“Since Dalak is such a loyal subject,” Shaddam said to the Bashar, “you’d best give him the weapon. I may need him to use it in my service.”
Without questioning, Garon handed the deadly device to Dalak, who accepted it reluctantly. Shaddam saw Garon rest his hand on the hilt of his sword so that the weapon could be drawn quickly if necessary. Shaddam thought, A Sardaukar is always dependable.
In an icy tone, the fallen Emperor gave patient instructions to his son-in-law. “First, some basic information. To fire the weapon, lift that panel with one of your nice long fingernails and press the button beneath. Now, do you see where the darts come out?”
Dalak scowled at the device. “Uh… yes. Y-you want me to kill someone with this, Majesty? Who displeases you?”
“Don’t point it in the wrong direction.” He spoke as he would to a child. “Do you have the courage to use it?”
The man swallowed hard, looked at his wife, and then said with false bravado, “If you command me to do so, my Emperor.” He seemed to think he could get out of this.
“Good.” Shaddam gave his daughter a pitying glance, but she seemed intrigued rather than frightened. Although he hadn’t told Wensicia about the thefts before today, the two of them had already discussed Dalak in detail and decided he was not the complete sycophantic fool he appeared to be. “Now, access the button, point the weapon at your own head, and fire.”
“Sire!” He scowled like a stubborn little boy. “Is this some sort of test?”
“Yes, a test. You have already proved your flaws and your guilt. Can you prove your loyalty?” Shaddam turned to the Sardaukar commander. “Bashar Garon, are you willing to give your life if House Corrino requires it?”
“Always, Sire.”
“So, a mere soldier is more loyal than my own son-in-law. Wensicia, you have made a bad choice of husbands.”
“He was supposed to be more than that,” Wensicia said.
“Marrying him should have been a peace offering to Count Fenring, but apparently Hasimir is no more impressed with this man than I am. Therefore, I see little point in keeping him around. Dalak has done his duty, gotten you pregnant so that you bore me a male heir, at last.” He looked over at the crates of recovered family treasures. “But I shall not abide treachery against me, and I despise thieves.”
The young man was both angry and terrified. “If this is how the Imperial family sees me, then I will gladly leave Salusa Secundus.”
“You’ll leave, but not in the manner you’d prefer.” Shaddam nodded to the stoic Sardaukar commander, feigning terror. “Oh dear, Bashar! Look, this man is pointing a deadly weapon in my presence! Protect us from this fanatic and his dart pistol. Kill him.”
Dalak dropped the weapon as if it had stung him, and he raised his hands, backing away. “I am not armed. I am no threat.”
Hesitantly, Bashar Garon slid his Sardaukar sword from its scabbard. The well-honed blade gleamed in the light of the room. “Are you certain, Sire? I would rather blood this in battle, than against an unarmed fool.”
“But you will do it if I command you?”
Garon did not look pleased. “Of course.”
“Oh, enough of this!” Wensicia snatched the dart pistol from the floor and without flinching fired an array of tiny darts into her husband’s chest. Little flowers of red bloomed on his shirt, and he dropped to his knees, crying and whining. She leaned close to his ashen face, as if she meant to give him a last kiss on the cheek. “When he grows older, I’ll tell Farad’n what a gallant, strong man his father was, and how you died defending us. History sometimes requires little fictions like that. We’ll say that one of those renegade prisoners broke through security, and you saved us all.”
Dalak wasn’t listening anymore. He slumped to the floor and died.
“So much easier than a divorce.” Wensicia tossed the dart pistol at the body. Watching her, both surprised and impressed, Shaddam thought this daughter was better suited to ruling than her older sister Irulan was.
As Garon resheathed his still-clean sword, Shaddam noticed that the soldier looked troubled by what he had just witnessed. “I apologize for this unpleasantry, Bashar, but it was unavoidable. A matter of cleaning house.”
The craggy-faced commander bowed his head in acknowledgement. “There is still the matter of sending a representative to Muad’Dib’s Great Surrender ceremony, Sire.”
