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Now, however, the decanting of the first of the gholas from history seemed utterly mundane, more like a laboratory exercise than a religious experience. Yet this was not just any baby and not merely a ghola, but Paul Atreides! Young Master Paul, who was later the Emperor Muad'Dib, and then the blind Preacher. What would the child become this time? What would the Bene Gesserit force him to become?
While waiting for the completion of the decanting process, Duncan turned to Sheeana. He saw satisfaction in her eyes, and uneasiness as well, though this was exactly what she had argued for. He was fully aware of what the Bene Gesserit feared: Paul had the potential in his bloodline. Almost certainly he could become the Kwisatz Haderach again, perhaps with even greater powers than before. Did Sheeana and her Bene Gesserit followers hope to control him better this time, or would it be a disaster of even greater proportions?
On the other hand, what if Paul was the one who could save them from the Outside Enemy?
The Sisterhood had played their breeding games to create a Kwisatz Haderach in the first place, and in return Paul had stung them terribly. Since Muad'Dib, and the long and terrible reign of Leto II (himself another Kwisatz Haderach), the Bene Gesserit had been terrified of creating such a one again.
Many fearful Reverend Mothers saw hints of the Kwisatz Haderach in any remarkable skill, even in precocious Duncan Idaho. Eleven previous Duncan gholas had been killed as children, and some of the proctors had made no secret of the fact that they wanted to kill him as well. To Duncan, the very idea that he might fit the mold of a messiah, like Paul, was absurd.
When the Bene Gesserit Suk doctors held up the infant, Duncan caught his breath. After cleaning sticky fluids from the fresh skin, the somber doctors subjected the baby to numerous tests and analyses, then wrapped him in sterile thermal cloths. "He is intact, undamaged," one of them reported. "A successful experiment."
Duncan frowned. An experiment? Was that how they saw this? He could not tear his gaze away. A veil of memories about young Paul nearly blinded him: how he and Gurney had taught the boy his first sword-and-shield lessons, how during the Duke's War of Assassins Duncan had taken the boy off to hide among the Caladan primitives, how the family had moved from their ancestral home to Arrakis and into a trap set by the Harkonnens. . . .
But he felt more than that. Looking at the healthy infant, he tried to see the face of the great Emperor Muad'Dib. Duncan knew the special pain and doubts this ghola child would experience. The ghola Paul would know about his past life but would remember none of it, at least not for years.
Taking the infant Paul into her arms, Sheeana spoke quietly. "To the Fremen he was the messiah who came to lead them to victory. To the Bene Gesserit, he was a superhuman who emerged under the wrong circumstances and escaped our control."
"He is a baby," the old Rabbi said. "An unnatural one."
The Rabbi, himself trained as a Suk doctor, attended the birth, though only reluctantly. He had a pronounced aversion to the tanks, but he looked somewhat defeated. With his brow furrowed and his eyes troubled, he had mumbled to Duncan, "I feel duty bound to be here. I made a promise to watch over Rebecca."
The woman was all but unrecognizable on the med-center table, hooked up to tubes and pumps. Was she dreaming of her other lives? Lost in a sea of ancient memories? The old man seemed to see something of his personal failure in her sagging face. Before the Bene Gesserit doctors had extracted the child from the augmented womb, he prayed for Rebecca's soul.
Duncan focused on the baby. "Long ago, I gave my life to save Paul. Would the universe have been better off if he had died that day under Sardaukar knives?"
"Many Sisters would make that argument. Humanity has been recovering for millennia from how he and his son changed the universe," Sheeana said. "But now we have a chance to raise him properly and see what he can do against the Enemy."
"Even if he changes the universe again?"
"Change is preferable to extinction."
Master Paul's second chance, Duncan thought.
He reached down with a strong hand, a Swordmaster's hand, to touch the baby's tiny cheek. If a miracle was created by technology, was it still a miracle? The infant smelled of medicinals, disinfectants, and melange that had been added to the surrogate mother's vat for months, a precise mixture that old Scytale had told them was necessary.
The baby's eyes seemed to focus on Duncan for a moment, though such a young infant could not possibly see clearly. But who could say what a Kwisatz Haderach might or might not see? Paul had foreseen the future of humankind after journeying in his mind to a place others could not go.
