“My replacement parts functioned perfectly . . . but your bloodline, my love, did not fit into the Sisterhood’s plans.” She looked at him with anguished eyes. “I am so sorry. I could not . . .”
He knew she wanted him to pretend that he understood and accepted the realities of being married to a Bene Gesserit. But he froze, wrestling with the shock. “You’ve had . . . four children?”
“They were taken away from me as soon as they were born. I never stopped thinking of you, but I had to block off my feelings, shield myself. That is how the Bene Gesserit trained me to handle emotions, and now . . . I don’t know if I even remember what I once felt for you.” Leaving him speechless, stiffly trying to regain her composure, Wanna tried to pull away. “I should go.”
Shaken and nervous, he clutched her tightly. “So soon?”
Wanna looked at him, and her expression melted again. “No, not just yet. I can stay with you tonight.”
Of course we take substantial risks. That is how we live. Alas, that is also how we die.
—EARL DOMINIC VERNIUS OF IX
From his mother, Paul had learned how to concentrate on his body, from the tiniest muscles to his whole being, aware of every nerve, isolating the smallest sensations. He could meditate and focus his attention on a problem for as long as it took to solve it.
Bronso Vernius, though, was unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. His interest shifted repeatedly. He had never done well in controlled study atmospheres with filmbooks or dreary instructors; rather, the eleven-year-old preferred to learn by asking questions of his father inside the Grand Palais. In that manner he learned of poisonings and murders and artificial spice manufacturing, of the Tleilaxu takeover on Ix and Prince Rhombur seeking sanctuary on Caladan . . . of his father’s horrific injuries and how Dr. Yueh had reassembled him with cyborg parts.
Paul had first met the copper-haired young Bronso when the Vernius party came to attend Duke Leto’s disastrous wedding to Ilesa Ecaz. The other boy was intense and interesting, and perhaps a bit odd. Though Paul had come to Ix to study, as well as to experience, a new culture, his companion had an entirely different agenda. “Are you ready to be scared, Paul? Really scared?”
“How?” He knew Gurney and Duncan would try to stop him if he exposed himself to danger. And he had only just arrived.
Bronso rose from the study table inside his quarters, pushed aside filmbooks listing summaries and statistics of the numerous planets in the Imperium. “By climbing the buildings—from the outside. Are you ready?”
“I’ve climbed sea cliffs on the Caladan coast.” Paul paused. “Do you bother with harnesses and equipment, or should we do it freehand?”
The other boy laughed. “I like you, Paul Atreides! Sea cliffs! You’ll be crying like an infant when I get done with you.” From his personal equipment locker, he retrieved a set of traction pads and a suspensor harness, which he tossed to Paul. “Here, take mine. They’re already broken in.” He rummaged around until he found a new set for himself and unsealed the packaging.
Paul followed his friend through corridors and passages to an open balcony so high up on the cavern ceiling that air currents whistled around them. With an extended finger, Bronso traced their route to a support beam, then to an adjacent walkway, and then onto a dangling roof. “See the line we can take, from there, to there, and if you’ve got the stamina for it we’ll circle back to the Grand Palais.”
As the other boy donned his equipment, Paul studied the traction pads that Bronso had used frequently. Some of the seams looked freshly split, as if from the delicate touch of a vibrating blade. Though unfamiliar with the equipment, his instinct told him to look more closely. “Something isn’t right here.” He tugged at a seam, and it easily ripped away. “Look, this would have failed as soon as I got out onto a rock face!”
Bronso scowled at the pad. “I climb with that equipment almost every day. It’s always been reliable before.” He poked at it. “This was tampered with.”
“Is someone trying to kill you?” Though the question seemed melodramatic, Paul had been caught up in other deadly feuds and rivalries.
Bronso laughed—a bit too loudly. “The Technocrat Council would be very happy if the only Vernius heir suffered an ‘accident.’ They’ve tried to arrange something unpleasant for my father, but they’ve never targeted me before.”
