Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [194]
“Duncan Idaho.” Scytale looked him up and down, and Duncan had the distinct feeling that he was being assessed. “How may I be of service?”
Did the Tleilaxu still look on him as one of their creations? He and Scytale had been held prisoner together aboard the no-ship on Chapterhouse, but Duncan had never considered Scytale to be a comrade in arms. Now, though, he needed something from him.
“I require your expertise.” He extended the rumpled garments, and Scytale flinched in confusion, as if they were weapons. “I preserved these within days of when we left Chapterhouse. I have found loose hairs, and there may be skin cells, other DNA fragments.”
Scytale looked at them, frowning. He did not touch the clothing. “For what purpose?”
“To create a ghola.”
The Tleilaxu Master already seemed to know the answer. “Of whom?”
“Murbella.” He kept finding himself drawn back to the idea as if it were an inescapable black hole and he had already passed the event horizon in his mind. He had dark amber strands of her hair on a pale green towel. “You can grow her again. The axlotl tanks are no longer being used.”
The boy Scytale stood close to his elder, who pushed him backward. The older Master appeared intimidated. “The whole program has been halted. Sheeana will not allow any new gholas.”
“She will allow this one. I—I will demand it.” He lowered his voice, mumbling to himself. “They owe me that much.”
Sheeana’s possibly prescient dream had forced her to regroup, to reconsider her plans and exercise caution. But now that several years had passed, discussions had already begun about experimenting with another ghola child or two. The fascinating cells from Scytale’s nullentropy capsule were just too tempting. . . .
“Duncan Idaho, I do not believe this is wise. Murbella is an Honored Matre—”
“A former Honored Matre. And a ghola grown from these cells will . . . will be different.” He didn’t know if she would come back with her full memories and knowledge of a Reverend Mother, all the changes the Spice Agony had wrought. Regardless, she would be here.
“You would not understand, Scytale. Long ago, she tried to enslave me, to bond me with her sexual powers—and I did the same. We were bound together in a mutual noose, and I cannot break it. My performance and concentration has suffered for years, though I use my strength to resist.”
“Why, then, would you wish to bring her back?”
Duncan pushed the rumpled clothes forward. “Because then at least I wouldn’t suffer from this endless, destructive withdrawal! It will not go away, so I must find a different solution. I have ignored it for too long.”
The fact that he was here at all reinforced his knowledge of the hold that she still had. Even the thought of Murbella tied his hands. He should have been on guard, watching from the navigation bridge, waiting to hear the next report from Sheeana or Teg . . . but the idea of resurrecting Murbella had reopened the festering heartache, making her loss seem fresh and painful all over again.
The Tleilaxu Master seemed to understand much more than Duncan wanted him to see. “You yourself know the danger in your suggestion. If you were as confident as you appear to be, you would not have waited until the others were down on the planet. You would not have come here like a thief, whispering your suggestion to me where no one else can hear.” Scytale crossed his arms over his chest.
Duncan stared at him in silence, promising himself that he would not plead. “Will you do it? Is it possible to bring her back?”
“It is possible. As to your other question—” He could see Scytale calculating, trying to determine what sort of payment or reciprocal action he could pry out of Duncan.
The alarms startled them both. The danger lights, the warning of an imminent attack, the approaching ships—in so many years, the alert systems had been silent, and now the sounds were both startling and terrifying.
Duncan dropped the garments