The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe #2)

The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe #2) Page 7

We will now explore the particular imprint which various governments make upon the individual.  First, be sure you recognize the primary governing force.  For example, take a careful look at Human history.  Humans have been known to submit to many constraints:  to rule by Autarchs, by Plutarchs, by the power seekers of the many Republics, by Oligarchs, by tyrant Majorities and Minorities, by the hidden suasions of Polls, by profound instincts and shallow juvenilities.  And always, the governing force as we wish you now to understand this concept was whatever the individual believed had control over his immediate survival.  Survival sets the pattern of imprint.  During much of Human history (and the pattern is similar with most sentient species) Corporation presidents held more survival in their casual remarks than did the figurehead officials.  We of the ConSentiency cannot forget this as we keep hatch on the Multiworld Corporations.  We dare not even forget it of ourselves.  Where you work for your own survival, this dominates your imprint, this dominates what you believe.

- Instruction Manual Bureau of Sabotage

Never do what your enemy wants you to do, McKie reminded himself.

In this moment, Aritch was the enemy, having placed the binding oath of Legum upon an agent of BuSab, having demanded information to which he had no right.  The old Gowachin's behavior was consistent with the demands of his own legal system, but it immediately magnified the area of conflict by an enormous factor.  McKie chose a minimal response.

"I'm here because Tandaloor is the heart of the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch, who'd been sitting with his eyes closed to emphasize the formal client-Legum relationship, opened his eyes to glare at McKie.

"I remind you once that I am your client."

Signs indicating a dangerous new tension in the Wreave servant were increasing, but McKie was forced to concentrate his attention on Aritch.

"You name your self client.  Very well.  The client must answer truthfully such questions as the Legum asks when the legal issues demand it."

Aritch continued to glare at McKie, latent fire in the yellow eyes.  Now, the battle was truly joined.

McKie sensed how fragile was the relationship upon which his survival depended.  The Gowachin, signatories to the great ConSentiency Pact binding the species of the known universe, were legally subject to certain BuSab intrusions.  But Aritch had placed them on another footing.  If the Gowachin Federation disagreed with McKie/Agent, they could take him into the Courtarena as a Legum who had wronged a client.  With the entire Gowachin Bar arrayed against him.  McKie did not doubt which Legum would taste the knife.  His one hope lay in avoiding immediate litigation.  That was, after all, the real basis of Gowachin Law.

Moving a step closer to specifics, McKie said:

"My Bureau has uncovered a matter of embarrassment to the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch blinked twice.

"As we suspected."

McKie shook his head.  They didn't suspect, they knew.  He counted on this:  that the Gowachin understood why he'd answered their summons.  If any Sentiency under the Pact could understand his position, it had to be the Gowachin.  BuSab reflected Gowachin philosophy.  Centuries had passed since the great convulsion out of which BuSab had originated, but the ConSentiency had never been allowed to forget that birth.  It was taught to the young of every species.

"Once, long ago, a tyrannical majority captured the government.  They said they would make all individuals equal.  They meant they would not let any individual be better than another at doing anything.  Excellence was to be suppressed or concealed.  The tyrants made their government act with great speed 'in the name of the people.'  They removed delays and red tape wherever found.  There was little deliberation.  Unaware that they acted out of an unconscious compulsion to prevent all change, the tyrants tried to enforce a grey sameness upon every population.

"Thus the powerful governmental machine blundered along at increasingly reckless speed.  It took commerce and all the important elements of society with it.  Laws were thought of and passed within hours.  Every society came to be twisted into a suicidal pattern.  People became unprepared for those changes which the universe demands.  They were unable to change.

"It was the time of brittle money, 'appropriated in the morning and gone by nightfall,' as you learned earlier.  In their passion for sameness, the tyrants made themselves more and more powerful.  All others grew correspondingly weaker and weaker.  New bureaus and directorates, odd ministries, leaped into existence for the most improbable purposes.  These became the citadels of a new aristocracy, rulers who kept the giant wheel of government careening along, spreading destruction, violence, and chaos wherever they touched.

