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In memory of Babe because she kne to enjoy life
When the Calebans first sent us one of their giant h this device to offer the use of jumpdoors for interstellar travel, ift of the stars for their own questionable purposes Both the "Shadow Govern the Gowachin people sahat is obvious today: that instantaneous travel across unliht isolate subject populations in gross nu of the Dosadi Experi before Saboteur Extraordinary Jorj X McKie discovered that visible stars of our universe were either Calebans or theStar, an account of McKie&039;s discovery thinly disguised as fiction)
What re for his Bureau of Sabotage, identified the Caleban called "Fannie Mae" as the visible star Thyone This discovery of the Thyone-Fannie Mae identity ignited new interest in the Caleban Question and thus contributed to the exposure of the Dosadi Experi use of Sentients by Sentients in ConSentient history Certainly, it res ever performed, and the issue of informed consent has never been settled to everyone&039;s satisfaction
- From the first public account, the Trial of Trials
Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claie into its inexorable motion
- Gowachin aphorism
"Why are you so cold and mechanical in your Human relationships?"
Jorj X McKie was to reflect on that Caleban question later Had she been trying to alert hiation of that experiht do to him? He hadn&039;t even known about Dosadi at the time and the pressures of the Caleban communications trance, the accusatory tone she took, had precluded other considerations
Still, it rankled He didn&039;t like the feeling that he ht be a subject of her research into Huht of that particular Caleban as his friend - if one could consider being friendly with a creature whose visible nitude yellow sun visible froe maintained its headquarters And there was inevitable discomfort in Caleban co trance while they made their words appear in your consciousness
But his uncertainty re beyond the plain content of her words?
When the weather o outdoors immediately afterward and stroll in the park enclosure which BuSab provided for its employees on Central Central As a Saboteur Extraordinary, McKie had free run of the enclosure and he liked the fresh smells of the place after a rain
The park covered about thirty hectares, deep in a well of Bureau buildings It was a scras cut by wide paths which circled and twisted through specimens from every inhabited planet of the known universe No care had been taken to provide a particular area for any sentient species If there was any plan to the park it was asimilar conditions and care held in their own sectors Giant Spear Pines from Sasak occupied a knoll near one corner surrounded by mounds of Flame Briar from Rudiria There were bold stretches of lawn and hidden scraps of lawn, and soreenery which were not lawns at all but mobile sheets of predatory leaf imprisoned behind thin moats of caustic water
Rain-jeweled flowers often held McKie&039;s attention to the exclusion of all else There was a single planting of Liliu shadows over a wriggling carpet of blue Syringa, eachat rando for air
Soress and held him in a momentary olfactory thralldom while his eyes searched out the source As often as not, the plant would be a dangerous one - a flesh eater or poison-sweat variety Warning signs in flashing Galach guarded such plantings Sonabarriers,paths in many areas
McKie had a favorite spot in the park, a bench with its back to a fountain where he could sit and watch the shadows collect across fat yellow bushes fro islands of Tandaloor The yellow bushes thrived because their roots ashed in running water hidden beneath the soil and renewed by the fountain Beneath the yellow bushes there were faint gleams of phosphorescent silver enclosed by a force field and identified by a low sign:
"Sangeet Mobilus, a blood-sucking perennial froer to all sentient species Do not intrude any portion of your body beyond the force field"
As he sat on the bench, McKie thought about that sign The universe often erous This was a deliberate rant and benign Golden Iridens, had been eet Mobilus The two supported each other and both thrived The ConSentient government which McKie served often made such n
He listened to the plashing of the fountain while the shadows thickened and the tiny border lights cas beyond the park became a palette where the sunset laid out its final display of the day
In that instant, the Caleban contact caught him and he felt his body slip into the helpless communications trance The mental tendrils were iht, as he often had, what an improbable name that was for a star entity He heard no sounds, but his hearing centers responded as to spoken words, and the inward gloas unmistakable It was Fannie Mae, her syntax fartheir earliest encounters
"You ad his attention on the sun which had just set beyond the buildings
"I try not to think of any star as a Caleban," he responded "It interferes with my awareness of the natural beauty"
"Natural? McKie, you don&039;t understand your oareness, nor even how you e, unlike any previous contact with this Caleban he&039;d thought of as friend And she eh showing off, parading her understanding of his language
"What do you want, Fannie Mae?"
"I consider your relationships with fee relationships which nuht Yes Why do you"
"I a towardintensity in her question He owed his life to this Caleban with an improbable name For that ether, they&039;d resolved the Whipping Star threat Now, s le step from planet to planet, but once Fannie Mae had held all of those juh the odd honor code by which Calebans ations And McKie had saved her life He had but to think about their past interdependence and a warm sense of camaraderie suffused him
Fannie Mae sensed this
"Yes, McKie, that is friendship, is love Do you possess this feeling toward Huered hi? His private sexual relationships were no concern of hers!
"Your love turns easily to anger," she chided
"There are limits to how deeply a Saboteur Extraordinary can allow himself to be involved with anyone"