The Dosadi Experiment

"There's been a recent increase of mystical experiences by Gowachin in the Warrens."

"You know better than to try that religious nonsense on me!"

Gar was actually angry.

Broey concealed his amusement.  Gar did not know then (or did not accept) that the God of the Veil sometimes created illusions in his flock, that God spoke truly to his anointed and would even answer some questions.

Much had been revealed here, more than Gar suspected.  Bahrank had been right.  And Jedrik would know about Gar's Rim city.  It was possible that Jedrik wanted Broey to know and had maneuvered Gar into revealing the plot.  If Gar saw this, that would be enough to make him fearful.

Why didn't the God reveal this to me? Broey wondered.  Am I being tested?

Yes, that had to be the answer, because there was one thing certain now:

This time, I'll do what the God advises.

***

People always devise their own justifications.  Fixed and immovable Law merely provides a convenient structure within which to hang your justifications and the prejudices behind them.  The only universally acceptable law for mortals would be one which fitted every justification.  What obvious nonsense.  Law must expose prejudice and question justification.  Thus, Law must be flexible, must change to fit new demands.  Otherwise, it becomes merely the justification of the powerful.

It required a moment after Bahrank drove away for McKie to recover his sense of purpose.  The buildings rose tall and massive over him, but through a quirk of this Warren's growth, an opening to the west allowed a spike of the silvery afternoon sunlight to slant into the narrow street.  The light threw hard shadows on every object, accented the pressure of Human movement.  McKie did not like the way people looked at him:  as though everyone measured him for some private gain.

Slowly, McKie pressed through the passing throng to the arched entry, observing all he could without seeming to do so.  After all those years in BuSab, all of the training and experience which had qualified him for such a delicately powerful agency, he possessed superb knowledge of the ConSentiency's species.  He drew on that knowledge now, sensing the powerful secrecy which governed these people.  Unfortunately, his experience also was replete with knowledge of what species could do to species, not to mention what a species could do to itself.  The Humans around him reminded him of nothing more than a mob about to explode.

Moving with a constant readiness to defend himself, he went down a short flight of stairs into cool shadows where the foot traffic was lighter but the smells of rot and mold were more pronounced.

Second door on the left.

He went to the doorway to which Bahrank had directed him, peered into the opening:  another stairway down.  Somehow, this dismayed him.  The picture of Chu growing in his mind was not at all what Aritch's people had drawn.  Had they deliberately misled him?  If so, why?  Was it possible they really didn't understand their monster?  The array of answers to his questions chilled him.  What if a few of the observers sent here by Aritch's people had chosen to capitalize on whatever power Dosadi provided?

In all of his career, McKie had never before come across a world so completely cut off from the rest of the universe.  This planet was alone, without many of the amenities which graced the other ConSentient worlds:  no common access to jumpdoors, no concourse of the known species, none of the refined pleasures nor the sophisticated traps which occupied the denizens of other worlds.  Dosadi had developed its own ways.  And the instructors on Tandaloor had returned time and again to that constant note of warning - that these lonely primitives would take over the ConSentiency if released upon the universe.

"Nothing restrains them.  Nothing."

That was, perhaps, an overstatement.  Some things did restrain the Dosadi physically.  But they were not held back by the conventions or mores of the ConSentiency.  Anything could be purchased here, any forbidden depravity which the imagination might conceive.  This idea haunted McKie.  He thought of this and of the countless substances to which many Dosadi were addicted.  The power leverage such things gave to the unprincipled few was terrifying.

He dared not pause here wrestling with his indecisions, though.  McKie stepped into the stairwell with a boldness which he did not feel, following Bahrank's directions because he had no choice.  The bottom landing was a wider space in deep shadows, one dim light on a black door.  Two Humans dozed in chairs beside the door while a third squatted beside them with what appeared to be a crude projectile weapon in his hands.

"Jedrik summoned me," McKie said.

The guard with the weapon nodded for him to proceed.

McKie made his way past them, glanced at the weapon:  a length of pipe with a metal box at the back and a flat trigger atop the box held by the guard's thumb.  McKie almost missed a step.  The weapon was a dead-man bomb!  Had to be.  If that guard's thumb relaxed for any reason, the thing no doubt would explode and kill everyone in the stairwell.  McKie glanced at the two sleepers.  How could they sleep in such circumstances?

The black door with its one dim light commanded his attention now.  A strong smell of highly seasoned cooking dominated the other stinks here.  McKie saw that it was a heavy door with a glittering spyeye at face level.  The door opened at his approach.  He stepped through into a large low room crowded - jammed! - with people seated on benches at trestle tables.  There was barely room for passage between the benches.  And everywhere that McKie looked he saw people spooning food into their mouths from small bowls.  Waiters and waitresses hurried through the narrow spaces slapping down bowls and removing empties.

The whole scene was presided over by a fat woman seated at a small desk on a platform at his left.  She was positioned in such a way that she commanded the entry door, the entire room, and swinging doors at the side through which the serving people flowed back and forth.  She was a monstrous woman and she sat her perch as though she had never been anywhere else.  Indeed, it was easy for McKie to imagine that she could not move from her position.  Her arms were bloated where they squeezed from the confines of short-sleeved green coveralls.  Her ankles hung over her shoe tops in folds.

Take a seat and wait.

Bahrank had been explicit and the warning clear.

McKie looked for an opening on the benches.  Before he could move, the fat woman spoke in a squeaky voice.

"Your name?"

McKie's gaze darted toward those beady eyes in their folds of fat.

"McKie."

"Thought so."

She raised a dimpled finger.  From somewhere in the crush a young boy came hurrying.  He could not have been over nine years old but his eyes were cold with adult wisdom.  He looked up to the fat woman for instructions.

"This is the one.  Guide him."

The boy turned and, without looking to see if McKie followed, hurried down the narrow pathway where the doors swung back and forth to permit the passage of the servitors.  Twice, McKie was almost run down by waiters.  His guide was able to anticipate the opening of every door and skipped aside.

At the end of this passage, there was another solid black door with spyeye.  The door opened onto a short passage with closed doors on both sides, a blank wall at the end.  The blank wall slid aside for them and they descended into a narrow, rock-lined way lighted by widely spaced bulbs overhead.  The walls were damp and evil smelling.  Occasionally, there were wide places with guards.  They passed through several guarded doors, climbed up and went down.  McKie lost track of the turns, the doors, and guard posts.  After a time, they climbed to another short hallway with doors along its sides.  The boy opened the second door on the right, waited for McKie to enter, closed the door.  It was all done without words.  McKie heard the boy's footsteps recede.