Law must retain useful ways to break with traditional forms because nothing is more certain than that the forms of Law remain when all justice is gone.
- Gowachin aphorism
He was tall for a Dosadi Gowachin, but fat and ungroomed. His feet shuffled when he walked and there was a permanent stoop to his shoulders. A flexing wheezing overcame his chest ventricles when he became excited. He knew this and was aware that those around him knew it. He often used this characteristic as a warning, reminding people that no Dosadi held more power than he, and that power was deadly. All Dosadi knew his name: Broey. And very few misinterpreted the fact that he'd come up through the Sacred Congregation of the Heavenly Veil to his post as chief steward of Control: The Elector. His private army was Dosadi's largest, most efficient, and best armed. Broey's intelligence corps was a thing to invoke fear and admiration. He maintained a fortified suit atop his headquarters building, a structure of stone and plasteel which fronted the main arm of the river in the heart of Chu. Around this core, the twisting walled fortifications of the city stepped outward in concentric rings. The only entrance to Broey's citadel was through a guarded Tube Gate in a subbasement, designated TG One. TG One admitted the select of the select and no others.
In the forenoon, the ledges outside Broey's windows were a roosting place for carrion birds, who occupied a special niche on Dosadi. Since the Lords of the Veil forbade the eating of sentient flesh by sentient, this task devolved upon the birds. Flesh from the people of Chu and even from the Rim carried fewer of the planet's heavy metals. The carrion birds prospered. A flock of them strutted along Broey's ledge, coughing, squawking, defecating, brushing against each other with avian insolence while they watched the outlying streets for signs of food. They also watched the Rim, but it had been temporarily denied to them by a sonabarrier. Bird sounds came through a voder into one of the suite's eight rooms. This was a yellow-green space about ten meters long and six wide occupied by Broey and two Humans.
Broey uttered a mild expletive at the bird noise. The confounded creatures interfered with clear thinking. He shuffled to the window and silenced the voder. In the sudden quiet he looked out at the city's perimeter and the lower ledges of the enclosing cliffs. Another Rim foray had been repulsed out there in the night. Broey had made a personal inspection in a convoy of armored vehicles earlier. The troops liked it that he occasionally shared their dangers. The carrion birds already had cleaned up most of the mess by the time the armored column swept through.. The flat back structure of Gowachin, who had no front rib cage, had been easily distinguishable from the white framework which had housed Human organs. Only a few rags of red and green flesh had marked where the birds had abandoned their feast when the sonabarriers herded them away.
When he considered the sonabarriers, Broey's thoughts grew hard and clear. The sonabarriers were one of Gar's damned affectations! Let the birds finish it.
But Gar insisted a few bodies be left around to make the point for the Rim survivors that their attacks were hopeless.
The bones by themselves would be just as effective.
Gar was bloody minded.
Broey turned and glanced across the room past his two Human companions. Two of the walls were taken up by charts bearing undulant squiggles in many colors. On a table at the room's center lay another chart with a single red line. The line curved and dipped, ending almost in the middle of the chart. Near this terminus lay a white card and beside it stood a Human male statuette with an enormous erection which was labeled "Rabble." It was a subversive, forbidden artifact of Rim origin. The people of the Rim knew where their main strength lay: breed, breed, breed . . .
The Humans sat facing each other across the chart. They fitted into the space around them through a special absorption. It was as though they'd been initiated into the secrets of Broey's citadel through an esoteric ritual both forbidding and dangerous.
Broey returned to his chair at the head of the table, sat down, and quietly continued to study his companions. He experienced amusement to feel his fighting claws twitch beneath their finger shields as he looked at the two. Yes - trust them no more than they trusted him. They had their own troops, their own spies - they posed real threat to Broey but often their help was useful. Just as often they were a nuisance.
Quilliam Gar, the Human male who sat with his back to the windows, looked up as Broey resumed his seat. Gar snorted, somehow conveying that he'd been about to silence the voder himself.
Damned carrion birds! But they were useful . . . useful.
The Rim-born were always ambivalent about the birds.
Gar rode his chair as though talking down to ranks of the uninformed. He'd come up through the educational services in the Convocation before joining Broey. Gar was thin with an inner emaciation so common that few on Dosadi gave it any special notice. He had the hunter's face and eyes, carried his eighty-eight years as though they were twice that. Hairline wrinkles crawled down his cheeks. The bas-relief of veins along the backs of his hands and the grey hair betrayed his Rim origins, as did a tendency to short temper. The Labor Pool green of his clothing fooled very few, his face was that well known.
Across from Gar sat his eldest daughter and chief lieutenant, Tria. She'd placed herself there to watch the windows and the cliffs. She'd also been observing the carrion birds, rather enjoying their sounds. It was well to be reminded here of what lay beyond the city's outer gates.
