Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [63]
Now he considered the compact, sealed mines that had been meant to bring the no-ship down in a flaming collapse. A fail-safe.
“Those aren’t the only ticking bombs aboard this ship.” The voice startled him, and he spun about, instinctively assuming a fighting stance. Dour, curly-haired Garimi stood at the hatch. In spite of all his experience with them, Duncan was still astonished by how silently the damned witches could move.
Duncan struggled to regain his composure. “Is there another armory, a secret stash of weapons?” It was possible, he supposed, given the thousands of chambers aboard the giant ship that had never been opened or searched.
“I was speaking metaphorically. I meant those gholas from the past.”
“That has already been discussed and decided.” In the medical center, the first ghola from Scytale’s sample cells would soon be decanted.
“Simply making a decision does not make the decision correct,” Garimi said.
“You harp on it too much.”
Garimi rolled her eyes. “Even you haven’t seen any sign of your hunters since the day we consigned our five tortured Sisters to space. It’s time for us to find a suitable world and establish a new core for the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.”
Duncan frowned. “The Oracle of Time also said the hunters were searching for us.”
“Another encounter that only you experienced.”
“Are you suggesting I imagined it? Or that I’m lying? Bring me any Truthsayer you like. I will prove it to you.”
She grumbled. “Even so, it has been years since the Oracle purportedly warned you. We have eluded capture all this time.”
Leaning against one of the shelves of weapons, Duncan gave her a cool stare. “And how do you know the Enemy isn’t patient, that they won’t just wait for us to make a mistake? They want this ship, or they want someone aboard it—probably me. Once these new gholas regain their knowledge and experience, they may be our greatest advantage.”
“Or an unrecognized danger.”
He realized he would never convince her. “I knew Paul Atreides. As the Atreides Swordmaster, I helped to raise and train that boy. I will do so again.”
“He became the terrible Muad’Dib. He began a jihad that slaughtered trillions, and he turned into an emperor as corrupt as any in history before him.”
“He was a good child and a good man,” Duncan insisted. “And while he shaped the map of history, Paul was himself shaped by the events around him. Even so, in the end he refused to follow the path that he knew led to so much pain and ruin.”
“His son Leto did not have such reservations.”
“Leto II was forced into a Hobson’s choice of his own. We cannot judge that decision until we know everything that was behind it. Perhaps not enough time has passed for anyone to say whether or not his choice was ultimately correct.”
A storm of anger crossed Garimi’s face. “It’s been five thousand years since the Tyrant began his work, fifteen hundred years since his death.”
“One of his most prominent lessons was that humanity should learn to think on a truly long time scale.”
Uncomfortable with allowing the Bene Gesserit woman so close to so many tempting weapons, he eased her back out into the corridor and sealed the vault door. “I was on Ix fighting the Tleilaxu for House Vernius when Paul Atreides was born in the Imperial Palace on Kaitain. I found myself embroiled in the first battles of the War of Assassins that consumed House Ecaz and Duke Leto for so many years. Lady Jessica had been summoned to Kaitain for the last months of her pregnancy because Lady Anirul suspected the potential of Paul and wanted to be present at the birth. Despite treachery and assassinations, the baby survived and was brought back to Caladan.”
Garimi stepped away from the armory, still obviously disturbed. “According to the legends, Paul Muad’Dib was born on Caladan, not