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This whole thing was so un-Wreave! Ceylang smoothed the robe over her long body. The robe was blue now, one step away from Legum black. Appropriately, there was blue all around her: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, Aritch's pool. The High Magister rested his chin on the pool's edge to speak. "I require specific questions before I can even hope to penetrate your puzzlement." "Will McKie defend or prosecute? The simulator . . ." "Damn the simulator! Odds are that he'll make the mistake of prosecuting. Your own reasoning powers should . . ." "But if he doesn't?" "Then selection of the judicial panel becomes vital." Ceylang twisted her body to one side, feeling the chairdog adjust for her comfort. As usual, Aritch's answer only deepened her sense of uncertainty. She voiced that now. "I continue to have this odd feeling that you intend me to play some role which I'm not supposed to discover until the very last instant." Aritch breathed noisily through his mouth, splashed water onto his head. "This all may be moot. By this time day after tomorrow, Dosadi and McKie may no longer exist." "Then I will not advance to Legum?" "Oh, I'm fairly certain you'll be a Legum." She studied him, sensing irony, then: Page 118 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "What a delicate line you walk, High Magister." "Hardly. My way is wide and clear. You know the things I cannot countenance. I cannot betray the Law or my people." "I have similar inhibitions. But this Dosadi thing -- so tempting." "So dangerous! Would a Wreave don Human flesh to learn the Human condition? Would you permit a Human to penetrate Wreave society in this . . ." "There are some who might conspire in this! There are even Gowachin who . . ." "The opportunities for misuse are countless." "Yet you say that McKie already is more Gowachin than a Gowachin." Aritch's webbed hands folded over the pool's edge, the claws extended. "We risked much in training him for this task." "More than you risk with me?" Aritch withdrew his hands, stared at her, unblinking. "So that's what bothers you." "Precisely." "Think, Ceylang, how near the core of Wreavedom you would permit me to come. Thus far and no farther will we permit you." "And McKie?" "May already have gone too far for us to permit his continued existence." "I heed your warning, Aritch. But I remain puzzled as to why the Calebans couldn't prevent . . ." "They profess not to understand the ego transfer. But who can understand a Caleban, let alone control one in a matter so delicate? Even this one who created the God Wall . . ." "It's rumored that McKie understands Calebans." "He denies it." She rubbed her pocked left jowl with a prehensile mandible, felt the many scars of her passage through the Wreave triads. Family to family to family until it was a single gigantic family. Yet, all were Wreave. This Dosadi thing threatened a monstrous parody of Wreavedom. Still . . . "So fascinating," she murmured. "That's its threat." "We should pray for the death of Dosadi." "Perhaps." She was startled. "What . . ." "This might not die with Dosadi. Our sacred bond assures that you will leave here with this knowledge. Many Gowachin know of this thing." "And McKie." "Infections have a way of spreading," Aritch said. "Remember that if this comes to the Courtarena." There are some forms of insanity which, driven to an ultimate expression, can become the new models of sanity. -BuSab Manual "McKie?" It was the familiar Caleban presence in his awareness, as though he heard and felt someone (or something) which he knew was not there. The preparation had been deceptively simple. He and Jedrik clasped hands, his right hand and her left, and each grasped one of the shimmering rods with the other hand. McKie did not have a ready identity for this Caleban and wondered at the questioning in her voice. He agreed, however, that he was indeed McKie, shaping the thought as subvocalized conversation. As he spoke, McKie was acutely aware of Jedrik beside him. She was more than just another person now. He carried a tentative simulation model of her, sometimes anticipating Page 119 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html her responses. "You make mutual agreement?" the Caleban asked. McKie sensed Pcharky then: a distant presence, the monitor for this experience. It was as though Pcharky had been reduced to a schematic which the Caleban followed, a set of complex rules, many of which could not be translated into words. Some part of McKie responded to this as though a monster awakened within him, a sleeping monster who sat up full of anger at being aroused thus, demanding: "Who is it that dares awaken me?" McKie felt his body trembling, felt Jedrik trembling beside him. The Caleban/Taprisiot-trembling, the sweaty response to trance! He saw these phenomena now in a different light. When you walked at the edge of this abyss . . . While these thoughts passed through his mind, he felt a slight shift, no more than the blurred reflection of something which was not quite movement. Now, while he still felt his own flesh around him, he also felt himself possessed of an inner contact with Jedrik's body and knew she shared this experience. Such a panic as he had not thought possible threatened to overwhelm him. He felt Jedrik trying to break the contact, to stop this hideous sharing, but they were powerless in the grip of a force which would not be stopped. No time sense attached itself to this experience, but a fatalistic calm overcame them almost simultaneously. McKie felt awareness of Jedrik/flesh deepen. Curiosity dominated him now. So this is woman! This is man? They shared the thoughts across an indistinct bridge. Fascination gripped McKie. He probed deeper. He/She could feel himself/herself breathing. And the differences! It was not the genitalia, the presence or lack of breasts. She felt bereft of breasts. He felt acutely distressed by their presence, self-consciously aware of profound implications. The sense of difference went back beyond gamete McKie/Jedrik. McKie sensed her thoughts, her reactions. Jedrik: "You cast your sperm upon the stream of time." McKie: "You enclose and nurture . . ." "I cast / I nurture." It was as though they looked at an object from opposite sides, aware belatedly that they both examined the same thing. "We cast / we nurture." Obscuring layers folded away, and McKie found himself in Jedrik's mind, she in his. Their thoughts were one entity. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |