Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.

- Gowachin admonition

McKie began speaking as he entered the Phylum sanctus:

"I'm Jorj X. McKie of the Bureau of Sabotage."

Name and primary allegiance, that was the drill.  If he'd been a Gowachin, he'd have named his Phylum or would've favored the room with a long blink to reveal the identifying Phylum tattoo on his eyelids.  As a non-Gowachin, he didn't need a tattoo.

He held his right hand extended in the Gowachin peace sign, palm down and fingers wide to show that he held no weapon there and had not extended his claws.  Even as he entered, he smiled, knowing the effect this would have on any Gowachin here.  In a rare mood of candor, one of his old Gowachin teachers had once explained the effect of a smiling McKie.

"We feel our bones age.  It is a very uncomfortable experience."

McKie understood the reason for this.  He possessed a thick, muscular body - a swimmer's body with light mahogany skin.  He walked with a swimmer's rolling gait.  There were Polynesians in his Old Terran ancestry, this much was known in the Family Annals.  Wide lips and a flat nose dominated his face; the eyes were large and placidly brown.  There was a final genetic ornamentation to confound the Gowachin:  red hair.  He was the Human equivalent of the greenstone sculpture found in every Phylum house here on Tandaloor.  McKie possessed the face and body of the Frog God, the Giver of Law.

As his old teacher had explained, no Gowachin ever fully escaped feelings of awe in McKie's presence, especially when McKie smiled.  They were forced to hide a response which went back to the admonition which every Gowachin learned while still clinging to his mother's back.

Arm yourselves!  McKie thought.

Still smiling, he stopped after the prescribed eight paces, glanced once around the room, then narrowed his attention.  Green crystal walls confined the sanctus.  It was not a large space, a gentle oval of perhaps twenty meters in its longest dimension.  A single oval window admitted warm afternoon light from Tandaloor's golden sun.  The glowing yellow created a contrived spiritual ring directly ahead of McKie.  The light focused on an aged Gowachin seated in a brown chairdog which had spread itself wide to support his elbows and webbed fingers.  At the Gowachin's right hand stood an exquisitely wrought wooden swingdesk on a scrollwork stand.  The desk held one object:  a metal box of dull blue about fifteen centimeters long, ten wide, and six deep.  Standing behind the blue box in the servant-guard position was a red-robed Wreave, her fighting mandibles tucked neatly into the lower folds of her facial slit.

This Phylum was initiating a Wreave!

The realization filled McKie with disquiet.  Bildoon had not warned him about Wreaves on Tandaloor.  The Wreave indicated a sad shift among the Gowachin toward a particular kind of violence.  Wreaves never danced for joy, only for death.  And this was the most dangerous of Wreaves, a female, recognizable as such by the jaw pouches behind her mandibles.  There'd be two males somewhere nearby to form the breeding triad.  Wreaves never ventured from their home soil otherwise.

McKie realized he no longer was smiling.  These damnable Gowachin!  They'd' known the effect a Wreave female would have on him.  Except in the Bureau, where a special dispensation prevailed, dealing with Wreaves required the most delicate care to avoid giving offence.  And because they periodically exchanged triad members, they developed extended families of gigantic proportions wherein offending one member was to offend them all.

These reflections did not sit well with the chill he'd experienced at sight of the blue box on the swingdesk.  He still did not know the identity of this Phylum, but he knew what that blue box had to be.  He could smell the peculiar scent of antiquity about it.  His choices had been narrowed.

"I know you, McKie," the ancient Gowachin said.

He spoke the ritual in standard Galach with a pronounced burr, a fact which revealed he'd seldom been off this planet.  His left hand moved to indicate a white chairdog positioned at an angle to his right beyond the swingdesk, yet well within striking range of the silent Wreave.

"Please seat yourself, McKie."

The Gowachin glanced at the Wreave, at the blue box, returned his attention to McKie.  It was a deliberate movement of the pale yellow eyes which were moist with age beneath bleached green brows.  He wore only a green apron with white shoulder straps which outlined crusted white chest ventricles.  The face was flat and sloping with pale, puckered nostrils below a faint nose crest.  He blinked and revealed the tattoos on his eyelids.  McKie saw there the dark, swimming circle of the Running Phylum, that which legend said had been the first to accept Gowachin Law from the Frog God.

His worst fears confirmed, McKie seated himself and felt the white chairdog adjust to his body.  He cast an uneasy glance at the Wreave, who towered behind the swingdesk like a red-robed executioner.  The flexing bifurcation which served as Wreave legs moved in the folds of the robe, but without tension.  This Wreave was not yet ready to dance.  McKie reminded himself that Wreaves were careful in all matters.  This had prompted the ConSentient expression, "a Wreave bet."  Wreaves were noted for waiting for the sure thing.

"You see the blue box," the old Gowachin said.

It was a statement of mutual understanding, no answer required, but McKie took advantage of the opening.

"However, I do not know your companion."

"This is Ceylang, Servant of the Box."

Ceylang nodded acknowledgment.

A fellow BuSab agent had once told McKie how to count the number of triad exchanges in which a Wreave female had participated.

"A tiny bit of skin is nipped from one of her jaw pouches by the departing companion.  It looks like a little pockmark."

Both of Ceylang's pouches were peppered with exchange pocks.  McKie nodded to her, formal and correct, no offense intended, none given.  He glanced at the box which she served.

McKie had been a Servant of the Box once.  This was where you began to learn the limits of legal ritual.  The Gowachin words for this novitiate translated as "The Heart of Disrespect."  It was the first stage on the road to Legum.  The old Gowachin here was not mistaken:  McKie as one of the few non-Gowachin ever admitted to Legum status, to the practice of law in this planetary federation, would see that blue box and know what it contained.  There would be a small brown book printed on pages of ageless metal, a knife with the blood of many sentient beings dried on its black surface, and lastly a grey rock, chipped and scratched over the millennia in which it'd been used to pound on wood and call Gowachin courts into session.  The box and its contents symbolized all that was mysterious and yet practical about Gowachin Law.  The book was ageless, yet not to be read and reread; it was sealed in a box where it could be thought upon as a thing which marked a beginning.  The knife carried the bloody residue of many endings.  And the rock - that came from the natural earth where things only changed, never beginning or ending.  The entire assemblage, box and contents, represented a window into the soul of the Frog God's minions.  And now they were educating a Wreave as Servant of the Box.

McKie wondered why the Gowachin had chosen a deadly Wreave, but dared not enquire.  The blue box, however, was another matter.  It said with certainty that a planet called Dosadi would be named openly here.  The thing which BuSab had uncovered was about to become an issue in Gowachin Law.  That the Gowachin had anticipated Bureau action spoke well of their information sources.  A sense of careful choosing radiated from this room.  McKie assumed a mask of relaxation and remained silent.

The old Gowachin did not appear pleased by this.  He said:

"You once afforded me much amusement, McKie."

That might be a compliment, probably not.  Hard to tell.  Even if it were a compliment, coming from a Gowachin it would contain signal reservations, especially in legal matters.  McKie held his silence.  This Gowachin was big power and no mistake.  Whoever misjudged him would hear the Courtarena's final trumpet.

"I watched you argue your first case in our courts," the Gowachin said.  "Betting was nine-point-three to three-point-eight that we'd see your blood.  But when you concluded by demonstrating that eternal sloppiness was the price of liberty . . . ahhh, that was a master stroke.  It filled many a Legum with envy.  Your words clawed through the skin of Gowachin Law to get at the meat.  And at the same time you amused us.  That was the supreme touch."

Until this moment, McKie had not even suspected that there'd been amusement for anyone in that first case.  Present circumstances argued for truthfulness from the old Gowachin, however.  Recalling that first case, McKie tried to reassess it in the light of this revelation.  He remembered the case well.  The Gowachin had charged a Low Magister named Klodik with breaking his most sacred vows in an issue of justice.  Klodik's crime was the release of thirty-one fellow Gowachin from their primary allegiance to Gowachin Law and the purpose of that was to qualify the thirty-one for service in BuSab.  The hapless prosecutor, a much-admired Legum named Pirgutud, had aspired to Klodik's position and had made the mistake of trying for a direct conviction.  McKie had thought at the time that the wiser choice would've been to attempt discrediting the legal structure under which Klodik had been arraigned.  This would have thrown judgment into the area of popular choice, and there'd been no doubt that Klodik's early demise would've been popular.  Seeing this opening, McKie had attacked the prosecutor as a legalist, a stickler, one who preferred Old Law.  Victory had been relatively easy.

When it had come to the knife, however, McKie had found himself profoundly reluctant.  There'd been no question of selling Pirgutud back to his own Phylum.  BuSab had needed a non-Gowachin Legum . . . the whole non-Gowachin universe had needed this.  The few other non-Gowachin who'd attained Legum status were all dead, every last one of them in the Courtarena.  A current of animosity toward the Gowachin worlds had been growing.  Suspicion fed on suspicion.

