Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [118]
“Thufir, stay back. You’re in more danger than I am.”
The worms knew that someone else was in their realm. But they seemed far more agitated than an intruder could account for. Leto sensed a hatred, a roiling and instinctive reaction. He sprinted back to Thufir to save him. His friend seemed to be struggling with himself.
Sand erupted, and worms encircled him and Thufir. The creatures rose from the low dunes, their round and hollow faces questing this way and that for something.
“Leto, we have to go.” Thufir grabbed the boy’s sleeve. His voice was husky, ragged. “Go!”
“Thufir, they won’t harm me. And I feel . . . I feel as if I could make them go away. But they are deeply disturbed. Something about . . . you?” Leto sensed something here that he didn’t understand.
Simultaneously, the worms shot like battering rams toward the two young men on the dune. Thufir bolted away from Leto and lost his footing on the soft surface. Leto tried to go toward him, but the largest worm exploded up between them, scattering sand and dust. Another beast loomed on the other side of the transfixed Thufir, stretching its sinuous body into the air.
Thufir let out a shuddering, gut-wrenching scream. It didn’t sound at all like the ghola friend Leto had known. It didn’t even sound human.
The sandworms struck Thufir, but they did not simply devour him. As if in vindictive anger, the largest worm slammed down on him, smashing the young man’s body into the sand. The next worm reared up and rolled over the already broken Thufir Hawat. For good measure, a third worm crushed the lifeless form. Then the trio of worms backed away, as if proud of what they had done.
Leto stumbled across the sand toward the smashed body, oblivious to the threat of the worms. He slid down a churned dune, and fell to his hands and knees beside the smashed, partially buried form. “Thufir!”
But he did not see the familiar face of his friend. The crushed features were pale and blank, the hair colorless, the expression inhuman. The black-button eyes were unfocused and dead.
In shock, Leto reeled backward.
Thufir was a Face Dancer.
Here is my mask—it looks just like yours. We cannot see what our masks look like while we are wearing them.
—The Wheel of Deception, Tleilaxu commentary
Uproar in the hierarchy of the no-ship. Astonishment. Even Duncan Idaho could not grasp how such a thing could have happened. How long had the Face Dancer been watching them aboard the no-ship? The mangled, ugly corpse left no room for doubt.
Thufir Hawat had been a Face Dancer! How could it be him?
The original warrior Mentat had served House Atreides. Hawat had been Duncan’s good and loyal friend—but not this faux version of him. In all this time, during the three years of sabotage and murder—and perhaps even longer—Duncan had not detected the Face Dancer in Hawat, nor had Bashar Teg who mentored him. Nor had the Bene Gesserit Sisters, nor any of the other ghola children. But how?
An even worse question hung over them, blackening Duncan’s thoughts like a solar eclipse: We have found one Face Dancer. Are there others?
He looked at Sheeana, at the stricken Leto II, and at the two shocked guards who stared at the alien body. “We have to keep this secret until we can account for everyone aboard the ship. We’ve got to watch them, find a way to test them somehow . . . .”
She agreed. “If there are any other Face Dancers aboard, we need to act before they discover what happened.” In Bene Gesserit Voice, using a tone that was the equivalent of a verbal blow, she said to the guards, “Speak of this to no one.”
They froze. Sheeana was already making plans to implement a crackdown and sweep of everyone on the ship. Duncan’s Mentat mind raced as he tried to comprehend what could have happened, but the nagging questions defied all his attempts to impose logic.
One rose above others: How do we even know a test will work? Thufir had already faced interrogation by the Truthsayers, just as everyone onboard had. Somehow, these new Face Dancers could evade even the witches’ truthsense.
If the