Children of Dune (Dune Chronicles #3) 3

"I want you to embrace this Muad'Dib religion," she said.

"Princess, I would walk into fire for you, but this..."

"That is an order, Tyekanik!"

He swallowed, stared into the screen. The Laza tigers had finished feeding and now lay on the sand completing their toilet, long tongues moving across their forepaws.

"An order, Tyekanik - do you understand me?"

"I hear and obey, Princess." His voice did not change tone.

She sighed. "Ohh, if my father were only alive..."

"Yes, Princess."

"Don't mock me, Tyekanik. I know how distasteful this is to you. But if you set the example..."

"He may not follow, Princess."

"He'll follow." She pointed at the screen. "It occurs to me that the Levenbrech out there could be a problem."

"A problem? How is that?"

"How many people know this thing of the tigers?"

"That Levenbrech who is their trainer... one transport pilot, you, and of course..." He tapped his own chest.

"What about the buyers?"

"They know nothing. What is it you fear, Princess?"

"My son is, well, sensitive."

"Sardaukar do not reveal secrets," he said.

"Neither do dead men." She reached forward and depressed a red key beneath the lighted screen.

Immediately the Laza tigers raised their heads. They got to their feet and looked up the hill at the Levenbrech. Moving as one, they turned and began a scrambling run up the hillside.

Appearing calm at first, the Levenbrech depressed a key on his console. His movements were assured but, as the cats continued their dash toward him, he became more frenzied, pressing the key harder and harder. A look of startled awareness came over his features and his hand jerked toward the working knife at his waist. The movement came too late. A raking claw hit his chest and sent him sprawling. As he fell, the other tiger took his neck in one great-fanged bite and shook him. His spine snapped.

"Attention to detail," the Princess said. She turned, stiffened as Tyekanik drew his knife. But he presented the blade to her, handle foremost.

"Perhaps you'd like to use my knife to attend to another detail," he said.

"Put that back in its sheath and don't act the fool!" she raged. "Sometimes, Tyekanik, you try me to the -"

"That was a good man out there, Princess. One of my best."

"One of my best," she corrected him.

He drew a deep, trembling breath, sheathed his knife. "And what of my transport pilot?"

"This will be ascribed to an accident," she said. "You will advise him to employ the utmost caution when he brings those tigers back to us. And of course, when he has delivered our pets to Javid's people on the transport..." She looked at his knife.

"Is that an order, Princess?"

"It is."

"Shall I, then, fall on my knife, or will you take care of that, ahhh, detail?"

She spoke with a false calm, her voice heavy: "Tyekanik, were I not absolutely convinced that you would fall on your knife at my command, you would not be standing here beside me - armed."

He swallowed, stared at the screen. The tigers once more were feeding.

She refused to look at the scene, continued to stare at Tyekanik as she said: "You will, as well, tell our buyers not to bring us any more matched pairs of children who fit the necessary description."

"As you command, Princess."

"Don't use that tone with me, Tyekanik."

"Yes, Princess."

Her lips drew into a straight line. Then: "How many more of those paired costumes do we have?"

"Six sets of the robes, complete with stillsuits and the sand shoes, all with the Atreides insignia worked into them."

"Fabrics as rich as the ones on that pair?" she nodded toward the screen.

"Fit for royalty, Princess."

"Attention to detail," she said. "The garments will be dispatched to Arrakis as gifts for our royal cousins. They will be gifts from my son, do you understand me, Tyekanik?"

"Completely, Princess."

"Have him inscribe a suitable note. It should say that he sends these few paltry garments as tokens of his devotion to House Atreides. Something on that order."

"And the occasion?"

"There must be a birthday or holy day or something, Tyekanik. I leave that to you. I trust you, my friend."

He stared at her silently.

Her face hardened. "Surely you must know that? Who else can I trust since the death of my husband?"

He shrugged, thinking how closely she emulated the spider. It would not do to get on intimate terms with her, as he now suspected his Levenbrech had done.

"And Tyekanik," she said, "one more detail."

"Yes, Princess."

"My son is being trained to rule. There will come a time when he must grasp the sword in his own hands. You will know when that moment arrives. I'll wish to be informed immediately."

