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"I'm sure he's not a Face Dancer. He--"
"Loschy! I know you have learned this well at my instruction and can detect a Face Dancer. I agree that the Free Trader is not one of them. The Face Dancers remain on his ship. They know I am here."
"They know they could not fool you. Yes, but--"
"Tleilaxu strategy is always woven within a web of strategies, any one of which may be the real strategy. They learned that from us."
"My dear, if we are dealing with Tleilaxu, and I do not question your judgment, then it immediately becomes a question of melange."
Lady Janet nodded her head gently. Indeed, even Miles knew about the Tleilaxu connection with the spice. It was one of the things that fascinated him about the Tleilaxu. For every milligram of melange produced on Rakis, the Bene Tleilax tanks produced long tons. Use of melange had grown to fit the new supply and even the Spacing Guild bent its knee before this power.
"But the rice ... " Loschy Teg ventured.
"My dear husband, the Bene Tleilax have no need of that much pongi rice in our sector. They require it for trade. We must find out who really needs the rice."
"You want me to delay," he said.
"Precisely. You are superb at what we now require. Don't give that Free Trader the chance to say yes or no. Someone trained by the Face Dancers will appreciate such subtlety."
"We lure the Face Dancers out of the ship while you initiate inquiries elsewhere."
Lady Janet smiled. "You are lovely when you leap ahead of me that way."
A look of understanding passed between them.
"He cannot go to another supplier in this sector," Loschy Teg said.
"He will wish to avoid a go, no-go confrontation," Lady Janet said, patting the table. "Delay, delay, and more delay. You must draw the Face Dancers out of the ship."
"They will realize, of course."
"Yes, my dear, and it is dangerous. You must always meet on your own ground and with our own guards nearby."
Miles Teg recalled that his father had, indeed, drawn the Face Dancers out of their ship. His mother had taken Miles to the viewer where he watched the copper-walled room in which his father drove the bargain that won CHOAM's highest commendation and a rich bonus.
The first Face Dancers Miles Teg ever saw: Two small men as alike as twins. Almost chinless round faces, pug noses, tiny mouths, black button eyes, and short-cropped white hair that stood up from their heads like the bristles on a brush. The two were dressed as the Free Trader had been--black tunics and trousers.
"Illusion, Miles," his mother said. "Illusion is their way. The fashioning of illusion to achieve real goals, that is how the Tleilaxu work."
"Like the magician at the Winter Show?" Miles asked, his gaze intent on the viewer and its toy-figure scene.
"Quite similar," his mother agreed. She too watched the viewer as she spoke but one arm went protectively around her son's shoulders.
"You are looking at evil, Miles. Study it carefully. The faces you see can be changed in an instant. They can grow taller, appear heavier. They could mimic your father so that only I would recognize the substitution."
Miles Teg's mouth formed a soundless "O." He stared at the viewer, listening to his father explain that the price of CHOAM's pongi rice once more had gone up alarmingly.
"And the most terrible thing of all," his mother said. "Some of the newer Face Dancers can, by touching the flesh of a victim, absorb some of the victim's memories."
"They read minds?" Miles looked up at his mother.
"Not exactly. We think they take a print of the memories, almost a holophoto process. They do not yet know that we are aware of this."
Miles understood. He was not to speak of this to anyone, not even to his father or his mother. She had taught him the Bene Gesserit way of secrecy. He watched the figures in the screen with care.
At his father's words, the Face Dancers betrayed no emotion, but their eyes appeared to glitter more brightly.
"How did they get so evil?" Miles asked.
"They are communal beings, bred not to identify with any shape or face. The appearance they present now is for my benefit. They know I am watching. They have relaxed into their natural communal shape. Mark it closely."
Miles tipped his head to one side and studied the Face Dancers. They looked so bland and ineffectual.
"They have no sense of self," his mother said. "They have only the instinct to preserve their own lives unless ordered to die for their masters."
"Would they do that?"
"They have done it many times."
"Who are their masters?"
"Men who seldom leave the planets of the Bene Tleilax."
"Do they have children?"
"Not Face Dancers. They are mules, sterile. But their
masters can breed. We have taken a few of them but the offspring are strange. Few female births and even then we cannot probe their Other Memories."
Miles frowned. He knew his mother was a Bene Gesserit. He knew the Reverend Mothers carried a marvelous reservoir of Other Memories going back through all the millennia of the Sisterhood. He even knew something of the Bene Gesserit breeding design. Reverend Mothers chose particular men and had children by those men.
"What are the Tleilaxu women like?" Miles asked.
It was a perceptive question that sent a surge of pride through the Lady Janet. Yes, it was almost a certainty that she had a potential Mentat here. The breeding mistresses had been right about the gene potential of Loschy Teg.
"No one outside of their planets has ever reported seeing a Tleilaxu female," the Lady Janet said.
"Do they exist or is it just the tanks?"
"They exist."
"Are any of the Face Dancers women?"
"At their own choice, they can be male or female. Observe them carefully. They know what your father is doing and it angers them."
"Will they try to hurt my father?"
"They don't dare. We have taken precautions and they know it. See how the one on the left works his jaws. That is one of their anger signs."
"You said they were com ... communal beings."
"Like hive insects, Miles. They have no self-image. Without a sense of self, they go beyond amorality. Nothing they say or do can be trusted."
Miles shuddered.
"We have never been able to detect an ethical code in them," the Lady Janet said. "They are flesh made into automata. Without self, they have nothing to esteem or even doubt. They are bred only to obey their masters."
"And they were told to come here and buy the rice."
"Exactly. They were told to get it and there's no other place in this sector where they can do that."
"They must buy it from father?"
"He's their only source. At this very moment, son, they are paying in melange. You see?"
Miles saw the orange-brown spice markers change hands, a tall stack of them, which one of the Face Dancers removed from a case on the floor.
"The price is far, far higher than they ever anticipated," the Lady Janet said. "This will be an easy trail to follow."