"In those desperate times, a handful of people (the Five Ears, their makeup and species never revealed) created the Sabotage Corps to slow that runaway wheel of government.  The original corps was bloody, violent, and cruel.  Gradually, the original efforts were replaced by more subtle methods.  The governmental wheel slowed, became more manageable.  Deliberation returned.

"Over the generations, that original Corps became a Bureau, the Bureau of Sabotage, with its present Ministerial powers, preferring diversion to violence, but ready for violence when the need arises."

They were words from McKie's own teens, generators of a concept modified by his experiences in the Bureau.  Now, he was aware that this directorate composed of all the known sentient species was headed into its own entropic corridors.  Someday, the Bureau would dissolve or be dissolved, but the universe still needed them.  The old imprints remained, the old futile seeking after absolutes of sameness.  It was the ancient conflict between what the individual saw as personal needs for immediate survival and what the totality required if any were to survive.  And now it was the Gowachin versus the ConSentiency, and Aritch was the champion of his people.

McKie studied the High Magister carefully, sensitive to the unrelieved tensions in the Wreave attendant.  Would there be violence in this room?  It was a question which remained unanswered as McKie spoke.

"You have observed that I am in a difficult position.  I do not enjoy the embarrassment of revered teachers and friends, nor of their compatriots.  Yet, evidence has been seen . . ."

He let his voice trail off.  Gowachin disliked dangling implications.

Aritch's claws slid from the sheaths of his webbed fingers.

"Your client wishes to hear of this evidence."

Before speaking, McKie rested his hand on the latch of the box in his lap.

"Many people from two species have disappeared.  Two species:  Gowachin and Human.  Singly, these were small matters, but these disappearances have been going on for a long time - perhaps twelve or fifteen generations by the old Human reckoning.  Taken together, these disappearances are massive.  We've learned that there's a planet called Dosadi where these people were taken.  Such evidence as we have has been examined carefully.  It all leads to the Gowachin Federation."

Aritch's fingers splayed, a sign of acute embarrassment.  Whether assumed or real, McKie could not tell.

"Does your Bureau accuse the Gowachin?"

"You know the function of my Bureau.  We do not yet know the location of Dosadi, but we'll find it."

Aritch remained silent.  He knew BuSab had never given up on a problem.

McKie raised the blue box.

"Having thrust this upon me, you've made me guardian of your fate, client.  You've no rights to inquire as to my methods.  I will not follow old law."

Aritch nodded.

"It was my argument that you'd react thus."

He raised his right hand.

The rhythmic "death flexion" swept over the Wreave and her fighting mandibles darted from her facial slit.

At the first movement from her, McKie whipped open the blue box, snatched out book and knife.  He spoke with a firmness his body did not feel:

"If she makes the slightest move toward me, my blood will defile this book."  He placed the knife against his own wrist.  "Does your Servant of the Box know the consequences?  The history of the Running Phylum would end.  Another Phylum would be presumed to've accepted the Law from its Giver.  The name of this Phylum's last High Magister would be erased from living thought.  Gowachin would eat their own eggs at the merest hint that they had Running Phylum blood in their veins."

Aritch remained frozen, right hand raised.  Then:

"McKie, you are revealed as a sneak.  Only by spying on our most sacred rituals could you know this."

"Did you think me some fearful, pliable dolt, client?  I am a true Legum.  A Legum does not have to sneak to learn the Law.  When you admitted me to your Bar you opened every door."

Slowly, muscles quivering, Aritch turned and spoke to the Wreave:

"Ceylang?"

She had difficulty speaking while her poison-tipped fighting mandibles remained extruded.

"Your command?"

"Observe this Human well.  Study him.  You will meet again."

"I obey."

"You may go, but remember my words."

"I remember."

McKie, knowing the death dance could not remain uncompleted, stopped her.

"Ceylang!"

Slowly, reluctantly, she looked at him.

"Do observe me well, Ceylang.  I am what you hope to be.  And I warn you:  unless you shed your Wreave skin you will never be a Legum."  He nodded in dismissal.  "Now, you may go."

In a fluid swish of robes she obeyed, but her fighting mandibles remained out, their poison tips glittering.  Somewhere in her triad's quarters, McKie knew, there'd be a small feathered pet which would die presently with poison from its mistress burning through its veins.  Then the death dance would be ended and she could retract her mandibles.  But the hate would remain.

