"They see that Sheeana intercedes for the weakest people," Tamalane reported. "It is a familiar pattern. All goes as ordered. When do you send the ghola?"
***
The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the center of the damned thing! That's the whole point of the Scattering!
- Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new investigative probes be sent out among the Lost Ones
One of the Sisterhood's swifter lighters took Miles Teg up to the Guild Transport circling Gammu. He did not like leaving the Keep at this moment but the priorities were obvious. He also had a gut reaction about this venture. In his three centuries of experience, Teg had learned to trust his gut reactions. Matters were not going well on Gammu. Every patrol, every report of remote sensors, the accounts of Patrin's spies in the cities - everything fueled Teg's disquiet.
Mentat fashion, Teg felt the movement of forces around the Keep and within it. His ghola charge was threatened. The order for him to report aboard the Guild Transport prepared for violence, however, came from Taraza herself with an unmistakable crypto-identifier on it.
On the lighter taking him upward, Teg set himself for battle. Those preparations he could make had been made. Lucilla was warned. He felt confident about Lucilla. Schwangyu was another matter. He fully intended to discuss with Taraza a few essential changes in the Gammu Keep. First, though, he had another battle to win. Teg had not the slightest doubt that he was entering combat.
As his lighter moved in to dock, Teg looked out a port and saw the gigantic Ixian symbol within the Guild cartouche on the Transport's dark side. This was a ship the Guild had converted to Ixian mechanism, substituting machines for the traditional navigator. There would be Ixian technicians aboard to service the equipment. A genuine Guild navigator would be there, too. The Guild had never quite learned to trust a machine even while they paraded these converted Transports as a message to Tleilaxu and Rakians.
"You see: we do not absolutely require your melange!"
This was the announcement contained in that giant symbol of Ix on the spaceship's side.
Teg felt the slight lurch of the docking grapples and took a deep, quieting breath. He felt as he always did just before battle: Empty of all false dreams. This was a failure. The talking had failed and now came the contest of blood... unless he could prevail in some other way. Combat these days was seldom a massive thing but death was there nonetheless. That represented a more permanent kind of failure. If we cannot adjust our differences peacefully we are less than human.
An attendant with the unmistakable signs of Ix in his speech guided Teg to the room where Taraza waited. All along the corridors and in the pneumotubes carrying him to Taraza, Teg looked for signs to confirm the secret warning in the Mother Superior's message. All seemed serene and ordinary - the attendant properly deferential toward the Bashar. "I was a Tireg commander at Andioyu," the attendant said, naming one of the almost-battles where Teg had prevailed.
They came to an ordinary oval hatch in the wall of an ordinary corridor. The hatch opened and Teg entered a white-walled room of comfortable dimensions - sling chairs, low side tables, glowglobes tuned to yellow. The hatch slid into its seals behind him with a solid thump, leaving his guide behind him in the corridor.
A Bene Gesserit acolyte parted the gossamer hangings that concealed a passage on Teg's right. She nodded to him. He had been seen. Taraza would be notified.
Teg suppressed a trembling in his calf muscles.
Violence?
He had not misinterpreted Taraza's secret warning. Were his preparations adequate? There was a black sling chair at his left, a long table in front of it and another chair at the end of the table. Teg went to this side of the room and waited with his back to the wall. The brown dust of Gammu still clung to his boot toes, he noted.
Peculiar smell in the room. He sniffed. Shere! Had Taraza and her people armed themselves against an Ixian Probe? Teg had taken his usual shere capsule before embarking on the lighter. Too much knowledge in his head that might be useful to an enemy. The fact that Taraza left the smell of shere around her quarters had another implication: It was a statement to some observer whose presence she could not prevent.
Taraza entered through the gossamer hangings. She appeared tired, he thought. He found this remarkable because the Sisters were capable of concealing fatigue until almost ready to drop. Was she actually low in energy or was this another gesture for hidden observers?
