"Yes."
She was a while absorbing the implications, but appeared satisfied. She'd given him a few small currency tokens from her own pockets.
"Nobody'll bother you for these. If you need anything, ask. We may be able to gratify some of your needs."
It was still dark, lighted only by illumination at corners, when they came to the address Jedrik sought. Grey light suffused the street. A young Human male of about ten squatted with his back against the stone wall at the building's corner. As Jedrik and McKie approached, he sprang up, alert. He nodded once to Jedrik.
She did not acknowledge, but by some hidden signal the boy knew she had received his message. He relaxed once more against the wall.
When McKie looked back a few paces beyond where the boy had signaled, he was gone. No sound, no sign just gone.
Jedrik stopped at a shadowed entryway. It was barred by an openwork metal gate flanked by two armed guards. The guards opened the gate without words. Beyond the gate there was a large, covered courtyard illuminated by glowing tubes on right and left. Three of its sides were piled to the courtyard cover with boxes of various sizes - some taller than a Human and narrow, others short and fat. Set into the stacks as though part of the courtyard's walls was one narrow passage leading to a metal door opposite the gateway.
McKie touched Jedrik's arm.
"What's in the boxes?"
"Weapons." She spoke as though to a cretin.
The metal door was opened from within. Jedrik led McKie into a large room at least two stories tall. The door clanged shut behind them. McKie sensed several Humans along the courtyard wall on both sides of him, but his attention had been captured by something else.
Dominating the room was a gigantic cage suspended from the ceiling. Its bars sparkled and shimmered with hidden energies. A single Gowachin male sat cross-legged in a hammock at the cage's center. McKie had seldom seen a ConSentient Gowachin that aged. His nose crest was fringed by flaking yellow crusts. Heavy wrinkles wormed their way beneath watery eyes beginning to glaze with the degeneration which often blinded Gowachin who lived too long away from water. His body had a slack appearance, with loose muscles and pitted indentations along the nodes between his ventricles. The hammock suspended him off the cage floor and that floor shimmered with volatile energies.
Jedrik paused, divided her attention between McKie and the old Gowachin. She seemed to expect a particular reaction from McKie, but he wasn't certain she found what she sought.
McKie stood a moment in silent examination of the Gowachin. Prisoner? What was the significance of that cage and its shimmering energies? Presently, he glanced around the room, recording the space. Six armed Human males flanked the door through which he and Jedrik had entered. A remarkable assortment of objects crammed the room's walls, some with purpose unknown to him but many recognizable as weapons: spears and swords, flame-throwers, garish armor, bombs, pellet projectors . . .
Jedrik moved a pace closer to the cage. The occupant stared back at her with faint interest. She cleared her throat.
"Greetings, Pcharky. I have found my key to the God Wall."
The old Gowachin remained silent, but McKie thought he saw a sparkle of interest in the glazed eyes.
Jedrik shook her head slowly from side to side, then: "I have a new datum, Pcharky. The Veil of Heaven was created by creatures called Calebans. They appear to us as suns."
Pcharky's glance flickered to McKie, back to Jedrik. The Gowachin knew the source of her new datum.
McKie renewed his speculations about the old Gowachin. That cage must be a prison, its walls enforced by dangerous energies. Bahrank had spoken of conflict between the species. Humans controlled this room. Why did they imprison a Gowachin? Or . . . was this caged Gowachin, this Pcharky, another agent from Tandaloor? With a tightening of his throat, McKie wondered if his own fate might be to live out his days in such a cage.
Pcharky grunted, then:
"The God Wall is like this cage but more powerful." His voice was a husky croaking, the words clear Galach with an obvious Tandaloor accent. McKie, his fears reinforced, glanced at Jedrik, found her studying him. She spoke.
"Pcharky has been with us for a long time, very long. There's no telling how many people he has helped to escape from Dosadi. Soon, I may persuade him to be of service to me."
McKie found himself shocked to silence by the possibilities glimpsed through her words. Was Dosadi in fact an investigation of the Caleban mystery? Was that the secret Aritch's people concealed here? McKie stared at the shimmering bars of Pcharky's cage. Like the God Wall? But the God Wall was enforced by a Caleban.
Once more, Jedrik looked at the caged Gowachin.
"A sun confines enormous energies, Pcharky. Are your energies inadequate?"
But Pcharky's attention was on McKie. The old voice croaked.
"Human, tell me: Did you come here willingly?"
"Don't answer him," Jedrik snapped.
Pcharky closed his eyes. Interview ended.
Jedrik, accepting this, whirled and strode to the left around the cage.
"Come along, McKie." She didn't look back, but continued speaking. "Does it interest you that Pcharky designed his own cage?"
"He designed it? Is it a prison?"
"Yes."
"If he designed it . . . how does it hold him?"
"He knew he'd have to serve my purposes if he were to remain alive."
She had come to another door which opened onto a narrow stairway. It climbed to the left around the cage room. They emerged into a long hallway lined with narrow doors dimly lighted by tiny overhead bulbs. Jedrik opened one of these doors and led the way into a carpeted room about four meters wide and six long. Dark wood panels reached from floor to waist level, shelves loaded with books above. McKie peered closely: books . . . actual paper books. He tried to recall where he'd ever before seen such a collection of primitive . . . But, of course, these were not primitive. These were one of Dosadi's strange recapitulations.
Jedrik had removed her wig, stopped midway in the room to turn and face McKie.
"This is my room. Toilet there." She pointed to an opening between shelves. "That window . . ." Again, she pointed, this time to an opening opposite the toilet door. ". . . is one-way to admit light, and it's our best. As Dosadi measures such things, this is a relatively secure place."
He swept his gaze around the room.
Her room?
McKie was struck by the amount of living space, a mark of power on Dosadi; the absence of people in the hall. By the standards of this planet, Jedrik's room, this building, represented a citadel of power.
Jedrik spoke, an odd note of nervousness in voice and manner:
"Until recently, I also had other quarters: a prestigious apartment on the slopes of the Council Hills. I was considered a climber with excellent prospects, my own skitter and driver. I had access to all but the highest codes in the master banks, and that's a powerful tool for those who can use it. Now . . ." She gestured. ". . . this is what I have chosen. I must eat swill with the lowest. No males of rank will pay the slightest attention to me. Broey thinks I'm cowering somewhere, a pallet in the Warrens. But I have this . . ." Again, that sweeping gesture. ". . . and this." One finger tapped her head. "I need nothing more to bring those Council Hills crashing down."
She stared into McKie's eyes.
He found himself believing her.
She was not through speaking.
"You're definitely male Human, McKie."
He didn't know what to make of that, but her air of braggadocio fascinated him.