Chani!
He could not let it happen again.
In a cluster, four hunter-seekers shot toward the throne. With a swift and desperate push, he forced Chani to the floor even as she stood to fight. “Stay down!” In a blur, he then knocked Irulan sideways, sending her to scrabble for shelter under her overturned chair, while Alia bounded down the steps and out of the way.
The first hunter-seeker slammed its needle prow into the center of the throne where Paul had been sitting only seconds earlier.
Reacting without hesitation, Fedaykin guards sprang from the aisles and the sides of the chamber and dove forward to protect Muad’Dib with their own bodies. Bludd bounded onto the stage, his rapier drawn to slash at the whirring projectiles.
But Paul was moving to stop the hunter-seekers himself. The floating needle weapons came so fast that he could avoid them only one at a time. One buzzed beneath his arm, and he twisted violently to the left to avoid its sting. Two Fedaykin threw themselves in the hunter-seekers’ paths to intercept the deadly devices with their chests. The men lay writhing and spasming from the discharged poison; they would be dead within moments.
So much panicked movement, and so many people swarming around the throne area, confused the devices’ targeting. At least twenty hunter-seekers had been launched, maybe more, and many had already found victims.
With a sharp thrum of metal like a struck tuning fork, Bludd’s rapier knocked one of the flying devices out of the air. He stood his ground in front of Irulan, who took advantage of whatever protection her overturned chair might offer. Another hunter-seeker came close, and Bludd battered at it with a flurry of his thin blade.
Without understanding the nature of the threat, the terrified audience began to flee the Celestial Audience Chamber. Those in the front rows turned to run, pushing up against the crush of bodies packed into the immense hall.
Another volley of hunter-seekers emerged from the ornamented openings, and the second wave came streaking toward Paul. Chani lay rigid on the floor, knowing that any movement would draw the attention of the questing devices. But when one of the nearby Fedaykin was struck and collapsed thrashing beside her, she rolled over, instinctively trying to help him.
Paul saw a hunter-seeker change its trajectory and flash toward Chani, but he had become preternaturally aware of each movement around him. With furious speed, he jumped to grab the thing out of the air. Knowing the suspensor field would make a firm grip difficult, he squeezed hard as he clamped down.
He felt a painful, burning sting.
A Mentat assessment flashed the immediate answer to him. The middle of the hunter-seeker’s cylindrical shaft was girdled with another ring of short, fine needles, also dripping poison. Though the lethal points bit into his hand, he squeezed tighter, seized control, and smashed its nose onto the polished stone of the platform.
He could already feel the poison working its way into his blood, but he had the ability to neutralize it. With the Bene Gesserit cellular powers he had learned, Paul identified the chemicals, unlocked their modes of toxicity, and altered the molecules to neutralize the poison. It took only a moment, but it was a moment he did not have. More hunter-seekers sped toward him.
But now he was immune to that particular toxin, and his body’s biochemistry manufactured the antidote. Lunging back to his feet, he grabbed another hunter-seeker that buzzed directly in front of his face. He felt the sting of the needles again as he smashed it to the floor.
Turning to find another target, however, Paul realized that the second device had contained a different poison from the first — equally deadly, but one that required a new, independent effort for him to alter its chemistry and make himself immune. Either of the toxins would have been fatal to a normal human, and Paul had to expend the extra effort to counteract two toxins instead of just one. It was nonsensically redundant.
He suddenly understood that in planning this attack, someone had tailored it precisely, taking Paul’s abilities into account — someone who had intimate knowledge of the Emperor’s particular skills.
The mysterious opponent had not underestimated Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides. The assassination attempt had come when he was with those he loved, which forced him not only to protect himself but to protect all of them — which meant he was facing a threat as convoluted and extravagant as the most tortuous training sessions that Duncan Idaho and Thufir Hawat had concocted for him when he was a boy. If not for Bludd’s assistance, Irulan would probably already be dead.