“We’ve got to report this.” Paul remembered the careful training he had undergone from Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho. Poison snoopers, personal shields, guards . . . it was a way of life for noble families in the Landsraad.
“I’ll show this to my father, but Bolig Avati is too clever to leave any proof. Still, this is an escalation that will not make my parents happy.”
Paul said with great confidence, “Thufir Hawat told me that once you’re aware of a threat, you have done half the work of defeating it.”
A human being can become a terrible weapon. But all weapons can backfire.
—Bene Gesserit Acolytes’ Manual
Tessia often spent the darkest, quietest hours of night alone in their private chambers, because Rhombur needed little sleep, and the restless cyborg leader spent his nights walking through the ceiling tunnels of Vernii, and across the transparent walkways that connected the stalactite structures.
She awoke out of a troubled sleep to a deep, foreboding darkness, and a sensation that something was wrong. As she blinked, Tessia was startled to realize that someone stood near her—an intruder! Her dark-adapted pupils widened as she opened her mouth, sucked in a breath to shout.
A command uttered with the perfect precision of Voice chopped across her consciousness like an axe blade. A female voice. “Silence!”
Tessia’s larynx shut down, her vocal cords locked. Even her lungs refused to exhale. As a Bene Gesserit, she’d been taught how to resist Voice, but this aural blow had been delivered by a powerful expert, someone who had gauged Tessia, measured her, and knew her precise weak points.
As her eyes adjusted, she discerned the looming form of Reverend Mother Stokiah. Tessia felt like an insect specimen pinned to a mounting board by a long needle. She wanted badly to scream, but her voluntary muscles had shut down.
Stokiah leaned closer, her breath soft as a whisper. “You have been deluded into believing that you have freedom of choice. Stand.”
Tessia’s body swung itself out of her bed, like a puppet. Her legs straightened, and her knees locked as she stood before the Reverend Mother.
“The Sisterhood’s rules countermand the wishes of the individual. You have always accepted this. You need to be reminded of your important, yet minuscule, place in our world . . . the Bene Gesserit world.”
Tessia managed to rasp, surprising herself with her own strength, “Refuse.”
“You cannot refuse. I already made that clear.” The wrinkles on Stokiah’s face were a map of black fissures in the gloom. “You have always had a purpose to serve, but now I have another use for you. The Sisterhood cannot allow open defiance without consequences. Therefore everyone must see your guilt, and you must feel it. You must know it.” Her papery lips formed a smile. “The Sisterhood has developed a new weapon, a technique that combines both psychological and Jongleur training. I am one of the first, and most powerful, Bene Gesserit guilt-casters, and you will obey.”
Guilt-casters . . . women able to manipulate thoughts and emotions to magnify a person’s own doubts and regrets and reflect them back like a lasbeam ricocheting off a mirror. Tessia had thought them only a frightening rumor leaked by the proctors in order to compel unruly acolytes.
“You must feel so sorry about what you have done.” Stokiah’s voice was slippery and poisonous, not at all compassionate. “So sorry, and so terribly guilty.”
Tessia felt the psychic waves. Her heart hammered, and her conscience became a palpable weight. She could hardly breathe.
“How could you betray the Sisterhood, after all we have done for you? All we’ve taught you?�
� Stokiah’s insidious tone unlocked flood-gates of memories and regrets in Tessia’s mind. “We gave you a mission, and now you have let us down.” Each word scratched across her nerves like a sharpened steel nail. “You turned your back on us. You failed us. Worst of all, you succumbed to love.”
Tessia wanted to shrink away, desperate to avoid each accusation, but she couldn’t move. The weight thrummed around her, made her head throb, dulled her thoughts.
“You betrayed your son, too. Does Bronso know that Rhombur is not his real father? You allowed yourself to be impregnated with another man’s sperm, for love—yet you refuse to do it for us?”
Though Stokiah’s voice did not change, the volume of the words inside Tessia’s head grew louder and louder. Each phrase became a scream. She closed her eyes, shuddered, tried to withdraw into a corner. Stokiah wielded her power like a Master Jongleur who could manipulate every audience member, stopping hearts with terror or wringing tears from their eyes.