"As you command, Princess."

She leaned back, peered knowingly at Tyekanik. "You do not approve of me, I know that. It is unimportant to me as long as you remember the lesson of the Levenbrech."

"He was very good with animals, but disposable; yes, Princess."

"That is not what I mean!"

"It isn't? Then... I don't understand."

"An army," she said, "is composed of disposable, completely replaceable parts. That is the lesson of the Levenbrech."

"Replaceable parts," he said. "Including the supreme command?"

"Without the supreme command there is seldom a reason for an army, Tyekanik. That is why you will immediately embrace this Mahdi religion and, at the same time, begin the campaign to convert my son."

"At once, Princess. I presume you don't want me to stint his education in the other martial arts at the expense of this, ahh, religion?"

She pushed herself out of the chair, strode around him, paused at the door, and spoke without looking back. "Someday you will try my patience once too often, Tyekanik." With that, she let herself out.

Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? -Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada

"I must tell you something," Jessica said, "even though I know my telling will remind you of many experiences from our mutual past, and that this will place you in jeopardy."

She paused to see how Ghanima was taking this.

They sat alone, just the two of them, occupying low cushions in a chamber of Sietch Tabr. It had required considerable skill to maneuver this meeting, and Jessica was not at all certain that she had been alone in the maneuvering. Ghanima had seemed to anticipate and augment every step.

It was almost two hours after daylight, and the excitements of greeting and all of the recognitions were past. Jessica forced her pulse back to a steady pace and focused her attention into this rock-walled room with its dark hangings and yellow cushions. To meet the accumulated tensions, she found herself for the first time in years recalling the Litany Against Fear from the Bene Gesserit rite.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. "

She did this silently and took a deep, calming breath.

"It helps at times," Ghanima said. "The Litany, I mean."

Jessica closed her eyes to hide the shock of this insight. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to read her that intimately. The realization was disconcerting, especially when it was ignited by an intellect which hid behind a mask of childhood.

Having faced her fear, though, Jessica opened her eyes and knew the source of turmoil: I fear for my grandchildren. Neither of these children betrayed the stigmata of Abomination which Alia flaunted, although Leto showed every sign of some terrifying concealment. It was for that reason he'd been deftly excluded from this meeting.

On impulse, Jessica put aside her ingrained emotional masks, knowing them to be of little use here, barriers to communication. Not since those loving moments with her Duke had she lowered these barriers, and she found the action both relief and pain. There remained facts which no curse or prayer or litany could wash from existence. Flight would not leave such facts behind. They could not be ignored. Elements of Paul's vision had been rearranged and the times had caught up with his children. They were a magnet in the void; evil and all the sad misuses of power collected around them.

Ghanima, watching the play of emotions across her grandmother's face, marveled that Jessica had let down her controls.

With catching movements of their heads remarkably synchronized, both turned, eyes met, and they stared deeply, probingly at each other. Thoughts without spoken words passed between them.

Jessica: I wish you to see my fear.

Ghanima: Now I know you love me.

It was a swift moment of utter trust.

Jessica said: "When your father was but a boy, I brought a Reverend Mother to Caladan to test him."

Ghanima nodded. The memory of it was extremely vivid.

"We Bene Gesserits were already cautious to make sure that the children we raised were human and not animal. One cannot always tell by exterior appearances."

"It's the way you were trained," Ghanima said, and the memory flooded into her mind: that old Bene Gesserit, Gaius Helen Mohiam. She'd come to Castle Caladan with her poisoned gom jabbar and her box of burning pain. Paul's hand (Ghanima's own hand in the shared memory) screamed with the agony of that box while the old woman talked calmly of immediate death if the hand were withdrawn from the pain. And there had been no doubt of the death in that needle held ready against the child's neck while the aged voice droned its rationale:

"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap. There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."

Ghanima shook her head against the remembered pain. The burning! The burning! Paul had imagined his skin curling black on that agonized hand within the box, flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained. And it had been a trick - the hand unharmed. But sweat stood out on Ghanima's forehead at the memory.

"Of course you remember this in a way that I cannot," Jessica said.

