Knowledge is the province of the Legum, just as knowledge is a source of crime.
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âGowachin Law
M
ckie told himself that he might've known an assignment from Jedrik could not be simple. There had to be Dosadi complications.
“There can be no question in their minds that you're really my lieutenant.”
“Then I must be your lieutenant.”
This pleased her, and she gave him the bare outline of her plan, warning him that the upcoming encounter could not be an act. He must respond as one who was fully aware of this planet's demands.
Night fell over Chu while she prepared him and, when they returned to the command post where Gar and Tria waited, the occasion presented itself as Jedrik had told him it would. It was a sortie by Broey's people against Gate Eighteen. Jedrik snapped the orders at him, sent him running.
“Find the purpose of that!”
McKie paused only to pick up four waiting guards at the command post door, noting the unconcealed surprise in Gar and Tria. They'd formed a particular opinion of McKie's position and now had to seek a new assessment. Tria would be most upset by this, confused by self-doubts. McKie knew Jedrik would immediately amplify those doubts, telling Gar and Tria that McKie would go with them when he returned from Gate Eighteen.
“You must consider his orders as my orders.”
Gate Eighteen turned out to be more than a minor problem. Broey had taken the gate itself and two buildings. One of the attackers, diving from an upper window into one of Jedrik's best units, had blown himself up with a nasty lot of casualties.
“More than a hundred dead,” a breathless courier told him.
McKie didn't like the implications of a suicide attack, but couldn't pause to assess it. They had to eliminate this threat. He gave orders for two feints while a third force blasted down one of the captured buildings, smothering the gate in rubble. That left the other captive building isolated. The swiftness of this success dazzled Jedrik's forces, and the commanders snapped to obedience when McKie issued orders for them to take captives and bring those captives to him for interrogation.
At McKie's command, one of his original four guards brought a map of the area, tacked it to a wall. Less than an hour had passed since he'd left Jedrik, but McKie felt that he'd entered another world, one even more primitive than that surrounding the incredible woman who'd set all of this in motion. It was the difference between second- and third-hand reports of action and the physical feeling of that action all around him. Explosions and the hissing of flamers down on the streets jarred his awareness.
Staring at the map, McKie said, “This has all the marks of a trap. Get all but a holding force out of the area. Tell Jedrik.”
People scurried to obey.
One of the guards and two sub-commanders remained. The guard spoke.
“What about this place?”
McKie glanced around him. It was a square room with brown walls. Two windows looked out on the street away from the battle for the isolated building near the gate. He'd hardly looked at the room when they'd brought him here to set up his command post. Four streets with isolated holdouts cushioned him from the main battle. They could shoot a cable bridge to another building if things became hot here. And it'd help morale if he remained in the danger area.
He spoke to one of the sub-commanders:
“Go down to the entry. Call all the elevators down there
and disable all but one. Stand by that one with a holding force and put guards in the stairway. Stand by yourself to bring up captives. Comment?”
“I'll send up two cable teams and make sure the adjoining buildings are secure.”
Of course!
McKie nodded.
Gods! How these people reacted in emergencies. They were as direct and cutting as knives.
“Do it,” McKie said.
He had less than a ten-minute wait before two of Jedrik's special security troops brought up the first captive, a young Gowachin whose eyelids bore curious scarsâscroll-like and pale against the green skin.
The two security people stopped just inside the doorway. They held the Gowachin firmly, although he did not appear to be struggling. The sub-commander who'd brought them up closed the door as he left.
One of the captors, an older man with narrow features, nodded as he caught McKie's attention.
“What'll we do with him?”
“Tie him in a chair,” McKie instructed.
He studied the Gowachin as they complied.
“Where was he captured?”
“He was trying to escape from that building through a perimeter sewage line.”
“Alone?”
“I don't know. He's the first of a group of prisoners. The others are waiting outside.”
They had finished binding the young Gowachin, now took up position directly behind him.
McKie studied the captive. He wore black coveralls with characteristic deep vee to clear the ventricles. The garment had been cut and torn in several places. He'd obviously been searched with swift and brutal thoroughness. McKie put down a twinge of pity. The scar lines on the prisoner's eyelids precluded anything but the most direct Dosadi necessities.
“They did a poor job removing your Phylum tattoos,” McKie said. He'd already recognized the scar lines: Deep
Swimmers. It was a relatively unimportant Phylum, small in numbers and sensitive about their status.
The young Gowachin blinked. McKie's opening remark had been so conversational, even-toned, that the shock of his words came after. Shock was obvious now in the set of the captive's mouth.
“What is your name, please?” McKie asked, still in that even, conversational way.
“Grinik.”
It was forced out of him.
McKie asked one of the guards for a notebook and stylus, wrote the Gowachin's name in it, adding the Phylum identification.
“Grinik of the Deep Swimmers,” he said. “How long have you been on Dosadi?”
The Gowachin took a deep, ventricular breath, remained silent. The security men appeared puzzled. This interrogation wasn't going as they'd expected. McKie himself did not know what to expect. He still felt himself recovering from surprise at recognition of the badly erased Phylum tattoos.
