He glanced at Duncan, who nodded coolly.
"Sheeana, you have an unusual talent, to control the sandworms. Duncan also has special skills. In addition to his ability to see the Enemy's net, he is genetically designed to be a sexual imprinter more powerful than the Bene Gesserit or the Honored Matres—which is how he ensnared Murbella long ago.
That was why the whores were so desperate to kill him." Teg lifted a finger to emphasize a point. "And as the rest of our ghola children grow older and regain memories of their past lives, I suspect that some, if not all, will exhibit their own valuable skills, which will help us to survive. You will have to accept, and embrace, their anomalous skills, or else their very existence is moot."
Duncan heaved a deep breath. "I agree, Sheeana. Don't censure Miles for hiding his gifts. He saved us, and more than once. My own mistakes, on the other hand, nearly cost us everything." He pondered other times when his obsession with Murbella had distracted him, slowing his reactions during an unexpected crisis. "I can no more break free of Murbella than you or any other Reverend Mother could simply stop using spice. It is an addiction, and admittedly a destructive one. It's been nineteen years since I've seen her or touched her, and the wound still has not healed. Her powers of seduction, and mine, along with my perfect Mentat memories, prevent me from escaping her. Here on the Ithaca there are reminders everywhere."
Sheeana spoke, her voice quiet and cool, without compassion. "If Murbella felt the same way back on Chapterhouse, the whores would have sensed her weakness long ago and killed her. If she is dead—"
"I hope she is alive." Duncan rose to his feet from the pilot's chair, searching for strength. "But the need I still feel for her affects my ability to function, and I must find a way to break free. Our survival depends on it."
"And how will you accomplish that, if you haven't succeeded in all these years?" Teg asked.
"I thought I had a way. I suggested it to Master Scytale. But I know it was wrong. A delusion. Chasing that illusion took me away from the navigation bridge when I was most needed. I could not have known ahead of time, but even so, my obsession almost cost us everything. Again."
Closing his eyes, Duncan went into a Mentat trance, and forced himself back through his memories, digging deep into his sequential lifetimes. He searched for some personal handhold to grasp, and at last he found it: Loyalty.
Loyalty had always been the defining trait of his character. It was at the core of Duncan Idaho's being. Loyalty to House Atreides—to the Old Duke who had made possible his escape from the Harkonnens, to the son Duke Leto, and to the grandson Paul Atreides, for whom Duncan had sacrificed his first life. And loyalty to the great grandson Leto II, first a smart and endearing young boy and then the God Emperor who resurrected Duncan again and again.
But he found it harder to give his loyalty now. Maybe that was why he had lost his way.
"The Tleilaxu wired a ticking time bomb into you, Duncan. You were to ensnare and destroy Bene Gesserit imprinters," Sheeana said. "I was the real target, but Murbella triggered you first, and both of you found yourselves caught in the snare."
Duncan wondered if that innate Tleilaxu programming was at the root of his inability to break free of his obsession. Did they make him that way intentionally? Damn the gods, I am stronger than this!
When he looked over at her, Duncan saw that Sheeana wore a strange, determined expression. "I can help you break those chains, Duncan. Will you trust me?"
"Trust you? An unusual thing for you to ask." Without answering, she turned and left the navigation bridge. Duncan could only wonder what she had in mind.
*
INSTANTLY ALERT, HE awoke in the darkness of his quarters. He heard the familiar faint tones of the no-ship's security door code activating in his chamber. No one knew that code but him! It was sealed within the memory banks of the vessel.
Duncan slid off the bed, moving like quicksilver, his senses on guard, his eyes absorbing details. Light spilled through the doorway from the corridor, outlining a figure there… female.
"I have come for you, Duncan." Sheeana's voice was soft and husky.
He took a step back. "Why are you here?"
"You know why, and you know I must."
She sealed the door behind her. The glowtabs in the room increased the illumination to just above the darkness threshold. Duncan saw tantalizing shadows, and her silhouette bathed in a soft orange glow. Sheeana wore next to nothing, a wispy gown that swirled around her like windblown spice silk revealing her entire figure.
His Mentat machinery whirled and suggested the obvious answer. "I did not ask—"
"Yes, you did!" Using Voice on me? "This was your demand of me, and it is your obligation. You know we were meant for each other. It is there inside you, down to your very chromosomes." She let the filmy garment fall, and stood before him, her body all curves and shadows with the highlights of her breasts and the honey-warmth of her skin enhanced by the faint illumination.
"I refuse." He stood straight and ready to fight. "Your imprinting will not work on me. I know the tools and techniques as well as you do."
"Yes, that is why we can use our mutual knowledge to break this hold Murbella has on you, shattering it once and for all."
"And make me just as addicted to you? I will fight it."
Her teeth shone in the shadows. "And I will fight back. In some species, that's an important part of the mating dance." Duncan resisted, afraid to face his own weakness. "I can do this myself. I don't need—"
"Yes, you do. For the sake of us all."
She came forward with a languid yet unsettling speed. He reached out to stop her, and she grasped his hand, using it as an anchor to pull herself toward him. She made a humming noise deep in her throat, one of the priming tones that played on a subconscious mind, activating an atavistic nervous system.
