They were using a
Scytale looked at the Guild envoy. Edric swam in a container of orange gas only a few paces away. His container sat in the center of the transparent dome which the Bene Gesserit had built for this meeting. The Guildsman was an elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands—a fish in a strange sea. His tank’s vents emitted a pale orange cloud rich with the smell of the geriatric spice, melange.
“If we go on this way, we’ll die of stupidity!”
That was the fourth person present—the
Scytale’s mind turned from nuances of language and faces to nuances of location. All around the dome lay hills mangy with melting snow which reflected mottled wet blueness from the small blue-white sun hanging at the meridian.
To have built this place especially for Edric, though—what a sharp finger that pointed at his weakness.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself, Scytale?” the Reverend Mother demanded.
“You wish to draw me into this fools’ fight?” Scytale asked. “Very well. We’re dealing with a potential messiah. You don’t launch a frontal attack upon such a one. Martyrdom would defeat us.”
They all stared at him.
“You think that’s the only danger?” the Reverend Mother demanded, voice wheezing.
Scytale shrugged. He had chosen a bland, round-faced appearance for this meeting, jolly features and vapid full lips, the body of a bloated dumpling. It occurred to him now, as he studied his fellow conspirators, that he had made an ideal choice—out of instinct perhaps. He alone in this group could manipulate fleshly appearance across a wide spectrum of bodily shapes and features. He was the human chameleon, a Face Dancer, and the shape he wore now invited others to judge him too lightly.
“Well?” the Reverend Mother pressed.
“I was enjoying the silence,” Scytale said. “Our hostilities are better left unvoiced.”
The Reverend Mother drew back, and Scytale saw her reassessing him. They were all products of profound prana-bindu training, capable of muscle and nerve control that few humans ever achieved. But Scytale, a Face Dancer, had muscles and nerve linkages the others didn’t even possess plus a special quality of
Scytale gave her enough time to complete the reassessment, said: “Poison!” He uttered the word with the atonals which said he alone understood its secret meaning.
The Guildsman stirred and his voice rolled from the glittering speaker globe which orbited a corner of his tank above Irulan. “We’re discussing
Scytale laughed. Mirabhasa laughter could flay an opponent and he held nothing back now.
Irulan smiled in appreciation, but the corners of the Reverend Mother’s eyes revealed a faint hint of anger.
“Stop that!” Mohiam rasped.
Scytale stopped, but he had their attention now, Edric in a silent rage, the Reverend Mother alert in her anger, Irulan amused but puzzled.
“Our friend Edric suggests,” Scytale said, “that a pair of Bene Gesserit witches trained in all their subtle ways have not learned the true uses of deception.”
Mohiam turned to stare out at the cold hills of her Bene Gesserit homeworld. She was beginning to see the vital thing here, Scytale realized. That was good. Irulan, though, was another matter.
“Are you one of us or not, Scytale?” Edric asked. He stared out of tiny rodent eyes.
“My allegiance is not the issue,” Scytale said. He kept his attention on Irulan. “You are wondering, Princess, if this was why you came all those parsecs, risked so much?”
She nodded agreement.
“Was it to bandy platitudes with a humanoid fish or dispute with a fat Tleilaxu Face Dancer?” Scytale asked.
She stepped away from Edric’s tank, shaking her head in annoyance at the thick odor of melange.