Briefly, Shaddam considered sending the dead body of Dalak — now that would be an insult! “Does the summons require my ambassador to be alive?”
“I will go,” Wensicia said, a little too eagerly. “As the daughter of Shaddam Corrino IV, I will speak on your behalf.”
Rugi burst into the room carrying the baby, even though she had not been summoned. The teether in Farad’n’s mouth had once been used by Rugi herself, and bore a golden lion crest. Seeing the dead body on the floor, she almost dropped the child. “Oh! What happened to poor Dalak?”
“A terrible accident,” Wensicia said. “Lock the door behind you, please.”
Rugi did so. Nervously, the young woman with light brown hair stepped around the corpse and passed the child to Wensicia. “Your poor husband! Shouldn’t we call someone?”
“There’s nothing to be done.” Wensicia brushed the baby’s dark hair out of his eyes. “You are not to discuss this with anyone until I have given you instructions. But first we are deciding who will go to a party.”
Rugi’s face showed her confusion. “We’re having a party?”
Shaddam smiled at the baby and said, “Perhaps we should send little Farad’n. No mistaking that message.”
Wensicia vehemently shook her head. “Farad’n is your only male heir, Father! He would be too vulnerable on Arrakis. Irulan might even kill the baby out of jealousy, since she hasn’t been able to bear an heir of her own.”
Shaddam paced in front of the window, then focused his gaze on Rugi. The youngest and most worthless of the brood he’d had with Anirul, Rugi was meek and empty-headed. Before his downfall on Arrakis he had expected to marry her into an important Landsraad house, but since the exile of the Corrino leader, suitors were likely to be men as dismal as Dalak Zor-Fenring.
The former Padishah Emperor smiled to himself. Perhaps Rugi might be useful to him after all. Sending his youngest and least valued daughter to the Great Surrender would also convey a clear message to Muad’Dib.
3
It is a delusion to believe that anyone can be controlled completely.
—the PRINCESS IRULAN, private observation
In the weeks after they met Dr. Ereboam’s Kwisatz Haderach candidate, Count Fenring was interested to learn more about how the Tleilaxu had applied Twisting procedures to Thallo in an attempt to control him. With little Marie in tow, the Count and Lady Margot followed the albino researcher into an organic-looking, eight-story building filled with exotic testing machinery.
There, in a laboratory chamber, a large machine whirled an experimental subject around and around inside an oval capsule attached to a long metal arm. The capsule went up and down, in and out and around, subjecting the occupant to very high accelerations and gravitational stresses.
Marie stared at the contraption. “I would like to try that.”
Lady Margot felt immediately protective. “Not now, dear child. It isn’t safe.”
“We would never subject our Kwisatz Haderach to anything unsafe.” Dr. Ereboam’s pinkish eyes followed the spinning, swooping pod. “It is primarily a centrifuge procedure, combined with precise bursts of finely calibrated energy that penetrate certain areas in the endorphin-infused brain. Think of it as a sorting and filing process. This technique isolates specific portions of the mind, closing off unproductive neural pathways and synapses, while opening others. We have empirical data to prove that such exposure improves both mental and physical performance. Our techniques have proved effective for centuries.”
Fenring, though, had his doubts. Thallo might have followed a carefully prescrib
ed genetic blueprint, but he was not as impressive as Lady Margot’s own perfect little daughter. Smiling, the Count tousled the golden hair of the girl whose intelligent eyes continued to study everything around her.
When Ereboam turned off the machine, the lithe and muscular Thallo emerged, his body still covered by a beige filmsuit. He didn’t look the slightest bit disoriented from the stressful experiment. When he fixed his gaze on Marie’s, she met it with her pale blue eyes, unwaveringly. A strange spark seemed to pass between them.
As Thallo approached, the two continued to stare at each other. Much taller, the Tleilaxu candidate carried himself with a casual, almost derisive demeanor.
