If I survive, she thought.
Yes, this was valuable data. The day might come when others would use it.
Sheeana backed out of the spilled sand onto the exposed rock. She resumed her dance, moving more wildly, flinging her head at each turn. Hair whipped across her face and each time she whirled to confront the worm, she screamed "Shaitan!"
Daintily, like a child on unfamiliar ground, the worm once more moved forward. It slid across the dune crest, curled itself down onto the exposed rock and presented its burning mouth slightly above and about two paces from Sheeana.
As it stopped, Odrade became conscious of the deep furnace rumbling of the worm. She could not tear her gaze away from the reflections of lambent orange flames within the creature. It was a cave of mysterious fire.
Sheeana stopped her dance. She clenched both fists at her sides and stared back at the monster she had summoned.
Odrade took timed breaths, the controlled pacing of a Reverend Mother gathering all of her powers. If this was the end - well, she had obeyed Taraza's orders. Let the Mother Superior learn what she would from the watchers overhead.
"Hello, Shaitan," Sheeana said. "I have brought a Reverend Mother and a man of the Tleilaxu with me."
Waff slumped to his knees and bowed.
Odrade slipped past him to stand beside Sheeana.
Sheeana breathed deeply. Her face was flushed.
Odrade heard the click-ticking of their overworked stillsuits. The hot, cinnamon-drenched air around them was charged with the sounds of this meeting, all dominated by the murmurous burning within the quiescent worm.
Waff came up beside Odrade, his trancelike gaze fixed on the worm.
"I am here," he whispered.
Odrade silently cursed him. Any unwarranted noise could attract this beast onto them. She knew what Waff was thinking, though: No other Tleilaxu had ever stood this close to a descendant of his Prophet. Not even the Rakian priests had ever done this!
With her right hand, Sheeana made a sudden downward gesture. "Down to us, Shaitan!" she said.
The worm lowered its gaping mouth until the internal firepit filled the rocky defile in front of them.
Her voice little more than a whisper, Sheeana said: "See how Shaitan obeys me, Mother?"
Odrade could feel Sheeana's control over the worm, a pulse of hidden language between child and monster. It was uncanny.
Her voice rising in impudent arrogance, Sheeana said: "I will ask Shaitan to let us ride him!" She scrambled up the slipface of the dune beside the worm.
Immediately, the great mouth lifted to follow her movements. "Stay there!" Sheeana shouted. The worm stopped.
It's not her words that command it, Odrade thought. Something else... something else...
"Mother, come with me," Sheeana called.
Thrusting Waff ahead of her, Odrade obeyed. They scrambled up the sandy slope behind Sheeana. Dislodged sand spilled down beside the waiting worm, piling up in the defile. Ahead of them, the worm's tapering tail curved along the dune crest. Sheeana led them at a sand-clotted trot to the very tip of the thing. There, she gripped the leading edge of a ring in the corrugated surface and scrambled up onto her desert beast.
More slowly, Odrade and Waff followed. The worm's warm surface felt non-organic to Odrade, as though it were some Ixian artifact.
Sheeana skipped forward along the back and squatted just behind its mouth where the rings bulged thick and wide.
"Like this," Sheeana said. She leaned forward and clutched beneath the leading edge of a ring, lifting it slightly to expose pink softness underneath.
Waff obeyed her immediately but Odrade moved with more caution, storing impressions. The ring surface was as hard as plascrete and covered with tiny encrustations. Odrade's fingers probed the softness under the leading edge. It pulsed faintly. The surface around them lifted and fell with an almost imperceptible rhythm. Odrade heard a tiny rasping with each movement.
Sheeana kicked the worm surface behind her.
"Shaitan, go!" she said.
The worm did not respond.
"Please, Shaitan," Sheeana pleaded.
Odrade heard the desperation in Sheeana's voice. The child was so confident of her Shaitan but Odrade knew that the girl had been allowed to ride only that first time. Odrade had the full story from death-wish to priestly confusion but none of it told her what would happen next.
