Dune

“You are a Face Dancer, then,” Farok said. “I had wondered at your features. They reminded me of a man I knew here once.”

“Duncan Idaho?”

“That one, yes. A swordmaster in the Emperor’s pay.”

“He was killed, so it is said.”

“So it is said,” Farok agreed. “Are you truly a man, then? I’ve heard stories about Face Dancers that . . .” He shrugged.

“We are Jadacha hermaphrodites,” Scytale said, “either sex at will. For the present, I am a man.”

Farok pursed his lips in thought, then: “May I call for refreshments? Do you desire water? Iced fruit?”

“Talk will suffice,” Scytale said.

“The guest’s wish is a command,” Farok said, settling to the cushion which faced Scytale.

“Blessed is Abu d’ Dhur, Father of the Indefinite Roads of Time,” Scytale said. And he thought: There! I’ve told him straight out that I come from a Guild Steersman and wear the Steersman’s concealment.

“Thrice blessed,” Farok said, folding his hands into his lap in the ritual clasp. They were old, heavily veined hands.

“An object seen from a distance betrays only its principle,” Scytale said, revealing that he wished to discuss the Emperor’s fortress Keep.

“That which is dark and evil may be seen for evil at any distance,” Farok said, advising delay.

Why? Scytale wondered. But he said: “How did your son lose his eyes?”

“The Naraj defenders used a stone burner,” Farok said. “My son was too close. Cursed atomics! Even the stone burner should be outlawed.”

“It skirts the intent of the law,” Scytale agreed. And he thought: A stone burner on Naraj! We weren’t told of that. Why does this old man speak of stone burners here?

“I offered to buy Tleilaxu eyes for him from your masters,” Farok said. “But there’s a story in the legions that Tleilaxu eyes enslave their users. My son told me that such eyes are metal and he is flesh, that such a union must be sinful.”

“The principle of an object must fit its original intent,” Scytale said, trying to turn the conversation back to the information he sought.

Farok’s lips went thin, but he nodded. “Speak openly of what you wish,” he said. “We must put our trust in your Steersman.”

“Have you ever entered the Imperial Keep?” Scytale asked.

“I was there for the feast celebrating the Molitor victory. It was cold in all that stone despite the best Ixian space heaters. We slept on the terrace of Alia’s Fane the night before. He has trees in there, you know—trees from many worlds. We Bashars were dressed in our finest green robes and had our tables set apart. We ate and drank too much. I was disgusted with some of the things I saw. The walking wounded came, dragging themselves along on their crutches. I do not think our Muad’Dib knows how many men he has maimed.”

“You objected to the feast?” Scytale asked, speaking from a knowledge of the Fremen orgies which were ignited by spice-beer.

“It was not like the mingling of our souls in the sietch,” Farok said. “There was no tau. For entertainment, the troups had slave girls, and the men shared the stories of their battles and their wounds.”

“So you were inside that great pile of stone,” Scytale said.

“Muad’Dib came out to us on the terrace,” Farok said. “‘Good fortune to us all,’ he said. The greeting drill of the desert in that place!”

“Do you know the location of his private apartments?” Scytale asked.

“Deep inside,” Farok said. “Somewhere deep inside. I am told he and Chani live a nomadic life and that all within the walls of their Keep. Out to the Great Hall he comes for the public audiences. He has reception halls and formal meeting places, a whole wing for his personal guard, places for the ceremonies and an inner section for communications. There is a room far beneath his fortress, I am told, where he keeps a stunted worm surrounded by a water moat with which to poison it. Here is where he reads the future.”

Myth all tangled up with facts, Scytale thought.

“The apparatus of government accompanies him everywhere,” Farok grumbled. “Clerks and attendants and attendants for the attendants. He trusts only the ones such as Stilgar who were very close to him in the old days.”

“Not you,” Scytale said.

“I think he has forgotten my existence,” Farok said.

“How does he come and go when he leaves that building?” Scytale asked.

“He has a tiny ’thopter landing which juts from an inner wall,” Farok said. “I am told Muad’Dib will not permit another to handle the controls for a landing there. It requires an approach, so it is said, where the slightest miscalculation would plunge him down a sheer cliff of wall into one of his accursed gardens.”

Scytale nodded. This, most likely, was true. Such an aerial entry to the Emperor’s quarters would carry a certain measure of security. The Atreides were superb pilots all.