Hunters Of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  Garimi shot her a sour glance. "Don't start going soft on me," she husked. "This is more than just a baby. In that crib lies a beast, not a mere child."

  "But we do not know where or when the Tleilaxu acquired the cells to make this ghola. How could scrapings have been stolen from the immense God Emperor? If that was truly where the cells came from, why wasn't he born as a half man, half sandworm? More likely, they kept secret samplings of the boy Leto's cells from before he underwent his transformation. That means this child is technically still an innocent, his cells taken from an innocent body. Even when he gets his memories back, he will not be the hated God Emperor."

  Garimi glowered at her. "Do we dare take that risk? Even as children, Leto II and his twin sister Ghanima had special and awesome powers of prescience. No matter what else, this is still an Atreides. He still has all the genetic markers that led to two dangerous Kwisatz Haderachs. That cannot be denied!" Her voice began to grow too loud. Glancing down at the stirring child, Garimi saw his bright eyes looking at her with a startling sentience, his mouth slightly open. Leto seemed to know why she was there. He recognized her . . . and yet he did not flinch.

  "If he is prescient," Stuka said uncertainly, "then maybe he knows what we're going to do to him."

  "I was thinking exactly the same thing."

  As if in response, one of the monitoring alarms bleeped, and Garimi raced to the controls in order to bypass them. She could not allow a signal to alert the Suk doctors. "Quickly! We have no more time. Do it now--or I will!"

  The other woman picked up a thick pillow and raised it above the baby's face. Garimi frantically worked at the alarm panel as Stuka pushed the pillow down to smother him.

  Then Stuka screamed, and Garimi whirled to see a brief flash of tan segments, a writhing shape that rose up from the monitoring cradle. Stuka recoiled in panic. The pillow in her hands was shredded, its fabric spraying out in tatters.

  Garimi couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her vision seemed to be doubled, as if two separate things were occurring in the same place at the same time. A wide-ringed mouth of tiny crystalline teeth lashed out from the crib, striking the broad-shouldered woman in the side. There was a splash of blood. Gulping panicked breaths, Stuka clutched at a gash that ripped through her robes and laid open the skin down to the ribs.

  Garimi stumbled forward, but by the time she got to the small bed she saw only the quietly resting child Leto. The boy lay back, gazing up at her calmly with his bright eyes.

  Ceasing her cries of pain, Stuka used her Bene Gesserit abilities to stop the flow of blood from the jagged tear in her side. She fought for balance as she reeled away from the crib, her eyes wide. Garimi looked from her back to the child in its cradle. Had she truly seen Leto transform into a sandworm?

  There were no surveillance images. Garimi could never prove what she thought she had seen. But how else to explain Stuka's wound?

  "What are you, little Tyrant?" Garimi saw no blood on the small fingers or mouth. Leto blinked back at her.

  The creche door burst open, and Duncan Idaho swept in, followed by two proctors and Sheeana. Duncan stood there, his face dark with anger, saw the blood, the shredded pillow, the baby in its crib. "What in the seven hells are you doing here?"

  Garimi backed away from the crib, keeping her distance, afraid that little Leto might turn into the vision worm again and attack. Looking at Duncan's fiery eyes, she almost concocted a lie that Stuka had come to kill the baby and that she, Garimi, had arrived in time to defend the child. But that lie would crumble quickly upon further examination.

  Instead, she drew herself up straight. A Suk doctor arrived in response to the alarms Duncan had triggered. After checking the baby, she went to where Stuka had collapsed in fatigue. Sheeana peeled away the tattered robe to expose the deep gash that had bled extensively before Stuka--in a surge of energy--managed to staunch the flow. Duncan and the proctors stared at it in awe.

  Garimi tore her gaze away, now more fearful of Leto II than ever. She gestured angrily at the cradle. "I suspected this child was a monster before. Now I have no doubt whatsoever."

  Despite the words of egalitarians, all humans are not the same. Each of us contains a unique mix of hidden potential. In times of crisis, we must discover these abilities before it is too late.

  --BASHAR MILES TEG

  D

  uring the uproar that followed the attempt on young Leto's life, Miles Teg watched the predictable power plays among the Bene Gesserit.

