Trying to conceal his rage, Ajidica stammered, “I am in perfect health.”
“Hm-m-m-ah, I would say that your continued health depends upon how well things are going here. The sooner you complete Project Amal, the sooner you will be able to breathe fresh air again back on beautiful Tleilax. When was the last time you were there?”
“A long time ago,” Ajidica admitted. “You cannot know what it looks like. No powin”— he caught himself—“no outsider has ever been permitted beyond the spaceport.”
Fenring simply answered with a maddening, too-knowing smile. “Just show me what you have done here, so that I can report to Shaddam.”
At a doorway Ajidica raised his arm to block Fenring’s passage. The Tleilaxu closed his eyes and reverently kissed the door. The brief ritual deactivated the deadly security systems, and the door melted into narrow cracks in the wall.
“You may enter safely now.” Ajidica stepped aside to let Fenring cross into a white smoothplaz room, where the Master Researcher had set up a number of demonstrations to show the progress of the experiments. In the center of the enormous oval room sat a high-resolution microscope, a metal rack containing laboratory bottles and vials, and a red table holding a dome-shaped object. Ajidica saw intense interest in Fenring’s overlarge eyes as he approached the demonstration area. “Don’t touch anything, please.”
Subtle treacheries hung thick in the air, and this Imperial powindah would never see or comprehend them until it was too late. Ajidica intended to solve the riddle of the artificial spice, then escape with the sacred axlotl tanks to a safe planet in the farthest reaches of the Imperium. He had made a number of clever arrangements without revealing his identity, using promises and bribes, transferring funds . . . all without the knowledge of his superiors on the Bene Tleilax homeworlds. He was alone in this.
He had decided that there were heretics among his own people, followers who had adopted their identity as downtrodden scapegoats so well that they had forgotten the heart of the Great Belief. It was like a Face Dancer who had disguised himself so well, he had forgotten who he truly was. If Ajidica meekly allowed such people access to his great discovery of amal, they would surrender the one thing that would gain them the supremacy they deserved.
Ajidica planned to continue in his role, until he was ready. And then he could take the artificial spice, control it himself, and help his people and their mission . . . whether they wanted him to or not.
Count Fenring murmured as he leaned close to the dome-shape on the table. “Most intriguing. Something is inside, I presume, hmmm-ah?”
“Something is inside of everything,” Ajidica replied.
He smiled inwardly as he imagined a glut of artificial spice flowing into the interplanetary marketplace, wreaking economic havoc within CHOAM and the Landsraad. Like a tiny leak in a dam, a bit of inexpensive melange would ultimately become a raging torrent to turn the Imperium upside down. If played right, Ajidica would be the kingpin of the new economic and political order— not to serve himself, of course, but to serve God.
The magic of our God is our salvation.
Ajidica smiled at Count Fenring, revealing sharp teeth. “Rest assured, Count Fenring, our goals in this matter are mutual.”
In time, wealthy beyond imagining, Ajidica would develop tests to determine loyalty to his new regime, and he would begin assimilating the Bene Tleilax. Though it was too dangerous to bring them into his scheme now, he had several candidates in mind. With proper military support— perhaps even converts among the Sardaukar stationed here?— he might even set up headquarters in the lovely capital city of Bandalong. . . .
Fenring continued to snoop at the demonstration equipment. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘Trust but verify’? It’s from Old Terra. You’d be surprised at the little tidbits I pick up. My Bene Gesserit wife collects objects, knickknacks and the like. I collect pieces of information.”
The Tleilaxu’s narrow face twisted into a frown. “I see.” He needed to finish this annoying inspection as quickly as possible. “If you will look over here, please.” Ajidica removed an opaque plaz vial from the rack and lifted the lid, letting out a strong odor reminiscent of raw ginger, bergamot, and clove. He passed the container to Fenring, who peered at a thick, orangish substance.
“Not quite melange,” Ajidica said, “though chemically it has many spice precursors.” He poured the syrup on a scanning plate, inserted it into the microscope reader, then beckoned Fenring to look through the eyepiece. The Count saw elongated molecules connected to one another like the strands of a cable.