Duncan felt himself responding, becoming aroused. It had been so long… But he pushed her away. "The Tleilaxu wanted me to do this to you. They designed it in me so that I could destroy you. It's too dangerous."
"You were meant to destroy an untrained waif from Rakis, one who had no defenses against you. And you were meant to topple a Bene Gesserit Breeding Mistress, far less experienced than I am. Now, if anyone in the universe can stand up against the great Duncan Idaho, it is me."
"You have the vanity of an Honored Matre."
As if lashing out in anger, Sheeana grasped the back of his head, dug her fingers into the wiry black hair, and pulled his face to hers. She kissed him savagely, pressing her soft breasts against his bare chest. Her fingers touched nerve clusters in his neck and back, triggering programmed responses.
Duncan froze for an instant, paralyzed. Her desperate, hungry kiss became more gentle. Helplessly, Duncan responded—perhaps more than Sheeana had bargained for.
He remembered how all this had been triggered in him the first time the Honored Matre Murbella had attempted to enslave him. He had turned the tables on her using his own sexual abilities. That noose had strangled him for so many years. He couldn't let it happen again!
Sensing her danger now, Sheeana tried to push him away. Her hand struck his shoulder a sharp blow, but he caught it and knocked her backward. They both tumbled onto the already rumpled sheets of his bed, fighting, embracing. Their duel turned into aggressive lovemaking. Neither had any hint of a choice once those floodwaters were unleashed.
In numerous clinical training sessions on Chapterhouse, Duncan had instructed Sheeana in these selfsame methods, and she in turn had helped to polish uncounted Bene Gesserit males who were turned loose as sexual land mines against the Honored Matres. The havoc those men wrought had sent the whores into an even greater frenzy.
Duncan found himself using all of his powers to break her, just as she tried to break him. The two professional imprinters collided, using their mutual abilities in a tug-of-war. He fought back in the only way he knew how. A moan escaped his throat, and it formed a word, a name. "Murbella… "
"Not Murbella. Murbella did not love you. You know this."
"Neither… do… you." He wrenched the words out as a counterpoint to his rhythm.
Sheeana caught at him, and he nearly lost himself in the powerful wave of her sexuality. He felt like a drowning man. Even his Mentat focus had faded to a blinding distraction. "If not love, Duncan, then duty. I am saving you. Saving you."
Afterward they lay together, panting and sweating, as exhausted as Miles Teg must have been after he put his body through its incredible acceleration.
Duncan sensed that the razor thread within him had finally broken. His connection to Murbella, as tight and deadly as a strand of shigawire, no longer held his heart. He felt different now, a sensation that was both giddy freedom and lost drifting. Like two enormous Guild Heighliners caroming off of each other, he and Sheeana had intersected with inexorable force, and now they moved away from each other on separate courses.
He lay holding Sheeana, and she didn't speak. She didn't have to. Duncan knew that at last he was drained, and stunned… and cured.
26
We create history for ourselves, and we have a fondness for participating in grand epics.
Bene Gesserit basic instruction, Training Manual for Acolytes
They were magnificent ships, thousands upon thousands of them lined up across a wine-dark sea. Overhead, a heavy grayness in the sky set an appropriate mood with brooding clouds of war. The tableau represented a fleet such as had never been gathered in all of history.
"Awe-inspiring, is it not, Daniel?" Smiling, the old woman stood on the weathered boards of the dock and looked across the imaginary waters at the antique-design vessels, sharp-prowed Greek war galleys with angry eyes painted on their prows. The triremes bristled with long oars to be pulled by hordes of slaves.
The old man was not so impressed, however. "I find your pretentious symbols tiresome, my Martyr. As I always have. Are you suggesting you have a face worthy of launching a thousand ships?"
The woman let out a dry chuckle. "I don't consider myself classically beautiful or handsome—or even particularly male or female, for that matter.
But surely you can see how these events now are similar to the start of the epic Trojan War. Let us paint the appropriate picture to commemorate the event."
Of continuing concern to them, the one target they desperately sought—the wandering no-ship—had escaped yet again from the seeming certainty of a carefully laid trap. They still did not have the one thing the predictions said they needed.
With impatience and arrogance—decidedly human traits, though the old man would never admit that—he had decided to launch his great fleet anyway. It would take time to crush all the inhabited worlds of the Scattering and every planet of the Old Empire. By the time Kralizec neared its end, he was confident he would have what he needed. There was no logical reason to delay the expanded campaign.
The old man looked at the symbolic wooden war galleys crowding the faux ocean all the way to the horizon. With their sails furled, the boats rocked and creaked in the gentle swells. "Our fleet is thousands of times greater than the handful of boats used in that old war. And our real battleships are infinitely superior to this primitive technology. We are conquering a universe, not a minor country on a planet that most people have now forgotten."
Transfixed by the spectacle she had created, the old woman bent her bony legs to sit on the dock. "You have always been so maddeningly literal that metaphors are entirely beyond you. The Trojan War stands as one of the defining conflicts in human history. It is still remembered even now, tens of thousands of years later."