  The initial escape from Chapterhouse had made them set aside their differences for a time, but over the years factions had formed, and festered like unhealed wounds. The schism grew as time passed and the ghola children provided a powerful wedge. In recent years, Teg had observed smoldering embers of uneasiness and resistance among Garimi's faction, centered around the new gholas. The crisis over Leto II had been like touching an igniter to kindling soaked with accelerant.

  Teg's mother had raised him on Lernaeus, guiding him in Bene Gesserit ways. Janet Roxbrough-Teg was loyal to the Sisterhood, though not mindlessly so. She taught her son useful skills, showed him how to protect himself from Bene Gesserit tricks, and made him aware of how the ambitious women schemed. A true Bene Gesserit would take any necessary action to achieve a desired goal.

  But the attempted murder of a child? Teg was concerned that even Sheeana had miscalculated the risks.

  Garimi and Stuka stood defiantly in the boxes of the accused, not bothering to hide their guilt. The heavy doors of the large audience chamber were sealed, as if someone feared the two women might try to flee the no-ship. The thick air in the confined room had the sour, pungent odor of melange exuded from perspiration. The other women were quite agitated, and even most of the conservative faction had turned against Garimi, for now.

  "You have acted against the Sisterhood!" Sheeana gripped the edge of the podium. Her voice projected loud and clear as she raised her chin, her blue-within-blue eyes flashing. She had tied back her thick, copper-streaked hair, revealing the dusky skin of her face. Sheeana was not much older than Garimi, but as acting leader of the shipboard Bene Gesserits, she projected the authority of much greater age. "You have broken a trust. Do we not have enough enemies already?"

  "It seems you do not see all of them, Sheeana," Garimi said. "You create new ones in our own axlotl tanks."

  "We have welcomed disagreement and discussion, and we have made our decision--as Bene Gesserits! Are you a tyrant yourself, Garimi, whose wishes simply tread over the will of the majority?"

  Even the staunch conservatives grumbled at that. Garimi's knuckles turned white as she stood there.

  From the front row next to Duncan, Teg observed with his Mentat abilities. The plazmetal bench beneath him was unyielding, but he hardly felt it. Young Leto II had been brought into the gathering chamber. An eerily quiet child, his bright eyes watched all activities around him.

  Sheeana continued, "These historical gholas may be our chance for survival, and you tried to kill the one who could be the greatest help of all!"

  Garimi scowled. "My dissent is a matter of record, Sheeana."

  "Disagreement is one thing," Teg said aloud, his voice carrying the weight of command. "Attempted assassination is quite another."

  Garimi glared at the Bashar for interrupting. Stuka spoke. "Is it assassination when one kills a monster instead of a human?"

  "Have a care," Duncan said. "The Bashar and I are also gholas."

  "I do not call him a monster because he is a ghola," Garimi said, gesturing toward the toddler. "We saw him! He carries the Worm within him. That innocent baby transformed into a creature that attacked Stuka. You have all seen her wounds!"

  "Yes, and we have heard your imaginative explanation." Sheeana's voice dripped with skepticism.

  Garimi and Stuka looked deeply offended and turned to the Sisters in the raised benches, lifting their hands for support. "We are still Bene Gesserit! We are well-trained in observation and in the mani
pulation of beliefs and superstitions. We are not frightened children. That . . . abomination transformed into a worm to defend himself from Stuka! Ask us to repeat our stories before a Truthsayer."

  "I have no doubt that you believe what you say you saw," Sheeana said.

  Speaking with utter calm, Duncan interjected, "The ghola baby has been tested--as have all the new gholas. His cellular structure is perfectly normal, exactly as we expected. We checked and double-checked the original cells from Scytale's nullentropy capsule. This is Leto II, and nothing more."

  "Nothing more?" Garimi let out a sarcastic laugh. "As if being the Tyrant is not enough? The Tleilaxu could have tampered with his genetics. We found Face Dancer cells among the other material. You know not to trust them!"

  The Tleilaxu Master was not there to defend himself against the accusations.

  Looking at Duncan, Sheeana admitted, "Such tampering has been done before. A ghola can have unexpected abilities, or an unexpected time bomb inside."