Pirgutud had to die in the traditional, the formal, way.  He'd known it perhaps better than McKie.  Pirgutud, as required, had bared the heart area beside his stomach and clasped his hands behind his head.  This extruded the stomach circle, providing a point of reference.

The purely academic anatomy lessons and the practice sessions on lifelike dummies had come to deadly focus.

"Just to the left of the stomach circle imagine a small triangle with an apex at the center of the stomach circle extended horizontally and the base even with the bottom of the stomach circle.  Strike into the lower outside corner of this triangle and slightly upward toward the midline."

About the only satisfaction McKie had found in the event was that Pirgutud had died cleanly and quickly with one stroke.  McKie had not entered Gowachin Law as a "hacker."

What had there been in that case and its bloody ending to amuse the Gowachin?  The answer filled McKie with a profound sense of peril.

The Gowachin were amused at themselves because they had so misjudged me!  But I'd planned all along for them to misjudge me.  That was what amused them!

Having provided McKie with a polite period for reflection, the old Gowachin continued:

"I'd bet against you, McKie.  The odds, you understand?  You delighted me nonetheless.  You instructed us while winning your case in a classic manner which would've done credit to the best of us.  That is one of the Law's purposes, of course:  to test the qualities of those who choose to employ it.  Now what did you expect to find when you answered our latest summons to Tandaloor?"

The question's abrupt shift almost caught McKie by surprise.

I've been too long away from the Gowachin, he thought. I can't relax even for an instant.

It was almost a palpable thing:  if he missed a single beat of the rhythms in this room, he and an entire planet could fall before Gowachin judgment.  For a civilization which based its law on the Courtarena where any participant could be sacrificed, anything was possible.  McKie chose his next words with life-and-death care.

"You summoned me, that is true, but I came on official business of my Bureau.  It's the Bureau's expectations which concern me."

"Then you are in a difficult position because you're also a Legum of the Gowachin Bar subject to our demands.  Do you know me?"

This was a Magister, a Foremost-Speaker from the "Phylum of Phylums," no doubt of it.  He was a survivor in one of the most cruel traditions known to the sentient universe.  His abilities and resources were formidable and he was on his home ground.  McKie chose the cautious response.

"On my arrival I was told to come to this place at this time.  That is what I know."

The least thing that is known shall govern your acts.

This was the course of evidence for the Gowachin.  McKie's response put a legal burden on his questioner.

The old Gowachin's hands clutched with pleasure at the level of artistry to which this contest had risen.  There was a momentary silence during which Ceylang gathered her robe tightly and moved even closer to the swingdesk.  Now, there was tension in her movements.  The Magister stirred, said:

"I have the disgusting honor to be High Magister of the Running Phylum, Aritch by name."

As he spoke, his right hand thrust out, took the blue box, and dropped it into McKie's lap.  "I place the binding oath upon you in the name of the book!"

As McKie had expected, it was done swiftly.  He had the box in his hands while the final words of the ancient legal challenge were ringing in his ears.  No matter the ConSentient modifications of Gowachin Law which might apply in this situation, he was caught in a convoluted legal maneuvering.  The metal of the box felt cold against his fingers.  They'd confronted him with the High Magister.  The Gowachin were dispensing with many preliminaries.  This spoke of time pressures and a particular assessment of their own predicament.  McKie reminded himself that he was dealing with people who found pleasure in their own failures, could be amused by death in the Courtarena, whose most consummate pleasure came when the currents of their own Law were changed artistically.

McKie spoke with the careful formality which ritual required if he were to emerge alive from this room.

"Two wrongs may cancel each other.  Therefore, let those who do wrong do it together.  That is the true purpose of Law."

Gently, McKie released the simple swing catch on the box, lifted the lid to verify the contents.  This must be done with precise attention to formal details.  A bitter, musty odor touched his nostrils as the lid lifted.  The box held what he'd expected:  the book, the knife, the rock.  It occurred to McKie then that he was holding the original of all such boxes.  It was a thing of enormous antiquity - thousands upon thousands of standard years.  Gowachin professed the belief that the Frog God had created this box, this very box, and its contents as a model, the symbol of "the only workable Law."

