“A sleeper agent, perhaps,” Sheeana suggested. “Or, could the Face Dancer have been someone else for a long time, and only recently replaced Thufir?”
“Yes, look for a scapegoat to persecute,” Scytale said bitterly, slumping in the overlarge interrogation chair. “Preferably a Tleilaxu.”
Sheeana had fire in her eyes. “As a precaution, we have sealed all of the ghola children in separate rooms, where they can cause no damage if another of them is a Face Dancer. I’ve already directed our Suk doctors to take blood samples. They won’t escape.”
Duncan wondered if her vehemence might suggest that she was a Face Dancer. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and continued to watch her. He would have to watch everyone he could, at all times.
Garimi looked around at their small trusted cadre. “I—or another of our choosing—will remain on the navigation bridge and monitor the no-ship while every single person aboard is brought into the main meeting chamber. Herd them in, account for every one, even the children. Lock the doors and test them all. One by one. Learn the truth.”
“What definitive tests can we use?” Teg asked. “On any of us?”
Scytale piped up, “I believe I can develop a reliable method. Using a tissue sample from the Hawat Face Dancer, I will prepare a comparison panel. There are certain . . . techniques I could use. He is one of the new breed brought back by the Lost Tleilaxu, and he differs from the old ones. But with this sample—”
“And why should we trust you?” Garimi said. “Your own purity hasn’t yet been proven.”
Scytale wore a forlorn expression. “You have to trust someone.”
“Do we?”
“I would allow myself to be observed by your experts at all times during the preparations.”
Duncan glanced at the Tleilaxu Master. “Scytale’s suggestion is a good one.”
“Or I can offer another option. When the Face Dancers betrayed my fellow Masters back on Tleilax and our other worlds, some of us had time to fight back. We created a toxin that specifically targets Face Dancers—a selective poison. If you grant me access to laboratory facilities, I can recreate that toxin and deploy it as a gas.”
“To what purpose?” Teg asked. Then his expression changed to one of understanding. “Ah, to flood the Ithaca’s air systems. We would kill any Face Dancers who remain among us.”
“The quantities necessary to saturate our ship would be huge,” Duncan said, racing through a Mentat calculation to estimate the volume of air within the gigantic vessel, the concentration of gas that would prove lethal to the shape-shifters, the possibility of making others ill and debilitating the crew.
Garimi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re suggesting we let this Tleilaxu release an unknown gas into our ship? They created the Face Dancers!”
Scytale answered her in a voice heavy with scorn. “You witches fail to think. Don’t you see that I myself face a dire threat? These are new Face Dancers, brought in from outside by the Lost Tleilaxu—our bastard stepbrothers who cooperated with the Honored Matres to annihilate all the old Masters like myself. Think! If other Face Dancers are aboard the Ithaca, then I am in greater personal danger than anyone else. Can’t you understand that?”
“Scytale’s gas must only be a last resort,” Duncan said.
Sheeana looked around the room. “I’ll let him begin work on the toxin, but I’d prefer that we identify any Face Dancer directly.”
“And interrogate it,” Garimi said.
Scytale laughed. “You think you can interrogate a Face Dancer?”
“Never underestimate the Bene Gesserit.”
Sheeana nodded. “Until we root out any other infiltrators, until we prove there are no more Face Dancers among us, our only safety lies in staying in large enough groups that the shape-shifters can’t attack without being seen.”
“What if an overwhelming number of us are already Face Dancers?” Teg said.
“Then we’re all lost.”
DURING THE LOCKDOWN, each of the ghola children was tested; Leto II submitted first. When the sandworms had turned on Thufir Hawat, somehow sensing the alien Face Dancer, Leto’s shock had seemed genuine. The imagers showed him staring in disbelief at the ruined body that had reverted to its blank Face Dancer state. But Thufir had clearly placed himself in danger, voluntarily going toward Leto when he did not need to. Why would a Face Dancer put himself at risk, unless the copy was so accurate that even the friendship was real?
