AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Belatedly, Waff began to suspect that she was trying to be friendly and candid with him. She certainly had put aside her earlier pose of angry superiority. Waff's informants from the Lost Ones said the Honored Matres made sexual decisions much in the manner of the Bene Gesserit. Was she trying to be seductive? But she clearly understood and had exposed the weakness of logic.
It was very confusing!
"We are talking in circles," he said.
"Quite the contrary. Circles enclose. Circles limit. Humankind no longer is limited by the space in which to grow."
There she went again! He spoke past a dry tongue: "It is said that what you cannot control you must accept."
She leaned forward, the orange eyes intent on his face. "Do you accept the possibility of a final disaster for the Bene Tleilax?"
"If that were the case I would not be here."
"When logic fails, another tool must be used."
Waff grinned. "That sounds logical."
"Don't mock me! How dare you!"
Waff lifted his hands defensively and assumed a placating tone: "What tool would the Honored Matre suggest?"
"Energy!"
Her answer surprised him. "Energy? In what form and how much?"
"You demand logical answers," she said.
With a feeling of sadness, Waff realized that she was not, after all, Zensunni. The Honored Matre only played word games on the fringes of non-logic, circling it, but her tool was logic.
"Rot at the core spreads outward," he said.
It was as though she had not heard his testing statement. "There is untapped energy in the depths of any human we deign to touch," she said. She extended a skeletal finger to within a few millimeters of his nose.
Waff pulled back into his chair until she dropped her arm. He said: "Is that not what the Bene Gesserit said before producing their Kwisatz Haderach?"
"They lost control of themselves and of him," she sneered.
Again, Waff thought, she employed logic in thinking of the non-logical. How much she had told him in these little lapses. He could glimpse the probable history of these Honored Matres. One of the natural Reverend Mothers from the Fremen of Rakis had gone out in the Scattering. Diverse people had fled on the no-ships during and immediately after the Famine Times. A no-ship had seeded the wild witch and her concepts somewhere. That seed had returned in the form of this orange-eyed huntress.
Once more she hurled Voice at him, demanding: "What have you wrought with this ghola?"
This time, Waff was prepared and shrugged it off. This Honored Matre would have to be deflected or, if possible, slain. He had learned much from her but there was no way of telling how much she had learned from him with her unguessed talents.
They are sexual monsters, his informants had said. They enslave men by the powers of sex.
"How little you know the joys I could give you," she said. Her voice coiled like a whip around him. How tempting! How seductive!
Waff spoke defensively: "Tell me why you--"
"I need tell you nothing!"
"Then you did not come to bargain." He spoke sadly. The no-ships had, indeed, seeded those other universes with rot. Waff sensed the weight of necessity on his shoulders. What if he could not slay her?
"How dare you keep suggesting a bargain with an Honored Matre?" she demanded. "Know you that we set the price!"
"I do not know your ways, Honored Matre," Waff said. "But I sense in your words that I have offended."
"Apology accepted."
No apology intended! He stared at her blandly. Many things could be deduced from her performance. Out of his millennial experiences, Waff reviewed what he had learned here. This female from the Scattering came to him for an essential piece of information. Therefore, she had no other source. He sensed desperation in her. Well masked but definitely there. She needed confirmation or refutation of something she feared.
How like a predatory bird she was, sitting there with her claw hands so lightly on the arms of her chair! Rot at the core spreads outward. He had said it and she had not heard. Clearly, atomic humankind continued to explode on its Scatterings of Scatterings. The people represented by this Honored Matre had not found a way to trace the no-ships. That was it, of course. She hunted the no-ships just as the witches of the Bene Gesserit did.
"You seek the way to nullify a no-ship's invisibility," he said.
The statement obviously rocked her. She had not expected this from the elflike manikin seated in front of her. He saw fear, then anger, then resolution pass across her features before she resumed her predatory mask. She knew, though. She knew he had seen.
"So that is what you do with your ghola," she said.
"It is what the witches of the Bene Gesserit seek with him," Waff lied.
"I underestimated you," she said. "Did you make the same mistake with me?"