"Primarily because I preserved the records," said the old man with a huff.
"This is to be Kralizec, not a skirmish between barbarian armies."
A stone appeared in the old woman's hand, and she tossed it into the water with a clear, loud splash. The spreading ripples vanished quickly in the stirring waves. "Even you want to cement your place in history, don't you?
Paint yourself as a great conqueror. For that, you must pay particular attention to details."
The man stood rigidly beside her, eschewing the informality of sitting on the dock. "After my victory, I shall write all the history I like."
The old woman made an additional mental effort, and the illusory war galleys crystallized to the point that tiny figures appeared on their top decks, acting as crew. "I wish the Handlers had succeeded in capturing the no-ship."
"The Handlers have been punished for their failure," said the old man. "And my confidence remains unshaken. Our recent… discussions with Khrone should have helped clarify his priorities."
"It's a good thing you didn't kill him and scuttle his plans with the Paul Atreides ghola. I have warned you about impetuosity. One shouldn't throw away a possibility until all is said and done."
"You and your inane platitudes."
"Once more unto the breach," the old woman said.
"Why do you bother studying these humans so much if our goal is to destroy them?"
"Not destroy them. Perfect them."
The old man shook his head. "And you say that I embrace impossible tasks."
"It's time to launch."
"At last we agree on something."
She made a slight gesture with her pointed chin. The bare-chested commanders aboard the prows of the triremes shouted orders. Heavy war drums began thumping a resonant beat, completely synchronized across the thousands of Greek war galleys. Three rows of oars stacked on each side of the vessels lifted from the water in unison, dipped down, and pulled.
Behind them, where the edges of the imaginary ocean faded and reality began, the sharp lines of a tall and complex city resisted the softening effects of sea mists. The great living metropolis had spread across the entire planet, and similarly on numerous other worlds.
As the war galleys moved out, each one an icon symbolizing a space battle group, the images shifted. The sea became a black and infinite ocean of stars.
The old man nodded with satisfaction. "The incursion will proceed with greater vigor now. Once we begin to engage in direct battles, I will not allow you to waste time, energy, or imagination on such stage shows."
The old woman flicked her fingers as if to knock away an insect. "My amusements cost little, and I have never lost sight of our overall goal.
Everything we see and do contains an element of illusion, in one form or another. We simply choose which layers to unveil." She shrugged. "But if you continue to nag me about it, I would be happy for us to revert to our original forms whenever you like."
In a blink, all of the realistic images were gone and the two found themselves standing in the midst of the immense kaleidoscopic metropolis.
"We have waited fifteen thousand years for this," the old man said.
"Yes, we have. But that isn't really very long for us, is it?"
27
Seeing is not knowing, and knowing is not preventing. Certainty can be as much of a curse as uncertainty. Without knowing the future, one has more options in forming a reaction.
PAUL MUAD'DIB, The Golden Chains of Prescience
The Oracle of Time kept herself aloof. She had existed since before the formation of the Spacing Guild, and in the subsequent millennia she had watched the human race grow and change. She witnessed their various struggles and dreams, their commercial ventures, the building of empires and the wars that tore them back down again.
Within her mind, within her artificial chamber, the Oracle had seen the broad canvas of the infinite universe. The wider her temporal horizons grew, the less significant were individual events or people. Some threats, however, were simply too momentous to ignore.
On her tireless search, the Oracle of Time left her Navigator children behind so that she could continue her solitary mission, while other parts of her vast brain considered possible defenses and methods of attack against the great a
ncient Enemy.
She plunged intentionally into the twisted alternate universe where she had found and rescued the no-ship years ago. In this strange quagmire of physical laws and inside-out sensory input, the Oracle sailed along, though she already knew Duncan Idaho would never have returned here. The no-ship was not inside this universe.
With a thought, she emerged again to normal space. There, she found the incorporeal traceries stitched through the void, a lacework of extended lines and conduits the Enemy had laid down. The strands of the tachyon net branched out farther and farther, questing like the root tendrils of an insidious weed.
For centuries now, she had followed the extensions of the tachyon net in their random windings.
She shot along one such strand from intersection point to intersection point.
If the Oracle followed them long enough and far enough, she would eventually reach the nexus from which they all emanated, but the pieces were not yet in position, and the timing was not right for that battle. Following the tachyon net farther would not serve the Oracle's purposes, nor would it take her to Duncan Idaho and the no-ship. If the net had found the lost vessel, the Enemy would have seized it already; therefore, logically, she needed to look beyond the net.
Soaring at the speed of thought, the Oracle remained amazed by the vessel's uncanny ability to elude her, yet she knew very well the power personified in a Kwisatz Haderach. And this particular one, by his very destiny, was more powerful than any previous one. The prophecies said so. Future history, when looked at from a broad enough perspective, was indeed predetermined.
Trillions of humans over tens of thousands of years had exhibited a latent racial prescient ability. In myths and legends, the same prediction kept cropping up—the End Times, titanic battles that signaled epic changes in history and society. The Butlerian Jihad had been one such battle. She had been there, too, fighting against the terrific antagonist that threatened to obliterate humanity.
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