For a moment, memory-driven, Ghanima saw her grandmother in a different light: what this woman might do out of the driving necessities of that early conditioning in the Bene Gesserit schools! It raised new questions about Jessica's return to Arrakis.

"It would be stupid to repeat such a test on you or your brother," Jessica said. "You already know the way it went. I must assume you are human, that you will not misuse your inherited powers."

"But you don't make that assumption at all," Ghanima said.

Jessica blinked, realized that the barriers had been creeping back in place, dropped them once more. She asked: "Will you believe my love for you?"

"Yes." Ghanima raised a hand as Jessica started to speak. "But that love wouldn't stop you from destroying us. Oh, I know the reasoning: 'Better the animal-human die than it re-create itself.' And that's especially true if the animal-human bears the name Atreides."

"You at least are human," Jessica blurted. "I trust my instinct on this."

Ghanima saw the truth in this, said: "But you're not sure of Leto."

"I'm not."

"Abomination?"

Jessica could only nod.

Ghanima said: "Not yet, at least. We both know the danger of it, though. We can see the way of it in Alia."

Jessica cupped her hands over her eyes, thought: Even love can't protect us from unwanted facts. And she knew then that she still loved her daughter, crying out silently against fate: Alia! Oh, Alia! I am sorry for my part in your destruction.

Ghanima cleared her throat loudly.

Jessica lowered her hands, thought: I may mourn my poor daughter, but there are other necessities now. She said: "So you've recognized what happened to Alia."

"Leto and I watched it happen. We were powerless to prevent it, although we discussed many possibilities."

"You're sure that your brother is free of this curse?"

"I'm sure."

The quiet assurance in that statement could not be denied. Jessica found herself accepting it. Then: "How is it you've escaped?"

Ghanima explained the theory upon which she and Leto had settled, that their avoiding of the spice trance while Alia entered it often made the difference. She went on to reveal his dreams and the plans they'd discussed - even Jacurutu.

Jessica nodded. "Alia is an Atreides, though, and that poses enormous problems."

Ghanima fell silent before the sudden realization that Jessica still mourned her Duke as though his death had been but yesterday, that she would guard his name and memory against all threats. Personal memories from the Duke's own lifetime fled through Ghanima's awareness to reinforce this assessment, to soften it with understanding.

"Now," Jessica said, voice brisk, "what about this Preacher? I heard some disquieting reports yesterday after that damnable Lustration."

Ghanima shrugged. "He could be -"

"Paul?"

"Yes, but we haven't seen him to examine."

"Javid laughs at the rumors," Jessica said.

Ghanima hesitated. Then: "Do you trust this Javid?"

A grim smile touched Jessica's lips. "No more than you do."

"Leto says Javid laughs at the wrong things," Ghanima said.

"So much for Javid's laughter," Jessica said. "But do you actually entertain the notion that my son is still alive, that he has returned in this guise?"

"We say it's possible. And Leto..." Ghanima found her mouth suddenly dry, remembered fears clutching her breast. She forced herself to overcome them, recounted Leto's other revelations of prescient dreams.

Jessica moved her head from side to side as though wounded.

Ghanima said: "Leto says he must find this Preacher and make sure."

"Yes... Of course. I should never have left here. It was cowardly of me."

"Why do you blame yourself? You had reached a limit. I know that. Leto knows it. Even Alia may know it."

Jessica put a hand to her own throat, rubbed it briefly. Then: "Yes, the problem of Alia."

"She works a strange attraction on Leto," Ghanima said. "That's why I helped you meet alone with me. He agrees that she is beyond hope, but still he finds ways to be with her and... study her. And... it's very disturbing. When I try to talk against this, he falls asleep. He -"

"Is she drugging him?"

"No-o-o." Ghanima shook her head. "But he has this odd empathy for her. And... in his sleep, he often mutters Jacurutu."

"That again!" And Jessica found herself recounting Gurney's report about the conspirators exposed at the landing field.

"I sometimes fear Alia wants Leto to seek out Jacurutu," Ghanima said. "And I always thought it only a legend. You know it, of course."

Jessica shuddered. "Terrible story. Terrible."