When the door had closed behind the red robe, McKie restored book and knife to the box, returned his attention to Aritch.  Now, when McKie spoke, it was really Legum to client without any sophistry, and they both knew it.

"What would tempt the High Magister of the renowned Running Phylum to bring down the Arch of Civilization?"

McKie's tone was conversational, between equals.

Aritch had trouble adjusting to the new status.  His thoughts were obvious.  If McKie had witnessed a Cleansing Ritual, McKie had to be accepted as a Gowachin.  But McKie was not Gowachin.  Yet he'd been accepted before the Gowachin Bar . . . and if he'd seen that most sacred ritual . . .

Presently, Aritch spoke.

"Where did you see the ritual?"

"It was performed by the Phylum which sheltered me on Tandaloor."

"The Dry Heads?"

"Yes."

"Did they know you witnessed?"

"They invited me."

"How did you shed your skin?"

"They scraped me raw and preserved the scrapings."

Aritch took some time digesting this.  The Dry Heads had played their own secret game of Gowachin politics and now the secret was out.  He had to consider the implications.  What had they hoped to gain?  He said:

"You wear no tattoo."

"I've never made formal application for Dry Heads membership."

"Why?"

"My primary allegiance is to BuSab."

"The Dry Heads know this?"

"They encourage it."

"But what motivated them to . . ."

McKie smiled.

Aritch glanced at a veiled alcove at the far end of the sanctum, back to McKie.  A likeness to the Frog God?

"It'd take more than that."

McKie shrugged.

Aritch mused aloud:

"The Dry Heads supported Klodik in his crime when you . . ."

"Not crime."

"I stand corrected.  You won Klodik's freedom.  And after your victory the Dry Heads invited you to the Cleansing Ritual."

"A Gowachin in BuSab cannot have divided allegiance."

"But a Legum serves only the Law!"

"BuSab and Gowachin Law are not in conflict."

"So the Dry Heads would have us believe."

"Many Gowachin believe it."

"But Klodik's case was not a true test."

Realization swept through McKie:  Aritch regretted more than a lost bet.  He'd put his money with his hopes.  It was time then to redirect this conversation.

"I am your Legum."

Aritch spoke with resignation.

"You are."

"Your Legum wishes to hear of the Dosadi problem."

"A thing is not a problem until it arouses sufficient concern."  Aritch glanced at the box in McKie's lap.  "We're dealing with differences in values, changes in values."

McKie did not believe for an instant this was the tenor of Gowachin defense, but Aritch's words gave him pause.  The Gowachin combined such an odd mixture of respect and disrespect for their Law and all government.  At the root lay their unchanging rituals, but above that everything remained as fluid as the seas in which they'd evolved.  Constant fluidity was the purpose behind their rituals.  You never entered any exchange with Gowachin on a sure-footed basis.  They did something different every time . . . religiously.  It was their nature.  All ground is temporary.  Law is made to be changed.  That was their catechism.  To be a Legum is to learn where to place your feet.

"The Dry Heads did something different," McKie said.

This plunged Aritch into gloom.  His chest ventricles wheezed, indicating he'd speak from the stomach.

"The people of the ConSentiency come in so many different forms:  Wreaves (a flickering glance doorward), Sobarips, Laclacs, Calebans, PanSpechi, Palenki, Chithers, Taprisiots, Humans, we of the Gowachin . . . so many.  The unknowns between us defy counting."

"As well count the drops of water in a sea."

Aritch grunted, then:

"Some diseases cross the barriers between species."

McKie stared at him.  Was Dosadi a medical experiment station?  Impossible!  There would be no reason for secrecy then.  Secrecy defeated the efforts to study a common problem and the Gowachin knew it.

"You are not studying Gowachin-Human diseases."

"Some diseases attack the psyche and cannot be traced to any physical agent."

McKie absorbed this.  Although Gowachin definitions were difficult to understand, they permitted no aberrant behavior.  Different behavior, yes; aberrant behavior, no.  You could challenge the Law, not the ritual.  They were compulsive in this regard.  They slew the ritual deviant out of hand.  It required enormous restraint on their part to deal with another species.