Paul became like a whirling dervish, grabbing hunter-seekers, smashing them into each other, slamming them to the floor, leaping for others with hands outstretched before they could strike Chani, Irulan, Alia, or even Bludd. His chair was studded with stray hunter-seekers, and each projectile he grabbed was armed with a different poison. More and more complexities!
He was exhausted, his body clamoring from the effort of his accelerated fight as well as from driving back the toxins.
By now the air was abuzz with more hunter-seekers than he could stop, perhaps a hundred. His hands, arms, chest, and back had been stung repeatedly. He could barely concentrate now, forced to devote most of his effort to counteracting the dangerous chemicals building up in his bloodstream. Bodies lay in heaps on the dais and out in the audience. The crowd was a cacophony of screams.
From out in the audience, Korba bellowed orders, finally acting like a Fedaykin again rather than a priest. He commanded the soldiers to shoot out the cubbyholes, preventing more weapons from being launched. Someone — Bludd? — thrust a body shield at Paul and activated it; the field would slow the hunter-seekers, making it easier to intercept them. Bludd activated a shield of his own, apparently having brought the protective devices despite Paul’s orders that they were not to be used. Rather than insubordination, the act now appeared to be remarkable foresight.
Korba’s men, also wearing full shields, waded through the bodies, using clubs, stretches of fabric, and gloved hands to eliminate more of the hunter-seekers. Over half of the men perished in the effort, but their companions continued, regardless.
Despite his difficulty focusing, Paul at last saw the threat diminishing and he concentrated more of his personal energy on stopping the waves of poison within him. When he finally returned to awareness and found himself collapsed near the base of the throne, breathing heavily, he realized the attack was over.
Or was it? He sensed something more, a brooding danger like a subsonic pulse throbbing at the back of his mind.
Chani came toward him, looking exhausted, but her eyes were bright and her skin flushed pink. She was intact, though her clothes were torn and her hair in disarray. “Usul, you are hurt!”
“I will live.” Feeling uneasy, he looked around at the horrific aftermath. Most of the crowd had been evacuated from the Celestial Hall, while more guards and medical personnel were trying to push their way in. All in the audience who had been touched by a hunter-seeker’s poison were either dying or dead, and many other hapless celebrants had been injured in the panic.
Paul tried to calm himself, but a threat still clamored inside his skull. As far as he could see, all the devices had been neutralized, and the cubbyholes had been destroyed. Then why did he still feel such imminent danger? It pulsed in his mind, refused to go away.
His head rang, and he found it difficult to think clearly. Though he had counteracted the poisons in his body, their aftereffects left him physically drained.
Still, the sense of supreme danger roared around him like a wind.
Chani sat at his side and put her arms around him, imparting strength to him as she held him close. Suddenly, the silent warning blared in his mind, like an unexpected spike on a power grid. He couldn’t understand it, but couldn’t ignore it, either. Paul did not question what he felt.
Using the last of his strength, he grabbed Chani and began to move. In the same instant, Swordmaster Bludd surprised them. “My Lord! Down!” Like a juggernaut, Bludd pushed them both so that al
l three tumbled away from the throne and off the edge of the dais. They fell onto the grisly cushion of dead bodies strewn on the floor about them.
A fraction of a second later, a small, hidden bomb exploded from beneath the elaccawood throne, hurling a rippling fireball over the entire dais.
9
There is an arrogance to perfection. When one insists on perfection and receives only flawed humanity, the resulting disappointment breeds unrealistic anger and proves only that those in charge are human as well — and deficient.
— The Dunebuk of Muad’Dib
We shall provide a new entertainment today.” Thallo’s low voice simmered with excitement as he met Marie in one of their designated training areas. The Tleilaxu observers seemed to consider their time together as constructive “play,” but Dr. Ereboam had been growing increasingly nervous as he watched the mounting strain on his Kwisatz Haderach candidate. To a great extent Thallo was like a void in human shape, revealing few answers to the questions he sparked about himself.
