Heretics of Dune dc-5

by Frank Herbert

  The brown liquid in Duncan's cup was one of the things Lucilla had tasted and pronounced capable of sustaining life. Teg did not know precisely how Reverend Mothers did this, but his own mother had been capable of it. One taste and they knew the contents of food or drink.

  A glance at the ornate clock set into the wall at the closed end of the alcove told Teg it was later than he thought, well into the third hour of their arbitrary afternoon. Duncan should still be up on the elaborate practice floor but they both had seen Lucilla take off into the globe's upper reaches and Teg saw this as a chance for them to talk unobserved.

  Pulling up a chair, Teg seated himself on the opposite side of the table.

  Duncan said, "I hate those clocks!"

  "You hate everything here," Teg said, but he took a second look at the clock. It was another antique, a round face with two analog hands and a digital second counter. The two hands were priapean - naked human figures: a large male with enormous phallus and a smaller female with legs spread wide. Each time the two clock hands met, the male appeared to enter the female.

  "Gross," Teg agreed. He pointed to Duncan's drink: "You like that?"

  "It's all right, sir. Lucilla says I should have it after exercise."

  "My mother used to make me a similar drink for after heavy exertions," Teg said. He leaned forward and inhaled, remembering the aftertaste, the cloying melange in his nostrils.

  "Sir, how long must we stay here?" Duncan asked.

  "Until we are found by the right people or until we're sure we will not be found."

  "But... cut off in here, how will we know?"

  "When I judge it's time, I'll take the life-shield blanket and start keeping watch outside."

  "I hate this place!"

  "Obviously. But have you learned nothing about patience?"

  Duncan grimaced. "Sir, why are you keeping me from being alone with Lucilla?"

  Teg, exhaling as Duncan spoke, locked on the partial exhalation and then resumed breathing. He knew, though, that the lad had observed. If Duncan knew, then Lucilla must know!

  "I don't think Lucilla knows what you're doing, sir," Duncan said, "but it's getting pretty obvious." He glanced around him. "If this place didn't take so much of her attention... Where does she dash off to like that?"

  "I think she's up in the library."

  "Library!"

  "I agree it's primitive but it's also fascinating." Teg lifted his gaze to the scrollwork on the nearby kitchen ceiling. The moment of decision had arrived. Lucilla could not be depended upon to remain distracted much longer. Teg shared her fascination, though. It was easy to lose yourself in these marvels. The whole no-globe complex, some two hundred meters in diameter, was a fossil preserved intact from the time of the Tyrant.

  When she spoke about it, Lucilla's voice took on a husky, whispering quality. "Surely, the Tyrant must have known about this place."

  Teg's Mentat awareness had been immersed immediately in this suggestion. Why did the Tyrant permit Family Harkonnen to squander so much of their last remaining wealth on such an enterprise?

  Perhaps for that very reason - to drain them.

  The cost in bribes and Guild shipping from the Ixian factories must have been astronomical.

  "Did the Tyrant know that one day we would need this place?" Lucilla asked.

  No avoiding the prescient powers that Leto II had so often demonstrated, Teg agreed.

  Looking at Duncan seated across from him, Teg felt his neck hairs rising. There was something eerie about this Harkonnen hideaway, as though the Tyrant himself might have been here. What had happened to the Harkonnens who built it? Teg and Lucilla had found absolutely no clues to why the globe had been abandoned.

  Neither of them could wander through the no-globe without experiencing an acute sense of history. Teg was constantly confounded by unanswered questions.

  Lucilla, too, commented on this.

  "Where did they go? There's nothing in my Other Memories to give the slightest clue."

  "Did the Tyrant lure them out and kill them?"

  "I'm going back to the library. Perhaps today I'll find something."

  For the first two days of their occupation, the globe had received a careful examination by Lucilla and Teg. A silent and sullen Duncan tagged along as though he feared to be left alone. Each new discovery awed them or shocked them.