Like Magi, three Bene Gesserit Suk doctors crowded closer, chattering with awe over the baby they had worked so hard to create.
In disgust, the Rabbi turned and swept past Duncan, heading for the med-center's door, muttering "Abomination!" before he slipped out into the corridor.
Behind him, the Bene Gesserit doctors adjusted their life-support machinery and announced that the now deflated axlotl tank was ready to be impregnated with another ghola baby from the Tleilaxu Master's stored cells.
When one has an obvious need, one has an obvious weakness. Take care when you make a request, for in doing so you reveal your vulnerabilities.
--KHRONE,
private communique to his Face Dancer operatives
F
or millennia, the Ixians had managed to deliver miracles, providing what no one else could, and they rarely failed to live up to expectations. The Spacing Guild had no choice but to go to Ix when they needed an unorthodox solution for the melange shortage.
The technocrats and fabricators on Ix continued their industrious research, pushing technological boundaries with their inventions. During the chaos of the Scattering, Ixians had achieved significant progress in developing machines that had previously been considered taboo because of ancient restrictions imposed in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad. By purchasing devices that were suspiciously close to "thinking machines," the customers themselves became complicit in breaking the age-old laws. In this atmosphere, it was in the best interest of everyone to maintain complete discretion.
When the desperate Guild delegation arrived on Ix, members of the Face Dancer myriad were everywhere, in secret. Posing as an Ixian engineer, Khrone attended the meeting--another step in a dance so well-choreographed that the participants could not see their own movements. The New Sisterhood and the Guild would dig their own graves, and Khrone considered that a good thing.
The Guild representatives were ushered into one of the giant underground manufactories where copper shielding and scan-scramblers concealed them from view. No one would ever know this group had come here except for the Ixians. And the Face Dancers. After decades of infiltration, Khrone and his improved shape-shifters easily fit in. They looked exactly like scientists, engineers, and fast-talking bureaucrats.
Now, filling his role as a skilled deputy fabricator, Khrone wore short brown hair and a heavy brow. The lines around his mouth indicated that here was a hardworking functionary, someone whose opinion could be trusted and whose conclusions would stand up to any amount of double-checking. Three others in the largely silent assembly were also Face Dancers, but the spokesman for the Ixians was (for the time being at least) a true human. So far, Chief Fabricator Shayama Sen had given them no reason to replace him. Sen seemed to want the same things Khrone did.
Ixians and Face Dancers shared a barely concealed disdain for foolish fears and fanaticism. Was
it truly an invasion and a conquest, Khrone wondered, if the Ixians would have accepted the new order anyway?
Inside the immense hall, the air was filled with the hissing of production lines, vaporous plumes of cold baths, and the acrid fluids of imprinting chemicals. Others might have found the clamor of sights, sounds, and smells distracting, but the Ixians considered it soothing white noise.
Edrik the Navigator's armored tank drifted on suspensors, flanked by four gray-clad escorts. Khrone knew that the Navigator would be the greatest problem here, for his faction had the most to lose. But the mutated creature did not take charge of the negotiations. That task was left to the sharp-eyed Guild spokesman, Rentel Gorus, who stepped forward on willowy legs. His long white braid hung ropelike from his otherwise bald scalp. The visitors covered themselves with a veneer of importance and entitlement, which revealed a great deal about the extent of their anxiety. True confidence was quiet and invisible.
"The Spacing Guild has needs," said Administrator Gorus, sweeping the room with his milky but not-blind eyes. "If Ix can fulfill them, we are willing to pay any reasonable price. Find us a way out of the manacles the New Sisterhood has placed on us."
Shayama Sen folded his hands together and smiled. "And what is it you need?" The nails on his two forefingers were metallic and patterned with the kaleidoscopic lines of circuitry.
Edrik swam close to the speaker in his thick-walled tank. "The Guild needs spice so that we may guide our ships. Can Ix's machinery create melange? I see no point in coming here."
Gorus gave the Navigator a glare of pure annoyance. "I am not so skeptical. The Spacing Guild wonders if Ixian technology could be used regularly and reliably for navigation--at least during this difficult transition period. Since the time of the God Emperor, Ix has produced certain calculating machines that can take the place of Navigators."
