Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [3]
Those new weapons must have been developed out in the Scattering. Teg pursued a Mentat projection. Human ingenuity born out of desperation? Or was it something else entirely?
In the floating image, the bristling ships opened fire, unleashing incineration waves with devices the Bene Gesserit had since named “Obliterators.” The bombardment had continued until the planet was devoid of life. The sandy dunes were turned to black glass; even Rakis’s atmosphere caught fire. Giant worms and sprawling cities, people and sand plankton, everything annihilated. Nothing could have survived down there, not even him.
Now, nearly fourteen years later and in a vastly changed universe, the gangly teenager adjusted the study chair to a more comfortable height. Reviewing the circumstances of my own death. Again.
By strict definition, Teg was a clone rather than a ghola grown of cells gathered from a dead body, though the latter was the word most people used to describe him. Inside his young flesh lived an old man, a veteran of numerous campaigns for the Bene Gesserit; he could not remember the last few moments of his life, but these records left little doubt.
The senseless annihilation of Dune demonstrated the true ruthlessness of the Honored Matres. Whores, the Sisterhood called them. And with good reason.
Nudging the intuitive finger controls, he called up the images yet again. It felt odd to be an outside observer, knowing that he himself had been down there fighting and dying when these images were recorded. . . .
Teg heard a sound at the door of the archives and saw Sheeana watching him from the corridor. Her face was lean and angular, her skin brown from a Rakian heritage. The unruly umber hair flashed with streaks of copper from a childhood spent under the desert sun. Her eyes were the total blue of lifelong melange consumption, as well as the Spice Agony that had turned her into a Reverend Mother. The youngest ever to survive, Teg had been told.
Sheeana’s generous lips held an elusive smile. “Studying battles again, Miles? It’s a bad thing for a military commander to be so predictable.”
“I have a great many of them to review,” Teg answered in his cracking young man’s voice. “The Bashar accomplished a great deal in three hundred standard years, before I died.”
When Sheeana recognized the projected record, her expression fell into a troubled mask. Teg had been watching those images of Rakis to the point of obsession, ever since they fled into this bizarre and uncharted universe.
“Any word from Duncan yet?” he asked, trying to divert her attention. “He was attempting a new navigation algorithm to get us away from—”
“We know exactly where we are.” Sheeana lifted her chin in an unconscious gesture she had come to use more and more often since becoming the leader of this group of refugees. “We are lost.”
Teg automatically intercepted the criticism of Duncan Idaho. It had been their intent to prevent anyone—the Honored Matres, the corrupted Bene Gesserit order, or the mysterious Enemy—from finding the ship. “At least we’re safe.”
Sheeana did not seem convinced. “So many unknowns trouble me, where are we, who is chasing us . . .” Her voice trailed off, and then she said, “I will leave you to your studies. We are about to have another meeting to discuss our situation.”
He perked up. “Has anything changed?”
“No, Miles. And I expect the same arguments over and over again.” She shrugged. “The other Sisters seem to insist on it.” With a quiet rustle of robes, she exited the archives chamber, leaving him with the humming silence of the great invisible ship.
Back to Rakis. Back to my death . . . and the events leading up to it. Teg rewound the recordings, gathering old reports and perspectives, and watched them yet again, traveling farther backward in time.
Now that his memories had been awakened, he knew what he had done up to his death. He did not need these records to see how