“An unusual protein chain,” the Master Researcher said. “We are close to a breakthrough.”
“How close?”
“The Tleilaxu also have sayings, Count Fenring: ‘The closer one gets to a goal, the farther off it appears to be.’ In matters of scientific research, time has a way of stretching. Only God possesses intimate knowledge of the future. The breakthrough could occur in a matter of days, or years.”
“Double-talk,” Fenring muttered. He fell silent when Ajidica pressed a button at the base of the dome.
The foggy surface of the plaz cleared, revealing sand on the bottom of the container. The Tleilaxu researcher pressed another button, filling the interior with a fine dust. The sand moved, a tiny mound in motion that surfaced, like a fish emerging from murky water. A worm-shape the size of a small snake, it was a little over half a meter in length, with tiny crystal teeth.
“Sandworm, immature form,” Ajidica said, “nineteen days from Arrakis. We don’t expect it to survive much longer.”
From the top of the dome, a box dropped to the sand on a hidden suspensor, then opened to reveal more of the glistening orange gelatin. “Amal 1522.16,” Ajidica said. “One of our many variations— the best we’ve developed so far.”
Fenring watched as the mouth of the immature worm quested left and right, revealing glimmering thorns far back in its gullet. The creature slithered toward the orange substance, then stopped in confusion and didn’t touch it. Presently it turned and burrowed back into the sand.
“What is the relationship between the sandworms and the spice?” Fenring asked.
“If we knew that, we would have the puzzle solved. If I were to put real spice in that enclosure, the worm would consume it in a primal frenzy. Still, though the worm can identify the difference, at least it did approach the sample. We tempted the beast, but did not satisfy it.”
“Nor did your little demonstration satisfy me. I am told that there continues to be an Ixian underground movement, causing difficulties. Shaddam is concerned about interference with his most important plan.”
“A few rebels, Count Fenring— inadequately funded, with limited resources. Nothing to worry about.” Ajidica rubbed his hands together.
“But they have sabotaged your communications systems and destroyed a number of facilities, hmmm?”
“The death throes of House Vernius, no more. It has been well over a decade, and soon it will die down. They cannot get near this research pavilion.”
“Well, your security worries are over, Master Researcher. The Emperor has agreed to dispatch two additional legions of Sardaukar, as peacekeepers, led by Bashar Cando Garon, one of our best.”
A look of alarm and surprise came over the diminutive Tleilaxu. His pinched face reddened. “But that isn’t necessary, sir. The half legion already in place is more than sufficient.”
“The Emperor does not agree. These troops will emphasize the importance of your experiments to him. Shaddam will do anything to protect the amal program, but his patience has run out.” The Count’s eyes narrowed. “You should think of this as good news.”
“Why is that? I do not understand.”
“Because the Emperor has not yet ordered your execution.”
A center for the coordination of rebellion can be mobile; it does not need to be a permanent place where people meet.
— CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile
&n
bsp; Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments
The Tleilaxu invaders had instituted a brutal curfew for anyone not assigned to the late work shift. For C’tair Pilru, slipping away to attend the hushed rebellion meetings was just another way to thumb his nose at their restrictions.
At the freedom fighters’ irregular, carefully guarded gatherings, C’tair could finally remove his masks and disguises. He became the person he once had been, the person he remained inside.
Knowing he’d be killed if caught, the short, dark-haired man approached the meeting place. He clung to oily night shadows between blocky buildings on the cavern floor, making no sound. The Tleilaxu had restored the projected sky on the cavern ceiling, but they had reconfigured the sparkle of stars to show the constellations over their own homeworlds. Here on Ix, even the heavens were wrong.
This was not the glorious place it should be, but a hellish prison beneath the surface of the planet. We will change all that. Someday.
