Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [193]
Ducking frantically out of sight, Uxtal slid into an empty, muddy pen on the other side of a gate where the fat sligs were kept. A small feed-storage shed was elevated on stone blocks, leaving a small space beneath. Uxtal squirmed into the cramped space where the dominating women—of either faction—would not see him.
Agitated by his presence, the sligs began to slither around in the mud and squeal in peculiar high-pitched tones on the other side of the gate. Uxtal crawled toward the building. The stench and filth made him want to retch.
“It’s almost feeding time,” a voice said.
Twisting to look through the gap under the shed, Uxtal saw the elderly slig farmer standing at the fence, peering through the slats at him. The slig farmer began tossing bloody scraps of raw meat—more human body parts—into the empty pen. Some of them landed very close to Uxtal. He pushed them away. “Stop, you fool! I’m trying to hide. Don’t call attention to me!”
“You have blood on you now,” Gaxhar said in a frighteningly casual voice. “That could draw them toward you.”
Nonchalantly, the farmer raised the gate and let the hungry sligs through. Five of them: a most inauspicious number. The creatures were great slabs of flesh, their flopping bodies coated with dense mucous, their flat underbellies lined with grinding mouths that could churn any biological matter into digestible mush.
Uxtal scrambled away. “Get me out of here! I command it!”
The largest slig in the pen shoved into the crawl space where the Lost Tleilaxu was trapped, and fell on him. More sligs charged forward, pushing and colliding to reach the fresh meat. The loud grunting sounds easily drowned out the Lost Tleilaxu man’s screams.
“I liked it better when all the Masters were dead,” Gaxhar muttered.
The slig farmer heard gunfire and explosions in the distance. The city of Bandalong was already a raging inferno, but the battle did not come close to his farm. The lower-caste menial laborers in the nearby hovels were not worthy of notice.
Later, when his sligs had finished feeding, Gaxhar killed the largest and best one, which he had raised with painstaking care. That evening, with the last few sparks of battle rumbling through the city, he invited a few friends from the village to his home for a feast.
“No need to keep such fine meat for unworthy people anymore,” he told them. He had fashioned a table and chair from crates and boards. His other guests sat on the floor. In these simple surroundings, the low-caste Tleilaxus ate until their bellies ached, and then they ate even more.
Love is one of the most dangerous forces in the universe. Love weakens, while deceiving us into believing it is a good thing.
—MOTHER SUPERIOR ALMA MAVIS TARAZA
M
urbella.
He was supposed to be watching the no-ship. He knew that. But her name, her presence, her scent, her addictive control had grown even stronger since he’d started contemplating the possibility of bringing Murbella back as a ghola. It could be done; he knew it.
For him, the heart call had never entirely stopped in the nineteen years since he had broken from her. It was as if she had caught him in her own net, as deadly as the gossamer mesh cast by the old man and woman. Everything was too quiet during his lonely and tedious shift on the navigation bridge, giving him too many opportunities to think and obsess on her.
Now he intended to do something about it, to solve the problem. He pushed aside his rational assessment that it was a poor solution, a dangerous one, and he forged ahead.
Leaving the navigation bridge unattended again, he gathered up her still-fresh garments from nullentropy storage and went to the quarters of Master Scytale. The grayish Tleilaxu opened his chamber suspiciously, looking at Duncan and his armful of clothing. Behind him, the dimly lit room fuzzed with exotic scents of incense or drugs, and he caught a glimpse of the young Scytale copy. The boy was wide-eyed,