“Before their passing,” Paul whispered. “Tell me, little sister, what is before?”
***
I’ve had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think I don’t see my own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt. I’ve insinuated my rites into the most elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad’dib! They make love in my name, are born in my name—cross the street in my name. A roof beam cannot be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree without invoking the blessing of Muad’dib!
—BOOK OF DIATRIBES FROM THE HAYT CHRONICLE
“You risk much leaving your post and coming to me here at this time,” Edric said, glaring through the walls of his tank at the Face Dancer.
“How weak and narrow is your thinking,” Scytale said. “Who is it who comes to visit you?”
Edric hesitated, observing the hulk shape, heavy eyelids, blunt face. It was early in the day and Edric’s metabolism had not yet cycled from night repose into full melange consumption.
“This is not the shape which walked the streets?” Edric asked.
“One would not look twice at some of the figures I have been today,” Scytale said.
The chameleon thinks a change of shape will hide him from anything, Edric thought with rare insight. And he wondered if his presence in the conspiracy truly hid them from all oracular powers. The Emperor’s sister, now …
Edric shook his head, stirring the orange gas of his tank, said: “Why are you here?”
“The gift must be prodded to swifter action,” Scytale said.
“That cannot be done.”
“A way must be found,” Scytale insisted.
“Why?”
“Things are not to my liking. The Emperor is trying to split us. Already he has made his bid to the Bene Gesserit.”
“Oh, that.”
“That! You must prod the ghola to …”
“You fashioned him, Tleilaxu,” Edric said. “You know better than to ask this.” He paused, moved closer to the transparent wall of his tank. “Or did you lie to us about this gift?”
“Lie?”
“You said the weapon was to be aimed and released, nothing more. Once the ghola was given we could not tamper.”
“Any ghola can be disturbed,” Scytale said. “You need do nothing more than question him about his original being.”
“What will this do?”
“It will stir him to actions which will serve our purposes.”
“He is a mentat with powers of logic and reason,” Edric objected. “He may guess what I’m doing … or the sister. If her attention is focused upon—”
“Do you hide us from the sibyl or don’t you?” Scytale asked.
“I’m not afraid of oracles,” Edric said. “I’m concerned with logic, with real spies, with the physical powers of the Imperium, with the control of the spice, with—”
“One can contemplate the Emperor and his powers comfortably if one remembers that all things are finite,” Scytale said.
Oddly, the Steersman recoiled in agitation, threshing his limbs like some weird newt. Scytale fought a sense of loathing at the sight. The Guild Navigator wore his usual dark leotard bulging at the belt with various containers. Yet … he gave the impression of nakedness when he moved. It was the swimming, reaching movements, Scytale decided, and he was struck once more by the delicate linkages of their conspiracy. They were not a compatible group. That was weakness.
Edric’s agitation subsided. He stared out at Scytale, vision colored by the orange gas which sustained him. What plot did the Face Dancer hold in reserve to save himself? Edric wondered. The Tleilaxu was not acting in a predictable fashion. Evil omen.
Something in the Navigator’s voice and actions told Scytale that the Guildsman feared the sister more than the Emperor. This was an abrupt thought flashed on the screen of awareness. Disturbing. Had they overlooked something important about Alia? Would the ghola be sufficient weapon to destroy both?
“You know what is said of Alia?” Scytale asked, probing.
“What do you mean?” Again, the fish-man was agitated.
“Never have philosophy and culture had such a patroness,” Scytale said. “Pleasure and beauty unite in—”
“What is enduring about beauty and pleasure?” Edric demanded. “We will destroy both Atreides. Culture! They dispense culture the better to rule. Beauty! They promote the beauty which enslaves. They create a literate ignorance—easiest thing of all. They leave nothing to chance. Chains! Everything they do forges chains, enslaves. But slaves always revolt.”
“The sister may wed and produce offspring,” Scytale said.
“Why do you speak of the sister?” Edric asked.
“The Emperor may choose a mate for her,” Scytale said.
“Let him choose. Already, it is too late.”
“Even you cannot invent the next moment,” Scytale warned. “You are not a creator … any more than are the Atreides.” He nodded. “We must not presume too much.”
“We aren’t the ones to flap our tongues about creation,” Edric protested. “We aren’t the rabble trying to make a messiah out of Muad’dib. What is this nonsense? Why are you raising such questions?”
“It’s this planet,” Scytale said. “It raises questions.”
“Planets don’t speak!”
“This one does.”
“Oh?”
“It speaks of creation. Sand blowing in the night, that is creation.”
“Sand blowing …”
“When you awaken, the first light shows you the new world—all fresh and ready for your tracks.”
Untracked sand? Edric thought. Creation? He felt knotted with sudden anxiety. The confinement of his tank, the surrounding room, everything closed in upon him, constricted him.
Tracks in sand.
“You talk like a Fremen,” Edric said.
“This is a Fremen thought and it’s instructive,” Scytale agreed. “They speak of Muad’dib’s Jihad as leaving tracks in the universe in the same way that a Fremen tracks new sand. They’ve marked out a trail in men’s lives.”
