Dune

“It’s something in the Atreides line that we have not fully analyzed,” Taraza said.

“No genetic accidents?”

“I sometimes wonder if we’ve suffered any real accidents since the Tyrant,” Taraza said.

“Did he stretch out back there in his citadel and look across the millennia to this very moment?”

“How far back would you reach for the roots?” Taraza asked.

Odrade said: “What really happens when a Mother Superior commands the Breeding Mistresses: ‘Have that one go breed with that one’?”

Taraza produced a cold smile.

Odrade felt herself suddenly at the crest of a wave, awareness pushing all of her over into this new realm. Taraza wants my rebellion! She wants me as her opponent!

“Will you see Waff now?” Odrade asked.

“First, I want your assessment of him.”

“He sees us as the ultimate tool to create the ‘Tleilaxu Ascendancy.’ We are God’s gift to his people.”

“They have been waiting a long time for this,” Taraza said. “To dissemble so carefully, all of them for all of those eons!”

“They have our view of time,” Odrade agreed. “That was the final thing to convince them we share their Great Belief.”

“But why the clumsiness?” Taraza asked. “They are not stupid.”

“It diverted our attention from how they were really using their ghola process,” Odrade said. “Who could believe stupid people would do such a thing?”

“And what have they created?” Taraza asked. “Only the image of evil stupidity?”

“Act stupid long enough and you become stupid,” Odrade said. “Perfect the mimicry of your Face Dancers and . . .”

“Whatever happens, we must punish them,” Taraza said. “I see that clearly. Have him brought up here.”

After Odrade had given the order and while they waited, Taraza said: “The sequencing of the ghola’s education became a shambles even before they escaped from the Gammu Keep. He leaped ahead of his teachers to grasp things that were only implied and he did this at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Who knows what he has become by now?”

Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They re-create the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.

—LETO II, HIS VOICE, FROM DAR-ES-BALAT

Duncan followed his guide through the dawn light at a punishing clip. The man might look old but he was as springy as a gazelle and seemed incapable of tiring.

Only a few minutes ago they had put aside their night goggles. Duncan was glad to be rid of them. Everything outside the reach of the glasses had been black in the dim starlight filtering through heavy branches. There had been no world ahead of him beyond the range of the glasses. The view at both sides jerked and flowed—now a clump of yellow bushes, now two silver-bark trees, now a stone wall with a plasteel gate cut into it and guarded by the flickering blue of a burn-shield, then an arched bridge of native rock, all green and black underfoot. After that, an arched entry of polished white stone. The structures all appeared very old and expensive, maintained by costly handwork.

Duncan had no idea where he was. None of this terrain recalled his memories of the long-lost Giedi Prime days.

Dawn revealed that they were following a tree-shielded animal track up a hillside. The climb became steep. Occasional glimpses through trees on their left revealed a valley. A hanging mist stood guard over the sky, hiding the distances, enclosing them as they climbed. Their world became progressively a smaller place as it lost its connection with a larger universe.

At one brief pause, not for rest but for listening to the forest around them, Duncan studied his mist-capped surroundings. He felt dislodged, removed from a universe that possessed sky and the open features that linked it to other planets.

His disguise was simple: Tleilaxu cold-weather garments and cheek pads to make his face appear rounder. His curly black hair had been straightened by some chemical applied with heat. The hair was then bleached to a sandy blond and hidden under a dark watchcap. All of his genital hair had been shaved away. He hardly recognized himself in the mirror they held up for him.

A dirty Tleilaxu!

The artisan who created this transformation was an old woman with glittering gray-green eyes. “You are now a Tleilaxu Master,” she said. “Your name is Wose. A guide will take you to the next place. You will treat him like a Face Dancer if you meet strangers. Otherwise, do as he commands.”

They led him out of the cave complex along a twisting passage, its walls and ceiling thick with the musky green algae. In starlighted darkness, they thrust him from the passage into a chilly night and the hands of an unseen man—a bulky figure in padded clothing.

A voice behind Duncan whispered: “Here he is, Ambitorm. Get him through.”

The guide spoke in an accent of gutturals: “Follow me.” He clipped a lead cord to Duncan’s belt, adjusted the night goggles and turned away. Duncan felt the cord tug once and they were off.