"I do not think so, Honored Matre. The breeding scheme that produced you is quite obviously formidable. I think you could kick out a foot and kill me before I blinked an eye. The witches are not in the same league with you."
A smile of pleasure softened her features. "Are the Tleilaxu to be our willing servants or compelled?"
He did not try to hide outrage. "You offer us slavery?"
"That is one of your options."
He had her now! Arrogance was her weakness. Submissively, he asked: "What would you command me to do?"
"You will take back as your guests two younger Honored Matres. They are to be bred with you and ... teach you our ways of ecstasy."
Waff inhaled and exhaled two slow breaths.
"Are you sterile?" she asked.
"Only our Face Dancers are mules." She would already know that. It was common knowledge.
"You call yourself Master," she said, "yet you have not mastered yourself."
More than you, Honored Matre bitch! And I call myself Masheikh, a fact that may yet destroy you.
"The two Honored Matres I send with you will make an inspection of everything Tleilaxu and return to me with their report," she said.
He sighed as though in resignation. "Are the two younger women comely?"
"Honored Matres!" she corrected him.
"Is that the only name you use?"
"If they choose to give you names, that is their privilege, not yours." She leaned sideways and rapped a bony knuckle against the floor. Metal gleamed in her hand. She had a way of penetrating this room's shielding!
The hatch opened and two women dressed much like his Honored Matre entered. Their dark capes carried less decoration and both women were younger. Waff stared at them. Were they both... He tried not to show elation but knew he failed. No matter. The older one would think he admired the beauty of these two. By signs known only to the Masters, he saw that one of the two newcomers was a new Face Dancer. A successful exchange had been made and these Scattered Ones could not detect it! The Tleilaxu had successfully passed a hurdle! Would the Bene Gesserit be as blind to these new gholas?
"You are being sensibly agreeable about this, for which you will be rewarded," the old Honored Matre said.
"I recognize your powers, Honored Matre," he said. That was true. He bowed his head to conceal the resolution that he knew he could not keep from his eyes.
She gestured to the newcomers. "These two will accompany you. Their slightest whim is your command. They will be treated with all honor and respect."
"Of course, Honored Matre." Keeping his head bowed, he lifted both arms as though in salutation and submission. A dart hissed from each sleeve. As he released the darts, Waff jerked himself sideways in his chair. The motion was not quite rapid enough. The old Honored Matre's right foot shot out, catching him in the left thigh and hurling him backward on his chair.
It was the old Honored Matre's last living act. The dart from his left sleeve caught her in the back of her throat, entering through her opened mouth, a mouth left gaping in surprise. Narcotic poison cut off any outcry. The other dart hit the non-Face Dancer of the newco
mers in the right eye. His Face Dancer accomplice cut off any warning shout by a blurred chop to the throat.
Two bodies slumped in death.
Painfully, Waff disentangled himself from the chair and righted it as he got to his feet. His thigh throbbed. A fraction of a meter more and she would have broken his thigh! He realized that her reaction had not been mediated by her central nervous system. As with some insects, attack could be initiated by the required muscle system. That development would have to be investigated!
His Face Dancer accomplice was listening at the open hatch. She stepped aside to allow the entry of another Face Dancer in the guise of an Ixian guard.
Waff massaged his injured thigh while his Face Dancers disrobed the dead women. The one who copied the Ixian put her head to that of the dead old Honored Matre. Things moved swiftly after that. Presently, there was no Ixian guard, only a faithful copy of the old Honored Matre and a younger Honored Matre attendant. Another pseudo-Ixian entered and copied the younger Honored Matre. Soon, there were only ashes where dead flesh had been. A new Honored Matre scooped the ashes into a bag and concealed it beneath her robe.
Waff made a careful examination of the room. The consequences of discovery made him shudder. Such arrogance as he had seen here came from obviously awesome powers. Those powers must be probed. He detained the Face Dancer who had copied the old one.
"You have printed her?"
"Yes, Master. Her waking memories were still alive when I copied."
"Transfer to her." He gestured to the one who had been an Ixian guard. They touched foreheads for a few heartbeats then parted.
"It is done," said the older one.
"How many other copies of these Honored Matres have we made?"