“So?”
“Another night comes,” Scytale said. “Winds blow.”
“Yes,” Edric said, “the Jihad is finite. Muad’dib has used his Jihad and—”
“He didn’t use the Jihad,” Scytale said. “The Jihad used him. I think he would’ve stopped it if he could.”
“If he could? All he had to do was—”
“Oh, be still!” Scytale barked. “You can’t stop a mental epidemic. It leaps from person to person across parsecs. It’s overwhelmingly contagious. It strikes at the unprotected side, in the place where we lodge the fragments of other such plagues. Who can stop such a thing? Muad’dib hasn’t the antidote. The thing has roots in chaos. Can orders reach there?”
“Have you been infected, then?” Edric asked. He turned slowly in the orange gas, wondering why Scytale’s words carried such a tone of fear. Had the Face Dancer broken from the conspiracy? There was no way to peer into the future and examine this now. The future had become a muddy stream, clogged with prophets.
“We’re all contaminated,” Scytale said, and he reminded himself that Edric’s intelligence had severe limits. How could this point be made that the Guildsman would understand it?
“But when we destroy him,” Edric said, “the contag—”
“I should leave you in this ignorance,” Scytale said. “But my duties will not permit it. Besides, it’s dangerous to all of us.”
Edric recoiled, steadied himself with a kick of one webbed foot which sent the orange gas whipping around his legs. “You speak strangely,” he said.
“This whole thing is explosive,” Scytale said in a calmer voice. “It’s ready to shatter. When it goes, it will send bits of itself out through the centuries. Don’t you see this?”
“We’ve dealt with religions before,” Edric protested. “If this new—”
“It is not just a religion!” Scytal
e said, wondering what the Reverend Mother would say to this harsh education of their fellow conspirator. “Religious government is something else. Muad’dib has crowded his Qizarate in everywhere, displaced the old functions of government. But he has no permanent civil service, no interlocking embassies. He has bishoprics, islands of authority. At the center of each island is a man. Men learn how to gain and hold personal power. Men are jealous.”
“When they’re divided, we’ll absorb them one by one,” Edric said with a complacent smile. “Cut off the head and the body will fall to—”
“This body has two heads,” Scytale said.
“The sister—who may wed.”
“Who will certainly wed.”
“I don’t like your tone, Scytale.”
“And I don’t like your ignorance.”
“What if she does wed? Will that shake our plans?”
“It will shake the universe.”
“But they’re not unique. I, myself, possess powers which—”
“You’re an infant. You toddle where they stride.”
“They are not unique!”
“You forget, Guildsman, that we once made a kwisatz haderach. This is a being filled by the spectacle of Time. It is a form of existence which cannot be threatened without enclosing yourself in the identical threat. Muad’dib knows we would attack his Chani. We must move faster than we have. You must get to the ghola, prod him as I have instructed.”
“And if I do not?”
“We will feel the thunderbolt.”
***
Oh, worm of many teeth,
Canst thou deny what has no cure?
The flesh and breath which lure thee
To the ground of all beginnings
Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire!
Thou hast no robe in all thy attire
To cover intoxications of divinity
Or hide the burnings of desire!
—WORMSONG FROM THE DUNEBOOK
Paul had worked up a sweat on the practice floor using crysknife and short sword against the ghola. He stood now at a window looking down into the temple plaza, tried to imagine the scene with Chani at the clinic. She’d been taken ill at midmorning, the sixth week of her pregnancy. The medics were the best. They’d call when they had news.
Murky afternoon sandclouds darkened the sky over the plaza. Fremen called such weather “dirty air.”
Would the medics never call? Each second struggled past, reluctant to enter his universe.
Waiting … waiting … The Bene Gesserit sent no word from Wallach. Deliberately delaying, of course.
Prescient vision had recorded these moments, but he shielded his awareness from the oracle, preferring the role here of a Timefish swimming not where he willed, but where the currents carried him. Destiny permitted no struggles now.
The ghola could be heard racking weapons, examining the equipment. Paul sighed, put a hand to his own belt, deactivated his shield. The tingling passage of its field ran down against his skin.
He’d face events when Chani came, Paul told himself. Time enough then to accept the fact that what he’d concealed from her had prolonged her life. Was it evil, he wondered, to prefer Chani to an heir? By what right did he make her choice for her? Foolish thoughts! Who could hesitate, given the alternatives—slave pits, torture, agonizing sorrow … and worse.
He heard the door open, Chani’s footsteps.
Paul turned.
Murder sat on Chani’s face. The wide Fremen belt which gathered the waist of her golden robe, the water rings worn as a necklace, one hand at her hip (never far from the knife), the trenchant stare which was her first inspection of any room—everything about her stood now only as a background for violence.
He opened his arms as she came to him, gathered her close.
“Someone,” she rasped, speaking against his breast, “has been feeding me a contraceptive for a long time … before I began the new diet. There’ll be problems with this birth because of it.”
“But there are remedies?” he asked.
“Dangerous remedies. I know the source of that poison! I’ll have her blood.”
