Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [71]
According to legend, all the sandworms on Arrakis had risen above the dunes to herald the arrival of Muad’Dib. The Bene Gesserit had never been beyond manipulating the masses with trumpets and omens and delirious celebrations about prophecies come true.
Now, however, the decanting of the first of the gholas from history seemed utterly mundane, more like a laboratory exercise than a religious experience. Yet this was not just any baby and not merely a ghola, but Paul Atreides! Young Master Paul, who was later the Emperor Muad’Dib, and then the blind Preacher. What would the child become this time? What would the Bene Gesserit force him to become?
While waiting for the completion of the decanting process, Duncan turned to Sheeana. He saw satisfaction in her eyes, and uneasiness as well, though this was exactly what she had argued for. He was fully aware of what the Bene Gesserit feared: Paul had the potential in his bloodline. Almost certainly he could become the Kwisatz Haderach again, perhaps with even greater powers than before. Did Sheeana and her Bene Gesserit followers hope to control him better this time, or would it be a disaster of even greater proportions?
On the other hand, what if Paul was the one who could save them from the Outside Enemy?
The Sisterhood had played their breeding games to create a Kwisatz Haderach in the first place, and in return Paul had stung them terribly. Since Muad’Dib, and the long and terrible reign of Leto II (himself another Kwisatz Haderach), the Bene Gesserit had been terrified of creating such a one again.
Many fearful Reverend Mothers saw hints of the Kwisatz Haderach in any remarkable skill, even in precocious Duncan Idaho. Eleven previous Duncan gholas had been killed as children, and some of the proctors had made no secret of the fact that they wanted to kill him as well. To Duncan, the very idea that he might fit the mold of a messiah, like Paul, was absurd.
When the Bene Gesserit Suk doctors held up the infant, Duncan caught his breath. After cleaning sticky fluids from the fresh skin, the somber doctors subjected the baby to numerous tests and analyses, then wrapped him in sterile thermal cloths. “He is intact, undamaged,” one of them reported. “A successful experiment.”
Duncan frowned. An experiment? Was that how they saw this? He could not tear his gaze away. A veil of memories about young Paul nearly blinded him: how he and Gurney had taught the boy his first sword-and-shield lessons, how during the Duke’s War of Assassins Duncan had taken the boy off to hide among the Caladan primitives, how the family had moved from their ancestral home to Arrakis and into a trap set by the Harkonnens. . . .
But he felt more than that. Looking at the healthy infant, he tried to see the face of the great Emperor Muad’Dib. Duncan knew the special pain and doubts this ghola child would experience. The ghola Paul would know about his past life but would remember none of it, at least not for years.
Taking the infant Paul into her arms, Sheeana spoke quietly. “To the Fremen he was the messiah who came to lead them to victory. To the Bene Gesserit, he was a superhuman who emerged under the wrong circumstances and escaped our control.”
“He is a baby,” the old Rabbi said. “An unnatural one.”
The Rabbi, himself trained as a Suk doctor, attended the birth, though only reluctantly. He had a pronounced aversion to the tanks, but he looked somewhat defeated. With his brow furrowed and his eyes troubled, he had mumbled to Duncan, “I feel duty bound to be here. I made a promise to watch over Rebecca.”
The woman was all but unrecognizable on the med-center table, hooked up to tubes and pumps. Was she dreaming of her other lives? Lost in a sea of ancient memories? The old man seemed to see something of his personal failure in her sagging face. Before the Bene Gesserit doctors had extracted the child from the augmented womb, he prayed for Rebecca’s soul.
Duncan focused on the baby. “Long ago, I gave my life to save Paul. Would the universe