  Teg watched their attention turn to him. He was an adult now, but they still remembered his origin from the first Bene Gesserit axlotl tanks. There could be no question about his genetics. Teg had been produced under the direct control of the Bene Gesserit; no Tleilaxu had ever had an opportunity to meddle.

  None of the refugees here, not even Duncan Idaho, knew that Teg could move at impossible speeds, and that he sometimes had the ability to see no-fields that were invisible even to the most sophisticated scanners. Despite the Bashar's proven loyalty, though, the Sisterhood had too many suspicions. They saw nightmare hints of another Kwisatz Haderach everywhere.

  The Bene Gesserit are not the only ones who can keep secrets.

  He spoke up, "Yes, we all have hidden potential within us. Only fools refuse to use their potential."

  Sheeana looked hard at the stern, dark-haired Garimi, who had once been her close friend and protegee. Garimi crossed her arms, trying to control her obvious indignation.

  "Under other circumstances, I might have imposed banishment and exile. However, we cannot afford to diminish our numbers. Where would we send you? To execution? I think not. We have already split from Chapterhouse, and we've had few enough children in the intervening thirteen years. Do I dare eliminate you, Garimi, and your supporters? Crumbling factions are what one would expect from a weak and power-mad cult. We are Bene Gesserit. We are better than that!"

  "Then what do you suggest, Sheeana?" Garimi stepped out of the box of the accused and strode toward the podium where Sheeana stood. "I cannot simply ignore my convictions, and you cannot ignore our supposed crime."

  "The gholas--all of them--will be tested again. If you are proved correct that this child is a threat, then there was no crime committed. In fact, you will have saved us all. However, if you are wrong, then you will formally rescind your objections." She crossed her own arms, mirroring Garimi.

  "The Sisterhood has made its decision, and you defied it. I am fully prepared to grow another ghola of Leto II--or another ten gholas--to ensure that at least one survives. Eleven gholas of Duncan were killed before we charged the Bashar with protecting him. Is that what you want us to do, Garimi?" The look of horror in the other woman's eyes was the only answer Sheeana needed.

  "In the meantime, I assign you to watch over Leto II, as his guardian. In fact, you are now responsible for all of the gholas, as the official Proctor Superior."

  Garimi and her followers were stunned. Sheeana smiled at their disbelief. Everyone in the chamber knew that responsibility for the one-year-old boy's life now lay solely with Garimi. Teg could not control his faint smile. Sheeana had devised a perfect Bene Gesserit punishment. Garimi did not dare let anything happen to him.

  Recognizing that she was trapped, Garimi nodded curtly. "I will watch, and I will discover what dangers lurk within him. When I do, I expect you to take the necessary action."

  "Necessary action, only."

  Leto Il sat innocently in his padded chair, a small, helpless-looking baby--with thirty-five hundred years of tyrannical memories locked away inside of him.

  AFTER STARING AGAIN at "Cottages at Cordeville," Sheeana lay in her quarters, drifting in and out of sleep, her thoughts troubled and overactive. Neither Serena Butler nor Odrade had come back to whisper to her in some time, but she felt a deeper disturbance churning in Other Memory, an uneasiness. As fatigue fuzzed her thoughts, she sensed an odd sort of trap enfolding her, a vision that drew her under, more than a dream. She tried to awaken to the alarming change, but could not.

  Browns and grays swirled around her, and she saw a brightness beyond that drew her closer, pulling her body through the colors toward the light. Sounds intruded like a screaming wind, and a dry dustiness invaded her lungs, making her cough.

  Abruptly, the turmoil and noise subsided, and she found herself standing on sand, with great rolling dunes extending from the foreground to the farthest horizons. Was it the Rakis of her childhood? Or perhaps an even older planet? Oddly, though she stood barefoot in her sleeping clothes, she could not feel the surface beneath her, nor did she feel the heat from the bright sun overhead. Her throat, however, was parched.

  Surrounded by empty dunes, it seemed pointless to walk or run in any direction, and so she waited. Sheeana bent over and picked up a handful of sand. Lifting her hand high, she spilled the sand, letting it fall--but it formed an odd hourglass in the air, particles filtering slowly through an imaginary constricted opening. She watched the invisible bottom chamber begin to fill. Did it mean that time was running out? For whom?