“What sort of entertainment?” Marie looked around, but saw nothing unusual in the small laboratory chamber. The walls were lined with interactive game simulations and exotic exercise machines. Behind one of the dark, mirrored surfaces she knew the ever-present monitors were watching them. Though she maintained a bright, childish expression, Marie was alert, wary of what Thallo might do next.
Ignoring the observers behind the mirrors, he took her small arm and led her out into the corridor. “I want you by my side. It is a special day, and I have been waiting a long time for this.” He marched her toward a security check station where two alert-looking Tleilaxu guards sat, but the lavender scanner lights dimmed and switched off as Thallo and Marie approached. The Kwisatz Haderach candidate and the little girl walked right past the apparently attentive middle-caste guards, who didn’t seem to see them at all.
Thallo’s ability to manipulate Tleilaxu technology and perceptions seemed almost supernatural. “The Masters have such high hopes for me, but apparently low expectations. They cannot guess the half of my capabilities.” His perfect lips quirked into a smile. “Why create a Kwisatz Haderach and then assume he will fit into narrowly defined parameters?”
They passed a second security station, but as before, the pair proceeded without being noticed. At a doorway, Thallo touched an identity pad on the wall, and a heavy door slid upward to allow them access. He flexed his hand. “I know much, much more about Thalidei than they can ever guess.”
Marie’s wariness increased as they slipped into a high-ceilinged chamber — clearly a heavy-security zone. Her companion sealed the door behind them and reinforced it with a second, heavier plate. “There, now we are barricaded in. We’re safe.”
“Safe from what?” All of her senses anticipated danger — but from Thallo.
“Safe to do our work.” His usually guarded expression had a manic, edgy quality. “Through the prescience the Tleilaxu gave me, I know I am doomed to fail. The mode of my failure, however, is under my primary control. And if I am to be a failure, I may as well make it a spectacular one.” He touched his forearm where a wet line of red from a particularly deep cut had begun to seep through the filmsuit. “Painful lessons are the ones best remembered.”
Inside the chamber, Marie was startled to see nine electronic containment cells, each holding an apparently identical version of Thallo, all muscular, perfectly formed young men. “Meet my brothers,” he said. “Replacements prepared by the Masters.”
The identical Thallos stood caged in their containment chambers, looking out imploringly. They all appeared awake, hyperaware, and completely trapped, each awaiting his turn. “See, they hope for me to be discarded so that they can be next. Despite what Dr. Ereboam says, the Tleilaxu are a long way from achieving their superhuman.”
“Are you going to free them?” Seeing the nine remaining clones, Marie wondered how many previous versions of Thallo had been tried, and discarded. Had he been inside one of those confinement chambers, himself looking out, counting endless days, waiting? How many previous Kwisatz Haderach candidates had been labeled unacceptable and then killed?
Moving with a lithe grace, Thallo bounded up to a mezzanine walkway above the containment chambers. Marie followed him, not showing her uneasiness, looking down at the caged clones that stared out at them, following Thallo’s every movement. The Kwisatz Haderach candidate stood motionless in front of an intricate control panel, his gaze far away, as if the complexities had placed him in a trance.
Marie stood at his side, silent and intent. Thallo spoke to her in a low, wistful voice. “Throughout my life the Masters have slapped scanners on my brain, performed chemical tests, twisted my thoughts, recorded my movements and words. But I fixed it so they can do that no more. I fooled them.” He looked down at her, his face a mask of pain. “I fooled you, too, Marie.”
She said carefully, “I think you’re playing another trick on me.”
“The extreme knowledge and prescience is too much for me to endure. The impossible expectations placed upon me are more than overwhelming.” His face was locked in a grimace, but she’d seen Thallo’s swift mood swings before. His outstretched hands hovered over the controls, as if feeling the heat rising from the circuits themselves.
Marie tensed, ready to take necessary action.