Aritch continued:

"Terrifying psychological abrasions occur when divergent species confront each other and are forced to adapt to new ways.  We seek new knowledge in this arena of behavior."

McKie nodded.

One of his Dry Head teachers had said it:  "No matter how painful, life must adapt or die."

It was a profound revelation about how Gowachin applied their insight to themselves.  Law changed, but it changed on a foundation which could not be permitted the slightest change.  "Else, how do we know where we are or where we have been?"  But encounters with other species changed the foundation.  Life adapted . . . willingly or by force.

McKie spoke with care.

"Psychological experiments with people who've not given their informed consent are still illegal . . . even among the Gowachin."

Aritch would not accept this argument.

"The ConSentiency in all of its parts has accumulated a long history of scientific studies into behavioral and biomedical questions where people are the final test site."

McKie said:

"And the first issue when you propose such an experiment is 'How great is the known risk to the subjects?' "

"But, my dear Legum, informed consent implies that the experimenter knows all the risks and can describe them to his test subjects.  I ask you:  how can that be when the experiment goes beyond what you already know?  How can you describe risks which you cannot anticipate?"

"You submit a proposal to many recognized experts in the field," McKie said.  "They weigh the proposed experiment against whatever value the new knowledge is expected to uncover."

"Ahh, yes.  We submit our proposal to fellow researchers, to people whose mission, whose very view of their own personal identity is controlled by the belief that they can improve the lot of all sentient beings.  Tell me, Legum:  do review boards composed of such people reject many experimental proposals?"

McKie saw the direction of the argument.  He spoke with care.

"They don't reject many proposals, that's true.  Still, you didn't submit your Dosadi protocol to any outside review.  Was that to keep it secret from your own people or from others?"

"We feared the fate of our proposal should it run the gauntlet of other species."

"Did a Gowachin majority approve your project?"

"No.  But we both know that having a majority set the experimental guidelines gives no guarantee against dangerous projects."

"Dosadi has proved dangerous?"

Aritch remained silent for several deep breaths, then:

"It has proved dangerous."

"To whom?"

"Everyone."

It was an unexpected answer, adding a new dimension to Aritch's behavior.  McKie decided to back up and test the revelation.  "This Dosadi project was approved by a minority among the Gowachin, a minority willing to accept a dangerous risk-benefit ratio."

"You have a way of putting these matters, McKie, which presupposes a particular kind of guilt."

"But a majority in the ConSentiency might agree with my description?"

"Should they ever learn of it."

"I see.  Then, in accepting a dangerous risk, what were the future benefits you expected?"

Aritch emitted a deep grunt.

"Legum, I assure you that we worked only with volunteers and they were limited to Humans and Gowachin."

"You evade my question."

"I merely defer an answer."

"Then tell me, did you explain to your volunteers that they had a choice, that they could say 'no'?  Did you tell them they might be in danger?"

"We did not try to frighten them . . . no."

"Was any one of you concerned about the free destiny of your volunteers?"

"Be careful how you judge us, McKie.  There is a fundamental tension between science and freedom - no matter how science is viewed by its practitioners nor how freedom is sensed by those who believe they have it."

McKie was reminded of a cynical Gowachin aphorism:  To believe that you are free is more important than being free.  He said:

"Your volunteers were lured into this project."

"Some would see it that way."

McKie reflected on this.  He still did not know precisely what the Gowachin had done on Dosadi, but he was beginning to suspect it'd be something repulsive.  He could not keep this fear from his voice.

"We return to the question of expected benefits."

"Legum, we have long admired your species.  You gave us one of our most trusted maxims:  No species is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its own interests."

"That's no longer sufficient justification for . . ."

"We derive another rule from your maxim:  It is wise to guide your actions in such a way that the interests of other species coincide with the interests of your species."

McKie stared at the High Magister.  Did this crafty old Gowachin seek a Human-Gowachin conspiracy to suppress evidence of what had been done on Dosadi?  Would he dare such a gambit?  Just how bad was this Dosadi fiasco?

To test the issue, McKie asked:

"What benefits did you expect?  I insist."