  Convinced that this was more than a dream, she wondered if she could be experiencing a journey into Other Memory that was not just voices, but actual experiences. Tactile visions encompassed all of her senses, like reality. Had she taken a path to some other place . . . just as the no-ship had once slipped through into an alternate universe?

  As she stood in the middle of the wasteland, the sand continued to trickle through the ethereal hourglass. Would a sandworm come, if this landscape was meant to replicate the planet Dune?

  She saw a distant figure on one of the dune tops, a woman moving over the sand with a well-practiced and intentionally uneven gait, as if she had spent all her life doing it. The stranger glided down the dune face toward Sheeana, then disappeared in a valley between the undulating dunes. Moments later she reappeared on top of a closer mound of sand. The woman went down one dune and up another, coming closer to her, growing larger. In the foreground, sand continued to whisper through the bottleneck of the invisible hourglass in the air.

  Finally, the woman crested the last dune and hurried down the visible face directly toward Sheeana. Oddly, she left no footprints and spilled no loose sand.

  Now Sheeana could see that she wore an old-style stillsuit, with a black hood. Even so, a few strands of gray hair drifted around a face so dry and leathery it looked like driftwood. Her rheumy eyes were the deepest blue-within-blue Sheeana had ever seen. She must have consumed a great deal of spice for many years; she seemed incredibly ancient.

  "I speak with the voice of the multitude," the crone said in an eerie, echoing voice. Her teeth were yellow and crooked. "You know what I mean?"

  "The multitude of Other Memory? You speak for dead Sisters?"

  "I speak for eternity, for all who have lived and all who are yet unborn. I am Sayyadina Ramallo. Long ago, Chani and I administered the Water of Life to Lady Jessica, the mother of Muad'Dib." She pointed a gnarled finger toward a distant formation of rocks. "It was over there. And now you have brought them all back."

  Ramallo. Sheeana knew of the old woman, a key figure in the epic of recorded history. In sending Jessica through the Agony in a Fremen sietch, not realizing she was pregnant, Ramallo had unknowingly changed the fetus inside. The daughter, Alia, had been called an Abomination.

  The Sayyadina seemed remote, a mere mouthpiece for the turmoil in Other Memory. "Hear my words, Sheeana, and heed them closely. Be careful what you create. You bring back too much, too qui
ckly. A simple thing can have great repercussions."

  "You want me to stop the ghola project altogether?" On the no-ship, Alia's cells were also among those preserved in the Tleilaxu Master's nullentropy capsule. Ramallo in Other Memory must have seen the infamous Abomination as her greatest, most tragic error, though the old Sayyadina had not lived to know Alia.

  "You want me to avoid Alia? One of the other gholas?" Alia was to be the next ghola child created, the first of a new batch that included Serena Butler, Xavier Harkonnen, Duke Leto Atreides, and many others.

  "Caution, child. Heed my words. Take time. Proceed cautiously over dangerous terrain."

  Sheeana moved closer to the figure. "But what does that mean? Should we wait a year? Five years?"

  Just then the sand in the imaginary hourglass ran out, and old Ramallo faded to a ghostly image that lingered like a dust devil before disappearing entirely. With her, the landscape of ancient Dune dissolved as well, and Sheeana found herself in her bedchamber again, staring into the shadows with a sense of uneasiness, and no clear answers.

  Like minds do not always blend. They can be an explosive mixture.

  --MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA

  F

  or more than thirteen years now, from the time she had arrived with her Honored Matre conquerors intending to rule Chapterhouse, Doria had played the game of getting along with the witches. By now, she was quite good at it. Doria had tried to tolerate their ways and learn from them in order to turn such information against the Bene Gesserit. Gradually, she had accepted some compromises in her thought patterns, but she could not alter her fundamental core.

  Out of grudging respect for the Mother Commander, she struggled to do her best with the spice operations, as she was ordered to. Intellectually, she understood the broad plan: to increase spice wealth which, along with the flow of soostones from Buzzell, would fund the unimaginable expense of building a giant military force that could stand against all renegade Honored Matres and then the Enemy.