Abruptly, the worm lurched into motion. It lifted sharply, twisted to the left and made a tight curve out of the rocky defile, then moved directly away from Dar-es-Balat into the open desert.
"We go with God!" Waff shouted.
The sound of his voice shocked Odrade. Such wildness! She sensed the power in his faith. The thwock-thwock of following ornithopters came from overhead. The wind of their passage whipped past Odrade full of ozone and the hot furnace odors stirred up by the friction of the rushing behemoth.
Odrade glanced over her shoulders at the 'thopters, thinking how easy it would be for enemies to rid this planet of a troublesome child, an equally troublesome Reverend Mother and a despised Tleilaxu - all in one violently vulnerable moment on the open desert. The priestly cabal might attempt it, she knew, hoping that Odrade's own watchers up there would be too late to prevent it.
Would curiosity and fear hold them back?
Odrade admitted to a mighty curiosity herself.
Where is this thing taking us?
Certainly, it was not headed toward Keen. She lifted her head and peered past Sheeana. On the horizon directly ahead lay that tell-tale indentation of fallen stones, that place where the Tyrant had been spilled from the surface of his faery bridge.
The place of Other Memory warning.
Abrupt revelation locked Odrade's mind. She understood the warning. The Tyrant had died at a place of his own choosing. Many deaths had left their imprint on that place but his the greatest. The Tyrant chose his peregrination route with purpose. Sheeana had not told her worm to go there. It moved that way of its own volition. The magnet of the Tyrant's endless dream drew it back to the place where the dream began.
***
There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon of water or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great pool of water. But a literjon you could hide under your cloak and run away with it. No one would know."
-The Jokes of Ancient Dune, Bene Gesserit Archives
It was a long session in the no-globe's practice hall, Duncan in a mobile cage driving the exercise, adamant that this particular training series would continue until his new body had adapted to the seven central attitudes of combat response against attack from eight directions. His green singlesuit was dark with perspiration. Twenty days they had been at this one lesson!
Teg knew the ancient lore that Duncan revived here but knew it by different names and sequencing. Before they had been into it five days, Teg doubted the superiority of modern methods. Now, he was convinced that Duncan did something completely new - mixing the old with what he had learned in the Keep.
Teg sat at his own control console, as much an observer as a participant. The consoles that guided the dangerous shadow forces in this practice had required mental adjustment by Teg, but he felt familiar with them now and moved the attack with facility and frequent inspiration.
A simmering Lucilla glanced into the hall occasionally. She watched and then left without comment. Teg did not know what Duncan was doing about the Imprinter but there was a feeling that the reawakened ghola played a delaying game with his seductress. She would not allow that to continue long, Teg knew, but it was out of his hands. Duncan no longer was "too young" for the Imprinter. That young body carried a mature male mind with experiences from which to make his own decisions.
Duncan and Teg had been on the floor with only one break all morning. Hunger pangs gnawed at Teg but he felt reluctant to halt the session. Duncan's abilities had
climbed to a new level today and he was still improving.
Teg, seated in a fixed console's cage seat, twisted the attack forces into a complex maneuver, striking from left, right, and above.
The Harkonnen armory had produced an abundance of these exotic weapons and training instruments, some of which Teg had known only from historical accounts. Duncan knew them all, apparently, and with an intimacy that Teg admired. Hunter-seekers geared to penetrate a force shield were part of the shadow system they used now.
"They automatically slow down to go through the shield," Duncan explained in his young-old voice. "Too fast a strike, of course, and the shield repels."
"Shields of that type have almost gone out of fashion," Teg said. "A few societies maintain them as a kind of sport but otherwise..."
Duncan executed a riposte of blurred speed that dropped three hunter-seekers to the floor damaged enough to require the no-globe's maintenance services. He removed the cage and damped the system but left it idling while he came over to Teg, breathing deeply but easily. Looking past Teg, Duncan smiled and nodded. Teg whirled but there was only the flick of Lucilla's gown as she left them.