The tiny rational corner that remained in Tessia’s mind insisted that the words were an exaggeration, that they had no merit. She clung to her confidence, her love for Rhombur, for Bronso. And she failed miserably.
Thick oppression wrapped itself around Tessia, strangling her like a black ghost as she collapsed to the floor. She couldn’t hear anymore, but the remembered words continued to echo in her mind. She couldn’t move her body, couldn’t run, couldn’t scream. She tried to retreat, to find a zone of refuge inside her head, convinced she could survive no more of this.
But it continued . . . and continued.
A flicker of respite surprised her then, and she could see again. Stokiah stood at her doorway, ready to depart. “Never forget that you belong to the Sisterhood—heart, mind, soul, and flesh. You exist to serve. Contemplate that in your personal hell.” With a dismissive gesture and an uttered syllable, Stokiah slammed the curtains of guilt back down around Tessia.
With mental screams, she fell deeper and deeper into herself, hiding inside a single black dot of consciousness. But even there, Tessia was not safe. Not even close.
When he returned to their quarters, Rhombur found his wife lying on the floor, conscious but unresponsive. Tessia’s eyes were glazed and unseeing; her skin twitched and trembled as if her nerves were firing in random patterns. He shook her, called out her name, but received no response.
She had folded into herself like a dying butterfly. Lifting her back onto the bed, Rhombur called for emergency medical help. He ordered the immediate shutdown of the Grand Palais and sent teams to look for assassins, fearing that she had been poisoned.
Dr. Yueh rushed in, used his medical kit to check her pulse and brain activity. He ran blood samples through a scanner to detect drugs or toxins. “I see no obvious cause for this, my Lord. No head injury, no telltale marks of a needle or any other known poison-delivery system.”
Rhombur was like an overheated engine about to explode. “Vermillion Hells, something caused it!”
As the alarms continued to sound, Vernius guards rushed to the royal chambers. Gurney Halleck arrived with Duncan Idaho, swiftly followed by a very concerned looking Jessica. Bronso came running into the room with Paul Atreides beside him, the two boys sagging with worry and confusion as they saw Tessia, her jaws clenched together, her eyelids twitching and trembling.
Frightened and angry, Bronso jumped to conclusions. “The technocrats couldn’t kill me, so they attacked my mother instead?”
Rhombur had seen how the climbing equipment had been sabotaged, presumably by agents working for the Technocrat Council. “Is this another attempt to strike at me—through my wife?”
Yueh looked up from his portable diagnostic instrument, looked at the readings from the blood sample, shook his head, and repeated, “No detectable poison.”
“What else could have put her in a state like this?” Duncan asked.
Paul spoke up. “Some kind of stunner, or neural scrambler? Does Ix have any new weapon that could account for this?”
Rhombur felt as if his artificial systems were about to collapse. “I can’t know every project my scientists undertake. I see only the results when a device is ready for marketing. It’s . . . possible, I admit.” He increased the volume of his voice until the windowplates rattled. “Summon Bolig Avati! Tell him his Earl demands his presence—it is not a request.”
Rhombur turned to Jessica. “And what about those three Bene Gesserits? They were here to demand that Tessia become a breeding mistress. Could they have done this? Do they have such powers?”
Jessica paused long enough to be certain of her answer. “I’ve never heard of any such skills.”
Seeking answers, he called for the three Bene Gesserits, and the women were ushered in so swiftly that they nearly tripped on the hems of their robes. They did not seem overly upset as they regarded Tessia, who lay curled up, shivering, lost in some inner maze of pain.
Rhombur demanded, “Well? Are you responsible for this?”
Stokiah raised her chin haughtily. “We have seen this before—it is peculiar to members of our order, very rare. The conflicting pressures of your demands upon Tessia and her obligations to the Bene Gesserit order were too much. But we have ways of treating her on Wallach IX.”
