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--BASHAR MILES TEG,
strategy lectures
S
nip!
The blades of the hedge trimmer clacked together, severing random branches to alter the shape of the greenery. "You see how life persists in straying from its well-defined boundaries?" Annoyed, the old man moved methodically along the high shrub at the edge of the lawn, pruning the outlying stems and leaves, anything that detracted from geometrical perfection. "Unruly hedges are so unsettling."
With an insistent clicking of the blades, he attacked the tall shrubs. In the end, the planes were perfectly flat and smooth, according to his specifications.
Wearing an amused expression, the old woman sat back in her canvas lounge chair. She lifted a glass of fresh lemonade. "What I see is someone who persists in imposing order rather than accepting reality. Randomness has value, too."
Taking another sip, she thought about mentally activating a set of sprinklers to drench the old man, strictly as a demonstration of unpredictability. But that sort of prank, while amusing, would only provoke unpleasantness. Instead, she entertained herself by watching her companion's unnecessary work.
"Rather than drive yourself mad with adherence to a set of rules, why not change the rules? You have the power to do so."
He glared at her. "You suggest I am mad?"
"Merely a figure of speech. You have long since recovered from any sort of damage."
"You provoke me, Marty." A brief flicker of danger passed as the old man, with renewed vigor, returned his attention to the garden trimmers. He attacked the hedges again, shaping and molding, not satisfied until every leaf was in its desired place.
The old woman set her glass down and went to the flower beds where a profusion of tulips and irises added splashes of color. "I prefer to be surprised--to savor the unexpected. It makes life interesting." Frowning, she bent over to inspect a bristling weed that thrived among her plants. "There are limits, however." With a vicious yank, she uprooted the unwanted plant.
"You seem quite forgiving, considering that we still do not have the no-ship under our control. It angers me more each time they get away! Kralizec is upon us."
"That last time was very close." Smiling, the old woman moved through her flower garden. Behind her, the wilting blossoms suddenly brightened, infused with new color. The sky was a perfect blue.
"You aren't much concerned about the damage they just caused us. I expended a great deal of effort to create and cast the latest tachyon net. Lovely tendrils, far-reaching . . ." He twisted his lips into a scowl. "And now everything is torn, tangled, and frayed."
"Oh, you can re-create it with a thought." The woman waved a tanned hand. "You're just annoyed because something didn't happen the way you expected it to. Have you considered that the no-ship's recent escape provides evidence of the prophetic projection? It must mean that the one you expect--whom the humans call the Kwisatz Haderach--is truly aboard. How else could they have slipped away? Perhaps that is proof of the projection?"
"We always knew he was aboard. That is why we must have the no-ship."
The old woman laughed. "We predict he is aboard, Daniel. There is a difference. Centuries and centuries of mathematical projections convinced us that the necessary one would be there."
The old man jammed his sharp hedge trimmers point first into the grass, impaling the lawn as if it were an enemy.
The mathematical projection had been so sophisticated and complex that it was tantamount to a prophecy. The two knew full well that they required the Kwisatz Haderach to win the impending typhoon struggle. Previously, they would have considered such a prophesy no more than a superstitious legend spawned by frightened people cowering from the dark. But after the impossibly detailed analytical projections, along with millennia of eerily clever human prophecies, the old couple knew that their victory required possession of the wild card, the human loose cannon.
"Long ago, others learned the folly of trying to control a Kwisatz Haderach." The old woman stood up from her weeding. She put a hand to the small of her back as if she had a muscle ache, though it was only an affectation. "He nearly destroyed them, and they spent fifteen hundred years bemoaning what happened."
"They were weak." The old man took a half-full glass of lemonade from where he had set it on an ornate lawn table and drank it down in a single gulp.
She went to his side and looked through a razor-edged gap in the hedge toward the extravagant and complex towers and interlinked buildings in the faraway city that surrounded their perfect sanctuary. She touched his elbow. "If you promise not to pout, I can help you repair the net. You really must accept the fact that plans can be disrupted quite easily."