Pausing just into the room, Taraza studied Teg. The Bashar appeared much older than when she had last seen him, Taraza thought. Duty on Gammu was having its effect, but she found this reassuring. Teg was doing his job.
"Your quick response is appreciated, Miles," she said.
Appreciated! Their agreed word for "We are being watched secretly by a dangerous foe."
Teg nodded while his gaze went to the hangings where Taraza had entered.
Taraza smiled and moved farther into the room. No signs of the melange cycle in Teg, she observed. Teg's advanced years always raised the suspicion that he might resort to the leavening effect of the spice. Nothing about him revealed even the faintest hint of the melange addiction that even the strongest sometimes turned to when they felt their end approaching. Teg wore his old uniform jacket of Supreme Bashar but without the gold starbursts at shoulder and collar. This was a signal she recognized. He said: "Remember how I earned this in your service. I have not failed you this time, either."
The eyes that studied her were level; no hint of judgment escaped them. His entire appearance spoke of quiet within, everything at variance with what she knew must be occurring in him at this moment. He awaited her signal.
"Our ghola must be awakened at the first opportunity," she said. She waved a hand to silence him as he started to respond. "I have seen Lucilla's reports and I know he is too young. But we are required to act."
She spoke for the watchers, he realized. Were her words to be believed?
"I now give you the order to awaken him," she said and she flexed her left wrist in the confirmation gesture of their secret language.
It was true! Teg glanced at the hangings that concealed the passage where Taraza had entered. Who was it listening there?
He put his Mentat talents to the problem. There were missing pieces but that did not stop him. A Mentat could work without certain pieces if he had enough to create a pattern. Sometimes, the sketchiest outline was enough. It supplied the hidden shape and then he could fit the missing pieces to complete a whole. Mentats seldom had all the data they might desire, but he was trained to sense patterns, to recognize systems and wholeness. Teg reminded himself now that he also had been trained in the ultimate military sense: You trained a recruit to train a weapon, to aim the weapon correctly.
Taraza was aiming him. His assessment of their situation had been confirmed.
"Desperate attempts will be made to kill or capture our ghola before you can awaken him," she said.
He recognized her tone: the coldly analytic offering of data to a Mentat. She saw that he was in Mentat mode, then.
The Mentat pattern-search rolled through his mind. First, there was the Sisterhood's design for the ghola, largely unknown to him, but ranging somehow around the presence of a young female on Rakis who (so they said) could command worms. Idaho gholas: charming persona and with something else that had made the Tyrant and the Tleilaxu repeat him countless times. Duncans by the shipload! What service did this ghola provide that the Tyrant had not let him remain among the dead? And the Tleilaxu: They had decanted Duncan Idaho gholas from their axlotl tanks for millennia, even after the death of the Tyrant. The Tleilaxu had sold this ghola to the Sisterhood twelve times and the Sisterhood had paid in the hardest currency: melange from their own precious stores. Why did the Tleilaxu accept in payment something they produced so copiously? Obvious: to deplete the Sisterhood's supplies. A special form of greed there. The Tleilaxu were buying supremacy - a power game!
Teg fo
cused on the quietly waiting Mother Superior. "The Tleilaxu have been killing our gholas to control our timing," he said.
Taraza nodded but did not speak. So there was more. Once again, he fell into Mentat mode.
The Bene Gesserit were a valuable market for the Tleilaxu melange, not the only source because there was always the trickle from Rakis, but valuable, yes; very valuable. It was not reasonable that the Tleilaxu would alienate a valuable market unless they had a more valuable market standing ready.
Who else had an interest in Bene Gesserit activities? The Ixians without a doubt. But Ixians were not a good market for melange. The Ixian presence on this ship spoke of their independence. Since Ixians and Fish Speakers made common cause, the Fish Speakers could be set aside from this pattern quest.
What great power or assemblage of powers in this universe possessed...
Teg froze that thought as though he had applied the dive brakes in a 'thopter, letting his mind float free while he sorted other considerations.
Not in this universe.
