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Startled, Uxtal roughly shoved Vladimir aside and hurried toward the tank. "Wait!" the boy said, hurrying to catch up.
But Uxtal had already reached the mounded female form. "What have you done?" He ran to the flex-tube nutrient connections. Ripped loose, they were gushing red and yellow fluids all over the floor. The sympathetic nervous system in the womb-body caused the jellylike flesh to shudder. A thin squealing and sucking sound came from the slack remnants of its mouth, an almost-conscious sound of desperation. A surgical knife from the pain-encouragement rooms lay on the floor. An alarm klaxon went off.
In panic, Uxtal struggled to reconnect the lines. He whirled to grab the smug child by the shirt and shook him. "Did you do this?"
"Of course. Don't be stupid." Vladimir kicked at Uxtal's groin, but succeeded only in hitting his thigh, though it was enough to make the Tleilaxu release him. The boy ran off, shouting, "I'm going to tell Hellica!"
Torn between his fears of the Matre Superior and the Face Dancers, Uxtal looked in dismay at the tank's mangled life-support systems. He couldn't let the womb--and the critically important child within--die. That poor baby . . . and poor Uxtal!
Drawn by the alarm, two lab assistants rushed in--competent ones, thankfully, instead of Ingva. Maybe if they worked swiftly enough . . .
Under Uxtal's direction, he and his assistants frantically installed new flexible tubing, refilled the reservoirs, pumped in stimulants and stabilizing drugs, and reconnected the monitors. He wiped sweat from his grayish brow.
Ultimately, Uxtal saved the tank. And the unborn ghola.
VLADIMIR THOUGHT HE'D been clever. In contrast, his punishment was swift, severe, and, for him, most unexpected.
He went directly to Hellica to tattle on Uxtal for his abuses, but the Matre Superior's face was already flushed hot with anger. Ingva had been swifter, racing to the Palace to make her damning report.
Before the boy could tell his lying version of the story, Hellica grabbed him by the front of his shirt with fingers as sharp and strong as a tiger's claws. "For your sake, you little bastard, the new ghola had better not be harmed. You wanted to kill him, didn't you?"
"N-no. I wanted to play with him. Right now." Terrified, Vladimir backed up a step. He tried to look as if he might cry. "I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was trying to make him come out. I'm tired of waiting for my new playmate. I was going to cut him free. That's why I took the knife."
"Uxtal interrupted him before he could succeed." Ingva slinked out from behind a hanging where she had been eavesdropping.
Her eyes flashing orange, the Matre Superior gave him a stern lecture. "Don't be such a fool, boy! Why would you destroy when you can control? Is that not a better revenge against House Atreides?"
Vladimir blinked; this had not occurred to him.
Hellica discarded him, as if he were a bothersome insect. "Do you know what exile means? It means you're going back to Dan--or wherever Khrone wants to stash you away. As soon as I can obtain a Guildship, you will be in his hands."
"You can't! I'm too important!" Even at a young age, his twisted little mind was beginning to understand plots and schemes, but he didn't yet grasp the deep intrigues of the politics that prevailed all around him.
Hellica silenced him with a threatening frown. "Unfortunately for you, the ghola baby is far more important than you are."
FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER
ESCAPE FROM CHAPTERHOUSE
The human body can achieve many things, but perhaps its greatest role is to act as a storage mechanism for the genetic information of the species.
--TLEILAXU MASTER WAFF,
at a kehl meeting on the Duncan Idaho ghola project
H
is ghola son was himself . . . or would be, once the memories within were brought to the surface. But that could not happen for several years yet. Scytale hoped his aging body would last long enough.
Everything the Tleilaxu Master had experienced and learned in countless sequential lifetimes was stored in his own genetic memory and reflected in the same DNA that had been used to create the five-year-old Scytale duplicate who stood before him. This was actually a clone, not a true ghola, because the cells had been taken from a living donor. The child's predecessor was not dead. Yet.
But old Scytale could feel the increasing physical degeneration. A Tleilaxu Master should not fear death, because it had not been a real possibility for millennia--not since his race had discovered the means to immortality through ghola-reincarnation. Though his ghola child was flourishing, he was still much too young.
Year by year, the inevitable march of death paraded through his body's systems, making his organs function less efficiently than they once had. Planned obsolescence. For millennia, the Masheikh elite of his race had met in secret councils, but never had they imagined a holocaust such as they now faced--such as Scytale now faced, as the last living Master.
Realistically, he did not know what he could accomplish alone. With unrestricted access to axlotl tanks, Scytale might have restored other Masters like himself, the true geniuses of his race. Cells of the last Tleilaxu Council had been stored within his nullentropy capsule, but the Bene Gesserit refused to consider creating gholas of those men. In fact, after the uproar surrounding the baby Leto II, as well as an ominous vision Sheeana claimed to have received in Other Memory, the witches had halted the entire ghola program. "Temporarily," they said.
At least the powindah women had finally granted him his son, his copy. Scytale might achieve continuity after all.
The boy was with him now in the portion of the ship that had once been Scytale's prison. Since revealing the last of his secrets, Scytale's restrictions had been eased, and he could move about wherever he wished. He could observe the other eight ghola children undergoing whatever training the Bene Gesserit considered necessary. Reluctantly placed in charge of the young gholas, Proctor Superior Garimi had offered to instruct his son as well, but Scytale refused, not wishing to have him contaminated.
The Tleilaxu Master gave his son private instruction to prepare him for his great responsibility. Before the elder incarnation died, a great deal of important information needed to be passed on, much of it secret.
He wished he had the witches' ability to Share their memories. Human downloading, he called it. If only he could awaken his son that way, but the Sisterhood kept that particular secret to themselves. No Tleilaxu had ever been able to determine the method, and such information was not for sale. The witches claimed it was a power they held as women, that no male could ever achieve it. Ridiculous! The Tleilaxu knew, and had proved, that females were as unimportant as the pigment on a wall. They were just biological vessels to produce offspring, and a conscious brain was not necessary for that process.
Alone, he faced the challenge of teaching the boy the most sacred rituals and cleansings. Though he spoke in whistles and whispers, using a coded tongue that no one except Masters should be able to speak, he still feared the witches could understand him. Years ago, Odrade had tried to entrap him by speaking that ancient language to prove she deserved his trust. To Scytale it only proved that he should never underestimate their wiles. He suspected that the witches had installed listening devices in his quarters, and no powindah must be allowed to hear the deep mysteries.
Desperation had painted him into smaller and smaller corners. His body was dying, and this child was his only option. If he did not take the risk that some of his words might be overheard, then those holy secrets might die with him. Wondrous knowledge, vanished forever. Which was worse, discovery or extinction?
Scytale leaned forward. "You carry a great burden. Few in our glorious history have ever borne such a responsibility. You are the hope of the Tleilaxu race, and my personal hope."
The familiar boy seemed both intimidated and eager. "How am I to do it, Father?"
"I will show you," Scytale said in Galach, before again reverting to the old language. The boy had shown an exceptional aptitude for it. "I will explai
n many things, but it is only a preparation, a foundation for your understanding. Once I restore your memories, you will know it all intuitively."
"But how will you restore my memories? Will it hurt?"
"There is no greater agony, and no greater satisfaction. It cannot be described."
The boy responded quickly, "The essence of s'tori is to comprehend our unknowability."