Tria's face held too much brittle sharpness to be considered beautiful by any except an occasional Gowachin looking for an exotic experience or a Warren laborer hoping to use her as a step out of peonage. She often disconcerted her companions by a wide-eyed, cynical stare. She did this with an aristocratic sureness which commanded attention. Tria had developed the gesture for just this purpose. Today, she wore the orange with black trim of Special Services, but without a brassard to indicate the branch. She knew that this led many to believe her Broey's personal toy, which was true but not in the way the cynical supposed. Tria understood her special value: she possessed a remarkable ability to interpret the vagaries of the DemoPol.
Indicating the red line on the chart in front of her, Tria said, "She has to be the one. How can you doubt it?" And she wondered why Broey continued to worry at the obvious.
"Keila Jedrik," Broey said. And again: "Keila Jedrik."
Gar squinted at his daughter.
"Why would she include herself among the fifty who . . ."
"She sends us a message," Broey said. "I hear it clearly now." He seemed pleased by his own thoughts.
Gar read something else in the Gowachin's manner.
"I hope you're not having her killed."
"I'm not as quick to anger as are you Humans," Broey said.
"The usual surveillance?" Gar asked.
"I haven't decided. You know, don't you, that she lives a rather celibate life? Is it that she doesn't enjoy the males of your species?"
"More likely they don't enjoy her," Tria said.
"Interesting. Your breeding habits are so peculiar."
Tria shot a measuring stare at Broey. She wondered why the Gowachin had chosen to wear black today. It was a robe-like garment cut at a sharp angle from shoulders to waist, clearing his ventricles. The ventricles revolted her and Broey knew this. The very thought of them pressing against her . . . She cleared her throat. Broey seldom wore black; it was the happy color of priestly celebrants. He wore it, though, with a remoteness which suggested that thoughts passed through his mind which no other person could experience.
The exchange between Broey and Tria worried Gar. He could not help but feel the oddity that each of them tried to present a threatening view of events by withholding some data and coloring other data.
"What if she runs out to the Rim?" Gar asked.
Broey shook his head.
"Let her go. She's not one to stay on the Rim."
"Perhaps we should have her picked up," Gar said.
Broey stared at him, then:
"I've gained the distinct impression that you've some private plan in mind. Are you prepared to share it?"
"I've no idea what you . . ."
"Enough!" Broey shouted. His ventricles wheezed as he inhaled.
Gar held himself very quiet.
Broey leaned toward him, noting that this exchange amused Tria.
"It's too soon to make decisions we cannot change! This is a time for ambiguity."
Irritated by his own display of anger, Broey arose and hurried into his adjoining office, where he locked the door. It was obvious that those two had no more idea than he where Jedrik had gone to ground. But it was still his game. She couldn't hide forever. Seated once more in his office, he called Security.
"Has Bahrank returned?"
A senior Gowachin officer hurried into the screen's view, looked up.
"Not yet."
"What precautions to learn where he delivers his cargo?"
"We know his entry gate. It'll be simple to track him."
"I don't want Gar's people to know what you're doing."
"Understood."
"That other matter?"
"Pcharky may have been the last one. He could be dead, too. The killers were thorough."
"Keep searching."
Broey put down a sense of disquiet. Some very unDosadi things were happening in Chu . . . and on the Rim. He felt that things occurred which his spies could not uncover. Presently, he returned to the more pressing matter.
"Bahrank is not to be interfered with until afterward."
"Understood."
"Pick him up well clear of his delivery point and bring him to your section. I will interview him personally."
"Sir, his addiction to . . ."
"I know the hold she has on him. I'm counting on It."
"We've not yet secured any of that substance, sir, although we're still trying."
"I want success, not excuses. Who's in charge of that?"
"Kidge, sir. He's very efficient in this . . ."
"Is Kidge available?"
"One moment, sir. I'll put him on."
Kidge had a phlegmatic Gowachin face and rumbling voice.
"Do you want a status report, sir?"
"Yes."
"My Rim contacts believe the addictive substance is derived from a plant called 'tibac.' We have no prior record of such a plant, but the outer Rabble has been cultivating it lately. According to my contacts, it's extremely addictive to Humans, even more so to us."
"No record? What's its origin? Do they say?"
"I talked personally to a Human who'd recently returned from upriver where the outer Rabble reportedly has extensive plantations of this 'tibac.' I promised my informant a place in the Warrens if he provides me with a complete report on the stuff and a kilo packet of it. This informant says the cultivators believe tibac has religious significance. I didn't see any point in exploring that."
"When do you expect him to deliver?"
"By nightfall at the latest."
Broey held his silence for a moment. Religious significance. More than likely the plant came from beyond the God Wall then, as Kidge implied. But why? What were they doing?
"Do you have new instructions?" Kidge asked.
"Get that substance up to me as soon as you can."
Kidge fidgeted. He obviously had another question, but was unwilling to ask it. Broey glared at him.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Don't you want the substance tested first?"
It was a baffling question. Had Kidge withheld vital information about the dangers of this tibac? One never knew from what quarter an attack might come. But Kidge was held in his own special bondage. He knew what could happen to him if he failed Broey. And Jedrik had handled this stuff. But why had Kidge asked this question? Faced with such unknowns, Broey tended to withdraw into himself, eyes veiled by the nictating membrane while he weighed the possibilities. Presently, he stirred, looked at Kidge in the screen.