Aritch slumped.  His chairdog accommodated to the new position.  The High Magister favored McKie with a heavy-lidded stare for a long interval, then:

"You play this game better than we'd ever hoped."

"With you, Law and Government are always a game.  I come from another arena."

"Your Bureau."

"And I was trained as a Legum."

"Are you my Legum?"

"The binding oath is binding on me.  Have you no faith in . . ."

McKie broke off, overwhelmed by a sudden insight.  Of course!  The Gowachin had known for a long time that Dosadi would become a legal issue.

"Faith in what?" Aritch asked.

"Enough of these evasions!" McKie said.  "You had your Dosadi problem in mind when you trained me.  Now, you act as though you distrust your own plan."

Aritch's lips rippled.

"How strange.  You're more Gowachin than a Gowachin."

"What benefits did you expect when you took this risk?"

Aritch's fingers splayed, stretching the webs.

"We hoped for a quick conclusion and benefits to offset the natural animosities we knew would arise.  But it's now more than twenty of your generations, not twelve or fifteen, that we've grasped the firebrand.  Benefits?  Yes, there are some, but we dare not use them or free Dosadi from bondage lest we raise questions which we cannot answer without revealing our . . . source."

"The benefits!" McKie said.  "Your Legum insists."

Aritch exhaled a shuddering breath through his ventricles.

"Only the Caleban who guards Dosadi knows its location and she is charged to give access without revealing that place.  Dosadi is peopled by Humans and Gowachin.  They live in a single city they call Chu.  Some ninety million people live there, almost equally divided between the two species.  Perhaps three times that number live outside Chu, on the Rim, but they're outside the experiment.  Chu is approximately eight hundred square kilometers."

The population density shocked McKie.  Millions per kilometer.  He had difficulty visualizing it.  Even allowing for a city's vertical dimension . . . and burrowing . . .  There'd be some, of course, whose power bought them space, but the others . . .  Gods! Such a city would be crawling with people, no escaping the pressure of your fellows anywhere except on that unexplained Rim.  McKie said as much to Aritch.

The High Magister confirmed this.

"The population density is very great in some areas.  The people of Dosadi call these areas 'Warrens' for good reason."

"But why?  With an entire planet to live on . . ."

"Dosadi is poisonous to our forms of life.  All of their food comes from carefully managed hydroponics factories in the heart of Chu.  Food factories and the distribution are managed by warlords.  Everything is under a quasi-military form of management.  But life expectancy in the city is four times that outside."

"You said the population outside the city was much larger than . . ."

"They breed like mad animals."

"What possible benefits could you have expected from . . ."

"Under pressure, life reveals its basic elements."

McKie considered what the High Magister had revealed.  The picture of Dosadi was that of a seething mass.  Warlords . . .  He visualized walls, some people living and working in comparative richness of space while others . . .  Gods!  It was madness in a universe where some highly habitable planets held no more than a few thousand people.  His voice brittle, McKie addressed himself to the High Magister.

"These basic elements, the benefits you sought . . . I wish to hear about them."

Aritch hitched himself forward.

"We have discovered new ways of association, new devices of motivation, unsuspected drives which can impose themselves upon an entire population."

"I require specific and explicit enumeration of these discoveries."

"Presently, Legum . . . presently."

Why did Aritch delay?  Were the so-called benefits insignificant beside the repulsive horror of such an experiment?  McKie ventured another tack.

"You say this planet is poisonous.  Why not remove the inhabitants a few at a time, subject them to memory erasure if you must, and feed them out into the ConSentiency as new . . ."

"We dare not!  First, the inhabitants have developed an immunity to erasure, a by-product of those poisons which do get into their diet.  Second, given what they have become on Dosadi . . .  How can I explain this to you?"

"Why don't the people just leave Dosadi?  I presume you deny them jumpdoors, but rockets and other mechanical . . ."

"We will not permit them to leave.  Our Caleban encloses Dosadi in what she calls a 'tempokinetic barrier' which our test subjects cannot penetrate."

"Why?"

"We will destroy the entire planet and everything on it rather than loose this population upon the ConSentiency."

"What are the people of Dosadi that you'd even contemplate such a thing?"

Aritch shuddered.

"We have created a monster."