Uxtal struggled not to show his anxiety, trying to appear knowledgeable, though he was confused about many things. Khrone had ordered the little researcher to obey the Face Dancers, and the Face Dancers had told him to do whatever the Honored Matres commanded. Uxtal wished he understood more of what was going on. Were the new Face Dancers really allied with the violent whores? Or was it another trick within a trick, cleverly veiled? He shook his aching head in dismay. The ancient scriptures warned of the impossibility of serving two masters, and now he understood that only too well.
At night Uxtal rarely had more than a few hours to rest, and when he did, his anxiety was too great to allow any real sleep. He had to fool the whores and the Face Dancers. He would grow the new ghola that Khrone insisted upon—he could do that!—and he would try to make the adrenaline-based spice alternative the Honored Matres needed, using their own formula. The manufacture of genuine melange, however, was far beyond even his imagined capabilities.
In a magnanimous gesture, Hellica had given him plenty of female bodies to use as axlotl tanks, and he had already converted the one he needed (after botching the job three times previously). So far, so good. Along with all the equipment inside the primitive laboratory, the tank should be enough for him to achieve success. Now he simply had to create the ghola and deliver it, and Khrone would reward him (he hoped).
Unfortunately, that meant his ordeal here would last a minimum of nine months. He didn’t know if he could stand it.
Suspecting Face Dancers everywhere, he started growing a child from the mysterious cells salvaged from a dead Tleilaxu Master’s damaged nullentropy capsule. Meanwhile, on a daily basis, the Matre Superior made her impatience known for her supply of melange substitute. She was jealous of every second he diverted his attention from her needs. Panicked and exhausted, Uxtal was forced to satisfy both obligations, even though he had no experience at doing either.
As soon as the unidentified ghola baby was implanted in the first functional axlotl tank, Uxtal turned his efforts toward making the spice alternative. Since the whores already knew how to create the substance, Uxtal required no breakthroughs or flashes of genius in that area. He simply needed to manufacture the chemical in great quantities. The Honored Matres couldn’t be bothered to do it for themselves.
Gazing through a one-way security window into the gray sky, Uxtal felt as if the landscape of his soul was like the charred, lifeless hills he saw in the distance. He didn’t want to be here. Someday, he would think of a way out of this.
Born to an insular religious circle, Uxtal was deeply uncomfortable around dominant women. Among the Tleilaxu race, females were raised and then converted into brainless wombs as soon as they reached reproductive maturity. That was their only purpose. Honored Matres were the polar opposite of what Uxtal considered right and proper. No one knew the origin of the whores, but their propensity for violence seemed to have been bred into them.
He wondered if some foolish renegade Tleilaxu Master had actually bred the Honored Matres to hunt down the Bene Gesserits, much as Futars were supposedly bred to hunt down Honored Matres. What if the newly grown female monsters had gotten out of control, and the result was the destruction of all sacred worlds, the enslavement of a handful of Lost Tleilaxu, everything gone wrong?
Now, trying to look like a commanding administrator, Uxtal paced through the laboratory and watched two white-smocked lab assistants tend the special ghola tank.
A new modular building had just been brought in on a lift suspensor mechanism. The new laboratory wing was three times the size of the original facility, and required tearing down the neighboring slig farmer’s fences and appropriating a portion of his land. Uxtal had expected him to object and thus incur the wrath of the Honored Matres, but he had seen the fellow—was his name Gaxhar?—meekly move his sligs to another section of land. The women also demanded that the farmer provide them with a constant supply of fresh slig meat, which he did. Uxtal took a quiet pleasure in seeing someone so downtrodden, in knowing that he was not the only one helpless in Bandalong.
In the older laboratory, captured women were chemically lobotomized and converted into breeding vats. From separate operations in the new wing, Uxtal heard the muted screams of women being tortured, because pain (technically, the adrenaline, endorphins, and other chemicals the body produced in response to pain) was a primary ingredient in the special spice the Honored Matres craved.