Leto, ghola of the Tyrant, was many extraordinary things. But he was not a Face Dancer. Scytale’s genetic analysis proved it.
Paul Atreides was also found to be clean, along with Chani, Jessica, and the three-year-old Alia, who was intrigued by the needles and samples. Despite the usual suspicions surrounding him, Wellington Yueh was also who he claimed to be.
After Scytale completed the blood and cellular tests, Sheeana was still not satisfied. “Even if we can now trust the ghola children, that means only that other Face Dancers—if there are any more—must be hidden among the rest of us.”
“Then we’ll test the rest,” Garimi said. “Or use Scytale’s poison gas. I’ll personally submit to any scrutiny, again and again, and I suggest we all do so.”
Scytale raised his small hands in alarm. “This test is an intensive one. I’ll need to prepare enough panels for all passengers, and that will take a great deal of time.”
“Then we will take the time,” Sheeana announced. “Doing anything less would be foolhardy.”
Why do we find destruction so fascinating? When we see a terrible tragedy, do we think ourselves clever for having evaded it ourselves? Or is our fascination rooted in the thrill and fear of knowing we could be next?
—MOTHER SUPERIOR ODRADE,
Documentation of Consequences
Murbella and Janess—mother and daughter, Mother Commander and Supreme Bashar—orbited the dead world of Richese. They rode in an observation ship, separate from the teams of engineers, who were still leery about the burned-out plague on Chapterhouse. Though the disease had run its course, the Ixians refused to be in a confined space with Murbella and Janess, who had been exposed to it.
Nevertheless, alone in their small ship, the two women had a perfect view of the unfolding test.
More than five years earlier, rebel Honored Matre ships from Tleilax had bombarded Richese, erasing not only the entire population, but also the weapons industries and the half-constructed battle fleet that was to have been delivered to the New Sisterhood. Now that the planet was lifeless, however, Richese was a perfectly appropriate place for the Ixians to demonstrate their new Obliterator weapons.
Murbella opened the commline and spoke to the four accompanying test ships. “You take a smug pleasure in doing this, don’t you, Chief Fabricator?”
On the screen, Shayama Sen arched his eyebrows and jerked his head back in a fine display of innocence. “We’re testing the weapon you ordered from us, Mother Commander. You asked for a demonstration, rather than taking us at our word. We must prove that our technology functions as advertised.”
“And the rivalry between Ix and Richese had nothing to do with your choice of targets?” She barely held her sarcasm in check.
“Richese is just a historical footnote, Mother Commander. Any enjoyment Ixians might have taken from our rivals’ unfortunate fate has long since faded.” After a pause, Sen added, “We admit, however, that the irony does not escape us.”
Since last visiting her high above Chapterhouse, the factory leader sounded subtly changed. Recently, when Sen had come back to deliver full records of all their tests on Ix, he had seemed surprised, even embarrassed. He had followed her suspicious suggestion and used the cellular test on all of his people, with the result that twenty-two Face Dancers had been exposed, all of them working in critical industries.
Murbella would have liked to interrogate them, maybe even apply an Ixian T-probe. But those Face Dancers who weren’t immediately killed took their own lives, some
how using a machinelike suicide shutdown in their own brains. The lost opportunity angered her, but she doubted her Sisters would have learned anything from the shape-shifters anyway. Nevertheless, she was glad to have installed eight trusted inspectors to watch over the industrial progress from that point onward.
“Our delivery schedule is tight, Mother Commander, as you demanded,” Sen transmitted. “We are arming the ships from Junction as quickly as possible. After seeing these four Obliterators successfully tested, you can’t deny that our technology is reliable.”
“It seems a shame to waste such destructive power on a target that doesn’t harm the true enemy,” Janess said. “But we require proof.” Both of them had reviewed earlier films of the tests, but those could have been faked.
“I still want to see it with my own eyes,” Murbella said. “Then we’ll throw everything into a defense against the machine advance.”
“Deploying the nodes now,” transmitted one of the Ixian pilots. “Please observe.”