  Twenty-one skeletons preserved in transparent plaz along a wall near the core! Macabre observers of everyone who passed through there to the machinery chambers and the nullentropy bins.

  Patrin had warned Teg about the skeletons. On one of his first youthful examinations of the globe, Patrin had found records that said the dead ones were the artisans who had built the place, all slain by the Harkonnens to preserve the secret.

  Altogether, the globe was a remarkable achievement, an enclosure cut out of Time, sealed away from everything external. After all of these millennia, its frictionless machinery still created a mimetic projection that even the most modern instruments could not distinguish from the background of dirt and rock.

  "The Sisterhood must acquire this place intact!" Lucilla kept saying. "It's a treasure house! They even kept their family's breeding records!"

  That wasn't all the Harkonnens had preserved here. Teg kept finding himself repelled by subtle and gross touches on almost everything in the globe. Like that clock! Clothing, instruments for maintaining the environment, for education and pleasure - everything had been marked by that Harkonnen compulsion to flaunt their uncaring sense of superiority to all other people and all other standards.

  Once more, Teg thought of Patrin as a youth in this place, probably no older than the ghola. What had prompted Patrin to keep it a secret even from his wife of so many years? Patrin had never touched on the reasons for secrecy, but Teg made his own deductions. An unhappy childhood. The need for his own secret place. Friends who were not friends but only people waiting to sneer at him. None of those companions could be permitted to share such a wonder. It was his! This was more than a place of lonely security. It had been Patrin's private token of victory.

  "I spent many happy hours there, Bashar. Everything still works. The records are ancient but excellent once you grasp the dialect. There is much knowledge in the place. But you will understand when you get there. You will understand many things I have never told you."

  The antique practice floor showed signs of Patrin's frequent usage. He had changed the weapons coding on some of the automata in a way Teg recognized. The time-counters told of muscle-torturing hours at the complicated exercises. This globe explained those abilities which Teg had always found so remarkable in Patrin. Natural talents had been honed here.

  The automata of the no-globe were another matter.

  Most of them represented defiance of the ancient proscriptions against such devices. More than that, some had been designed for pleasure functions that confirmed the more revolting stories Teg had heard about the Harkonnens. Pain as pleasure! In its own way, these things explained the primly unbending morality that Patrin had taken away from Gammu.

  Revulsion created its own patterns.

  Duncan took a deep swallow of his drink and looked at Teg over the lip of the cup.

  "Why did you come down here alone when I asked you to complete that last round of exercises?" Teg asked.

  "The exercises made no sense." Duncan put down his cup.

  Well, Taraza, you were wrong, Teg thought. He has struck out for complete independence sooner than you predicted.

  Also, Duncan had stopped addressing his Bashar as "sir."

  "You disobey me?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Then exactly what is it you're doing?"

  "I have to know!"

  "You won't like me very much when you do know."

  Duncan looked startled. "Sir?"

  Ahhhh, the "sir" is back!

  "I have been preparing you for certain kinds of very intense pain," Teg said. "It is necessary before we can restore yo
ur original memories."

  "Pain, sir?"

  "We know of no other way to bring back the original Duncan Idaho - the one who died."

  "Sir, if you can do that, I will be nothing but grateful."

  "So you say. But you may very well see me then as just one more whip in the hands of those who have recalled you to life."

  "Isn't it better to know, sir?"

  Teg passed the back of a hand across his mouth. "If you hate me... can't say I'd blame you."

  "Sir, if you were in my place, is that how you would feel?" Duncan's posture, tone of voice, facial expression - all showed trembling confusion.

  So far so good, Teg thought. The procedural steps were laid out with a precision that demanded that every response from the ghola be interpreted with care. Duncan was now filled with uncertainty. He wanted something and he feared that thing.

  "I'm only your teacher, not your father!" Teg said.

  Duncan recoiled at the harsh tone. "Aren't you my friend?"