"If there's enough of it, feed some to volunteers - both Human and Gowachin. Get the rest of it up to me immediately, even while you're testing, but in a sealed container."
"Sir, there are rumors about this stuff. It'll be difficult getting real volunteers."
"You'll think of something."
Broey broke the connection, returned to the outer room to make his political peace with Gar and Tria. He was not ready to blunt that pair . . . not yet.
They were sitting just as he'd left them. Tria was speaking:
". . . the highest probability and I have to go on that."
Gar merely nodded.
Broey seated himself, nodded to Tria, who continued as though there'd been no hiatus.
"Clearly, Jedrik's a genius. And her Loyalty Index! That has to be false, contrived. And look at her decisions: one questionable decision in four years. One!"
Gar moved a finger along the red line on the chart. It was a curiously sensuous gesture, as though he were stroking flesh.
Broey gave him a verbal prod.
"Yes, Gar, what is it?"
"I was just wondering if Jedrik could be another . . ."
His glance darted ceilingward, back to the chart. They all understood his allusion to intruders from beyond the God Wall.
Broey looked at Gar as though awakening from an interrupted thought. What'd that fool Gar mean by raising such a question at this juncture? The required responses were so obvious.
"I agree with Tria's analysis," Broey said. "As to your question . . ." He gave a Human shrug. "Jedrik reveals some of the classic requirements, but . . ." Again, that shrug. "This is still the world God gave us."
Colored as they were by his years in the Sacred Congregation, Broey's words took on an unctuous overtone, but in this room the message was strictly secular.
"The others have been such disappointments," Gar said. "Especially Havvy." He moved the statuette to a more central position on the chart.
"We failed because we were too eager," Tria said, her voice snappish. "Poor timing."
Gar scratched his chin with his thumb. Tria sometimes disturbed him by that accusatory tone she took toward their failures. He said:
"But . . . if she turns out to be one of them and we haven't allowed for it . . ."
"We'll look through that gate when we come to it," Broey said. "If we come to it. Even another failure could have its uses. The food factories will give us a substantial increase at the next harvest. That means we can postpone the more troublesome political decisions which have been bothering us."
Broey let this thought hang between them while he set himself to identifying the lines of activity revealed by what had happened in this room today. Yes, the Humans betrayed unmistakable signs that they behaved according to a secret plan. Things were going well, then: they'd attempt to supersede him soon . . . and fail.
A door behind Tria opened. A fat Human female entered. Her body bulbed in green coveralls and her round face appeared to float in a halo of yellow hair. Her cheeks betrayed the telltale lividity of dacon addiction. She spoke subserviently to Gar.
"You told me to interrupt if . . ."
"Yes, yes."
Gar waved to indicate she could speak freely. The gesture's significance did not escape Broey. Another part of their set piece.
"We've located Havvy but Jedrik's not with him."
Gar nodded, addressed Broey:
"Whether Jedrik's an agent or another puppet, this whole thing smells of something they have set in motion."
Once more, his gaze darted ceilingward.
"I will act on that assumption," Tria said. She pushed her chair back, arose. "I'm going into the Warrens."
Broey looked up at her. Again, he felt his talons twitch beneath their sheaths. He said:
"Don't interfere with them."
Gar forced his gaze away from the Gowachin while his mind raced. Often, the Gowachin were difficult to read, but Broey had been obvious just then: he was confident that he could locate Jedrik and he didn't care who knew it. That could be very dangerous.
Tria had seen it, too, of course, but she made no comment, merely turned and followed the fat woman out of the room.
Gar arose like a folding ruler being opened to its limit. "I'd best be getting along. There are many matters requiring my personal attention."
"We depend on you for a great deal," Broey said.
He was not yet ready to release Gar, however. Let Tria get well on her way. Best to keep those two apart for a spell. He said:
"Before you go, Gar. Several things still bother me. Why was Jedrik so precipitate? And why destroy her records? What was it that we were not supposed to see?"
"Perhaps it was an attempt to confuse us," Gar said, quoting Tria. "One thing's sure: it wasn't just an angry gesture."
"There must be a clue somewhere," Broey said.
"Would you have us risk an interrogation of Havvy?"
"Of course not!"
Gar showed no sign that he recognized Broey's anger. He said:
"Despite what you and Tria say, I don't think we can afford another mistake at this time. Havvy was . . . well . . ."
"If you recall," Broey said, "Havvy was not one of Tria's mistakes. She went along with us under protest. I wish now we'd listened to her." He waved a hand idly in dismissal. "Go see to your important affairs." He watched Gar leave.
Yes, on the basis of the Human's behavior it was reasonable to assume he knew nothing as yet about this infiltrator Bahrank was bringing through the gates. Gar would've concealed such valuable information, would not have dared raise the issue of a God Wall intrusion . . . Or would he? Broey nodded to himself. This must be handled with great delicacy.