Dune

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 said. 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 pseudo-atomics of lasgunshield 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—”

“But the no-ships have changed the basis for all of those treaties,” Duncan said. “I think I learned my history fairly well at the Keep. Tell me, Bashar, why did Paul’s son have the Tleilaxu provide him with my ghola-self, hundreds of me! for all those thousands of years?”

“Paul’s son?”

“The Keep’s records call him the God Emperor. You name him Tyrant.”

“Oh. I don’t think we know why he did it. Perhaps he was lonely for someone from—”

“You brought me back to confront the worm!” Duncan said.

Is that what we’re doing? Teg wondered. He had considered this possibility more than once, but it was only a possibility, not a projection. Even so, there had to be something more in Taraza’s design. Teg sensed this with every fiber of his Mentat training. Did Lucilla know? Teg did not delude himself that he could pry revelation from a full Reverend Mother. No . . . he would have to bide his time, wait and watch and listen. In his own way, this obviously was what Duncan had decided. It was a dangerous course if he thwarted Lucilla!

Teg shook his head. “Truly, Duncan, I do not know.”

“But you follow orders.”

“By my oath to the Sisterhood.”

“Deceptions, dishonesties—those are empty words when the question is the Sisterhood’s survival,” Duncan quoted him.

“Yes, I said that,” Teg agreed.

“I trust you now because you said it,” Duncan said. “But I do not trust Lucilla.”

Teg dropped his chin to his breast. Dangerous . . . dangerous . . .

Much more slowly than once he had done, Teg brought his attention out of such thoughts and went through the mental cleansing process, concentrating on the necessities laid upon him by Taraza.

“You are my Bashar.”

Duncan studied the Bashar for a moment. Fatigue lines were obvious on the old man’s face. Duncan was reminded suddenly of Teg’s great age, wondering if it ever tempted men such as Teg to seek out the Tleilaxu and become gholas. Probably not. They knew they might become Tleilaxu puppets.

This thought flooded Duncan’s awareness, holding him immobile so plainly that Teg, lifting his gaze, saw it at once.

“Is something wrong?”

“The Tleilaxu have done something to me, something that has not yet been exposed,” Duncan husked.

“Exactly what we feared!” It was Lucilla speaking from the doorway behind Teg. She advanced to within two paces of Duncan. “I have been listening. You two are very informative.”

Teg spoke quickly, hoping to blunt the anger he sensed in her. “He has mastered the seven attitudes today.”

“He strikes like fire,” Lucilla said, “but remember that we of the Sisterhood flow like water and fill in every place.” She glanced down at Teg. “Do you not see that our ghola has gone beyond the attitudes?”

“No fixed position, no attitude,” Duncan said.

Teg looked up sharply at Duncan, who stood with his head erect, his forehead smooth, his eyes clear as he returned Teg’s gaze. Duncan had grown surprisingly in the short time since being awakened to his original memories.

“Damn you, Miles!” Lucilla muttered.

But Teg kept his attention on Duncan. The youth’s entire body seemed wired to a new kind of vigor. There was a poise about him that had not been there before.

Duncan shifted his attention to Lucilla. “You think you will fail in your assignment?”

“Surely not,” she said. “You’re still a male.”

And she thought: Yes, that young body must flow hot with the juices of procreation. Indeed, the hormonal igniters are all intact and susceptible to arousing. His present stance, though, and the way he looked at her, forced her to raise her awareness to new, energy-demanding levels.

“What have the Tleilaxu done to you?” she demanded.

Duncan spoke with a flippancy that he did not feel: “O Great Imprinter, if I knew I would tell you.”

“You think it’s a game we play?” she demanded.

“I do not know what it is we play at!”

“By now, many people know we are not on Rakis where we would have been expected to flee,” she said.

“And Gammu swarms with people returned from the Scattering,” Teg said. “They have the numbers to explore many possibilities here.”

“Who would suspect the existence of a lost no-globe from the Harkonnen days?” Duncan asked.

“Anyone who made the association between Rakis and Dar-es-Balat,” Teg said.

“If you think this is a game, consider the urgencies of the play,” Lucilla said. She pivoted on one foot to concentrate on Teg. “And you have disobeyed Taraza!”

“You are wrong! I have done exactly what she ordered me to do. I am her Bashar and you forget how well she knows me.”

With an abruptness that shocked her to silence, the subtleties of Taraza’s maneuverings impressed themselves upon Lucilla . . .

We are pawns!

What a delicate touch Taraza always demonstrated in the way she moved her pawns about. Lucilla did not feel diminished by the realization that she was a pawn. That was knowledge bred and trained into every Reverend Mother of the Sisterhood. Even Teg knew it. Not diminished, no. The thing around them had escalated in Lucilla’s awareness. She felt awed by Teg’s words. How shallow had been her previous view of the forces within which they were enmeshed. It was as though she had seen only the surface of a turbulent river and, from that, had glimpsed the currents beneath. Now, however, she felt the flow all around her and a dismaying realization.

Pawns are expendable.