“We could be taught together,” she suggested. Considering the intense training he and his wife were already giving the girl, Fenring was not averse to adding another advantage to Marie’s personal arsenal. In order to succeed — with or without the Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach candidate — she would have to be the most precisely trained individual in the Imperium.
Ereboam found the idea intriguing. “In the years you have lived among us, Count, your Marie is one of the most interesting subjects I have ever seen. She could be an effective catalyst for Thallo’s training.”
“And vice versa,” Fenring suggested.
***
“THEY WATCH EVERYTHING we do.” Thallo covered his own mouth and was careful not to gesture toward the poorly disguised observation plate mounted high on the wall of their enclosed exercise chamber. “They conceal themselves up there, several men at a time. Thus, the observers themselves affect their experiment. Appallingly poor science.”
Marie looked, not caring if she was noticed by the ubiquitous Tleilaxu. During the six years of her life, she’d grown accustomed to having someone monitor her constantly, whether it was her parents, Tonia Obregah-Xo, or unseen spies. Usually, she didn’t even think about it. The blank observation plate made no response.
Keeping his hand partially in place, Thallo smiled at her. “They don’t see everything they believe they see. I have disrupted their viewing images, added special induction subsonics.”
Marie was intrigued. “You can manipulate their technology?”
“They think they have taught me everything, though I have learned much more on my own.” He looked at the observation window with a hint of scorn. “By manipulating their technology, I can manipulate them.” He seemed troubled. “They consider me to be perfect, yet they always underestimate what I can do. They don’t even see the contradiction in their own actions.”
“And are you perfect?”
He lowered his voice, revealing a secret. “Nothing can be perfect. It is an insult to the universe.” He turned his back to the observation window, then slowly rolled up the stretching, flexible beige fabric of his sleeves to reveal vivid red cuts that marred the pale skin of his arms, interlaced with the scars of older injuries that had healed over.
She leaned closer, her eyes wide. “Was it an accident?”
“I’ve got more underneath.” He stroked his leotard-covered chest and legs. “Flaws disguise the myth of perfection.” He chuckled. “Dr. Ereboam knows, but he has kept it secret from his fellow Masters. He tries to hide sharp objects from me, but I always find alternatives. Your fingernails, for example. They’ve trimmed mine, but I could use yours.”
“You want me to help cut you?” She was curious, intrigued.
“Not now.” Moving with an eerie speed and grace, he led her toward a set of metal stairs up to the walkway circling the chamber. He stopped directly in front of the opaque observation film and stared at it, as if he could see inside.
Pressing her face against the barrier, Marie tried to discern even a shadow of the watchers on the other side, but could see only murky darkness. Thallo pressed his palm against the window, bulging his muscles until the barrier flexed inward, but he did not break it. The girl wondered what the observers thought they were seeing.
Quickly bored with that amusement, the two playmates crawled across pipe conduits in the ceiling and dangled high above the floor. Though a fall from such a height would surely be harmful, if not fatal, no panicked guards or researchers rushed in to stop them.
“Don’t be afraid,” Thallo said. “The Masters will not allow me to come to harm.”
To Marie’s alarm, he leaped away from the ceiling pipe and into the open air, dropping heedlessly toward the floor ten meters below. But before he could crash onto the hard surface, an emergency suspensor field cushioned him and lowered him gently to the floor. She wondered when and how he had discovered the unexpected safety net, and whether he had fallen by accident just now… or if he had tried to kill himself.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Marie jumped as well, throwing herself into what would have been a suicidal fall, had it not been thwarted by the safety system. As she got to her feet, delighted, she saw Thallo sitting on the floor, looking as if all the elation had drained out of him. “I am only a candidate. They hope to perfect me, but if I fail, they will try again. And again.”
“Fail at what?” She sat beside him. “What do they plan to do with you?”
“I am supposed to be their Kwisatz Haderach.” His brown eyes glittered. “When they give me large doses of melange, I sometimes see multiple futures for mankind. One of them always clears up, like sunlight cutting through fog, and I see myself as the Emperor of the Known Universe. That is what they want — for me to be their puppet, after I overthrow Muad’Dib.”