Matre Superior Hellica had already gone to the new chambers to oversee the niceties. “Our facility will be ready as soon as I have properly christened it.” She wore a tight-fitting gold-and-silver leotard that revealed the generous curves of her body, along with a matching cape and a jeweled headdress that looked like a crown mounted on her blonde hair.
He didn’t particularly want to know what that meant. Each time he saw the Matre Superior, Uxtal struggled not to reveal his loathing, though she must recognize it on his grayish face. For his own survival, he tried to show just the right amount of fear in her presence, but not too much. He did not grovel—at least he didn’t think so.
After a particularly loud volley of screams came from the new wing, Hellica swept through a doorway and into the laboratory section where the impregnated axlotl tank lay on its chromed table. She enjoyed looking at the single mound of sweating, odorous flesh. The Matre Superior nudged Uxtal roughly enough to knock him off balance, as if he were her comrade in arms. “Such an interesting way to treat the human body, don’t you think? Only suitable for women who are worthy of nothing else.”
Uxtal had not asked where the donor women came from. It was none of his business, and he didn’t want to know. He suspected the whores had captured several of their hated Bene Gesserit rivals out on other planets. Now, that would have been interesting to see! As bloated axlotl tanks, at least these women had gone to their proper place, to be receptacles for offspring. The ideal of a Tleilaxu female . . .
Hellica scowled upon seeing both laboratory assistants tending the one pregnant tank. “Is that project more important than mine? We are in need of our drug—do not delay!”
Both assistants froze. Bowing before her, Uxtal said immediately, “Of course not, Matre Superior. We await your pleasure.”
“My pleasure? What would you know of my pleasure?” She loomed over the little man, regarding him with her predatory gaze. “I wonder if you have the stomach for this work. All the original Masters are dead as punishment for their past crimes. Do not make me add you to that number.”
Crimes? Uxtal didn’t know what the original Tleilaxu had done to the Honored Matres to earn a hatred strong enough to warrant complete extinction. “I only know genetics, Matre Superior. Not politics.” He quickly bowed and scuttled out of her reach. “I am perfectly happy to serve you.”
Her pale eyebrows arched. “Your lot in life is to serve.”
When the past returns to us with all its glory and pain, we don’t know whether to embrace it or to flee.
—DUNCAN IDAHO,
More Than a Mentat
T
he two axlotl tanks in the no-ship’s medical center had once been Bene Gesserit females. Volunteers. Now all that remained of the women were gross mounds of flesh, their arms and legs flabby, their minds completely vacated. They were living wombs, biological factories for the creation of spice.
Teg could not look at them without feeling bleak. The air in the med center smelled of disinfectants, medicinal chemicals, and bitter cinnamon.
The Acolytes’ Manual said, “A defined need leads to a solution.” In the first year of their odyssey, the Tleilaxu Master had revealed how to manufacture melange with axlotl tanks. Knowing what was at stake, two of the refugee women had offered themselves. The Bene Gesserit always did what was necessary, even to this extent.
Years ago on Chapterhouse, Mother Superior Odrade had permitted the creation of axlotl tanks for the Sisterhood’s own ghola experiments. Volunteers were found, females who could serve the order in no better way. Fourte
en years ago, his own reborn body had emerged from one of them.
The Bene Gesserit know how to demand sacrifices of us. Somehow they make us want to do it. Teg had defeated many enemies, using his tactical genius to achieve victory after victory for the Sisterhood; his death on Rakis had been the ultimate sacrifice.
Teg continued to look at the axlotl tanks—at these women. These Sisters had also given their lives, but in a different way. And now, thanks to Scytale and his hidden nullentropy capsule, Sheeana needed more tanks.