Careful to do it with his right hand, McKie touched each item of the box in its turn, closed the lid and latched it.  As he did this, he felt that he stepped into a ghostly parade of Legums, names imbedded in the minstrel chronology of Gowachin history.

Bishkar who concealed her eggs . . .

Kondush the Diver . . .

Dritaik who sprang from the marsh and laughed at Mrreg . . .

Tonkeel of the hidden knife . . .

McKie wondered then how they would sing about him.  Would it be McKie the blunderer?  His thoughts raced through review of the necessities.  The primary necessity was Aritch.  Little was known about this High Magister outside the Gowachin Federation, but it was said that he'd once won a case by finding a popular bias which allowed him to kill a judge.  The commentary on this coup said Aritch "embraced the Law in the same way that salt dissolves in water."  To the initiates, this meant Aritch personified the basic Gowachin attitude toward their Law:  "respectful disrespect."  It was a peculiar form of sanctity.  Every movement of your body was as important as your words.  The Gowachin made it an aphorism.

"You hold your life in your mouth when you enter the Courtarena."

They provided legal ways to kill any participant - judges, Legums, clients . . .  But it must be done with exquisite legal finesse, with its justifications apparent to all observers, and with the most delicate timing.  Above all, one could kill in the arena only when no other choice offered the same worshipful disrespect for Gowachin Law.  Even while changing the Law, you were required to revere its sanctity.

When you entered the Courtarena, you had to feel that peculiar sanctity in every fiber.  The forms. . . the forms . . . the forms . . .  With that blue box in his hands, the deadly forms of Gowachin Law dominated every movement, every word.  Knowing McKie was not Gowachin-born, Aritch was putting time pressures on him, hoping for an immediate flaw.  They didn't want this Dosadi matter in the arena.  That was the immediate contest.  And if it did get to the arena . . . well, the crucial matter would be selection of the judges.  Judges were chosen with great care.  Both sides maneuvered in this, being cautious not to intrude a professional legalist onto the bench.  Judges could represent those whom the Law had offended.  They could be private citizens in any number satisfactory to the opposing forces.  Judges could be (and often were) chosen for their special knowledge of a case at hand.  But here you were forced to weigh the subtleties of prejudgment.  Gowachin Law made a special distinction between prejudgment and bias.

McKie considered this.

The interpretation of bias was:  "If I can rule for a particular side I will do so."

For prejudgment:  "No matter what happens in the arena I will rule for a particular side."

Bias was permitted, but not prejudgment.

Aritch was the first problem, his possible prejudgments, his bias, his inborn and most deeply conditioned attitudes.  In his deepest feelings, he would look down on all non-Gowachin legal systems as "devices to weaken personal character through appeals to illogic, irrationality, and to ego-centered selfishness in the name of high purpose."

If Dosadi came to the arena, it would be tried under modified Gowachin Law.  The modifications were a thorn in the Gowachin skin.  They represented concessions made for entrance into the ConSentiency.  Periodically, the Gowachin tried to make their Law the basis for all ConSentient Law.

McKie recalled that a Gowachin had once said of ConSentient Law:

"It fosters greed, discontent, and competitiveness not based on excellence but on appeals to prejudice and materialism."

Abruptly, McKie remembered that this was a quotation attributed to Aritch, High Magister of the Running Phylum.  Were there even more deeply hidden motives in what the Gowachin did here?

Showing signs of impatience, Aritch inhaled deeply through his chest ventricles, said:

"You are now my Legum.  To be convicted is to go free because this marks you as enemy of all government.  I know you to be such an enemy, McKie."

"You know me," McKie agreed.

It was more than ritual response and obedience to forms, it was truth.  But it required great effort for McKie to speak it calmly.  In the almost fifty years since he'd been admitted to the Gowachin Bar, he'd served that ancient legal structure four times in the Courtarena, a minor record among the ordinary Legums.  Each time, his personal survival had been in the balance.  In all of its stages, this contest was a deadly battle.  The loser's life belonged to the winner and could be taken at the winner's discretion.  On rare occasions, the loser might be sold back to his own Phylum as a menial.  Even the losers disliked this choice.

Better clean death than dirty life.

The blood-encrusted knife in the blue box testified to the more popular outcome.  It was a practice which made for rare litigation and memorable court performances.

Aritch, speaking with eyes closed and the Running Phylum tattoos formally displayed, brought their encounter to its testing point.

"Now McKie, you will tell me what official matters of the Bureau of Sabotage bring you to the Gowachin Federation."