  "That's a two-way street. The original Duncan Idaho will have to answer that for himself."

  A veiled look entered Duncan's eyes. "Will I remember this place, the Keep, Schwangyu and..."

  "Everything. You'll undergo a kind of double-vision memory for a time, but you'll remember it all."

  A cynical look came over the young face and, when he spoke, it was with bitterness. "So you and I will become comrades."

  All of a Bashar's command and presence in his voice, Teg followed the reawakening instructions precisely.

  "I'm not particularly interested in becoming your comrade." He fixed a searching glare on Duncan's face. "You might make Bashar someday. I think it possible you have the right stuff. But I'll be long dead by then."

  "You're only comrades with Bashars?"

  "Patrin was my comrade and he never rose above squad leader."

  Duncan looked into his empty cup and then at Teg. "Why didn't you order something to drink? You worked hard up there, too."

  Perceptive question. It did not do to underestimate this youth. He knew that food sharing was one of the most ancient rituals of association.

  "The smell of yours was enough," Teg said. "Old memories. I don't need them right now."

  "Then why did you come down here?"

  There it was, revealed in the young voice - hope and fear. He wanted Teg to say a particular thing.

  "I wanted to take a careful measurement of how far those exercises have carried you," Teg said. "I needed to come down here and look at you."

  "Why so careful?"

  Hope and fear! It was time for the precise shift of focus.

  "I've never trained a ghola before."

  Ghola. The word lay suspended between them, hanging on the cooking smells that the globe's filters had not scrubbed from the air. Ghola! It was laced with spice pungency from Duncan's empty cup.

  Duncan leaned forward without speaking, his expression eager. Lucilla's observation came into Teg's mind: "He knows how to use silence."

  When it became obvious that Teg would not expand on that simple statement, Duncan sank back with a disappointed look. The left corner of his mouth turned downward, a sullen, festering expression. Everything focused inward the way it had to be.

  "You did not come down here to be alone," Teg said. "You came here to hide. You're still hiding in there and you think no one will ever find you."

  Duncan put a hand in front of his mouth. It was a signal gesture for which Teg had been waiting. The instructions for this moment were clear: "The ghola wants the original memories wakened and fears this utterly. That is the major barrier you must sunder."

  "Take your hand away from your mouth!" Teg ordered.

  Duncan dropped his hand as though it had been burned. He stared at Teg like a trapped animal.

  "Speak the truth," Teg's instructions warned. "At this moment, every sense afire, the ghola will see into your heart."

  "I want you to know," Teg said, "that what the Sisterhood has ordered me to do to you, that this is distasteful to me."

  Duncan appeared to crouch into himself. "What did they order you to do?"

  "The skills I was ordered to give you are flawed."

  "F-flawed?"

  "Part of it was comprehensive training, the intellectual part. In that respect, you have been brought to the level of regimental commander."

  "Better than Patrin?"

  "Why must you be better than Patrin?"

  "Wasn't he your comrade?"

  "Yes."

  "You said he never rose above squad leader!"

  "Patrin was fully capable of taking over command of an entire multi-planet force. He was a tactical magician whose wisdom I employed on many occasions."

  "But you said he never -"

  "It was his choice. The low rank gave him the common touch that we both found useful many times."

  "Regimental commander?" Duncan's voice was little more than a whisper. He stared at the tabletop.

  "You have an intellectual grasp of the functions, a bit impetuous but experience usually smooths that out. Your weapons skills are superior for your age."

  Still not looking at Teg, Duncan asked: "What is my age... sir?"

  Just as the instructions cautioned: The ghola will dance all around the central issue. "What is my age?" How old is a ghola.

  His voice coldly accusing, Teg said: "If you want to know your ghola-age, why don't you ask that?"

  "Wha... what is that age, sir?"