“My Sihaya,” he whispered, holding her close to calm a sudden trembling. “You’ll bear the heir we want. Isn’t that enough?”
“My life burns faster,” she said, pressing against him. “The birth now controls my life. The medics told me it goes at a terrible pace. I must eat and eat … and take more spice, as well … eat it, drink it. I’ll kill her for this!”
Paul kissed her cheek. “No, my Sihaya. You’ll kill no one.” And he thought: Irulan prolonged your life, beloved. For you, the time of birth is the time of death.
He felt hidden grief drain his marrow then, empty his life into a black flask.
Chani pushed away from him. “She cannot be forgiven!”
“Who said anything about forgiving?”
“Then why shouldn’t I kill her?”
It was such a flat, Fremen question that Paul felt himself almost overcome by a hysterical desire to laugh. He covered it by saying: “It wouldn’t help.”
“You’ve seen that?”
Paul felt his belly tighten with vision-memory.
“What I’ve seen … what I’ve seen …” he muttered. Every aspect of surrounding events fitted a present which paralyzed him. He felt chained to a future which, exposed too often, had locked onto him like a greedy succubus. Tight dryness clogged his throat. Had he followed the witchcall of his own oracle, he wondered, until it’d spilled him into a merciless present?
“Tell me what you’ve seen,” Chani said.
“I can’t.”
“Why mustn’t I kill her?”
“Because I ask it.”
He watched her accept this. She did it the way sand accepted water: absorbing and concealing. Was there obedience beneath that hot, angry surface? he wondered. And he realized then that life in the royal Keep had left Chani unchanged. She’d merely stopped here for a time, inhabited a way station on a journey with her man. Nothing of the desert had been taken from her.
Chani stepped away from him then, glanced at the ghola who stood waiting near the diamond circle of the practice door.
“You’ve been crossing blades with him?” she asked.
“And I’m better for it.”
Her gaze went to the circle on the floor, back to the ghola’s metallic eyes.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“He’s not intended to do me violence,” Paul said.
“You’ve seen that?”
“I’ve not seen it!”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because he’s more than ghola; he’s Duncan Idaho.”
“The Bene Tleilax made him.”
“They made more than they intended.”
She shook her head. A corner of her nezhoni scarf rubbed the collar of her robe. “How can you change the fact that he is ghola?”
“Hayt,” Paul said, “are you the tool of my undoing?”
“If the substance of here and now is changed, the future is changed,” the ghola said.
“That is no answer!” Chani objected.
Paul raised his voice: “How will I die, Hayt?”
Light glinted from the artificial eyes. “It is said, m’Lord, that you will die of money and power.”
Chani stiffened. “How dare he speak thus to you?”
“The mentat is truthful,” Paul said.
“Was Duncan Idaho a real friend?” she asked.
“He gave his life for me.”
“It is sad,” Chani whispered, “that a ghola cannot be restored to his original being.”
“Would you convert me?” the ghola asked, directing his gaze to Chani.
“What does he mean?” Chani asked.
“To be converted is to be turned around,” Paul said. “But there’s no going back.”
“Every man carries his own past with him,” Hayt said.
“And every ghola?”
Paul asked.
“In a way, m’Lord.”
“Then what of that past in your secret flesh?” Paul asked.
Chani saw how the question disturbed the ghola. His movements quickened, hands clenched into fists. She glanced at Paul, wondering why he probed thus. Was there a way to restore this creature to the man he’d been?
“Has a ghola ever remembered his real past?” Chani asked.
“Many attempts have been made,” Hayt said, his gaze fixed on the floor near his feet. “No ghola has ever been restored to his former being.”
“But you long for this to happen,” Paul said.
The blank surfaces of the ghola’s eyes came up to center on Paul with a pressing intensity. “Yes!”
Voice soft, Paul said: “If there’s a way …”
“This flesh,” Hayt said, touching left hand to forehead in a curious saluting movement, “is not the flesh of my original birth. It is … reborn. Only the shape is familiar. A Face Dancer might do as well.”
“Not as well,” Paul said. “And you’re not a Face Dancer.”
“That is true, m’Lord.”
“Whence comes your shape?”
“The genetic imprint of the original cells.”
“Somewhere,” Paul said, “there’s a plastic something which remembers the shape of Duncan Idaho. It’s said the ancients probed this region before the Butlerian Jihad. What’s the extent of this memory, Hayt? What did it learn from the original?”
The ghola shrugged.
“What if he wasn’t Idaho?” Chani asked.
“He was.”
“Can you be certain?” she asked.
“He is Duncan in every aspect. I cannot imagine a force strong enough to hold that shape thus without any relaxation or any deviation.”
“M’Lord!” Hayt objected. “Because we cannot imagine a thing, that doesn’t exclude it from reality. There are things I must do as a ghola that I would not do as a man.”
Keeping his attention on Chani, Paul said: “You see?” She nodded. Paul turned away, fighting deep sadness. He crossed to the balcony windows, drew the draperies. Lights came on in the sudden gloom. He pulled the sash of his robe tight, listened for sounds behind him.
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