Given the proper leverage at the proper point, any sentient awareness may be exploded into astonishing self-understanding.

- from an ancient Human mystic

"Unless she makes a mistake, or we find some unexpected advantage, it's only a matter of time until she overruns us," Broey said.

He sat in his aerie command post at the highest point of the dominant building on the Council Hills.  The room was an armored oval with a single window about fifteen meters away directly in front of Broey looking out on sunset through the river's canyon walls.  A small table with a communicator stood just to his left.  Four of his commanders waited near the table.  Maps, position boards, and the other appurtenances of command, with their attendants, occupied most of the room's remaining space.

Broey's intelligence service had just brought him the report that Jedrik had taken Gar and Tria captive.

One of his commanders, slender for a Gowachin and with other deprivation marks left from birth on the Rim, glanced at his three companions, cleared his throat.

"Is it time to capitulate?"

Broey shook his head in a Human gesture of negation.

It's time I told them, he thought.

He felt emptied.  God refused to speak to him. Nothing in his world obeyed the old mandates.

We've been tricked.

The Powers of the God Wall had tricked him, had tricked his world and all of its inhabitants.  They'd . . .

"This McKie," the commander said.

Broey swallowed, then:

"I doubt if McKie has even the faintest understanding of how she uses him."

He glanced at the reports on his communicator table, a stack of reports about McKie.  Broey's intelligence service had been active.

"If we captured or killed him . . ." the commander ventured.

"Too late for that," Broey said.

"Is there a chance we won't have to capitulate?"

"There's always that chance."

None of the four commanders liked this answer. Another of them, fat and silky green, spoke up:

"If we have to capitulate, how will we know the . . ."

"We must never capitulate, and we must make certain she knows this," Broey said.  "She means to exterminate us."

There! He'd told them.

They were shocked but beginning to understand where his reasoning had led him.  He saw the signs of understanding come over their faces.

"The corridor . . ." one of them ventured.

Broey merely stared at him.  The fool must know they couldn't get more than a fraction of their forces onto the Rim before Jedrik and Tria closed off that avenue.  And even if they could escape to the Rim, what could they do?  They hadn't the faintest idea of where the damned factories and food stores were buried.

"If we could rescue Tria," the slim commander said.

Broey snorted.  He'd prayed for Tria to contact him, to open negotiations.  There'd been not a word, even after she'd fallen back into that impossible enclave.  Therefore, Tria had lost control of her people outside the city.  All the other evidence supported this conclusion.  There was no contact with the Rim.  Jedrik's people had taken over out there.  Tria would've sent word to him the minute she recognized the impossibility of her position.  Any valuable piece of information, any counter in this game would've leaped into Tria's awareness, and she'd have recognized who the highest bidder must be.

Who was the highest bidder?  Tria, after all, was Human.

Broey sighed.

And McKie - an idiot savant from beyond the God Wall, a weapons expert.  Jedrik must've known.  But how?  Did the Gods talk to her?  Broey doubted this.  Jedrik gave every evidence of being too clever to be sucked in by trickster Gods.

More clever, more wary, more Dosadi than I.

She deserved the victory.

Broey arose and went to the window.  His commanders exchanged worried glances behind him.  Could Broey think them out of this mess?

A corner of his slim corridor to the Rim was visible to Broey.  He could not hear the battle, but explosive orange blossoms told him the fighting continued.  He knew the gamble Jedrik took.  Those Gowachin beyond the God Wall, the ones who'd created this hellish place, were slow - terrifyingly slow.  But eventually they would be unable to misunderstand Jedrik's intentions.  Would they step in, those mentally retarded Gowachin out there, and try to stop Jedrik?  She obviously thought they would.  Everything she did told Broey of the care with which Jedrik had prepared for the stupids from Outside.  Broey almost wished her success, but he could not bear the price he and his people would have to pay.

Jedrik had the time-edge on him.  She had McKie.  She had played McKie like a superb instrument.  And what would McKie do when he realized the final use Jedrik intended to make of him?  Yes . . . McKie was a perfect tool for Jedrik.  She'd obviously waited for that perfect instrument, had known when it arrived.

Gods!  She was superb!

Broey scratched at the nodes between his ventricles.  Well, there were still things a trapped people could do.  He returned to his commanders.

"Abandon the corridor.  Do it quietly, but swiftly.  Fall back to the prepared inner walls."

As his commanders started to turn away, Broey stopped them.

"I also want some carefully selected volunteers.  The fix we're in must be explained to them in such a way that there's no misunderstanding.  They will be asked to sacrifice themselves in a way no Gowachin has ever before contemplated."

"How?"

It was the slender one.

Broey addressed himself to this one.  A Gowachin born on the Rim should be the first to understand.

"We must increase the price Jedrik's paying.  Hundreds of their people for every one of ours."

"Suicide missions," the slender one said.

Broey nodded, continued:

"One more thing.  I want Havvy brought up here and I want orders issued to increase the food allotment to those Humans we've held in special reserve."

Two of his commanders spoke in unison:

"They won't sacri . . ."

"I have something else in mind for them."

Broey nodded to himself.  Yes indeed.  Some of those Humans could still serve his purposes.  It wasn't likely they could serve him as McKie served Jedrik, but there was still a chance . . . yes, a chance.  Jedrik might not be certain of what Broey could do with his Humans.  Havvy, for example.  Jedrik had certainly considered and discarded Havvy.  In itself, that might be useful.  Broey waved for his commanders to leave and execute his orders.  They'd seen the new determination in him.  They'd pass that along to the ones beneath them.  That, too, would serve his purposes.  It would delay the moment when his people might suspect that he was making a desperate gamble.

He returned to his communicator, called his search people, urged them to new efforts.  They might still achieve what Jedrik obviously had achieved with Pcharky . . . if they could find a Pcharky.