Frank Herbert - Dune Book 5 - Heretics of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  Use the instruments only when they are absolutely required to amplify the flesh: that was the Bene Gesserit teaching.

  "Why are we stopping?" Lucilla whispered.

  "I am listening to the night," Teg said.

  Duncan, his face a ghostly blur in the tree-filtered starlight, stared at Teg. Teg's features reassured him. They were lodged somewhere in an unavailable memory, Duncan thought. I can trust this man.

  Lucilla suspected that they were stopping here because Teg's old body demanded respite but she could not bring herself to say this. Teg said his escape plan included a way of getting Duncan to Rakis. Very well. That was all that mattered for the moment.

  She already had figured out that this sanctuary somewhere ahead of them must involve a no-ship or a no-chamber. Nothing else would suffice. Somehow, Patrin had been the key to it. Teg's few hints had revealed that Patrin was the source of their escape route.

  Lucilla had been the first to realize how Patrin would have to pay for their escape. Patrin was the weakest link. He remained behind where Schwangyu could capture him. Capture of the decoy was inevitable. Only a fool would suppose that a Reverend Mother of Schwangyu's powers would be incapable of wresting secrets from a mere male. Schwangyu would not even require the heavy persuasion. The subtleties of Voice and those painful forms of interrogation that remained a Sisterhood monopoly -- the agony box and nerve-node pressures -- those were all she would require.

  The form Patrin's loyalty would take had been clear to Lucilla then. How could Teg have been so blind?

  Love!

  That long, trusting bond between the two men. Schwangyu would act swiftly and brutally. Patrin knew it. Teg had not examined his own certain knowledge.

  Duncan's voice shocked her from these thoughts.

  " 'Thopter! Behind us!"

  "Quick!" Teg whipped the blanket from his pack and threw it over them. They huddled in earth-smelling darkness, listening to the ornithopter pass above them. It did not pause or return.

  When they felt certain they had not been detected, Teg once more led them up Patrin's memory-track.

  "That was a searcher," Lucilla said. "They are beginning to suspect . . . or Patrin . . ."

  "Save your energy for walking," Teg snapped.

  She did not press him. They both knew Patrin was dead. Argument over this had been exhausted.

  This Mentat goes deep, Lucilla told herself.

  Teg was the child of a Reverend Mother and that mother had trained him beyond the permitted limits before the Sisterhood took him into their manipulative hands. The ghola was not the only one here with unknown resources.

  Their trail turned back and forth upon itself, a game track climbing a steep hill through thick forest. Starlight did not penetrate the trees. Only the Mentat's marvelous memory kept them on the path.

  Lucilla felt duff underfoot. She listened to Teg's movements, reading them to guide her feet.

  How silent Duncan is, she thought. How closed in upon himself. He obeyed orders. He followed where Teg led them. She sensed the quality of Duncan's obedience. He kept his own counsel. Duncan obeyed because it suited him to do so -- for now. Schwangyu's rebellion had planted something wildly independent in the ghola. And what things of their own had the Tleilaxu planted in him?

  Teg stopped at a level spot beneath tall trees to regain his wind. Lucilla could hear him breathing deeply. This reminded her once more that the Mentat was a very old man, far too old for these exertions. She spoke quietly:

  "Are you all right, Miles?"

  "I'll tell you when I'm not."

  "How much farther?" Duncan asked.

  "Only a short way now."

  Presently, he resumed his course through the night. "We must hurry," he said. "This saddle-back ridge is the last bit."

  Now that he had accepted the fact of Patrin's death, Teg's thoughts swung like a compass needle to Schwangyu and what she must be experiencing. Schwangyu would feel her world falling in around her. The fugitives had been gone four nights! People who could elude a Reverend Mother this way might do anything! Of course, the fugitives probably were off-planet by now. A no-ship. But what if . . .

  Schwangyu's thoughts would be full of what-ifs.

  Patrin had been the fragile link but Patrin had been well trained in the removal of fragile links, trained by a master -- Miles Teg.

  Teg dashed dampness from his eyes with a quick shake of his head. Immediate necessity required that core of internal honesty which he could not avoid. Teg had never been a good liar, not even to himself. Quite early in his training, he had realized that his mother and the others involved in his upbringing had conditioned him to a deep sense of personal honesty.

  Adherence to a code of honor.

  The code itself, as he recognized its shape in him, attracted Teg's fascinated attention. It began with recognition that humans were not created equal, that they possessed different inherited abilities and experienced different events in their lives. This produced people of different accomplishments and different worth.

  To obey this code, Teg realized early that he must place himself accurately into the flow of observable hierarchies accepting that a moment might come when he could evolve no further.

  The code's conditioning went deep. He could never find its ultimate roots. It obviously was attached to something intrinsic to his humanity. It dictated with enormous power the limits of behavior permitted to those above as well as to those below him in the hierarchical pyramid.

