Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [47]
Then, once again, he begged to be allowed to grow a ghola of himself before it was too late.
Now, Sheeana paced the floor beside him in the medical center. Shoulders stiff and neck arched, she looked over at Scytale. The Tleilaxu Master was not yet comfortable with his new freedom. He seemed nervous inside the med-center, as if drowning in guilt because he had revealed so much. He had surrendered everything, and now he no longer had any control.
“Three more tanks would be best,” Scytale said, as if discussing the weather. “Otherwise, creating the group of desired gholas will take too long, one at a time, each with nine months of gestation.”
“I am confident we will find willing volunteers.” Sheeana’s voice was cold.
“When you finally begin this program, my own ghola must be first.” Scytale looked from one pale-skinned axlotl tank to the other like a doctor inspecting test tubes in a lab. “My need is greatest.”
“No,” Sheeana said. “We must first verify that what you claim is true, that these cells are indeed samples of who you say they are.”
Scowling, the diminutive man looked at Teg as if to find support from a person who claimed to worship honor and loyalty. “You know the genetics have been verified. Your own libraries and chromosome sequencers have had months to compare and catalog the cellular material I gave you.”
“Simply sifting through all those cells and choosing the first candidates is quite a task.” Sheeana sounded pragmatic. All of the identified cells had been separated into secure storage drawers in the genetic library, code-locked and placed under guard so that no one could tamper with them. “Your people were extremely ambitious in the cells they stole, dating all the way back to the Butlerian Jihad.”
“We acquired them. My people may not have had a breeding program such as yours, but we did know to watch the Atreides line. We understood that great events were about to unfold, that your longstanding search for a superhuman Kwisatz Haderach was likely to reach fruition around the time of Muad’Dib.”
“So how did you get all the cells?” Teg asked.
“For millennia, Tleilaxu workers have been handlers of the dead. Though many consider that an unclean and despised profession, we did have unprecedented access. Unless a body is completely destroyed, it is simple enough to acquire a skin scraping or two.”
At fourteen, Teg was still gangly and on his way to becoming a tall man. His voice cracked at embarrassing moments, though the thoughts and memories in his head belonged to an old man. He spoke just loudly enough for Sheeana to hear, “I would like to meet Paul Muad’Dib and his mother, the Lady Jessica.”
“That is just the beginning of what I offer,” Scytale said, aiming his glare at Sheeana. “And you did agree to my terms, Reverend Mother.”
“You will have your ghola. But I am not inclined to hurry.”
The elfin man bit his lower lip with tiny, sharp teeth. “There is a ticking clock. I must have time to create a Scytale ghola and raise it so that I can trigger his memories.”
Sheeana gave a dismissive wave. “You said yourself that you had at least a decade left, possibly fifteen years. You’ll have the best medical care. Our Bene Gesserit doctors will keep watch over your condition. The Rabbi is a retired Suk doctor, if you don’t want females tending you. In the meantime, we will test the new cells you offer us.”
“That is why you’ll need three more axlotl tanks! The conversion process will take some months, then the implantation of the embryo, then gestation. We will need to perform many tests. The sooner we produce enough