Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [57]
“No,” Stilgar said. “Even then, I would not let my guard down.”
IN A SUDDEN resurgence, the maddening sabotage continued in myriad ways and at random points around the huge ship, setting everyone’s nerves on edge. The Bene Gesserits remained vigilant and wary, while the Rabbi preached to a growing number of followers about spies and murderers lurking among them.
Duncan studied the readings, ran projections. Again, he wondered if one or more of the Face Dancer Handlers might still be aboard, having escaped the wreckage of a crashed ship. Where else could the saboteur be hiding? After years of searching, Duncan and Teg had run out of ideas. How could this enemy elude surveillance imagers, Truthsayer interrogations, and vigorous searches? In a few suspicious incidents, a blurry form could be seen moving in restricted areas, but even enhancement could not sharpen the facial features to recognizability.
The saboteur seemed to know exactly where and when to strike. An endless succession of little breakdowns and small accidents, each taking its toll, ran the ship’s company to exhaustion.
One time, imagers detected what appeared to be a man as he moved furtively down a corridor near a bank of oxygen-scrubber units and aircirculating machines. Dressed in dark clothing and a tight-fitting hood that covered most of his face, he carried a long silver knife and a pry bar, and his body leaned forward against the heavy air flow. Then, like liquid flowing around a corner, the man slipped into the central recirculation chamber, where great fans blasted air through a system of arteries in the no-ship, pushing it through thick curtains of matted fibers coated with biogels to remove impurities.
With sudden fury, the unidentifiable saboteur slashed and hacked at the porous filter mats, ripping them from their frames and destroying their ability to purify air. After completing this mayhem, the saboteur turned to flee. Not a single frame of the imagers showed the face; it wasn’t even absolutely clear whether the hooded vandal was male or female. By the time security personnel rushed into the area, the saboteur had vanished into the howling, recirculated wind.
Duncan did not need to whisper the obvious answer. Face Dancer. He studied all records of the kamikaze ships from the Handlers, noting where they had crashed into the hull and how the bodies aboard had been confirmed dead and disposed of. One of the shape-shifting Handlers must have crawled out of the flaming wreckage.
Even worse, there might be more than one.
THE AIR SMELLED moist and foul, like seaweed and sewage. Duncan stood on the mist-slickened catwalk above one of the largest algae tanks. The entire vat was dying. Poisoned.
Standing next to him, gripping the catwalk rail with a whiteknuckled hand, Teg frowned at the chemical analyses displayed on his datapad. “Heavy metals, potent toxins, a list of deadly chemicals that even this stuff can’t digest.” He pulled up a dripping handful of the once-fecund green substance. The goop was brownish now, breaking down.
“The saboteur is trying to destroy our food supply,” Duncan said.
“Our air, too.”
“To what end? To kill us, it appears.”
“Or simply to make us helpless.”
Duncan glared at the vat, feeling angry and violated. “Get work crews to drain and scrub the tank. Decontaminate as quickly as possible. Then harvest starter material from other tanks to fertilize the biomass. We’ve got to stabilize it before something else goes wrong.”
DUNCAN WAS ALONE on the navigation bridge when the next disaster occurred. Over the years the passengers had learned to ignore the faint vibrations of the no-ship’s movement. Now, though, an abrupt lurch and an obvious deflection in course nearly threw him out of his chair.
He called for Teg and Thufir, then scrambled over the