“I am more than a clone, more than a ghola,” he said, “and much more than a person. Dr. Ereboam fused specific molecular memories into me, from the cells of historical figures that he thinks will aid me in becoming their superpowerful puppet. I sense that I am Gilbertus Albans, who founded the Order of Mentats. I am Jool-Noret, the greatest Swordmaster in the history of Ginaz. I am Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, too — as well as thousands of others.”
“I prefer Thallo for my playmate,” Marie said, sounding intentionally immature. “Let’s call Dr. Ereboam. He can make you feel better. Or let my mother try her Bene Gesserit techniques.”
“I don’t want to feel better. I want to make a statement. How else to make the Tleilaxu see what they have created, their hubris in believing that such a flawed race could create perfection, and then control it?”
She tried to distract him. “We can escape from here. We can get away from Thalidei, from this planet — see the whole galaxy, just the two of us.”
“No matter where I go, I am still a prisoner in here.” He tapped his forehead with a finger. “Escaping physically doesn’t help the part that’s inside me. Or what will be inside them.” He pointed down to the confinement chambers.
Marie tried to lure him away from the controls. “I don’t like this game.”
“Game? Call it that if you wish. Now see how I win.” When his fingers danced over the controls, the caged duplicate Thallos all screamed in eerie unison, a piercing noise that hurt Marie’s ears. “The Tleilaxu are very efficient at killing. They conduct many experiments. Have you seen their catalog of poisons?” The high tone modulated, and blood began to stream from the eyes and nostrils of the numerous copies. Thallo showed no outward pleasure or distress from causing them so much agony. “The nerve agent should be fast acting. I have seen this happen before.”
The duplicate Thallos twitched, clawed at the curved but impenetrable plaz walls of their chamber, and then slumped dead, folding their bodies into small volumes like poorly stored marionettes.
“Why did you have to kill them?” Marie was more curious than anguished.
Thallo’s porcelain face was flushed with excitement. “I freed them. Now, I shall free myself — and you, too, Marie. I know the impossible expectations your parents have placed on you, too. You and I are the same.”
“No!” She put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want that.”
But his fingers again became a blur over the controls, activating a deep subroutine, awakening a rumble and purr of machinery. The floor and walkway vibrated. “The Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach program can never be perfect.”
“I’m not perfect either,” Marie said, “but
I can still do what I need to. My parents trained me. You are highly trained yourself. Think of what we could do together.” She lowered her voice as she repeated, “Think of what we can do….”
“I have already done it — I powered up the biogenerators for all of the labs in Thalidei and the underground ducts, the atmosphere-distribution system that runs under the streets and buildings. A most effective nerve toxin, instantly fatal, prepared for a man named Thorvald to be used in his rebellion against Muad’Dib. Thorvald will never receive his poison, though. The entire shipment will be dispersed in a rush throughout the city. The Tleilaxu have good reason to be proud of their poisons — this one is so toxic that the merest whiff will fell the largest man.” He smiled, touching the console in front of him and thrilling to the vibrations he felt. “The large containers are currently being pressurized for widespread release.” Thallo patted her stiff shoulder. “It will erase everything, clean everything. Air currents might even carry the gas as far away as Bandalong before it loses its potency.”
Marie looked at the controls herself. “Shut it down!” Struggling with what she knew, the girl altered her tone to place all the emphasis she could summon, attempting to use Voice. “Shut it down!”
Thallo paused for a second, then looked at her, unaffected. He sighed tenderly as he continued to explain, like a teacher. “We still have a little time left together, but no one can stop what I intend to do. I have been working on this for months. Even before I met you.”
Marie heard alarm sirens and horns sounding outside. She used her most sympathetic tone. “And what will happen to me? You don’t want to hurt me, do you, Thallo? I’m your friend!”
“That is why I brought you in here with me. We have a pact, you and I. We can thwart the Masters and erase their Kwisatz Haderach program.” He stroked her golden hair. “Never again will either of us be controlled by others.”
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