Dune

Was it wrong to supply them even with limited knowledge? He realized now he had told them far more than the bare biotechnical details to which he had confined himself. They definitely deduced how Masters had created a limited immortality—always a ghola-replacement growing in the tanks. That, too, was lost! He wanted to scream this at her in his frustrated rage.

Questions . . . obvious questions.

He parried her questions with wordy arguments about “my need for Face Dancer servants and my own Shipsystem console.”

She was slyly adamant, probing for more knowledge of the tanks. “The information to produce melange from our tanks might induce us to be more liberal with our guest.”

Our tanks! Our guest!

These women were like a plasteel wall. No tanks for his personal use. All of that Tleilaxu power gone. It was a thought full of mournful self-pity. He restored himself with a reminder: God obviously tested his resourcefulness. They think they hold me in a trap. But their restrictions hurt. No Face Dancer servants? Very well. He would seek other servants. Not Face Dancers.

Scytale felt the deepest anguish of his many lives when he thought of his lost Face Dancers—his mutable slaves. Damn these women and their pretense that they shared the Great Belief! Omnipresent acolytes and Reverend Mothers always snooping around. Spies! And comeyes everywhere. Oppressive.

On first coming to Chapterhouse, he had sensed a shyness about his jailers, a privacy that became intense when he probed into the workings of their order. Later, he came to see this as a circling up, all facing outward at any threat. What is ours is ours. You may not enter!

Scytale recognized a parental posturing in this, a maternal view of humankind: “Behave or we will punish you!” And Bene Gesserit punishments certainly were to be avoided.

As Odrade continued to demand more than he would give, Scytale fastened his attention on a typical he felt sure was true: They cannot love. But he was forced to agree. Neither love nor hate were purely rational. He thought of such emotions as a dark fountain shadowing the air all around, a primitive gusher that sprayed unsuspecting humans.

How this woman does chatter! He watched her, not really listening. What were their flaws? Was it a weakness that they avoided music? Did they fear the secret play on emotions? The aversion appeared to be heavily conditioned, but the conditioning did not always succeed. In his many lives he had seen witches appear to enjoy music. When he questioned Odrade, she became quite heated, and he suspected a deliberate display to mislead him.

“We cannot let ourselves be distracted!”

“Don’t you ever replay great musical performances in memory? I’m told that in ancient times . . .”

“Of what use is music played on instruments no longer known to most people?”

“Oh? What instruments are those?”

“Where would you find a piano?” Still in that false anger. “Terrible instruments to tune and even more difficult to play.”

How prettily she protests. “I’ve never heard of this . . . this . . . piano, did you say? Is it like the baliset?”

“Distant cousins. But it could only be tuned to an approximate key. An idiosyncracy of the instrument.”

“Why do you single out this . . . this piano?”

“Because I sometimes think it too bad we no longer have it. Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms.”

Perfection from imperfection! She was trying to distract him with Zensunni words, feeding the illusion that these witches shared his Great Belief. He had been warned many times about this peculiarity of Bene Gesserit bargaining. They approached everything from an oblique angle, revealing only at the last instant what they really sought. But he knew what they bargained for here. She wanted all of his knowledge and sought to pay nothing. Still, how tempting her words were.

Scytale felt a deep wariness. Her words fitted themselves so neatly into her claim that the Bene Gesserit sought only to perfect human society. So she thought she could teach him! Another typical: “They see themselves as teachers.”

When he expressed doubt of this claim, she said, “Naturally we build up pressures in societies we influence. We do it that we may direct those pressures.”

“I find this discordant,” he complained.

“Why Master Scytale! It’s a very common pattern. Governments often do this to produce violence against chosen targets. You did it yourselves! And see where it got you.”

So she dares claim the Tleilaxu brought this calamity on themselves!