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"It is good soup, sir. I made it myself."
An artificial voice. Teg saw the scars at the sides of the jaw. There was the look of an ancient mechanical about this man--an almost neckless head attached to thick shoulders, arms that seemed oddly jointed at both shoulders and elbows, legs that appeared to swing only from the hips. He stood motionless now but he had entered here with a slightly jerking sway that said he was mostly replacement artificials. The look of suffering in his eyes could not be avoided.
"I know I'm not pretty, sir," the man rasped. "I was ruined in the Alajory explosion."
Teg had no idea what the Alajory explosion might have been but it obviously was presumed he knew. "Ruined," however, was an interesting accusation against Fate.
"I was wondering if I knew you," Teg said.
"No one here knows anyone else," the man said. "Eat your soup." He pointed upward at the coiled tip of quiescent snooper, the glow of its lights revealing that it read its surroundings and found no poison. "The food is safe here."
Teg looked at the dark brown liquid in his bowl. Lumps of solid meat were visible in it. He reached for the spoon. His trembling hand made two attempts before grasping the spoon and even then he sloshed most of the liquid out of the spoon before he could lift it a millimeter.
A steadying hand gripped Teg's wrist and the artificial voice spoke softly in Teg's ear: "I do not know what they did to you, Bashar, but no one will harm you here without crossing my dead body."
"You know me?"
"Many would die for you, Bashar. My son lives because of you."
Teg allowed himself to be helped. It was all he could do to swallow the first spoonful. The liquid was rich, hot and soothing. His hand steadied presently and he nodded to the man to release the wrist.
"More, sir?"
Teg realized then that he had emptied the bowl. It was tempting to say "yes" but the driver had said to make haste.
"Thank you, but I must go."
"You have not been here," the man said.
When they were once more back on the main road, Teg sat back against the groundcar's cushions and reflected on the curious echoing quality of what the ruined man had said. The same words the farmer had used: "You have not been here." It had the feeling of a common response and it said something about changes in Gammu since Teg had surveyed the place.
They entered the outskirts of Ysai presently and Teg wondered if he should attempt a disguise. The ruined man had recognized him quickly.
"Where do the Honored Matres hunt for me now?" Teg asked.
"Everywhere, Bashar. We cannot guarantee your safety but steps are being taken. I will make it known where I have delivered you."
"Do they say why they hunt me?"
"They never explain, Bashar."
"How long have they been on Gammu?"
"Too long, sir. Since I was a child and I was a baltern at Renditai."
A hundred years at least, Teg thought. Time to gather many forces into their hands... if Taraza's fears were to be credited.
Teg credited them.
"Trust no one those whores can influence, " Taraza had said.
Teg sensed no threat to him in his present position, though. He could only absorb the secrecy that obviously enclosed him now. He did not press for more details.
They were well into Ysai and he glimpsed the black bulk of the ancient Harkonnen seat of Barony through occasional gaps between the walls that enclosed the great private residences. The car turned onto a street of small commercial establishments : cheap buildings constructed for the most part of salvaged materials that displayed their origins in poor fits and unmatched colors. Gaudy signs advised that the wares inside were the finest, the repair services better than those elsewhere.
It was not that Ysai had deteriorated or even gone to seed, Teg thought. Growth here had been diverted into something worse than ugly. Someone had chosen to make this place repellent. That was the key to most of what he saw in the city.
Time had not stopped here, it had retreated. This was no modern city full of bright transport pods and insulated usiform buildings. This was random jumbles, ancient structures joined to ancient structures, some built to individual tastes and some obviously designed with some long-gone necessity in mind. Everything about Ysai was joined in a proximity whose disarray just managed to avoid chaos. What saved it, Teg knew, was the old pattern of thoroughfares along which this hodgepodge had been assembled. Chaos was held at bay, although what pattern there was in the streets conformed to no master plan. Streets met and crossed at odd angles, seldom squared. Seen from the air, the place was a crazy quilt with only the giant black rectangle of ancient Barony to speak of an organizing plan. The rest of it was architectural rebellion.
Teg saw suddenly that this place was a lie plastered over with other lies, based on previous lies, and such a mad mixup that they might never dig through to a usable truth. All of Gammu was that way. Where could such insanity have had its beginnings? Was it the Harkonnens' doing?
