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Something within him could not evade that ancient debt. He knew its source. He could outline the process by which it had been embedded in him.
There it remained.
Duncan glanced at the tiled floor. Words had been worked in the tile along the cubicle's splashboard. It was a script that one part of him identified as an ancient thing from the old Harkonnen times but that another part of him found to be an all-too-familiar Galach.
"CLEAN SWEET CLEAN BRIGHT CLEAN PURE CLEAN"
The ancient script repeated itself around the room's perimeter as though the words themselves might create something that Duncan knew was alien to the Harkonnens of his memories.
Over the door to the showers, more script: "CONFESS THY HEART AND FIND PURITY"
A religious admonition in a Harkonnen stronghold? Had the Harkonnens changed in the centuries after his death? Duncan found this hard to believe. These words were things that the builders probably had thought appropriate.
He felt rather than heard Lucilla enter the room behind him. Duncan stood and fastened the clips of the tunic he had appropriated from the nullentropy bins (but only after removing all Harkonnen insignia!).
Without turning, he said: "What now, Lucilla?"
She stroked the fabric of the tunic along his left arm. "The Harkonnens had rich tastes."
Duncan spoke quietly: "Lucilla, if you touch me again without my permission, I will try to kill you. I will try so hard that you very likely will have to kill me."
She recoiled.
He stared into her eyes. "I am not some damned stud for the witches!"
"Is that what you think we want of you?"
"Nobody has said what you want of me but your actions are obvious!"
He stood poised on the balls of his feet. The unawakened thing within him stirred and sent his pulse racing.
Lucilla studied him carefully. Damn that Miles Teg! She had not expected resistance to take this form. There was no doubting Duncan's sincerity. Words by themselves no longer would serve. He was immune to Voice.
Truth.
It was the only weapon left to her.
"Duncan, I do not know precisely what it is Taraza expects you to do on Rakis. I can guess but my guess may be wrong."
"Guess, then."
"There is a young girl on Rakis, barely into her teens. Her name is Sheeana. The worms of Rakis obey her. Somehow, the Sisterhood must gather this talent into its own store of abilities."
"What could I possibly... "
"If I knew, I certainly would tell you now."
He heard her sincerity unmasked by her desperation.
"What does your talent have to do with this?" he demanded.
"Only Taraza and her councillors know."
"They want some hold on me, something from which I cannot escape!"
Lucilla already had arrived at this deduction but she had not expected him to see it that quickly. Duncan's youthful face concealed a mind that worked in ways she had not yet fathomed. Lucilla's thoughts raced.
"Control the worms and you could revive the old religion." It was Teg's voice from the doorway behind Lucilla.
I did not hear him arrive!
She whirled. Teg stood there with one of the antique Harkonnen lasguns held casually across his left arm, its muzzle directed at her.
"This is to insure that you listen to me," he said.
"How long have you been there listening?"
Her angry glare did not change his expression.
"From the moment you admitted you don't know what Taraza expects of Duncan," Teg said. "Nor do I. But I can make a few Mentat projections--nothing firm yet but all of them suggestive. Tell me if I am wrong."
"About what?"
He glanced at Duncan. "One of the things you were told to do was to make him irresistible to most women."
Lucilla tried to conceal her dismay. Taraza had warned her to conceal this from Teg as long as possible. She saw that concealment no longer was possible. Teg had read her reaction with those damnable abilities imparted to him by his damnable mother!
"A great deal of energy is being gathered and aimed at Rakis," Teg said. He looked steadily at Duncan. "No matter what the Tleilaxu have buried in him, he has the stamp of ancient humankind in his genes. Is that what the Breeding Mistresses need?"
"A damned Bene Gesserit stud!" Duncan said.
"What do you intend to do with that weapon?" Lucilla asked. She nodded at the antique lasgun in Teg's hands.
"This? I didn't even put a charge cartridge in it." He lowered the lasgun and leaned it into a comer beside him.
"Miles Teg, you will be punished!" Lucilla grated.
"That will have to wait," he said. "It's almost night outside. I've been out there under the life-shield. Burzmali has been here. He has left his sign to tell me he read the message I scratched with those animal marks on the trees."
A glittering alertness came into Duncan's eyes.
"What will you do?" Lucilla asked.
"I have left new marks arranging a rendezvous. Right now, we are all going up to the library. We are going to study the maps. We will commit them to memory. At the very least, we should know where we are when we run."
She gave him the benefit of a curt nod.
Dunc
an noted her movement with only part of his awareness. His mind already had leaped ahead to the ancient equipment in the Harkonnen library. He had been the one to show both Lucilla and Teg how to use it correctly, calling up an ancient map of Giedi Prime dating from the time when the no-globe had been built.
With Duncan's pre-ghola memory as guide and his own more modern knowledge of the planet, Teg had tried to bring the map up to date.
"Forest Guard Station" became "Bene Gesserit Keep."
"Part of it was a Harkonnen hunting lodge," Duncan had said. "They hunted human game raised and conditioned specifically for that purpose."
Towns vanished under Teg's updating. Some cities remained but received new labels. "Ysai," the nearest metropolis, had been marked "Barony" on the original map.
Duncan's eyes went hard in memory. "That's where they tortured me."
When Teg exhausted his memory of the planet, much was marked unknown but there were frequent curly-ended Bene Gesserit symbols to identify the places where Taraza's people had told Teg he might find temporary sanctuary.
Those were the places Teg wanted committed to memory.
As he turned to lead them up to the library, Teg said: "I will erase the map when we have learned it. There's no telling who might find this place and study it."
Lucilla swept past him. "It's on your head, Miles!" she said.
Teg called after her retreating back: "A Mentat tells you that I did what was required of me."
She spoke without turning: "How logical!"
This room reconstructs a bit of the desert of Dune. The sandcrawler directly in front of you dates from the Atreides times. Grouped around it, moving clockwise from your left, are a small harvester, a carryall, a primitive spice factory and the other support equipment. All are explained at each station. Note the illuminated quotation above the display: "FOR THEY SHALL SUCK OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE SEAS AND OF THE TREASURE IN THE SAND." This ancient religious quotation was oft repeated by the famous Gurney Halleck.
--Guide Announcement, Museum of Dar-es-Balat
The worm did not slow its relentless progress until just before dusk. By then, Odrade had played out her questions and still had no answers. How did Sheeana control the worms? Sheeana said she was not steering her Shaitan in this direction. What was this hidden language to which the desert monster responded? Odrade knew that her Sister-guardians up there in the 'thopters that paced them would be exhausting the same questions plus one more.
