The Dosadi Experiment

The room was small and dimly lighted by windows high in the wall opposite the door.  A trestle table about two meters long with benches down both sides and a chair at each end almost filled the space.  The walls were grey stone and unadorned.  McKie worked his way around to the chair at the far end, sat down.  He remained seated there silently for several minutes, absorbing this place.  It was cold in the room:  Gowachin temperature.  One of the high windows behind him was open a crack and he could hear street noises:  a heavy vehicle passing, voices arguing, many feet.  The sense of the Warren pressing in upon this room was very strong.  Nearer at hand from beyond the single door, he heard crockery banging and an occasional hiss as of steam.

Presently, the door opened and a tall, slender woman entered, slipping through the door at minimal opening.  For a moment as she turned, the light from the windows concentrated on her face, then she sat down at the end of the right-hand bench, dropping into shadows.

McKie had never before seen such hard features on a woman.  She was brittle rock with ice crystal eyes of palest blue.  Her black hair was closely cropped into a stiff bristle.  He repressed a shudder.  The rigidity of her body amplified the hard expression on her face.  It was not the hardness of suffering, not that alone, but something far more determined, something anchored in a kind of agony which might explode at the slightest touch.  On a ConSentient world where the geriatric arts were available, she could have been any age between thirty-five and one hundred and thirty-five.  The dim light into which she had seated herself complicated his scrutiny, but he suspected she was younger than thirty-five.

"So you are McKie."

He nodded.

"You're fortunate Adril's people got my message.  Broey's already searching for you.  I wasn't warned that you were so dark."

He shrugged.

"Bahrank sent word that you could get us all killed if we're not careful with you.  He says you don't have even rudimentary survival training."

This surprised McKie, but he held his silence.

She sighed.  "At least you have the good sense not to protest.  Well . . . welcome to Dosadi, McKie.  Perhaps I'll be able to keep you alive long enough for you to be of some use to us."

Welcome to Dosadi!

"I'm Jedrik as you doubtless already know."

"I recognize you."

This was only partly true.  None of the representations he'd seen had conveyed the ruthless brutality which radiated from her.

A hard smile flickered on her lips, was gone.

"You don't respond when I welcome you to our planet."

McKie shook his head.  Aritch's people had been specific in their injunction:

"She doesn't know your origin.  Under no circumstances may you reveal to her that you come from beyond the God Wall.  It could be immediately fatal."

McKie continued to stare silently at her.

A colder look came over Jedrik's features, something in the muscles at the corners of the mouth and eyes.

"We shall see.  Now:  Bahrank says you carry a wallet of some kind and that you have currency sewn into your clothing.  First, hand me the wallet."

My toolkit?

She reached an open hand toward him.

"I'll warn you once, McKie.  If I get up and walk out of here you'll not live more than two minutes."

Every muscle quivering protest, he slipped the toolkit from its pocket, extended it.

"And I'll warn you, Jedrik:  I'm the only person who can open this without being killed and the contents destroyed."

She accepted the toolkit, turned its flat substance over in her hands.

"Really?"

McKie had begun to interest her in a new way.  He was less than she'd expected, yet more.  Naive, of course, incredibly naive.  But she'd already known that of the people from beyond the God Wall.  It was the most suitable explanation.  Something was profoundly wrong in the Dosadi situation.  The people beyond the Veil would have to send their best here.  This McKie was their best?  Astonishing.

She arose, went to the door, rapped once.

McKie watched her pass the toolkit to someone outside, heard a low-voiced conversation, neither half of it intelligible.  In a flashing moment of indecision, he'd considered trying for some of the toolkit's protective contents.  Something in Jedrik's ma

Jedrik returned to her seat empty-handed.  She stared at him a moment, head cocked to one side, then:

"I'll say several things to you.  In a way, this is a test.  If you fail, I guarantee you'll not survive long on Dosadi.  Understood?"

When McKie failed to respond, she pounded a fist on the table.

"Understood?"

"Say what you have to say."

"Very well.  It's obvious to me that those who instructed you about Dosadi warned you not to reveal your true origin.  Yet, most of those who've talked to you for more than a few seconds suspect you're not one of us - not from Chu, not from the Rim, not from anywhere on Dosadi."  Her voice took on a new harshness.  "But I know it.  Let me tell you, McKie, that there's not even a child among us who's failed to realize that the people imprisoned on Dosadi did not originate here!"

McKie stared at her, shocked.

Imprisoned.

As she spoke, he knew she was telling him the truth.  Why hadn't Aritch or the others warned him?  Why hadn't he seen this for himself?  Since Dosadi was poison to both Human and Gowachin, rejected them, of course they'd know they hadn't originated here.

She gave him time to absorb this before continuing.  "There are others among us from your realm, perhaps some we've not identified, better trained.  But I was taught to act only on certainty.  Of you I'm certain.  You do not originate on Dosadi.  I've put it to the question and I've the present confirmation of my own senses.  You come from beyond the God Wall.  Your actions with Bahrank, with Adril, with me . . ." She shook her head sadly.

Aritch set me up for this!

This thought brought back a recurrent question which continued to nag McKie; BuSab's discovery of the Dosadi experiment.  Were the Gowachin that clumsy?  Would they make such slips?  The original plan to conceal this project must have been extensive.  Yet, key facts had leaked to BuSab agents.  McKie felt overwrought from asking himself the same questions over and over without satisfaction.  And now, Jedrik's pressures compounded the burden.  The only suitable answer was that Aritch's people had done everything with the intent of putting him in this position.  They'd deliberately leaked information about Dosadi.  And McKie was their target.

To what purpose?

"Can we be overheard?" he asked.

"Not by my enemies on Dosadi."

He considered this.  She'd left open the question of whether anyone from beyond the God Wall might eavesdrop.  McKie pursed his lips with indecision.  She'd taken his toolkit with such ridiculous ease . . . yet, what choice had he?  They wouldn't get anything from the kit and someone out there, one of Jedrik's underlings, would die.  That could have a useful effect on Jedrik.  He decided to play for time.

"There're many things I could tell you.  So many things.  I hardly know where to begin."

"Begin by telling me how you came through the God Wall."

Yes, he might be able to confuse her with a loose description of Calebans and jumpdoors.  Nothing in her Dosadi experience could've prepared Jedrik for such phenomena.  McKie took a deep breath.  Before he could speak there was a rap on the door.

Jedrik raised a hand for silence, leaned over, and opened the door.  A ski

"It wasn't very difficult," he said.