  The key token of exchange: loyalty.

  Loyalty went upward and downward, lodging wherever it found a deserving attachment. Such loyalties, Teg knew, were securely locked into him. He felt no doubts that Taraza would support him in everything except a situation demanding that he be sacrificed to the survival of the Sisterhood. And that was right in itself. That was where the loyalties of all of them eventually lodged.

  I am Taraza's Bashar. That is what the code says.

  And this was the code that had killed Patrin.

  I hope you suffered no pain, old friend.

  Once more, Teg paused under the trees. Taking his fighting knife from its boot sheath, he scratched a small mark in a tree beside him.

  "What are you doing?" Lucilla demanded.

  "This is a secret mark," Teg said. "Only the people I have trained know about it. And Taraza, of course."

  "But why are you . . ."

  "I will explain later."

  Teg moved forward, stopping at another tree where he made the tiny mark, a thing which an animal might make with a claw, something to blend into the natural forms of this wilderness.

  As he worked his way ahead, Teg realized he had come to a decision about Lucilla. Her plans for Duncan must be deflected. Every Mentat projection Teg could make about Duncan's safety and sanity required this. The awakening of Duncan's pre-ghola memories must come ahead of any Imprint by Lucilla. It would not be easy to block her, Teg knew. It required a better liar than he had ever been to dissemble for a Reverend Mother.

  It must be made to appear accidental, the normal outcome of the circumstances. Lucilla must never suspect opposition.

  Teg held few illusions about succeeding against an aroused Reverend Mother in close quarters. Better to kill her. That, he thought he could do. But the consequences! Taraza could never be made to see such a bloody act as obedience to her orders.

  No, he would have to bide his time, wait and watch and listen.

  They emerged into a small open area with a high barrier of volcanic rock close ahead of them. Scrubby bushes and low thorn trees grew close against the rock, visible as dark blotches in the starlight.

  Teg saw the blacker outline of a crawl space under the bushes.

  "It's belly crawling from here in," Teg said.

  "I smell ashes," Lucilla said. "Something's been burned here."

  "This is where the decoy came," Teg said. "He left a charred area just down to our left -- simulating the marks of a no-ship's take-off burn."


  Lucilla's quickly indrawn breath was audible. The audacity! Should Schwangyu dare bring in a prescient searcher to follow Duncan's tracks (because Duncan alone among them had no Siona blood in his ancestry to shield him) all of the marks would agree that they had come this way and fled off-planet in a no-ship . . . provided . . .

  "But where are you taking us?" she asked.

  "It's a Harkonnen no-globe," Teg said. "It has been here for millennia and now it's ours."

  Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition. The powerful want a "safe line of investigations," which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables does not insure such a "safe line of investigations."

  -Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives

  Hedley Tuek, High Priest and titular ruler of Rakis, felt himself inadequate to the demands just imposed upon him.

  Dust-fogged night enveloped the city of Keen, but here in his private audience chamber the brilliance of many glowglobes dispelled shadows. Even here, in the heart of the Temple, though, the wind could be heard, a distant moan, this planet's periodic torment.

  The audience chamber was an irregular room seven meters long and four meters at its widest end. The opposite end was almost imperceptibly narrower. The ceiling, too, made a gentle slope in that direction. Spice fiber hangings and clever shadings in light yellows and grays concealed these irregularities. One of the hangings covered a focusing horn that carried even the smallest sounds to listeners outside the room.

  Only Darwi Odrade, the new commander of the Bene Gesserit Keep on Rakis, sat with Tuek in the audience chamber. The two of them faced each other across a narrow space defined by their soft green cushions.

  Tuek tried to conceal a grimace. The effort twisted his normally imposing features into a revealing mask. He had taken great care in preparing himself for this night's confrontations. Dressers had smoothed his robe over his tall, rather stout figure. Golden sandals covered his long feet. The stillsuit under his robe was only for display: no pumps or catchpockets, no uncomfortable and time-consuming adjustments required. His silky gray hair was combed long to his shoulders, a suitable frame for his square face with its wide thick mouth and heavy chin. His eyes fell abruptly into a look of benevolence, an expression he had copied from his grandfather. This was how he had looked on entering the audience chamber to meet Odrade. He had felt himself altogether imposing, but, now, he suddenly felt naked and disheveled.

  He's really a rather empty-headed fellow, Odrade thought.

  Tuek was thinking: I cannot discuss that terrible Manifesto with her! Not with a Tleilaxu Master and those Face Dancers listening in the other room. What ever possessed me to allow that?

  "It is heresy, pure and simple," Tuek said.

  "But you are only one religion among many," Odrade countered. "And with people returning from the Scattering, the proliferation of schisms and variant beliefs . . ."

  "We are the only true belief!" Tuek said.