"It's like a duel," Duncan said. "She tries to thrust through my guard and I counterattack."
"Have a care," Teg said. "That's a full Reverend Mother."
"I've known a few of them in my time, Bashar."
Once more, Teg found himself confounded. He had been warned that he would have to readjust to this different Duncan Idaho but he had not fully anticipated the constant mental demands of that readjustment. The look in Duncan's eyes right now was disconcerting.
"Our roles are changed a bit, Bashar," Duncan said. He picked up a towel from the floor and mopped his face.
"I'm no longer sure of what I can teach you," Teg admitted. He wished, though, that Duncan would take his warning about Lucilla. Did Duncan imagine that the Reverend Mothers of those ancient days were identical with the women of today? Teg thought that highly unlikely. In the way of all other life, the Sisterhood evolved and changed.
It was obvious to Teg that Duncan had come to a decision about his place in Taraza's machinations. Duncan was not merely biding his time. He was training his body to a personally chosen peak and he had made a judgment about the Bene Gesserit.
He has made that judgment on insufficient data, Teg thought.
Duncan dropped the towel and looked at it for a moment. "Let me be the judge of what you can teach me, Bashar." He turned and stared narrowly at Teg seated in the cage.
Teg inhaled deeply. He smelled the faint ozone from all of this durable Harkonnen equipment ticking away in readiness for Duncan's return to action. The ghola's perspiration carried a bitter dominant.
Duncan sneezed.
Teg sniffed, recognizing the omnipresent dust of their activities. It could be more tasted than smelled at times. Alkaline. Over it all was the fragrance of the air scrubbers and oxy regenerators. There was a distinct floral aroma built into the system but Teg could not identify the flower. In the month of their occupation, the globe also had taken on human odors, slowly insinuated into the original composite - perspiration, cooking smells, the never-quite-suppressed acridity of waste reclamation. To Teg, these reminders of their presence were oddly offensive. And he found himself sniffing and listening for sounds of intrusion - something more than the echoing passage of their own footsteps and the subdued metallic clashings from the kitchen area.
Duncan's voice intruded: "You're an odd man, Bashar."
"What do you mean?"
"There's your resemblance to the Duke Leto. The facial identity is weird. He was a bit shorter than you but the identity..." He shook his head, thinking of the Bene Gesserit designs behind those genetic markers in Teg's face - that hawk look, the crease lines and that inner thing, that certainty of moral superiority.
How moral and how superior?
According to the records he had seen at the Keep (and Duncan was sure they had been placed there especially for him to discover) Teg's reputation was an almost universal thing throughout human society of this age. At the Battle of Markon, it had been enough for the enemy to know that Teg was there opposite them in person. They sued for terms. Was that true?
Duncan looked at Teg in the console cage and put this question to him.
"Reputation can be a beautiful weapon," Teg said. "It often spills less blood."
"At Arbelough, why did you go to the front with your troops?" Duncan asked.
Teg showed surprise. "Where did you learn that?"
"At the Keep. You might have been killed. What would that have served?"
Teg reminded himself that this young flesh standing over him held unknown knowledge, which must guide Duncan's quest for information. It was in that unknown area, Teg suspected, that Duncan was most valuable to the Sisterhood.
"We took severe losses at Arbelough on the preceding two days," Teg said. "I failed to make a correct assessment of the enemy's fear and fanaticism."
"But the risk of..."
"My presence at the front said to my own people: 'I share your risks.' "
"The Keep's records said Arbelough had been perverted by Face Dancers. Patrin told me you vetoed your aides when they urged you to sweep the planet clean, sterilize it and -"
"You were not there, Duncan."
"I am trying to be. So you spared your enemy against all advice."
"Except for the Face Dancers."
"But then you walked unarmed through the enemy ranks and before they had laid down their weapons."
"To assure them they would not be mistreated."
"That was very dangerous."
