).  Only the PanSpechi appear to have avoided this phenomenon, possibly because of creche slavery.

- Comparative History, The BuSab Text

McKie made his next series of calls from the room the Dry Heads set aside for him.  It was a relatively large room reserved for Human guests and contained well-trained chairdogs and a wide bedog which Jedrik eyed with suspicion despite her McKie memories of such things.  She knew the things had only a rudimentary brain, but still they were . . . alive.

She stood by the single window which looked out on the courtyard pool, turning when she heard McKie awaken from his Taprisiot calls.

"Suspicions confirmed," he said.

"Will our agent friends leave Bildoon for us?" she asked.

"Yes."

She turned back to the window.

"I keep thinking how the Dosadi sky must look now . . . without a God Wall.  As bright as this."  She nodded toward the courtyard seen through the window.  "And when we get jumpdoors . . ."

She broke off.  McKie, of course, shared such thoughts.  This new intimacy required considerable adjustment.

"I've been thinking about your training as a Legum," she said.

McKie knew where her thoughts had gone.

The Gowachin chosen to train him had all appeared open in their relationship.  He had been told that his teachers were a select group, chosen for excellence, the best available for the task:  making a Gowachin Legum out of a non-Gowachin.

A silk purse from a sow's ear!

His teachers had appeared to lead conventional Gowachin lives, keeping the usual numbers of fertile females in family tanks, weeding the Graluz tads with necessary Gowachin abandon.  On the surface of it, the whole thing had assumed a sense of the ordinary.  They had introduced him to intimate aspects of their lives when he'd inquired, answered his questions with disarming frankness.

McKie's Jedrik-amplified awareness saw this in a different light now.  The contests between Gowachin phylums stood out sharply.  And McKie knew now that he had not asked the right questions, that his teachers had been selected by different rules than those revealed to him at the time, that their private instructions from their Gowachin superiors contained nuances of vital importance which had been hidden from their student.

Poor Ceylang.

These were unsettling reflections.  They changed his understanding of Gowachin honor, called into question all of those inadvertent comparisons he'd made between Gowachin forms and the mandate of his own BuSab.  His BuSab training came in for the same questioning examination.

Why . . . why . . . why . . . why . . .

Law?  Gowachin Law?

The value in having a BuSab agent as a Legum of the Gowachin had gained a new dimension.  McKie saw these matters now as Jedrik had once seen through the God Wall.  There existed other forces only dimly visible behind the visible screen.  An unseen power structure lay out there - people who seldom appeared in public, decision makers whose slightest whim carried terrible import for countless worlds.  Many places, many worlds would be held in various degrees of bondage.  Dosadi had merely been an extreme case for a special purpose.

New bodies for old.  Immortality.  And a training ground for people who made terrible decisions.

But none of them would be as completely Dosadi as this Jedrik-amplified McKie.

He wondered where the Dosadi decision had been made.  Aritch had not shared in it; that was obvious.  There were others behind Aritch - Gowachin and non-Gowachin.  A shadowy power group existed.  It could have its seat on any world of the ConSentiency.  The power merchants would have to meet occasionally, but not necessarily face to face.  And never in the public eye.  Their first rule was secrecy.  They would employ many people who lived at the exposed fringes of their power, people to carry out shadowy commands - people such as Aritch.

And Bildoon.

What had the PanSpechi hoped to gain?  A permanent hold on his creche's ego?  Of course.  That . . . plus new bodies - Human bodies, undoubtedly, and unmarked by the stigmata of his PanSpechi origins.

Bildoon's behavior - and Aritch's - appeared so transparent now.  And there'd be a Mrreg nearby creating the currents in which Aritch swam.  Puppet leads to Puppet Master.

Mrreg.

That poor fool, Grinik, had revealed more than he thought.

And Bildoon.

"We have two points of entry," McKie said.

She agreed.

"Bildoon and Mrreg.  The latter is the more dangerous."

A crease beside McKie's nose began to itch.  He scratched at it absently, grew conscious that something had changed.  He stared around, found himself standing at the window and clothed in a female body.

Damn!  It happened so easily.

Jedrik stared up at him with his own eyes.  She spoke with his voice, but the overtones were pure Jedrik.  They both found this amusing.

"The powers of your BuSab."

He understood.

"Yes, the watchdogs of justice."

"Where were the watchdogs when my ancestors were lured into this Dosadi trap?"

"Watchdogs of justice, very dangerous role," he agreed.

"You know our feelings of outrage," she said.

"And I know what it is to have loving parents."

"Remember that when you talk to Bildoon."

Once more, McKie found himself on the bed, his old familiar body around him.

Presently, he felt the mental tendrils of a Taprisiot call, sensed Bildoon's awareness in contact with him.  McKie wasted no time.  The shadow forces were taking the bait.

"I have located Dosadi.  The issue will come to the Court arena.  No doubt of that.  I want you to make the preliminary arrangements.  Inform the High Magister Aritch that I make the formal imposition of the Legum.  One member of the judicial panel must be a Gowachin from Dosadi.  I have a particular Gowachin in mind.  His name is Broey."

"Where are you?"

"On Tandaloor."

"Is that possible?"

McKie masked his sadness.  Ahhh, Bildoon, how easily you are read.

"Dosadi is temporarily out of danger.  I have taken certain retaliatory precautions."

McKie broke the contact.

Jedrik spoke in a musing voice.

"Ohh, the perturbations we spread."

McKie had no time for such reflections.

"Broey will need help, a support team, an extremely reliable troop which I want you to select for him."

"Yes, and what of Gar and Tria?"

"Let them run free.  Broey will pick them up later."