When studying the contents of the nullentropy capsule, the Suk doctors had also discovered Face Dancer cells, which immediately cast suspicion upon the Tleilaxu Master. The frantic Scytale insisted that the process was controllable, that they could identify and select only those individuals they wished to resurrect as gholas. With his life beginning to ebb, the little Master had lost all of his bargaining power. In a moment of vulnerability, he explained how to separate Face Dancer cells from the others.
Then, once again, he begged to be allowed to grow a ghola of himself before it was too late.
Now, Sheeana paced the floor beside him in the medical center. Shoulders stiff and neck arched, she looked over at Scytale. The Tleilaxu Master was not yet comfortable with his new freedom. He seemed nervous inside the med-center, as if drowning in guilt because he had revealed so much. He had surrendered everything, and now he no longer had any control.
“Three more tanks would be best,” Scytale said, as if discussing the weather. “Otherwise, creating the group of desired gholas will take too long, one at a time, each with nine months of gestation.”
“I am confident we will find willing volunteers.” Sheeana’s voice was cold.
“When you finally begin this program, my own ghola must be first.” Scytale looked from one pale-skinned axlotl tank to the other like a doctor inspecting test tubes in a lab. “My need is greatest.”
“No,” Sheeana said. “We must first verify that what you claim is true, that these cells are indeed samples of who you say they are.”
Scowling, the diminutive man looked at Teg as if to find support from a person who claimed to worship honor and loyalty. “You know the genetics have been verified. Your own libraries and chromosome sequencers have had months to compare and catalog the cellular material I gave you.”
“Simply sifting through all those cells and choosing the first candidates is quite a task.” Sheeana sounded pragmatic. All of the identified cells had been separated into secure storage drawers in the genetic library, code-locked and placed under guard so that no one could tamper with them. “Your people were extremely ambitious in the cells they stole, dating all the way back to the Butlerian Jihad.”
“We acquired them. My people may not have had a breeding program such as yours, but we did know to watch the Atreides line. We understood that great events were about to unfold, that your longstanding search for a superhuman Kwisatz Haderach was likely to reach fruition around the time of Muad’Dib.”
“So how did you get all the cells?” Teg asked.
“For millennia, Tleilaxu workers have been handlers of the dead. Though many consider that an unclean and despised profession, we did have unprecedented access. Unless a body is completely destroyed, it is simple enough to acquire a skin scraping or two.”
At fourteen, Teg was still gangly and on his way to becoming a tall man. His voice cracked at embarrassing moments, though the thoughts and memories in his head belonged to an old man. He spoke just loudly enough for Sheeana to hear, “I would like to meet Paul Muad’Dib and his mother, the Lady Jessica.”
“That is just the beginning of what I offer,” Scytale said, aiming his glare at Sheeana. “And you did agree to my terms, Reverend Mother.”
“You will have your ghola. But I am not inclined to hurry.”
The elfin man bit his lower lip with tiny, sharp teeth. “There is a ticking clock. I must have time to create a Scytale ghola and raise it so that I can trigger his memories.”
Sheeana gave a dismissive wave. “You said yourself that you had at least a decade left, possibly fifteen years. You’ll have the best medical care. Our Bene Gesserit doctors will keep watch over your condition. The Rabbi is a retired Suk doctor, if you don’t want females tending you. In the meantime, we will test the new cells you offer us.”
“That is why you’ll need three more axlotl tanks! The conversion process will take some months, then the implantation of the embryo, then gestation. We will need to perform many tests. The sooner we produce enough gholas to allay your suspicions, the sooner you will see the truth of what I have told you.”
“And the sooner you can have your own ghola,” Teg added. He stared intently at the two axlotl tanks until he could picture the women they had been before the hideous conversion process, real females with hearts and minds. They’d had lives and dreams, and people who cared about them. Yet, as soon as the Sisterhood had declared its need, they’d offered themselves without hesitation.
Teg knew that Sheeana had only to ask for more. New volunteers would consider it an honor to give birth to heroes from the legendary days of Dune.
We are the wellspring of human survival.
—MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA
M
urbella’s scouts returned ashen-faced from a flyby of the intact coordinates found in the scuttled Honored Matre ship. Racing out to a distant star system far beyond the known limits of the Scattering, they discovered evidence of great carnage.
When Murbella received the recordings from the scouts, she watched them in her private chamber along with Bellonda, Doria, and the old Archives Mother Accadia.
“Utterly wiped out,” said the scout. Young and intense, she was a former Honored Matre named Kiria. “Even with all their military might and violence . . .” She couldn’t seem to believe what she was saying or what she had seen. Kiria installed a shigawire spool into a viewer and projected holograms in the middle of the room. “See for yourselves.”
The unidentified planet, now a charred tomb, was obviously a former Honored Matre population center, with the remnants of dozens of large cities laid out in their characteristic fashion. The inhabitants were all dead, buildings blackened, entire metropolitan sections turned to glassy craters, structures melted, spaceports cracked, and the atmosphere turned into a dark stew of soot and poisonous vapors.
“This is worse. Look.” Deeply disturbed, Kiria switched to images that showed a battlefield in space. Strewn through the orbital zone floated the wreckage of thousands of large, heavily armored ships. Bristling with weapons, these were the Honored Matres’ great vessels—all of them destroyed, littering space in a wide ring. “We scanned the wreckage, Mother Commander. All of the craft were of a similar design to the Honored Matre battleship we encountered here. We found no other types of ships. Unbelievable!”
“What is the significance of that?” Bellonda said.
Kiria snapped at her, “It means that the Honored Matres were annihilated—thousands of their best battleships—and they didn’t manage to take out a single one of the Enemy! Not a one!” She brought a fist down on the table.
“Unless the Enemy removed their own damaged warships, to keep their workings secret,” Accadia said, though the explanation did not seem likely.
“You discovered no clues about the nature of the Enemy? Or of the Honored Matres themselves?” Murbella had tried again to search through Other Memory, striving to delve into her Honored Matre past, but had encountered only mysteries and dead ends. She could trace back along the Bene Gesserit lines, following life upon life all the way back to Old Earth. But in the Honored Matre line, she found almost nothing at all.
“I gathered enough evidence to be frightened,” Kiria said. “This is clearly a force we cannot defeat. If that many Honored Matres were wiped out, what hope does the New Sisterhood have?”
“There is always hope,” old Accadia said unconvincingly, as if quoting a platitude.
“And now there is incentive as
well as a dire warning,” Murbella said. She looked at all of her advisors. “I will call a gathering immediately.”
ALMOST A THOUSAND Sisters had been invited from all over the planet, and the receiving hall had to be substantially modified for the event. The Mother Commander’s throne and all symbols of her office had been removed; soon the meaning of that gesture would become apparent to all. On the walls and vaulted ceiling, she had ordered all frescoes and other ornamentation to be covered, leaving the huge chamber with a starkly utilitarian character. A signal that they needed to focus on bare necessities.
Without explaining why, Odrade-within reminded Murbella of a Bene Gesserit axiom: “ ‘All life is a series of seemingly insignificant tasks and decisions, culminating in the definition of an individual and her purpose in life.’ ” And she followed that with another: “ ‘Each Sister is part of the larger human organism, a life within a life.’ ”
Remembering the stew of discontent that simmered among the factions even here on Chapterhouse, Murbella saw what Odrade was getting at. “When our own Sisters kill each other, more than just individuals die.”
At a recent supper, an altercation had left a Bene Gesserit dead and an Honored Matre in a deep coma. Murbella had decided to convert the comatose one into an axlotl tank to set an example, though even that was inadequate punishment for such continued, petty defiance.
As she paced the speaking hall, the Mother Commander forced herself to recall the progress she had made over the past four years since their forced fusion. She herself had required years to make the fundamental change, to accept the core teachings of the Sisterhood and see the flaws in Honored Matre methods of violence and short-term goals.
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