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The old Rabbi looked squeamish at the very thought of the hunt, even though Honored Matres had hunted his people, too, on Gammu. Sheeana stood by silently, accepting the violence that was sure to take place. She was quite intrigued.
"We will kill you," snarled the Honored Matre whom Hrrm held at bay. She crouched, holding her hands out as weapons, ready to spring. Hrrm was not intimidated by her.
The six young Futars snapped and snarled, eager for their own hunt. Their primal hunger went beyond the desire for mere food. The other three whores emerged from the tree-stump cell. Although they were wary and ready to fight, they decided to wait for a better chance.
"We will kill you," repeated the first trapped Honored Matre.
"You will have the opportunity to try." Orak Tho stood straight, the dark band across his eyes falling into shadow. "Take them into the forest where they can run."
"Why not just execute us here?"
"Because we would not enjoy that as much." Several of the Handlers smiled. They were calm and confident in their superiority.
As she watched, Sheeana tried to formulate a conjecture about these mysterious isolated people, where they had come from and what their true goals might be. She took a step toward the nearest Honored Matre. "Tell us your names, so that I might make a body record when this day is done."
The whore that was still pinned under the black-striped Futar thrashed and yowled. The calmer Honored Matre merely fixed Sheeana with a frozen gaze.
Orak Tho raised his hand lightly, cutting off any further shows of bravado. "Your name will be forgotten by the time your flesh passes through the digestive systems of these Futars. You will end your physical existence as excrement on the forest floor."
The Chief Handler turned his back and strode away with his longlegged, loose-jointed gait. The ravenous Futars closed in to prevent the women from making another escape attempt, herding them along.
"Come, out into the forest." Orak Tho glanced back at the seething Honored Matres. "Out there, you will have your chance to shed blood, or die in the attempt."
ATOP A TALL, open-framed lookout tower constructed of smooth silvery-blond wood, Teg stood on the open platform, grasped a railing, and looked down into the forest. Sheeana was with him. Handlers guarded the base of the tower, their stun-goads ready in case the hunted Honored Matres should come at them like an unexpected ricochet in their flight from the prowling Futars. The guards did not look worried, though they kept Teg and Sheeana safe, high above the killing grounds.
The Chief Handler's guests were allowed to observe from this vantage point, supposedly the best view of the action. Because the range of the hunt itself was unpredictable, the Rabbi and young Thufir Hawat had been sent to a different lookout tower a kilometer away. The old man had made weak protestations, claiming he would rather wait back at the lighter, but the Handlers insisted that they observe the show.
"This will prove we are not your enemies," Orak Tho had said. "Witness what we do to Honored Matres. Certainly you wish to see them suffer, considering the pain they have caused you, too?"
"I would like to observe the hunt and witness your Futars in action," Thufir had said, then glanced meaningfully at Teg. "It is important to see how these women fight, isn't it, Bashar? That way we can prepare, should we run into more of them."
After the four observers were situated in the separate lookout towers, loud vibrating horns blew through the forest. Sheeana and Teg looked down into the maze of enormously tall aspens. The Handler guards at the base of the tower sent out another signal. Somewhere out of sight, the five Honored Matres split up and dashed into the underbrush, scattering dry leaves.
To Teg, it was obvious the Handlers and Futars had done this many times before.
Beneath them, two muscular beast-men bounded along between the aspen trunks, intent on tracking down their quarry. Teg could almost sense the bloodlust from there. The Honored Matres would put up a good fight, but the whores had no real chance. Quickly, the hunting Futars vanished into the labyrinth of trees.
He and Sheeana continued to watch. The great forest that extended out from the tower settlement was an endless maze of autumn gold and silvery bark. Traditional aspen groves were genetically identical, branching off from the same tree as runners rather than being deposited as fertilized seeds. Nature's clones. The tall trunks were surrounded by fallen yellow leaves, like antique solari coins scattered on the ground. From this perspective, the endless straight and rigid trunks looked like the bars of a giant cage.
Slipping into intense Mentat awareness as he waited for the hunt to come closer, Teg analyzed the forest, fitting all the tiny pieces together until he resolved an unexpected pattern cleverly hidden among randomness. At one time, all of the great gray-trunked trees had been laid out in a precise order, carefully staged to present an appearance of "geometrical naturalness."
He studied further. There could be no mistaking it. "This forest was artificially cultivated."