Four balls of light spat from the quartet of Ixian ships, and the incandescent Obliterators spun like pinwheels toward the cracked world below. They shuddered and expanded as they descended, throwing off rippling waves that grew brighter instead of dampening.
The atmosphere of Richese had already been scorched, its forests and cities leveled in the first chain reaction. Even so, the Ixian-modified weapons found sufficient fuel to set the world ablaze all over again.
Murbella remained silent as she watched the awesome swiftness of the flame fronts. She stared without blinking until her eyes felt dry. The planet flared like an ember in a breeze. Cracks appeared across the continents; orange rifts blazed up. Finally, she spoke to her daughter, not caring that the Ixians could overhear on the open commline. “If we deploy such a weapon in the midst of a thinking-machine battle fleet, it will wreak inconceivable havoc.”
“We might actually have a chance,” Janess said.
Shayama Sen interrupted through the speakers, “You assume, Mother Commander, that the thinking machines will be foolish enough to fly their ships in such a tight cluster that one weapon will suffice.”
“We know a great deal about the Enemy’s battle plan and how their fleet has been advancing. They do not use foldspace engines, so they move methodically from one target to the next, step by step. With the thinking machines there are few surprises.” Murbella looked at her daughter, then back at the burning planet before snapping orders to the Ixians. “Very well, no need to squander any more Obliterators. When we finally hurl them at machine battleships, that will be demonstration enough for me. I want at least ten Obliterators aboard each of our new warships. No more delays! We have waited too long already.”
“It will be done, Mother Commander,” Sen said.
Murbella chewed at her lower lip as she watched Richese continue to blaze. It wasn’t like the Chief Fabricator to be so cooperative, failing to demand additional payment. Perhaps, after seeing countless worlds already destroyed, the Ixians had at last recognized their true enemy.
Whether we see them or not, there are nets everywhere, encompassing our individual and collective lives. Sometimes it is necessary to ignore them, for the sake of our own sanity.
—ship’s log, entry of
DUNCAN IDAHO
Face Dancers aboard.
In her quarters with little Alia and twelve-year-old Leto, Jessica felt very much like a mother again—after all these centuries. The three of them had a shared past and bloodline, but no other knowledge or memories in common. Not yet. To Jessica it seemed that they were little more than actors memorizing lines and playing roles, trying to be who they were supposed to be. Her body was only seventeen, but she felt much older as she comforted the two younger ones.
“What is a Face Dancer?” three-year-old Alia asked, toying with a sharp knife she kept at her side. Since the time she could walk, the girl had harbored a fascination for weapons, and she often sought permission to practice with them, rather than playing with more appropriate toys. “Are they coming to get us?”
“They’re already in the ship,” Leto said, still shaken. He could not believe that Thufir had been a Face Dancer and that he hadn’t known it. “That’s why we were all tested.”
“No others have been found yet,” Jessica said. She and Thufir had been decanted in the same year. In the crèche, she had been raised with the ghola of the warrior-Mentat, and never had she noticed any change in his personality. It did not seem possible that Thufir could have been a Face Dancer from the very beginning.
The real Hawat, Master of Assassins and former weapons master of House Atreides, had been a veteran of numerous successful campaigns like Bashar Miles Teg, serving three generations of House Atreides. No wonder Sheeana and the Bene Gesserits had considered him an invaluable ally. That was why they had wanted to bring him back, and now it was obvious why their memory-triggering crisis hadn’t worked. Thufir was not really Thufir, and perhaps never had been.
Now—unless clean cells were found to grow a new ghola—the people aboard the Ithaca would never have access to Hawat’s Mentat and tactical skills. In fact, Jessica realized that after all this time, the ghola project had produced very little that could be used to help them. Only Yueh, Stilgar, and Liet-Kynes had been reawakened to their past lives, but the latter two were gone. And Yueh, while a skilled Suk doctor, was not a particularly great asset to their team.
He killed my Duke Leto—again.