"Was it? Many of them came over to us for the final assault on Kroinin where we broke the anti-Sisterhood forces."
Duncan stared hard at Teg. Not only did this old Bashar resemble Duke Leto in appearance, but he also had that same Atreides charisma: a legendary figure even among his former enemies. Teg had said he was descended from Ghanima of the Atreides, but there had to be more in it than that. The ways of the Bene Gesserit breeding mastery awed him.
"We will go back to the practice now," Duncan said.
"Don't damage yourself."
"You forget, Bashar. I remember a body as young as this one and right here on Giedi Prime."
"Gammu!"
"It was properly renamed but my body still recalls the original. That is why they sent me here. I know it."
Of course he would know it, Teg thought.
Restored by the brief respite, Teg introduced a new element in the attack and sent a sudden burn-line against Duncan's left side.
How easily Duncan parried the attack!
He was using an oddly mixed variation on the five attitudes, each response seemingly invented before it was required.
"Each attack is a feather floating on the infinite road," Duncan said. His voice gave no hint of exertion. "As the feather approaches, it is diverted and removed."
As he spoke, he parried the shifting attack and countered.
Teg's Mentat logic followed the movements into what he recognized as dangerous places. Dependencies and key logs!
Duncan shifted over to attack, moving ahead of it, pacing his movements rather than responding. Teg was forced to his utmost abilities as the shadow forces burned and flickered across the floor. Duncan's weaving figure in its mobile cage danced along the space between them. Not one of Teg's hunter-seekers or burn-line counters touched the moving figure. Duncan was over them, under them, seeming totally unafraid of the real pain that this equipment could bring him.
Once more, Duncan increased the speed of his attack.
A bolt of pain shot up Teg's left arm from his hand on the controls to his shoulder.
With a sharp exclamation, Duncan shut down the equipment. "Sorry, Bashar. That was superb defense on your part but I'm afraid age defeated you."
Once more, Duncan crossed the floor and stood over Teg.
"A little pain to remind me of the pain I caused you," Teg sai
d. He rubbed his tingling arm.
"Blame the heat of the moment," Duncan said. "We have done enough for now."
"Not quite," Teg said. "It is not enough to strengthen only your muscles."
At Teg's words Duncan felt an alerting sensation throughout his body. He sensed the disorganized touch of that uncompleted thing that the reawakening had failed to arouse. Something crouched within him, Duncan thought. It was like a coiled spring waiting for release.
"What more would you do?" Duncan asked. His voice sounded hoarse.
"Your survival is in the balance here," Teg said. "All of this is being done to save you and get you to Rakis."
"For Bene Gesserit reasons, which you say you do not know!"
"I don't know them, Duncan."
"But you're a Mentat."
"Mentats require data to make projections."
"Do you think Lucilla knows?"
"I'm not sure but let me warn you again about her. She has orders to get you to Rakis prepared for what you must do there."
"Must?" Duncan shook his head from side to side. "Am I not my own person with rights to make my own choices? What do you think you've reawakened here, a damned Face Dancer capable only of obeying orders?"
"Are you telling me you will not go to Rakis?"
"I'm telling you I will make my own decisions when I know what it is I'm to do. I'm not a hired assassin."
"You think I am, Duncan?"
"I think you're an honorable man, someone to be admired. Give me credit for having my own standards of duty and honor."
"You've been given another chance at life and -"
"But you are not my father and Lucilla is not my mother. Imprinter? For what does she hope to prepare me?"
"It may be that she does not know, Duncan. Like me, she may have only part of the design. Knowing how the Sisterhood works, that is highly likely."
"So the two of you just train me and deliver me to Arrakis. Here's the package you ordered!"
"This is a far different universe than the one where you were originally born," Teg said. "As it was in your day, we still have a Great Convention against atomics and the pseudoatomics of lasgun-shield interaction. We still say that sneak attacks are forbidden. There are pieces of paper scattered around to which we have put our names and we -"
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