Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [121]
Garimi looked around at their small trusted cadre. “I—or another of our choosing—will remain on the navigation bridge and monitor the no-ship while every single person aboard is brought into the main meeting chamber. Herd them in, account for every one, even the children. Lock the doors and test them all. One by one. Learn the truth.”
“What definitive tests can we use?” Teg asked. “On any of us?”
Scytale piped up, “I believe I can develop a reliable method. Using a tissue sample from the Hawat Face Dancer, I will prepare a comparison panel. There are certain . . . techniques I could use. He is one of the new breed brought back by the Lost Tleilaxu, and he differs from the old ones. But with this sample—”
“And why should we trust you?” Garimi said. “Your own purity hasn’t yet been proven.”
Scytale wore a forlorn expression. “You have to trust someone.”
“Do we?”
“I would allow myself to be observed by your experts at all times during the preparations.”
Duncan glanced at the Tleilaxu Master. “Scytale’s suggestion is a good one.”
“Or I can offer another option. When the Face Dancers betrayed my fellow Masters back on Tleilax and our other worlds, some of us had time to fight back. We created a toxin that specifically targets Face Dancers—a selective poison. If you grant me access to laboratory facilities, I can recreate that toxin and deploy it as a gas.”
“To what purpose?” Teg asked. Then his expression changed to one of understanding. “Ah, to flood the Ithaca’s air systems. We would kill any Face Dancers who remain among us.”
“The quantities necessary to saturate our ship would be huge,” Duncan said, racing through a Mentat calculation to estimate the volume of air within the gigantic vessel, the concentration of gas that would prove lethal to the shape-shifters, the possibility of making others ill and debilitating the crew.
Garimi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re suggesting we let this Tleilaxu release an unknown gas into our ship? They created the Face Dancers!”
Scytale answered her in a voice heavy with scorn. “You witches fail to think. Don’t you see that I myself face a dire threat? These are new Face Dancers, brought in from outside by the Lost Tleilaxu—our bastard stepbrothers who cooperated with the Honored Matres to annihilate all the old Masters like myself. Think! If other Face Dancers are aboard the Ithaca, then I am in greater personal danger than anyone else. Can’t you understand that?”
“Scytale’s gas must only be a last resort,” Duncan said.
Sheeana looked around the room. “I’ll let him begin work on the toxin, but I’d prefer that we identify any Face Dancer directly.”
“And interrogate it,” Garimi said.
Scytale laughed. “You think you can interrogate a Face Dancer?”
“Never underestimate the Bene Gesserit.”
Sheeana nodded. “Until we root out any other infiltrators, until we prove there are no more Face Dancers among us, our only safety lies in staying in large enough groups that the shape-shifters can’t attack without being seen.”
“What if an overwhelming number of us are already Face Dancers?” Teg said.
“Then we’re all lost.”
DURING THE LOCKDOWN, each of the ghola children was tested; Leto II submitted first. When the sandworms had turned on Thufir Hawat, somehow sensing the alien Face Dancer, Leto’s shock had seemed genuine. The imagers showed him staring in disbelief at the ruined body that had reverted to its blank Face Dancer state. But Thufir had clearly placed himself in danger, voluntarily going toward Leto when he did not need to. Why would a Face Dancer put himself at risk, unless the copy was so accurate that even the friendship was real?
Leto, ghola of the Tyrant, was many extraordinary things. But he was not a Face Dancer. Scytale’s genetic analysis proved it.
Paul Atreides was also found to be clean, along with Chani, Jessica, and the three-year-old Alia, who was intrigued