The pattern took shape. Wealth. Gammu assumed a new role in his Mentat computations. Gammu had been gutted long ago by the Harkonnens, abandoned as a festering carcass, which the Danians had restored. There was a time, though, when even Gammu's hopes were gone. Without hopes there had not even been dreams. Climbing from that cesspool, the population had employed only the basest pragmatism. If it works, it is good.
Wealth.
In his first survey of Gammu he had noted the numbers of banking houses. They were even marked, some of them, as Bene Gesserit - safe. Gammu served as the fulcrum for manipulation of enormous wealth. The bank he had visited to study its use as an emergency contact came back fully into his Mentat awareness. He had realized at once that the place did not confine itself to purely planetary business. It was a bankers' bank.
Not just wealth but WEALTH.
A Prime Pattern development did not come into Teg's mind but he had enough for a Testing Projection. Wealth not of this universe. People from the Scattering.
All of this Mentat sorting had taken only a few seconds. Having reached a testing point, Teg set himself loose-of-muscle and nerve, glanced once at Taraza and strode across to the concealed entry. He noted that, Taraza gave no sign of alarm at his movements. Whipping aside the hangings, Teg confronted a man almost as tall as himself: military-style clothing with crossed spears at the collar tabs. The face was heavy, the jaws wide; green eyes. A look of surprised alertness, one hand poised above a pocket that bulged obviously with a weapon.
Teg smiled at the man, let the hangings fall and returned to Taraza.
"We are being observed by people from the Scattering," he said.
Taraza relaxed. Teg's performance had been memorable.
The hangings swished aside. The tall stranger entered and stopped about two paces from Teg. A glacial expression of anger gripped his features.
"I warned you not to tell him!" The voice was a grating baritone with an accent new to Teg.
"And I warned you about the powers of this Mentat Bashar," Taraza said. A look of loathing flashed across her features.
The man subsided and a subtle look of fear came over his face. "Honored Matre, I -"
"Don't you dare call me that!" Taraza's body tensed in a fighting posture that Teg had never before seen her display.
The man inclined his head slightly. "Dear lady, you do not control the situation here. I must remind you that my orders -"
Teg had heard enough. "Through me, she does control here," he said. "Before coming here I set certain protective measures in motion. This..." he glanced around him and returned his attention to the intruder, whose face now bore a wary expression "... is not a no-ship. Two of our no-ship monitors have you in their sights at this moment."
"You would not survive!" the man barked.
Teg smiled amiably. "No one on this ship would survive." He clenched his jaw to key the nerve signal and activate the tiny pulsetimer in his skull. It played its graphic signals against his visual centers. "And you don't have much time in which to make a decision."
"Tell him how you knew to do this," Taraza said.
"The Mother Superior and I have our own private means of communication," Teg said. "But further than that, there was no need for her to warn me. Her summons was enough. The Mother Superior on a Guild Transport at a time like this? Impossible!"
"Impasse," the man growled.
"Perhaps," Teg said. "But neither Guild nor Ix will risk a total and all-out attack by Bene Gesserit forces under the command of a leader trained by me. I refer to the Bashar Burzmali. Your support has just dissolved and vanished."
"I told him nothing of this," Taraza said. "You have just witnessed the performance of a Mentat Bashar, which I doubt could be equaled in your universe. Think of that if you consider going against Burzmali, a man trained by this Mentat."
The intruder looked from Taraza to Teg and back to Taraza. "This is the way out of our seeming impasse," Teg said. "The Mother Superior Taraza and her entourage leave with me. You must decide immediately. Time is running out."
"You're bluffing." There was no force in the words.
Teg faced Taraza and bowed. "It has been a great honor to serve you, Reverend Mother Superior. I bid you farewell."
"Perhaps death will not part us," Taraza said. It was the traditional farewell of a Reverend Mother to a Sister-equal.
"Go!" The heavy-featured man dashed to the corridor hatchway and flung it open, revealing two Ixian guards, looks of surprise on their faces. His voice hoarse, the man ordered: "Take them to their lighter."
