Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [166]
“Please withdraw your knife, Matre Superior,” the Navigator said.
“He has not yet revealed what we need!” Ingva brandished her own blade, apparently anxious to murder the last ghola, as if she had not yet spilled enough blood for one day.
“He will.” Uxtal looked at the terrified, miserable ghola. “This Waff has just been buried by the mudslide of his past life.”
“Many lives!” In desperate self-defense, the reawakened Master spewed forth what he could. But his memory was imperfect, and he couldn’t get it all. Whole segments of knowledge were corrupted—a side-effect of the forbidden acceleration process.
“Give him time to sort through it all,” Uxtal said, sounding pathetically relieved. “Even with what he has said already, I can see the path to new methods that may yield melange.” Hellica still pressed her short knife against Waff’s head. “Matre Superior! He is too great a resource to waste at this time. We can coax more out of him.”
“Or torture it out,” Ingva suggested.
Uxtal grabbed the sweaty hand of the last ghola. “I require this one for my work. Otherwise, there will be delays.” Without waiting for an answer, he yanked the weak-kneed Waff away from the macabre scene.
“Clean this up,” Hellica demanded of Ingva, who in turn ordered the lab assistants to do it.
As Uxtal hurried away with his young charge, he lowered his voice to a threatening whisper. “I lied to save your life. Now give me the rest of the information.”
The ghola nearly collapsed. “I remember nothing more. It is all still churning inside me, but I can sense great gaps. Something is wrong—”
Uxtal cuffed him. “You had better come up with something good anyway, or both of us are dead.”
As human beings, we have trouble functioning in environments in which we feel threatened. The threat becomes the focus of our existence. But “safety” is one of the great illusions of the universe. Nowhere is it truly safe.
—Bene Gesserit Study on the Human Condition,
BG Archives, Section VZ908
T
he Handlers welcomed their visitors as friends and allies, wanting to hear more about their struggles with the Honored Matres. The group sat on the roof of one of the wide cylindrical towers. On a flat stone in the middle of the plank floor, a brazier sent a warm, comforting glow into the night.
“We knew you would be coming,” Orak Tho said. “When you dropped the no-field to launch your small ships, we detected your great vessel above us. We are aware that you have also sent scavenging teams to uninhabited portions of our world. We were waiting for you to come visit us directly.”
Squatting next to Sheeana, Miles Teg was surprised, since these people seemed to have very little technology. “It would take sensitive detectors to spot us.”
“Long ago we developed a means to sense the ships flown by Honored Matres, for our own protection. Because those women think they are infallible, it is easier to detect them.”
“Hubris is their principal weakness,” Thufir Hawat said.
Green eyes flashed from the bandit mask of dark skin. “They have many weaknesses. We’ve had to learn how to exploit them.”
They shared a meal of nuts, fruit, smoked fish, and medallions of a spiced dark meat that apparently came from an arboreal rodent. The Rabbi was more relaxed than Sheeana had ever seen him, though he seemed worried about the origin of the food. She could tell that the old man had already made up his mind: He wanted his people to settle here, if the Handlers would have them.
While they sat together on the open rooftop, listening to the buzz of night insects and watching the swoop of dark birds, Sheeana felt very isolated. According to scan reports, the Handlers’ population was relatively large, with mines and industries in other parts of the world. They had apparently developed a quiet and peaceful civilization. “We assume your people originated in the Scattering,