“Very ambitious.” She did not doubt him for a moment. Her parents had said they wanted her to eventually sit on Muad’Dib’s throne, so why were they cooperating with the Tleilaxu now? Did they expect Marie to be Thallo’s consort someday?
“But because I can see the future, I know that I will not succeed. Therefore, I am not perfect.” Thallo’s voice trailed off and his shoulders sagged, as if the immensity pressed down upon him.
On impulse, Marie reached out and slashed a fingernail across his cheek, a wound that his filmsuit could not cover. Thallo recoiled. Then, seeing the blood flow, he grinned at her. “Friends,” he said.
Moments later, Dr. Ereboam hurried into the chamber alongside Marie’s parents. “Why did you do that to him?” the albino researcher demanded, grabbing Thallo’s head and studying the deep scratch on his cheek. He wiped away the small amount of blood and sprayed a substance on the wound.
“We were just playing,” Marie said sweetly. “It was an accident.” She exchanged glances with her mother, who frowned disapprovingly.
Lady Margot had taught her daughter in the use of fingernails as a Bene Gesserit fighting skill.
Thallo agreed. “Just an accident.”
“Have the girl’s nails trimmed,” Dr. Ereboam demanded.
“I will not,” her mother said.
“She cannot really harm Thallo, hmmm?” Fenring said. “If he is to be your Kwisatz Haderach, he shouldn’t be afraid of a little girl.”
Marie put on the most innocent, cherubic expression she could manage.
***
IN ENSUING DAYS, Marie and Thallo were permitted to spend time with each other regularly. The Tleilaxu researchers established what they called “interactive scenarios” that sometimes put them together in formal laboratory chambers, while at other times their interactions were more casual and unchoreographed.
They played games, running through common rooms and corridors. The pair even ate meals together, during which Marie once started throwing food just to shock the observers, pretending to be a child having a tantrum. Noodles, stew, fruit, drinks, and plastic table settings flew back and forth. Finally, laughing, she and Thallo sat together in a mess on the floor… and she surreptitiously pressed a small item into his hand.
“Here. My mother gave it to me for self-protection,” Marie whispered, keeping a hand over her mouth to cover her moving lips. “Use it to do little things to yourself. Keep the Masters from controlling you.”
It was a multitool containing a tiny knife, an ignit
er to inflict minor burns, and a long thread that could be discharged and extended as an electronic whip. In the supposed privacy of his room, he could cut, burn, and flagellate himself to his heart’s content — until someone forcibly stopped him. Nodding thankfully, he slipped it into a pocket.
Thallo whispered to her, “Someday I’m going to make an extravagant gesture that will really upset the Masters. I want them to be sorry they ever created me. As my friend — my best friend — you should help me.”
4
With his wealth and power on Kaitain, my father could dispatch great armies to make entire worlds tremble, and he could command the execution of any ambassador who offended him. He preferred to be feared rather than loved, even by his own family. Sequestered with my sisters in the Imperial Palace, I saw Shaddam IV as a distant figure who would have much preferred to have sons.
—from In My Father’s House by the PRINCESS IRULAN
The lack of fanfare that greeted the embarrassingly small ship from Salusa Secundus was a snub to House Corrino. Even so, Irulan went on her own initiative to greet the vessel and whichever representative Shaddam IV had sent for the Great Surrender ceremony. She was convinced that her father would not have come himself.
When she left the citadel for the spaceport, Irulan considered doing so without any extravagant ceremony, dressing in common clothing. After all, Paul apparently liked to walk among the people, letting himself be swallowed up in the populace and pretending to be one of them, as when he went off on his foolish stunt, posing as a soldier on the battlefield of Ehknot. He thought it brought him close to his subjects.
But Irulan did not want to navigate her way through the press of people unguarded, where the dust and the stench of unwashed bodies would fill her every breath. She was the daughter of one Emperor and the wife of another, and insisted on maintaining appearances for her family, even if no one else did. Sometimes she felt that appearances were all she had left.
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