During more than a decade of repression, black marketeers and revolutionaries had built their secret network. The scattered resistance groups interacted to exchange supplies, equipment, and information. But each gathering made C’tair nervous. If they were caught together, the fledgling rebellion could be snuffed out in a few moments of lasgun fire.
When possible, he preferred to work alone— as he had always done. Trusting no one, he never divulged details of his surreptitious life, not even to other rebels. He’d made private contacts with rare off-worlders at the port-of-entry canyon— openings and landing pads in the sheer cliff wall where carefully guarded ships hauled Tleilaxu products to waiting Heighliners in orbit.
The Imperium required vital items of Ixian technology, which were now manufactured under Tleilaxu control. The invaders needed the profits to finance their own work, and they could not risk outside scrutiny. Although they could not seal Ix completely away from the rest of the Imperium, the Tleilaxu used the services of very few outsiders.
Sometimes, under the direst of circumstances and at great risk to himself, C’tair could bribe one of the transport laborers to skim a shipment or snag a vital component. Other black marketeers had their own contacts, but they refused to share that information with each other. It was safer that way.
Now, slipping through the claustrophobic night, he passed an abandoned manufactory, turned onto an even darker street, and picked up his pace. The meeting was about to begin. Perhaps tonight . . .
Though it seemed hopeless, C’tair continued to find ways to strike against the Tleilaxu slave masters, and other rebels did the same. Infuriated that they could not capture any saboteurs, the masters made “examples” out of hapless suboids. After torture and mutilation, the scapegoat would be hurled off the Grand Palais balcony to the distant cavern floor, where great Heighliners had once been built. Every expression on the victim’s face, every dripping wound, was projected on the holo-sky, while recorders transmitted his wails and screams.
But the Tleilaxu understood little of the Ixian psyche. Their brutality only caused greater unrest and more incidents of violent rebellion. Over the years, C’tair could see the Tleilaxu being worn down, despite efforts to crush the resistance with shape-shifting Face Dancer infiltrators and surveillance pods. The freedom fighters continued the struggle.
Those few rebels with access to uncensored outside news reported on the activities in the Imperium. From them, C’tair learned of impassioned speeches before the Landsraad made by his father, the exiled Ixian Ambassador— little more than futile gestures. Earl Dominic Vernius, who’d been overthrown and gone renegade, had vanished completely, and his heir, Prince Rhombur, lived in exile on Caladan, without a military force and without Landsraad support.
The rebels could not count on rescue from the outside. Victory must come from inside. From Ix.
He rounded another corner, and in a narrow alleyway stepped onto a metal grating. Narrowing his dark eyes, C’tair looked from side to side, always expecting someone to spring out of the shadows. His demeanor was furtive and quick, drastically different from the cowed and cooperative routine he followed in public.
He gave the password, and the grate lowered, taking him beneath the street. He hurried down a dark corridor.
During the day shift, C’tair wore a gray work smock. He had learned how to mimic the simple, lackluster suboids over the years: He walked with a stooped gait, eyes dull with disinterest. He had fifteen identity cards, and no one bothered to study faces in the shifting masses of laborers. It was easy to become invisible.
The rebels had developed their own identity checks. They posted concealed guards outside the abandoned facility under infrared glowglobes. Transeyes and sonic detectors provided a further bubble of protection— none of which would help if the freedom fighters were discovered.
On this level, the guards were visible. When C’tair mumbled his password response, they waved him inside. Too easily. He had to tolerate these people and their inept security games in order to acquire the equipment he needed, but he didn’t have to feel comfortable about it.
C’tair scanned the meeting site— at least that had been carefully selected. This closed-down facility had once assembled combat meks to train fighters against a spectrum of tactics or weapons. But the Tleilaxu overlords had unilaterally determined that such “self-aware” machines violated the strictures of the Butlerian Jihad. Though all thinking machines had been obliterated ten thousand years before, severe prohibitions were still in effect and emotions ran high. This place and others like it had been abandoned after the revolt on Ix, production lines left to fall into disrepair. Some equipment had been cannibalized for other uses, the rest turned into scrap.
