Dune

“Descendants of people we sent into the Scattering returned with captive Futars. A mingling of human and cat, as you doubtless know. But they did not reproduce in our tanks. And before we could determine why, the ones brought to us died.” The betrayers brought us only two! We should have suspected.

“They didn’t bring you very many Futars, did they? You should have suspected they were bait.”

See? That is what they do with small revelations!

“Why did the Futars not hunt and kill Honored Matres on Gammu?” It was Duncan’s question and deserved an answer.

“We were told no orders were given. They do not kill without orders.” She knows this. She is testing me.

“Face Dancers also kill on order,” she said. “They would even kill you if you ordered it. Not so?”

“That order is reserved for keeping our secrets from the hands of enemies.”

“Is that why you want your own Face Dancers? Do you consider us enemies?”

Before he could compose a response, Bellonda’s projected figure appeared above the table, lifesize and partly translucent, dancing crystals of Archives behind her. “Urgent from Sheeana!” Bellonda said. “The spice blow has occurred. Sandworms!” The figure turned and looked at Scytale, comeyes perfectly coordinating her movements. “So you have lost a bargaining chip, Master Scytale! We have our spice at last!” The projected figure vanished with an audible click and a faint smell of ozone.

“You’re trying to trick me!” he blurted.

But the door at Odrade’s left opened. Sheeana entered towing a small suspensor pod no more than two meters long. Its transparent sides repeated the glowglobes of the workroom in tiny bursts of yellow light. Something squirmed in the pod!

Sheeana stood aside without speaking, giving them a full view of the contents. So small! The worm was less than half the length of its container but perfect in every detail, stretched out there on a shallow bed of golden sand.

Scytale could not contain a gasp of awe. The Prophet!

Odrade’s reaction was pragmatic. She bent close to the pod, peering into the miniature mouth. The scorching huff-huff of a great worm’s internal fires reduced to this? What a tiny mimicry!

Crystal teeth flashed as it lifted its front segments.

The worm sent its mouth questing left and right. They all saw behind the teeth the miniature fire in its alien chemistry.

“Thousands of them,” Sheeana said. “They came to a spice blow as they always do.”

Odrade remained silent. We have done it! But this was Sheeana’s moment of triumph. Let her make the most of it. Scytale had never looked this defeated.

Sheeana opened the pod and lifted the worm from it, cradling it as though it were an infant. It lay quiescent in her arms.

Odrade took a deep, satisfied breath. She still controls them.

“Scytale,” Odrade said. He could not take his gaze from the worm.

“Do you still serve the Prophet?” Odrade asked. “There he is!”

He did not know how to respond. Truly a revenant of the Prophet? He wanted to deny his first awed response but his eyes would not permit it.

Odrade spoke softly. “While you were out on your foolish mission, your selfish mission, we were serving the Prophet! We rescued his last revenant and brought him here. Chapterhouse will become another Dune!”

She sat back and steepled her hands in front of her. Bell was watching through the comeyes, of course. A Mentat’s observations would be valuable. Odrade wished Idaho were also watching. But he could look at a holo. It was clear to her that Scytale had seen the Bene Gesserit only as tools for restoration of his precious Tleilaxu civilization. Would this development force him to reveal inner secrets of his tanks? What would he offer?

“I must have time to think.” A tremor in his voice.

“About what would you think?”

He did not answer but kept his attention on Sheeana, who was replacing the tiny worm in its pod. She stroked it once before sealing the lid.

“Tell me, Scytale,” Odrade insisted. “How can there be anything for you to reconsider? This is our Prophet! You say you serve the Great Belief. Then serve it!”

She could see his dreams dissolving. His own Face Dancers to print memories of those they killed, copying each victim’s shape and manner. He had never hoped to gull a Reverend Mother . . . but acolytes and simple workers of Chapterhouse . . . all the secrets he had hoped to acquire, gone! Lost as certainly as the charred husks of Tleilaxu planets.

Our Prophet, she said. He turned a stricken look toward Odrade but did not focus. What am I to do? These women no longer need me. But I need them!

“Scytale.” How softly she spoke. “The Great Convention is ended. It’s a new universe out there.”