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Geriatric or other life extension for the powerful poses a similar threat to a sentient species as that found historically in the dominance of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.Both assume prerogatives of immortality, collecting more and more power with each passing moment. This is power which draws a theological aura about itself:the unassailable Law, the God-given mandate of the leader, manifest destiny.Power held too long within a narrow framework moves farther and farther away from the adaptive demands of changed conditions.The leadership grows ever more paranoid, suspicious of inventive adaptations to change, fearfully protective of personal power and, in the terrified avoidance of what it sees as risk, blindly leads its people into destruction.

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"Very well.I'll tell you what bothers me," Ceylang said."There are too many things about this problem that I fail to understand."

From her seated position, she looked across a small, round room at Aritch, who floated gently in a tiny blue pool.His head at the pool's lip was almost on a level with Ceylang's.Again, they had worked late into the night.She understood the reasons for this, the time pressures were quite apparent, but the peculiar Gowachin flavor of her training kept her in an almost constant state of angry questioning.

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?"

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"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:

"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." pqdm.com