Where pain predominates, agony can be a valued teacher.
- Dosadi aphorism
McKie and Jedrik had no need to discuss the decision. It was a choice which they shared and knew they shared through a memory-selection process now common to both of them. There was a loophole in the God Wall and even though that wall now blanketed Dosadi in darkness, a Caleban contract was still a Caleban contract. The vital question was whether the Caleban of the God Wall would respond.
Jedrik in McKie's body stood guard outside her own room while a Jedrik-fleshed McKie went alone into the room to make the attempt. Who should he try to contact? Fannie Mae? The absolute darkness which enclosed Dosadi hinted at an absolute withdrawal of the guardian Caleban. And there was so little time.
McKie sat cross-legged on the floor of the room and tried to clear his mind. The constant strange discoveries in the female body he now wore interfered with concentration. The moment of exchange left an aftershock which he doubted would ever diminish. They had but to share the desire for the change now and it occurred. But this different body - ahh, the multiplicity of differences created its own confusions. These went far beyond the adjustments to different height and weight. The muscles of his/her arms and hips felt wrongly attached. The bodily senses were routed through different unconscious processes. Anatomy created its own patterns, its own instinctual behavior. For one thing, he found it necessary to develop consciously monitored movements which protected his/her breasts. The movements were reminiscent of those male adjustments by which he prevented injury to testes. These were movements which a male learned early and relegated to an automatic behavior pattern. The problem in the female body was that he had to think about such behavior. And it went far beyond the breast-testes interlock.
As he tried to clear his mind for the Caleban contact, these webbed clusters of memory intruded. It was maddening. He needed to clear away bodily distractions, but this female body demanded his attention. In desperation, he hyperventilated and burned his awareness into a pineal focus whose dangers he knew only too well. This was the way to permanent identity loss if the experience were prolonged. It produced a sufficient clarity, however, that he could fill his awareness with memories of Fannie Mae.
Silence.
He sensed time's passage as though each heartbeat were a blow.
Fear hovered at the edges of the silence.
It came to him that something had put a terrible fear into the God Wall Caleban.
McKie felt anger.
"Caleban! You owe me!"
"McKie?"
The response was so faint that he wondered whether it might be his hopes playing tricks on him.
"Fannie Mae?"
"Are you McKie?"
That was stronger, and he recognized the familiar Caleban presence in his awareness.
"I am McKie and you owe me a debt."
"If you are truly McKie . . . why are you so . . . strange . . . changed?"
"I wear another body."
McKie was never sure, but he thought he sensed consternation. Fannie Mae responded more strongly then.
"I remove McKie from Dosadi now? Contract permits."
"I will share Dosadi's fate."
"McKie!"
"Don't argue with me, Fannie Mae. I will share Dosadi's fate unless you remove another node/person with me."
He projected Jedrik's patterns then, an easy process since he shared all of her memories.
"She wears McKie's body!"
It was accusatory.
"She wears another body," McKie said. He knew the Caleban saw his new relationship with Jedrik. Everything depended now on the interpretation of the Caleban contract.
"Jedrik is Dosadi," the Caleban protested.
"So am I Dosadi . . . now."
"But you are McKie!"
"And Jedrik is also McKie. Contact her if you don't believe me."
He broke the contact with an angry abruptness, found himself sprawled on the floor, still twitching. Perspiration bathed the female body which he still wore. The head ached.
Would Fannie Mae do as he'd told her? He knew Jedrik was as capable of projecting his awareness as he was of projecting hers. How would Fannie Mae interpret the Dosadi contract?
Gods! The ache in this head was a burning thing. He felt alien in Jedrik's body, misused. The pain persisted and he wondered if he'd done irreparable harm to Jedrik's brain through that intense pineal focus.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright, got to his feet. The Jedrik legs felt weak beneath him. He thought of Jedrik outside that door, trembling in the zombielike trance required for this mind-to-mind contact. What was taking so long? Had the Calebans withdrawn?
Have we lost?
He started for the door but before he'd taken the second step, light blazed around him. For a fractional heartbeat he thought it was the final fire to consume Dosadi, but the light held steady. He glanced around, found himself in the open air. It was a place he recognized immediately: the courtyard of the Dry Head compound on Tandaloor. He saw the familiar phylum designs on the surrounding walls: green Gowachin script on yellow bricks. There was the sound of water splashing in the corner pool. A group of Gowachin stood in an arched entry directly ahead of him and he recognized one of his old teachers. Yes - this was a Dry Head sanctum. These people had protected him, trained him, introduced him to their most sacred secrets.
The Gowachin in the shadowed entry were moving excitedly into the courtyard, their attention centered on a figure sprawled near them. The figure stirred, sat up.
McKie recognized his own body there.
Jedrik!
It was an intense mutual need. The body exchange required less than an eyeblink. McKie found himself in his own familiar body, seated on cool tiles. The approaching Gowachin bombarded him with questions.
"McKie, what is this?"
"You fell through a jumpdoor!"
"Are you hurt?"
He waved the questions away, crossed his legs, and fell into the long-call trance focused on that bead in his stomach. That bead Bildoon had never expected him to use!
As it was paid to do, the Taprisiot waiting on CC enfolded his awareness. McKie rejected contact with Bildoon, made six calls through the responsive Taprisiot. The calls went to key agents in BuSab, all of them ambitious and resourceful, all of them completely loyal to the agency's mandate. He transmitted his Dosadi information in full bursts, using the technique derived from his exchanges with Jedrik - mind-to-mind.
There were few questions and those easily answered.
"The Caleban who holds Dosadi imprisoned plays God. It's the letter of the contract."
"Do the Calebans approve of this?"
That question came from a particularly astute Wreave agent sensitive to the complications implicit in the fact that the Gowachin were training Ceylang, a Wreave female, as a Legum.
"The concepts of approval or disapproval are not applicable. The role was necessary for that Caleban to carry out the contract."
"It was a game?"
The Wreave agent was outraged.
"Perhaps. There's one thing certain: the Calebans don't understand harmful behavior and ethics as we understand them."
"We've always known that."
"But now we've really learned it."
When he'd made the six calls, McKie sent his Taprisiot questing for Aritch, found the High Magister in the Running Phylum's conference pool.
"Greetings, Client."
McKie projected wry amusement. He sensed the Gowachin's shock.
"There are certain things which your Legum instructs you to do under the holy seal of our relationship," McKie said.
"You will take us into the Courtarena, then?"
The High Magister was perceptive and he was a beneficiary of Dosadi's peculiar gifts, but he was not a Dosadi. McKie found it relatively easy to manipulate Aritch now, enlisting the High Magister's deepest motivations. When Aritch protested against canceling the God Wall contract, McKie revealed only the first layer of stubborn determination.
"You will not add to your Legum's difficulties."
"But what will keep them on Dosadi?"
"Nothing."
"Then you will defend rather than prosecute?"
"Ask your pet Wreave," McKie said. "Ask Ceylang."
He broke the contact then, knowing Aritch could only obey him. The High Magister had few choices, most of them bad ones. And Gowachin Law prevented him from disregarding his Legum's orders once the pattern of the contest was set.
McKie awoke from the call to find his Dry Head friends clustered around Jedrik. She was explaining their predicament. Yes . . . There were advantages to having two bodies with one purpose. McKie got to his feet. She saw him, spoke.
"My head feels better."
"It was a near thing." And he added:
"It still is. But Dosadi is free."