"We are here, sir."
The driver drew up to the curb in front of a windowless building face, all flat black plasteel and with a single ground-level door. No salvaged material in this construction. Teg recognized the place: the bolt hole he had chosen. Unidentified things flickered in Teg's second vision but he sensed no immediate menace. The driver opened Teg's door and stood to one side.
"Not much activity here at this hour, sir. I would get inside quickly."
Without a backward glance, Teg darted across the narrow walk and into the building--a small brightly lighted foyer of polished white plaz and only banks of comeyes to greet him. He ducked into a lift tube and punched the remembered coordinates. This tube, he knew, angled upward through the building to the fifty-seventh floor rear where there were some windows. He remembered a private dining room of dark reds and heavy brown furnishings, a hard-eyed female with the obvious signs of Bene Gesserit training, but no Reverend Mother.
The tube disgorged him into the remembered room but there was no one to receive him. Teg glanced around at the solid brown furnishings. Four windows along the far wall were concealed behind thick maroon draperies.
Teg knew he had been seen. He waited patiently, using his newly learned doubling-vision to anticipate trouble. There was no indication of attack. He took up a position to one side of the tube outlet and glanced around him once more.
Teg had a theory about the relationship between rooms and their windows--the number of windows, their placement, their size, height from the floor, relationship of room size to window size, the elevation of the room, windows curtained or draped, and all of this Mentat-interpreted against knowledge of the uses to which a room was put. Rooms could be fitted to a kind of pecking order defined with extreme sophistication. Emergency uses might throw such distinctions out the window but they otherwise were quite reliable.
Lack of windows in an aboveground room conveyed a particular message. If humans occupied such a room, it did not necessarily mean secrecy was the main goal. He had seen unmistakable signs in scholastic settings that windowless schoolrooms were both a retreat from the exterior world and a strong statement of dislike for children.
This room, however, presented something different: conditional secrecy plus the need to keep occasional watch on that exterior world. Protective secrecy when required. His opinion was reinforced when he crossed the room and twitched one of the draperies aside. The windows were tripled armor-plaz. So! Keeping watch on that world outside might draw attack. That was the opinion of whoever had ordered the room protected this way.
Once more, Teg twitched the drapery aside. He glanced at the comer glazing. Prismatic reflectors there amplified the view along the adjacent wall to both sides and from roof to ground.
Well!
His previous visit had not given him time for this closer examination but now he made a more positive assessment. A very interesting room. Teg dropped the drapery and turned just in time to see a tall man enter from the tube
slot.
Teg's doubled vision provided a firm prediction on the stranger. This man brought concealed danger. The newcomer was plainly military--the way he carried himself, the quick eye for details that only a trained and experienced officer would observe. And there was something else in his manner that made Teg stiffen. This was a betrayer! A mercenary available to the highest bidder.
"Damned nasty the way they treated you," the man greeted Teg. The voice was a deep baritone with an unconscious assumption of personal power in it. The accent was one Teg had never before heard. This was someone from the Scattering! A Bashar or equivalent, Teg estimated.
Still, there was no indication of immediate attack.
When Teg did not answer, the man said: "Oh, sorry: I'm Muzzafar. Jafa Muzzafar, regional commander for the forces of Dur."
Teg had never heard of the forces of Dur.
Questions crowded Teg's mind but he kept them to himself. Anything he said here might betray weakness.
Where were the people who had met him here before? Why did I choose this place? The decision had been made with such inner assurance.
"Please be comfortable," Muzzafar said, indicating a small divan with a low serving table in front of it. "I assure you that none of what has happened to you was of my doing. Tried to put a stop to it when I heard but you'd already ... left the scene."
Teg heard the other thing in this Muzzafar's voice now: caution bordering on fear. So this man had either heard about or seen the shack and the clearing.
"Damned clever of you," Muzzafar said. "Having your attack force wait until your captors were concentrating on trying to get information out of you. Did they learn anything?"
Teg shook his head silently from side to side. He felt on the edge of being ignited in a blurred response to attack, yet he sensed no immediate violence here. What were these Lost Ones doing? But Muzzafar and his people had made a wrong assessment of what had happened in the room of the T-probe. That was clear.
"Please, be seated," Muzzafar said.
Teg took the proffered seat on the divan.