“This is a very small planet,” McKie said. “The universe from which we both come is very big and can be very cruel. I'm sure you didn't come here expecting to die.”
If this Grinik didn't know the deadly plans of his superiors, that would emerge shortly. McKie's words could be construed as a personal threat beyond any larger threat to Dosadi as a whole. It remained to see how Grinik reacted.
Still, the young Gowachin hesitated.
When in doubt, remain silent.
“You. appear to've been adequately trained for this project,” McKie said. “But I doubt if you were told everything you should know. I even doubt if you were told things essential to you in your present position.”
“Who are you?” Grinik demanded. “How dare you speak here of matters which ⦔ He broke off, glanced at the two guards standing at his shoulders.
“They know all about us,” McKie lied.
He could smell the sweet perfume of Gowachin fear now,
a floral scent which he'd noted only on a few previous occasions. The two guards also sensed this and showed faint smiles to betray that they knew its import.
“Your masters sent you here to die,” McKie said. “They may very well pay heavily for this. You ask who I am? I am Jorj X McKie, Legum of the Gowachin Bar, Saboteur Extraordinary, senior lieutenant of Jedrik who will shortly rule all of Dosadi. I make formal imposition upon you. Answer my questions for the Law is at stake.”
On the Gowachin worlds, that was a most powerful motivator. Grinik was shaken by it.
“What do you wish to know?”
He barely managed the words.
“Your mission on Dosadi. The precise instructions you were given and who gave them to you.”
“There are twenty of us. We were sent by Mrreg.”
That name! The implications in Gowachin lore stunned McKie. He waited, then:
“Continue.”
“Two more of our twenty are out there.”
Grinik motioned to the doorway, clearly pleading for his captive associates.
“Your instructions?”
“To get our people out of this terrible place.”
“How long?”
“Just ⦠sixty hours remain.”
McKie exhaled slowly. So Aritch and company had given up on him. They were going to eliminate Dosadi.
“Where are the other members of your party?”
“I don't know.”
“You were, of course, a reserve team trained and held in readiness for this mission. Do you realize how poorly you were trained?”
Grinik remained silent.
McKie put down a feeling of despair, glanced at the two guards. He understood that they'd brought him this particular captive because this was one of three who were not Dosadi. Jedrik had instructed them, of course. Many things became
clearer to him in this new awareness. Jedrik had put sufficient pressure on the Gowachin beyond the God Wall. She still had not imagined the extremes to which those Gowachin might go in stopping her. It was time Jedrik learned what sort of fuse she'd lighted. And Broey must be told. Especially Broeyâbefore he sent many more suicide missions.
The outer door opened and the sub-commander leaned in to speak.
“You were right about the trap. We mined the area before pulling back. Caught them nicely. The gate's secure now, and we've cleared out that last building.”
McKie pursed his lips, then:
“Take the prisoners to Jedrik. Tell her we're coming in.”
A flicker of surprise touched the sub-commander's eyes.
“She knows.”
Still the man hesitated.
“Yes?”
“There's one Human prisoner out here you should question before leaving.”
McKie waited. Jedrik knew he was coming in, knew what had gone on here, knew about the Human prisoner out there. She wanted him to question this person. Yes ⦠of course. She left nothing to chance ⦠by her standards. Well, her standards were about to change, but she might even know that.
“Name?”
“Havvy. Broey holds him, but he once served Jedrik. She says to tell you Havvy is a reject, that he was contaminated.”
“Bring him in.”
Havvy surprised him. The surface was that of a bland-faced nonentity, braggadocio clearly evident under a mask of secret knowledge. He wore a green uniform with a driver's brassard. The uniform was wrinkled, but there were no visible rips or cuts. He'd been treated with more care than the Gowachin who was being led out of the room. Havvy replaced the Gowachin in the chair. McKie waved away the bindings.
Unfocused questions created turmoil in McKie's mind. He found it difficult to delay. Sixty hours! But he felt that he could almost touch the solution to the Dosadi mystery, that in
only a few minutes he would know names and real motives for the ones who'd created this monster. Havvy? He'd served Jedrik. In what way? Why rejected? Contaminated?
Unfocused questions, yes.
Havvy sat in watchful tension, casting an occasional glance around the room, at the windows. There were no more explosions out there.
As McKie studied him more carefully, certain observations emerged. Havvy was small but solid, one of those Humans of lesser stature who concealed heavy musculature which could surprise you if you suddenly bumped into them. It was difficult to guess his age, but he was not Dosadi. A member of Grinik's team? Doubtful. Clearly not Dosadi, though. He didn't examine those around him with an automatic status assessment. His reactions were slow. Too much that should remain under shutters flowed from within him directly to the surface. Yes, that was the ultimate revelation. It bothered McKie that so much went unseen beneath the surface here, so much for which Aritch and company had not prepared him. It would take a lifetime to learn all the nuances of this place, and he had less than sixty hours remaining to him.
All of this flowed through McKie's mind in an eyeblink. He reached his decision, motioned the guards and others to leave.
One of the security people started to protest, but McKie silenced him with a glance, pulled up a chair, and sat down facing the captive.
The door closed behind the last of the guards.
“You were sent here deliberately to seek me out,” McKie said.