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There are some forms of insanity which, driven to an ultimate expression, can become the new models of sanity

- BuSab Manual

"McKie?"

It was the fah he heard and felt so) which he kneas not there

The preparation had been deceptively siht hand and her left, and each grasped one of the shi rods with the other hand

McKie did not have a ready identity for this Caleban and wondered at the questioning in her voice He agreed, however, that he was indeed McKie,

shaping the thought as subvocalized conversation As he spoke, McKie was acutely aware of Jedrik beside him She was more than just another person now He

carried a tentative si her responses

"You reement?" the Caleban asked

McKie sensed Pcharky then: a distant presence, the h Pcharky had been reduced to a schematic which the Caleban followed, a set of complex rules, many of which could not be translated into words Soh aaroused thus, de:

"Who is it that dares awakenbeside hi, the sweaty response to trance! He saw these phenoht When you walked at the edge of this abyss

While these thoughts passed through his ht shift, nowhich was not quite movement Nohile he still felt his own flesh around him, he also felt himself possessed of an inner contact with Jedrik&039;s body and knew she shared this experience

Such a panic as he had not thought possible threatened to overwhel to break the contact, to stop this hideous sharing, but they were powerless in the grip of a force which would not be stopped

No time sense attached itself to this experience, but a fatalistic calm overcame them almost simultaneously McKie felt awareness of Jedrik/flesh deepen Curiosity dominated him now

So this is wohts across an indistinct bridge

Fascination gripped McKie He probed deeper

He/She could feel hi And the differences! It was not the genitalia, the presence or lack of breasts She felt bereft of breasts He felt acutely distressed by their presence, self-consciously aware of profound implications The sense of difference went back beyond gahts, her reactions

Jedrik: "You cast your sperm upon the stream of time"

McKie: "You enclose and nurture"

"I cast / I nurture"

It was as though they looked at an object from opposite sides, aware belatedly that they both exa layers folded away, and McKie found himself in Jedrik&039;s hts were one entity

The separate Dosadi and ConSentient experiences le relationship

"Aritchah, yes You see? And your PanSpechi friend, Bildoon Note that You suspected, but now you know"

Each set of experiences fed on the other, expanding, refiningcondensing, discarding, creating

So that&039;s the training of a Legu parents

"I/ill apply pressure thereand thereThey e Yes, that will give us the required leverage Let them break their own code"

And the awakened monster stirred within them It had no dimension, no place, only existence They felt its power

"I do what I do!"

The power enveloped them No other awareness was per purpose, a force which could override any other thing in their universe It was not God, not Life, not any particular species It was so so far beyond such articulations that Jedrik/McKie could not even conte obliteration They felt a question hurled at their united, fearful awareness The question was fraer, astonishment, cold amusement, and threat

"For this you awaken o had always been slain i made amade a noise It awakened a questioner

They understood the question without words, knowing they could never grasp the fulland emotive thrust, that it would burn theerastonishmentcold amusementthreat The question as their own united mind(s) interpreted it represented a limit It was all that Jedrik/McKie could accept

The intrusive questioner receded

They were never quite sure afterhether they&039;d been expelled or whether they&039;d fled in terror, but the parting words were burned into their combined awareness

"Let the sleeper sleep"

They walked softly in their , but knew it could never be translated in its fullest threat for any other sentient being

Concurrent: McKie/Jedrik felt a projection of terror from the God Wall Caleban, unfocused, unexplained It was a new experience in the male-female collective memory Caleban Fannie Mae had not even projected this upon original McKie when she&039;d thought herself doomed

Concurrent: McKie/Jedrik felt a burntout fading fro in that terrible contact had plunged Pcharky into his death spiral Even as McKie/Jedrik realized this, the old Gowachin died It was a sla realization by McKie/Jedrik that Pcharky had shared the original decision to set up the Dosadi experi flesh which routed its h his awareness He wasn&039;t sure which of their two bodies he possessed, but it was distinct, separate It wrapped him in Human senses: the taste of salt, the smell of perspiration, and the omnipresent Warren stink One hand held cold metal, the other clasped the hand of a fellow Human Perspiration drenched this body, made the clasped hands slippery He felt that knohich hand held another hand was of utmost ie Awareness of self, this new self, and a whole lifetime of new memories, demanded all of the attention he could muster

Focus: A Rim city, never outside Jedrik&039;s control because she had fed the signals through to Gar and Tria with exquisite care, and because those who gave the orders on the Ri which had produced Jedrik She was a biological weapon whose sole target was the God Wall

Focus: Loving parents can thrust their child into deadly peril when they know everything possible has been done to prepare that child for survival

The oddity to McKie was that he felt such things as personal memories

"I did that"

Jedrik suffered the throes of si of a BuSab agent Cleveralmost adequate Complex and full of much that she found to be new, but why did it always stop short of a full develop Aand the role chosen for her appeared obvious How innocent! Jedrik felt herself free to pity Ceylang When allowed to run its course, this was an interesting emotion She had never before felt pity in uncolored purity

Focus: McKie actually loved her She savored this eht flow of selected emotions fascinated her They did not have to be bridled!

In and out of this creative exchange there wove an inti the aested a McKie/Jedrik breeding, found hi male eroticism and knew by the sensation that he retained his old body