With the Face Dancer threat, the missing explosive mines, and the various incidents of sabotage, the need for the gholas and their old skills had become more urgent. The remaining unawakened ghola children must have special abilities; Jessica knew they had all been brought back for a reason. Each of them. Paul, Chani, and she were all of an appropriate age; even Leto II should be old enough. Gradual, careful measures could not possibly be sufficient. Not anymore.
She sighed. If not now, then when would their historical abilities be useful? I must have my memories back!
Jessica could offer so much more to benefit the no-ship, if given the opportunity. She felt like a husk of a person without her original life. In her quarters, she stood up so swiftly that she startled both Alia and Leto. “You two should return to your rooms.” Her gruff voice invited no argument. “There’s something important I have to do. These Bene Gesserits are cowards, though they don’t realize it. They can no longer afford to be.”
In some ways, Sheeana was brash and impetuous, but in other ways overly cautious. Jessica knew someone, however, who would not shy away from inflicting pain upon her.
“Who are you going to see?” Leto asked.
“Garimi.”
THE HARD-LINE REVEREND MOTHER regarded her with a stony expression, then smiled slowly. “Why should I do this? Are you mad?”
“Just pragmatic.”
“Do you have any understanding of how much this is going to hurt?”
“I am prepared for it.” She looked at Garimi’s dark, curly hair, her flat and unattractive features; Jessica, by contrast, was the very ideal of classical beauty, designed by the Bene Gesserit to play the role of a seductress, a breeding mother whose features had been copied again and again for centuries after her death. “And I know, Proctor Superior, that if anyone can inflict that pain, you are prepared to do so.”
Garimi seemed caught between amusement and uneasiness. “I have imagined countless ways to twist the knife in you, Jessica. I have often considered how much harm your actions did to the old Sisterhood. You derailed our entire Kwisatz Haderach program, created a monster we couldn’t control. After Paul, as a direct consequence of your defiance, we suffered thousands of years under the Tyrant. For what conceivable reason would I want to awaken you? You betrayed us.”
“So you say.” Garimi’s words struck like hurled stones. The woman had tormented Jessica for years, as well as poor Leto II. Jessica knew all the accusations, understood how the conservative Bene Gesserit faction viewed her. But she had not previously
endured the shocking depth of hatred and anger that the woman now showed toward her. “Your own words reveal a great deal, Garimi. The old Sisterhood. Where are your thoughts? We are already living in the future.”
“That doesn’t negate the terrible pain you caused.”
“You keep insisting that I should bear that guilt. But how can I feel it, if I don’t remember? Are you content with me as a scapegoat, a whipping boy for all the imagined wrongs of the past? Sheeana wants my memories restored so that I can help us. But you, Garimi, should be just as eager to awaken me. Admit it—can you think of a better Bene Gesserit punishment than drowning me in the unforgivable things you say I’ve done to the Sisterhood? Awaken me! Make me see it for myself!”
Garimi reached out and grabbed her wrist. Instinctively, Jessica tried to pull away, but was unsuccessful. The other woman’s expression hardened. “I am going to Share with you. I’m going to give you all my thoughts and memories so that you’ll know.” Garimi leaned closer. “I will dump into your brain those hundreds of generations of past lives that occurred after you committed your crime, so that you can see the full scope and consequences of what you did.” She pulled Jessica up against her.
“That’s not possible. Only Reverend Mothers can Share.” Jessica tried to scramble backward.
Garimi’s eyes were steely. “And you are a Reverend Mother—or you were. Therefore, one lives within you.” She clasped the back of Jessica’s head, grabbed her bronze hair and yanked her closer. Garimi leaned her own forehead down, and pressed it against Jessica’s. “I can make this work. I’m strong enough. Can you imagine why I’m doing it? Perhaps the grief will be enough to paralyze you!”
Jessica fought back. “Or it will . . . make . . . me . . . stronger.”
She’d wanted her own memories, yes—but had never offered to accept all of Garimi’s experiences, or those numerous ancestors who had lived through the persecutions of the God Emperor of Dune, her own grandson. All those who had survived the Famine Times, struggling to overcome their addiction to melange, which was no longer available. The horrors of those generations had left deep scars on the human psyche.
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