"Then we must make better plans."
Nonetheless he joined her in concentration, and they began to weave the gossamer strands through the fabric of the universe once more, reconstructing their tachyon net and sending it out at great speed, covering impossible distances in the blink of an eye.
"We will keep trying to catch that ship," the old woman said, "but we might be better off focusing our efforts on the alternative plan that Khrone has in mind. Thanks to what was found on Caladan, we do have another option, a second chance to assure our victory. We should pursue both alternatives. We know that Paul Atreides was a Kwisatz Haderach, and a ghola of the boy has already been born, thanks to Khrone's foresight--"
"Accidental foresight, I am sure."
"Nevertheless, he also has the Baron Harkonnen, who will be a perfect fulcrum with which to turn the new Paul to our purposes. Therefore, even if we do not capture the no-ship, we are guaranteed to have a Kwisatz Haderach in our possession. We win, either way. I will make certain Khrone does not fail us. I have sent special watchers."
The old man was powerful and rigid, but at times naive. He did not suspect treachery enough. The old woman knew she needed to keep a better watch on their minions dispersed throughout the Old Empire. Sometimes the Face Dancers were too full of themselves.
She was happy to let each participant play his role, whether it be the old man, the Face Dancers, the passengers on the no-ship, or the vast herds of victims standing in the way in the Old Empire.
It amused her for now, but everything was changeable. That was the way of the universe.
Plans within plans within plans--like an infinite array of nested reflections cast by angled mirrors. It takes a superior mind to see all of the causes and effects.
--KHRONE,
message to the Face Dancer myriad
O
n Caladan, the strange delegation from far, far outside arrived to see Khrone. They did not need to identify themselves when they demanded to learn of his progress with the Baron child and the Atreides ghola they called "Paolo." Khrone already had what the old man and woman needed, a little boy with all the necessary potential in his gene markers. A Kwisatz Haderach.
Instead of rewarding the Face Dancer, though, the distant puppet masters breathed down his neck, watching everything he did. They wanted complete control, and Khrone resented it. The Face Dancer myriad had suffered from too much domination by fools during the millennia of their existence.
Nevertheless, he bided his time. He could deal with these misfit spies.
According to the Guild manifest and the expertly doctored identification glyphs they carried, the bizarrely augmented humans claimed to come from Ix. It was an acceptable cover story that would explain their odd appearance to any human who happened to see them. But Khrone knew that this technology sprang from an entirely different seed, and these ambassadors came from a much greater distance, where the breakwater fringes of the human Scattering had crashed against the bulwarks of the Enemy.
In the past, the meddling masters had pestered him via their interconnected net, but apparently since the net had recently sustained some damage, the two faraway watchers preferred a less vulnerable communication method. The old man and woman had sent these . . . monstrosities. He wondered if the supposed masters actually meant to in
timidate him--him! The Face Dancer leader smiled at the very idea as he went to meet the delegation.
In the high-ceilinged foyer of the restored Castle Caladan, Khrone selected a guise that looked like an old archival painting of Duke Leto Atreides. He dressed in crisp gray clothes of an antique style, checked his appearance in a tall goldplaz-framed mirror, then clasped his hands behind his back as he descended the grand waterfall of stairs to the echoing hall. Stopping on the bottom step, he put on a bland smile, and waited coolly to receive the six men.
The scarred, pale-skinned representatives were clearly flustered by the physical effort of trudging up the steep walkway from the spaceport. Khrone had no incentive to make the journey easier for them, however. He had not asked for their presence, and did not intend to make them feel welcome. If the tachyon net was damaged, maybe the old man and woman would not transmit their waves of agony to goad him anymore. And then the Face Dancers could at last act with impunity.
Or maybe not. Uncertain, Khrone decided to maintain his docile charade just a while longer.