Other pursuits preoccupied the Tleilaxu. Secret work, a vast project staffed only by their own people. No one, not even members of C’tair’s resistance group, had been able to determine what the overlords had in mind.
Inside the echoing facility, flinty-eyed resistance fighters spoke in whispers. There would be no formal agenda, no leader, no speech. C’tair smelled their nervous sweat, heard odd inflections in the low voices. No matter how many security precautions they took, how many escape plans they devised, it was still dangerous to have so many gathered in one place. C’tair always kept his eyes open, aware of the nearest exit.
He had business to conduct. He’d brought a disguised satchel containing the most vital items he had hoarded. He needed to trade with other scavengers to find components for his innovative but problematic transmitter, the rogo. The prototype allowed him to communicate through foldspace with his twin brother D’murr, a Guild Navigator. But C’tair rarely succeeded in establishing contact, either because his twin had mutated so far from human . . . or because the transmitter itself was falling apart.
On a dusty metal table, he brought out weapons components, power sources, communications devices, and scanning equipment— items that would have led to his immediate execution if any Tleilaxu had stopped to ask his business. But C’tair armed himself well, and he had killed the gnomish men before.
C’tair displayed his wares. He searched the faces of the rebels, the crude disguises and intentional dirt smudges, until he spotted a woman with large eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a narrow chin. Her hair had been raggedly chopped in an effort to destroy any hint of beauty. He knew her as Miral Alechem, though that might not have been her real name.
In her face, C’tair saw echoes of Kailea Vernius, the pretty daughter of Earl Vernius. He and his twin brother had both fancied Kailea, flirted with her . . . back when they’d thought nothing would ever change. Now Kailea was exiled on Caladan, and D’murr was a Guild Navigator. The twins’ mother, a Guild banker, had been killed during the takeover of Ix. And C’tair himself lived like a furtive rat, flitting from hideout to hideout. . . .
“I found the crystalpak you requested,” he said to Miral.
She withdrew a wrapped item from a sack at her waist. “I’ve got the module rods you needed, calibrated precisely .
. . I hope. I had no way of checking.”
C’tair took the packet, feeling no need to inspect the merchandise. “I can do it myself.” He handed Miral the crystalpak, but did not ask what she had in mind for it. Everyone present searched for ways to strike against the Tleilaxu. Nothing else mattered. As he exchanged a nervous glance with her, he wondered if she might be thinking the same thing he was, that under different circumstances they might have had a personal relationship. But he couldn’t allow her that close to him. Not anyone. It would weaken him and divert his resolve. He had to remain focused, for the sake of the Ixian cause.
One of the door guards hissed an alarm, and everyone fell into fearful silence, ducking low. The muted glowglobes dimmed. C’tair held his breath.
A humming sound passed overhead as a surveillance pod cruised above the abandoned buildings, trying to pick up unauthorized vibrations or movements. Shadows smothered the hiding rebels. C’tair mentally reviewed the location of every possible escape from this facility, in case he needed to duck out into the blinding darkness.
But the humming device cruised onward down the length of the city grotto. Shortly afterward, the nervous rebels stood again and began muttering to themselves, wiping sweat off their faces, laughing nervously.
Spooked, C’tair decided not to remain any longer. He memorized the coordinates for the group’s next gathering, packed up his remaining equipment, and looked around, scanning the faces once more, marking them in his mind. If they were caught, he might never see these people again.
He nodded a final time at Miral Alechem, then slipped off into the Ixian night, flitting under artificial stars. He had already made up his mind where he would spend the remainder of the sleep shift . . . and which identity he would choose for the following day.
It is said that the Fremen has no conscience, having lost it in a burning desire for revenge. This is foolish. Only the rawest primitive and the sociopath have no conscience. The Fremen possesses a highly evolved worldview centered on the welfare of his people. His sense of belonging to the community is almost stronger than his sense of self. It is only to outsiders that these desert dwellers seem brutish . . . just as outsiders appear to them.
Dune: House Harkonnen Page 7