"What must we do?" Ghanima asked. "I fear to search all of my memories, all of my lives..."

"Ghani! I warn you against that. You mustn't risk -"

"It may happen even if I don't risk it. How do we know what really happened to Alia?"

"No! You could be spared that... that possession." She ground the word out. "Well... Jacurutu, is it? I've sent Gurney to find the place - if it exists."

"But how can he... Oh! Of course: the smugglers."

Jessica found herself silenced by this further example of how Ghanima's mind worked in concert with what must be an inner awareness of others. Of me! How truly strange it was, Jessica thought, that this young flesh could carry all of Paul's memories, at least until the moment of Paul's spermal separation from his own past. It was an invasion of privacy against which something primal in Jessica rebelled. Momentarily she felt herself sinking into the absolute and unswerving Bene Gesserit judgment: Abomination! But there was a sweetness about this child, a willingness to sacrifice for her brother, which could not be denied.

We are one life reaching out into a dark future, Jessica thought. We are one blood. And she girded herself to accept the events which she and Gurney Halleck had set in motion. Leto must be separated from his sister, must be trained as the Sisterhood insisted.

I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night rising tike great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute and make an art of government; I will balance my inherited past and become a perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as long as humans exist. -Leto's Vow, After Harq al-Ada

When she had been quite young, Alia Atreides had practiced for hours in the prana-bindu trance, trying to strengthen her own private personality against the onslaught of all those others. She knew the problem - melange could not be escaped in a sietch warren. It infested everything: food, water, air, even the fabrics against which she cried at night. Very early she recognized the uses of the sietch orgy where the tribe drank the death-water of a worm. In the orgy, Fremen released the accumulated pressures of their own genetic memories, and they denied those memories. She saw her companions being temporarily possessed in the orgy.

For her, there was no such release, no denial. She had possessed full consciousness long before birth. With that consciousness came a cataclysmic awareness of her circumstances: womb-locked into intense, inescapable contact with the personas of all her ancestors and of those identities death-transmitted in spice-tau to the Lady Jessica. Before birth, Alia had contained every bit of the knowledge required in a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother - plus much, much more from all those others.

In that knowledge lay recognition of a terrible reality - Abomination. The totality of that knowledge weakened her. The pre-born did not escape. Still she'd fought against the more terrifying of her ancestors, winning for a time a Pyrrhic victory which had lasted through childhood. She'd known a private personality, but it had no immunity against casual intrusions from those who lived their reflected lives through her.

Thus will I be one day, she thought. This thought chilled her. To walk and dissemble through the life of a child from her own loins, intruding, grasping at consciousness to add a quantum of experience.

Fear stalked her childhood. It persisted into puberty. She had fought it, never asking for help. Who would understand the help she required? Not her mother, who could never quite drive away that specter of Bene Gesserit judgment: the pre-born were Abomination.

There had come that night when her brother walked alone into the desert seeking death, giving himself to Shai-Hulud as blind Fremen were supposed to do. Within the month, Alia had been married to Paul's swordmaster, Duncan Idaho, a mentat brought back from the dead by the arts of the Tleilaxu. Her mother fled back to Caladan. Paul's twins were Alia's legal charge.

And she controlled the Regency.

Pressures of responsibility had driven the old fears away and she had been wide open to the inner lives, demanding their advice, plunging into spice trance in search of guiding visions.

The crisis came on a day like many others in the spring month of Laab, a clear morning at Muad'Dib's Keep with a cold wind blowing down from the pole. Alia still wore the yellow for mourning, the color of the sterile sun. More and more these past few weeks she'd been denying the inner voice of her mother, who tended to sneer at preparation for the coming Holy Days to be centered on the Temple.

The inner-awareness of Jessica faded, faded... sinking away at last with a faceless demand that Alia would be better occupied working on the Atreides Law. New lives began to clamor for their moment of consciousness. Alia felt that she had opened a bottomless pit, and faces arose out of it like a swarm of locusts, until she came at last to focus on one who was like a beast: the old Baron Harkonnen. In terrified outrage she had screamed out against all of that inner clamor, winning a temporary silence.