  There was such a weight of misery in the youthful voice that Teg felt tears start in the corners of his eyes. He had been warned about this, too. "Do not reveal too much compassion!" Teg covered the moment by clearing his throat. He said: "That's a question only you can answer."

  The instructions were explicit: "Turn it back on him! Keep him focused inward. Emotional pain is as important to this process as the physical pain."

  A deep sigh shuddered through Duncan. He closed his eyes tightly. When Teg had first seated himself at the table, Duncan had thought: Is this the moment? Will he do it now? But Teg's accusing tone, the verbal attacks, were completely unexpected. And now Teg sounded patronizing.

  He's patronizing me!

  Cynical anger surged into Duncan. Did Teg think him such a fool that he could be taken in by the most common ploy of a commander? Tone of voice and attitude alone can subjugate another's will. Duncan sensed something else in the patronizing, though: a core of plasteel that would not be penetrated. Integrity... purpose. And Duncan had seen the tears start, the covering gesture.

  Opening his eyes and looking directly at Teg, Duncan said: "I don't mean to be disrespectful or ungrateful or rude, sir. But I can't go on without answers."

  Teg's instructions were clear: "You will know when the ghola reaches the point of desperation. No ghola will try to hide this. It is intrinsic to their psyche. You will recognize it in voice and posture."

  Duncan had almost reached the critical point. Silence was mandatory for Teg now. Force Duncan to ask his questions, to take his own course.

  Duncan said: "Did you know that I once thought of killing Schwangyu?"

  Teg opened his mouth and closed it without a sound. Silence! But the lad was serious!

  "I was afraid of her," Duncan said. "I don't like being afraid." He lowered his gaze. "You once told me that we only hate what's really dangerous to us."

  "He will approach it and retreat, approach and retreat. Wait until he plunges."

  "I don't hate you," Duncan said, looking once more at Teg. "I resented it when you said ghola to my face. But Lucilla's right: We should never resent the truth even when it hurts."

  Teg rubbed his own lips. The desire to speak filled him but it was not yet plunge time.

  "Doesn't it surprise you that I considered killing Schwangyu?" Duncan asked.

  Teg held himself rigid. Even the shaking of his head would be taken as a response.

  "I thought of slipping something into her drink," Duncan said. "But that's a coward's way an
d I'm not a coward. Whatever else, I'm not that."

  Teg remained silently immobile.

  "I think you really care what happens to me, Bashar," Duncan said. "But you're right: we will never be comrades. If I survive, I will surpass you. Then... it will be too late for us to be comrades. You spoke the truth."

  Teg was unable to prevent himself from inhaling a deep breath of Mentat realization: no avoiding the signs of strength in the ghola. Somewhere recently, perhaps in this very alcove just now, the youth had ceased being a youth and had become a man. The realization saddened Teg. It went so fast! No normal growing-up in between.

  "Lucilla does not really care what happens to me the way you do," Duncan said. "She's just following her orders from that Mother Superior, Taraza."

  Not yet! Teg cautioned himself. He wet his lips with his tongue.

  "You have been obstructing Lucilla's orders," Duncan said. "What is it she's supposed to do to me?"

  The moment had come. "What do you think she's supposed to do?" Teg demanded.

  "I don't know!"

  "The original Duncan Idaho would know."

  "You know! Why won't you tell me?"

  "I'm only supposed to help restore your original memories."

  "Then do it!"

  "Only you can really do it."

  "I don't know how!"

  Teg sat forward on the edge of his chair, but did not speak. Plunge point? He sensed something lacking in Duncan's desperation.

  "You know I can read lips, sir," Duncan said. "Once I went up to the tower observatory. I saw Lucilla and Schwangyu down below talking. Schwangyu said: 'Never mind that he's so young! You've had your orders.' "

  Once more cautiously silent, Teg stared back at Duncan. It was like Duncan to move around secretly in the Keep, spying, seeking knowledge. And he had seated himself in that memory-mode now, not realizing that he still was spying and seeking... but in a different way.