Still relaxed and calm, Teg said: "Summon your people, Mother Superior." To the man standing at the hatchway, Teg said: "You value your own skin too much to be a good soldier. None of my people would have made such an error."
"There are true Honored Matres aboard this ship," the man grated. "I am sworn to protect them."
Teg grimaced and turned to where Taraza was leading her people from the adjoining room: two Reverend Mothers and four acolytes. Teg recognized one of the Reverend Mothers: Darwi Odrade. He had seen her before only at a distance but the oval face and lovely eyes were arresting: so like Lucilla.
"Do we have time for introductions?" Taraza asked.
"Of course, Mother Superior."
Teg nodded and grasped the hand of each woman as Taraza presented them.
As they left, Teg turned to the uniformed stranger. "One must always observe the niceties," Teg said. "Otherwise we are less than human."
Not until they were on the lighter, Taraza seated beside him and her entourage nearby, did Teg ask the overriding question.
"How did they take you?"
The lighter was plunging planetward. The screen in front of Teg showed that the Ix-branded Guildship obeyed his command to remain in orbit until his party was safely behind its planetary defenses.
Before Taraza could respond, Odrade leaned across the aisle separating them and said: "I have countermanded the Bashar's orders to destroy that Guildship, Mother."
Teg swiveled his head sharply and glared at Odrade. "But they took you captive and..." He scowled. "How did you know I -"
"Miles!"
Taraza's voice conveyed overwhelming reproof. He grinned ruefully. Yes, she knew him almost as well as he knew himself... better in some respects.
"They did not just capture us, Miles," Taraza said. "We allowed ourselves to be taken. Ostensibly, I was escorting Dar to Rakis. We left our no-ship at Junction and asked for the fastest Guild Transport. All of my Council, including Burzmali, agreed that these intruders from the Scattering would subvert the Transport and take us to you, aiming to pick up all the pieces of the ghola project."
Teg was aghast. The risk!
"We knew you would rescue us," Taraza said. "Burzmali was standing by in case you failed."
"That Guildship you've spared," Teg said, "will summon assistance and attack our -"
"They will not attack Gammu," Taraza said.
"Too many diverse forces from the Scattering are assembled on Gammu. They would not dare alienate so many."
"I wish I were as certain of that as you appear to be," Teg said.
"Be certain, Miles. Besides, there are other reasons for not destroying the Guildship. Ix and the Guild have been caught taking sides. That's bad for business and they need all of the business they can get."
"Unless they have more important customers offering greater profits!"
"Ahhhhh, Miles." She spoke in a musing voice. "What we latter-day Bene Gesserit really do is try to let matters achieve a calmer tone, a balance. You know this."
Teg found this true but he locked on one phrase: "... latter-day..." The words conveyed a sense of summation-at-death. Before he could question this, Taraza continued:
"We like to settle the most passionate situations off the battlefield. I must admit we have the Tyrant to thank for that attitude. I don't suppose you've ever thought of yourself as a product of the Tyrant's conditioning, Miles, but you are."
Teg accepted this without comment. It was a factor in the entire spread of human society. No Mentat could avoid it as a datum.
"That quality in you, Miles, drew us to you in the first place," Taraza said. "You can be damnably frustrating at times but we wouldn't have you any other way."
By subtle revelations in tone and manner, Teg realized that Taraza was not speaking solely for his benefit, but was also directing her words at her entourage.
"Have you any idea, Miles, how maddening it is to hear you argue both sides of an issue with equal force? But your simpatico is a powerful weapon. How terrified some of our foes have been to find you confronting them where they had not the slightest suspicion you might appear!"
Teg allowed himself a tight smile. He glanced at the women seated across the aisle from them. Why was Taraza directing such words at this group? Darwi Odrade appeared to be resting, head back, eyes closed. Several of the others were chatting among themselves. None of this was conclusive to Teg. Even Bene Gesserit acolytes could follow several trains of thought simultaneously. He returned his attention to Taraza.
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