The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert Page A

her, caught himself, then:
    â€œOh, no! It was a precaution. I have more information to sell you.”
    â€œBut you gave me the information about McKie.”
    â€œThat was to demonstrate my value.”
    Oh, Havvy! Why do you try ?
    â€œYou have unexpected qualities,” she said, and marked that he did not even detect the first level of her irony. “What’s this information you wish to sell?”
    â€œIt concerns this McKie.”
    â€œIndeed?”
    â€œWhat’s it worth to you?”
    â€œAm I your only market, Havvy?”
    His shoulder muscles bunched as his grip grew even tighter on the steering arms. The tensions in his voice were remarkably easy to read.
    â€œSold in the right place my information could guarantee maybe five years of easy living—no worries about food or good housing or anything.”
    â€œWhy aren’t you selling it in such a place?”
    â€œI didn’t say I could sell it. There are buyers and then there are buyers.”
    â€œAnd then there are the ones who just take?”
    There was no need for him to answer and it was just as well. A barrier dropped in front of the skitter, forcing Havvy to a quick stop. For just an instant, fear gripped her and she felt her reflexes prevent any bodily betrayal of the emotion. Then she saw that it was a routine stop while repair supplies were trundled across the roadway ahead of them.
    Jedrik peered out the window on her right. The interminable repair and strengthening of the city’s fortifications was going on at the next lower level. Memory told her this was the eighth layer of city protection on the southwest. The noise of pounding
rock hammers filled the street. Grey dust lay everywhere, clouds of it drifting. She smelled burnt flint and that bitter metallic undertone which you never quite escaped anywhere in Chu, the smell of the poison death which Dosadi ladled out to its inhabitants. She closed her mouth and took shallow breaths, noted absently that the labor crew was all Warren, all Human, and about a third of them women. None of the women appeared older than fifteen. They already had that hard alertness about the eyes which the Warren-born never lost.
    A young male strawboss went by trailing a male assistant, an older man with bent shoulders and straggly grey hair. The older man walked with slow deliberation and the young strawboss seemed impatient with him, waving the assistant to keep up. The important subtleties of the relationship thus revealed were entirely lost on Havvy, she noted. The strawboss, as he passed one of the female laborers, looked her up and down with interest. The worker noted his attention and exerted herself with the hammer. The strawboss said something to his assistant, who went over and spoke to the young female. She smiled and glanced at the strawboss, nodded. The strawboss and assistant walked on without looking back. The obvious arrangement for later assignation would have gone without Jedrik’s conscious notice except that the young female strongly resembled a woman she’d once known . : . dead now as were so many of her early companions.
    A bell began to ring and the barrier lifted.
    Havvy drove on, glancing once at the strawboss as they passed him. The glance was not returned, telling Jedrik that the strawboss had assessed the skitter’s occupants much earlier.
    Jedrick picked up the conversation with Havvy where they’d left it.
    â€œWhat makes you think you could get more from me than from someone else?”
    â€œNot more … It’s just that there’s less risk with you.”
    The truth was in his voice, that innocent instrument which told so much about Havvy. She shook her head.
    â€œYou want me to take the risk of selling higher up?”

    After a long pause, Havvy said:
    â€œYou know a safer way for me to operate?”
    â€œI’d have to use you somewhere along the line for verification.”
    â€œBut I’d be under