  Odrade hid a smile. He said it right on cue. And Waff surely heard him. Tuek was remarkably easy to lead. If the Sisterhood was right about Waff, Tuek's words would enrage the Tleilaxu Master.

  In a deep and portentous tone, Odrade said: "The Manifesto raises questions that all must address, believers and non-believers alike."

  "What has all this to do with the Holy Child?" Tuek demanded. "You told me we must meet on matters concerning --"

  "Indeed! Don't try to deny that you know there are many people who are beginning to worship Sheeana. The Manifesto implicates --"

  "Manifesto! Manifesto! It is a heretical document, which will be obliterated. As for Sheeana, she must be returned to our exclusive care!"

  "No." Odrade spoke softly.

  How agitated Tuek was, she thought. His stiff neck moved minimally as he turned his head from side to side. The movements pointed to a wall hanging on Odrade's right, defining the place as though Tuek's head carried an illuminating beam to reveal that particular hanging. What a transparent man, this High Priest. He might just as well announce that Waff listened to them somewhere behind that hanging.

  "Next, you will spirit her away from Rakis," Tuek said.

  "She stays here," Odrade said. "Just as we promised you."

  "But why can't she . . ."

  "Come now! Sheeana has made her wishes clear and I'm sure her words have been reported to you. She wishes to be a Reverend Mother."

  "She already is the --"

  "M'Lord Tuek! Don't try to dissemble with me. She has stated her wishes and we are happy to comply. Why should you object? Reverend Mothers served the Divided God in the Fremen times. Why not now?"

  "You Bene Gesserit have ways of making people say things they do not want to say," Tuek accused. "We should not be discussing this privately. My councillors --"

  "Your councillors would only muddy our discussion. The implications of the Atreides Manifesto --"

  "I will discuss only Sheeana!" Tuek drew himself up in what he thought of as his posture of adamant High Priest.

  "We are discussing her," Odrade said.

  "Then let me make it clear that we require more of our people in her entourage. She must be guarded at all --"

  "The way she was guarded on that rooftop?" Odrade asked.

  "Reverend Mother Odrade, this is Holy Rakis! You have no rights here that we do not grant!"

  "Rights? Sheeana has become the target, yes the target! of many ambitions and you wish to discuss rights?"

  "My duties as High Priest are clear. The Holy Church of the Divided God will --"

  "M'Lord Tuek! I am trying very hard to maintain the necessary courtesies. What I do is for your benefit as well as our own. The actions we have taken --"

  "Actions? What actions?" The words were pressed from Tuek with a hoarse grunting. These terrible Bene Gesserit witches! Tleilaxu behind him and a Reverend Mother in front! Tuek felt like a ball in a fearsome game, bounced back and forth between terrifying energies. Peaceful Rakis, the secure place of his daily routines, had vanished and he had been projected into an arena whose rules he did not fully understand.

  "I have sent for the Bashar Miles Teg," Odrade said. "That is all. His advance party should arrive soon. We are going to reinforce your planetary defenses."

  "You dare to take over --"

  "We take over nothing. At your own father's request, Teg's people redesigned your defenses. The agreement under which this was done contains, at your father's insistence, a clause requiring our periodic review."

  Tuek sat in dazed silence. Waff, that ominous little Tleilaxu, had heard all of this. There would be conflict! The Tleilaxu wanted a secret agreement setting melange prices. They would not permit Bene Gesserit interference.

  Odrade had spoken of Tuek's father and now Tuek wished only that his long-dead father sat here. A hard man. He would have known how to deal with these opposing forces. He had always handled the Tleilaxu quite well. Tuek recalled listening (just as Waff listened now!) to a Tleilaxu envoy named Wose . . . and another one named Pook. Ledden Pook. What odd names they had.

  Tuek's confused thoughts abruptly offered up another name. Odrade had just mentioned it: Teg! Was that old monster still active?

  Odrade was speaking once more. Tuek tried to swallow in a dry throat as he leaned forward, forcing himself to pay attention.

  "Teg will also look into your on-planet defenses. After that rooftop fiasco --"

  "I officially forbid this interference with our internal affairs," Tuek said. "There is no need. Our Priest Guardians are adequate to --"

  "Adequate?" Odrade shook her head sadly. "What an inadequate word, given the new circumstances on Rakis."

  "What new circumstances?" There was terror in Tuek's voice.

  Odrade merely sat there
staring at him.

  Tuek tried to force some order into his thoughts. Could she know about the Tleilaxu listening back there? Impossible! He inhaled a trembling breath. What was this about the defenses of Rakis? The defenses were excellent, he reassured himself. They had the best Ixian monitors and no-ships. More than that, it was to the advantage of all independent powers that Rakis remain equally independent as another source of the spice.

  To the advantage of everyone except the Tleilaxu with the damnable melange overproduction from their axlotl tanks!

  This was a shattering thought. A Tleilaxu Master had heard every word spoken in this audience chamber!