The youngest of the Bene Gesserit trio spoke to Yueh. “Your medicine can treat diseases or poisons, Wellington, but this . . . this appears to be a condition of the mind. Yes, I am aware of similar collapses among the Bene Gesserit. The mind ties itself into a Gordian knot, and it requires a skillful sword to cut apart the twisted strands without destroying the mind.” She turned to the cyborg leader. “Earl Vernius, as Reverend Mother Stokiah suggests, let us take her back to Wallach IX. Only the Sisterhood has ways of treating this.”
“I will not leave her side! If she goes there to be treated, then I go with her.”
“You are not welcome on Wallach IX, Rhombur Vernius,” Stokiah said. “Release Tessia to our care. There is no telling how long our treatment might require, and no guarantee of success. But you cannot cure her here. If you love this woman, as you claim, then give us an opportunity to work on her.”
The Suk doctor remained at a loss. “I’ll continue to run tests, my Lord, but I suspect my diagnosis will not change. If there’s a chance, and time is of the essence . . .”
“Don’t worry, Rhombur. I can go see her as the treatment progresses,” Jessica offered. “The Sisterhood takes care of its own.”
Bronso knelt beside Tessia, his reddish hair tousled with sweat. “Mother, come back to us! I don’t want them to take you.” But she did not respond.
Rhombur realized that he had already lost. He felt cast adrift, a man floating in space with no lifeline and no oxygen tank. “Keep trying, Yueh. I will give you two more days. If you can’t do anything to save her by then, then I’ll have to trust the witches.”
Everyone lies, every day of his life. The effect of such untruths is a matter of degree, of purpose, and of benefit. Falsehoods are more numerous than the organisms in all the seas in the galaxy. Why then are we Tleilaxu perceived as being deceptive and untrustworthy, while others are not?
—RAKKEEL IBAMAN, the oldest living Tleilaxu Master
Bronso watched helplessly as his father allowed the witches to take Tessia away to their far-off world. After two seemingly unending, painful days had passed, there was no better option. Though he had attempted every esoteric Suk treatment, Dr. Yueh had been unable to penetrate her mindless state.
Tessia was clearly in pain, in terror, in misery, and she would not wake up. And the Bene Gesserits claimed they could help.
Bronso knew where to place the blame. The technocrats had done something to her mind, he was sure of it. In the past several years, the bureaucratic bastards had tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get rid of Bronso’s father. They had sabotaged Bronso’s own climbing gear only a few days ago, in hopes of killing him. Now the enemies of House Vernius had found a way to make his mother vulnerable and strike her down.
. . .
The interrogation of an indignant Bolig Avati revealed nothing useful, though the technocrat leader did admit that if Ix were to be “unencumbered by archaic noble traditions,” business would proceed more smoothly. But there was no proof to link him to any of the sabotages or assassination attempts.
While Yueh tried in vain to revive Tessia, a distraught Rhombur gave full investigative authority to Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. Along with loyal House Vernius guards, they searched the Ixian research facilities, studied the test records and prototype apparatus being developed by Ixian research teams, broke down doors to high-security areas—and found one researcher dead.
A man named Talba Hur, a solitary genius with an abrasive personality, lay in his locked lab with a broken neck and his skull crudely bashed in, dead among the cinders of research papers and diagrams. According to the only known records of his work, Talba Hur had been developing a technological means to erase or disrupt the human mind. Such a device might explain what had happened to Tessia.
Rhombur had no proof, no direct suspects . . . and no doubts. But even that didn’t help cure his wife. The damage had been done, and Yueh was unable to do anything to aid her.
Only the Bene Gesserits offered a slender hope, though they seemed to be without compassion. Distraught, Bronso stared as the three dark-robed Sisters whisked his mother away as if she were some sort of package to be delivered. He hated their attitude. The young man had already said goodbye to her, struggling to contain his tears. The Bene Gesserits merely brushed him aside, hurrying her along. Bronso thought he saw a knowing look in their eyes, which he presumed meant they had a particular treatment in mind.
The Winds of Dune Page 11