Sheeana looked at him. "A Mentat projection?"
He responded with the barest nod, concerned that listening devices might have been planted in the observation tower. He did not like being separated from Thufir and the Rabbi. Had this hunt been staged to break their party in half so the Handlers could spy on their private conversations?
He made a second-order projection. Obviously, although the original planters of this sweeping forest had strived to create the appearance of wildness, they had not been able to get past their innate sense of order. Had original colonists from the Scattering cultivated this forest in barren ground generations ago? Or had the true natural chaos been so disturbing to them that they razed the existing trees to the ground and designed a new wilderness according to an acceptable blueprint?
From far off came sounds of crashing through the trees, snarling Futars, and female shouts. Abruptly, the disturbance moved toward the observation tower. Sheeana leaned closer to the Bashar, masking her movement with a show of peering down at the hunt below. She spoke in a low whisper, "You have concerns, Miles?" They had just sent a signal to Duncan that everything was safe and under control.
"I have . . . thoughts. This hunt is an example. For instance, we know the Handlers bred their Futars for the specific purpose of killing Honored Matres."
"Considering how dangerous the whores are, it seems a perfectly reasonable thing for the Handlers to create and imprint such predators to protect themselves," Sheeana said. "The Chief Handler's arguments make sense. There's no mistaking that we share a common enemy in the Honored Matres."
"Ask yourself who else might wish the Honored Matres to be destroyed, and the alliances become less clear-cut," Teg continued. "Simply because we both hate the Honored Matres does not guarantee that the Handlers have the same goals as we do."
Third-order projection: If the Handlers had learned their specialized genetic knowledge and sophisticated techniques from the Tleilaxu who fled in the Scattering, then what part did the Bene Tleilax play in this overall conflict? Where did their allegiance lie?
He would have to speak frankly with Master Scytale as soon as they returned to the Ithaca. Obviously, the last old Master harbored much resentment toward the Lost Tleilaxu who had betrayed his people. Those Tleilaxu stepbrothers had been changed out in the Scattering. Maybe Scytale knew more than he had yet revealed.
His Mentat awareness raced along. He felt his heart pounding, his metabolism speeding up. We are not the only ones who hate the whores. The Honored Matres had somehow enraged the Outside Enemy enough to draw them toward the Old Empire.
Teg gripped the wooden rail more tightly. Sensing his tension, Sheeana gave him a questioning look, but with the faintest shake of his head, he warned her not to speak openly. He tried to think of a way to alert Duncan.
Sheeana grabbed his arm. "Look down there."
One of the five Honored Matres charged through the aspen forest, dodging and weaving around the trunks. Behind her, three Futars surged after their prey, their wiry hair e
rect and claws extended. The woman ran like the wind, her sinewy muscles and bare feet carrying her through the underbrush as she kicked up leaves like golden clouds of dust.
At the base of the observation tower, two of the bandit-faced watchers held out their stun-goads, but did not interfere. They would let the Futars do the killing.
Though she raced headlong, the Honored Matre could not outrun the beast-men. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes wide, her jaw set with determination, as if she was ready to turn and use her own teeth to rip out her pursuers' throats.
With several swift bounds, the young Futars closed on her, hungry and boisterous. Teg wondered if they had yet been blooded, or if this was their first hunt.
Smelling the hot breath behind her, knowing the Futars were within steps of bringing her down, the Honored Matre leapt into the air, struck the nearest smooth aspen trunk with her bare feet, and rebounded sideways. The nearest Futar tried to turn so swiftly he scuffed up a spray of dirt and twigs.
The woman landed on the ground, then sprang in the opposite direction, arms extended, teeth bared. She crashed into the second oncoming Futar, and the force of her impact was enough to knock the beast-man off balance. She rolled with him, used two fingers like bony spikes to jab out his feral eyes. The blinded creature yowled and thrashed. In a move like liquid lightning, the woman grabbed its muzzle and with a vicious twist snapped the Futar's neck.
Without a moment's pause, barely even panting, she lunged toward the third young Futar, her bloody fingers outstretched. Before the Honored Matre could strike, though, the Futar let out a brutal, shivering shriek, louder and more terrible than anything Teg had ever heard.
The effect of the shriek--no doubt exactly as the Futar and his trainers had intended--was to make the woman freeze. She stumbled as if her muscles had locked involuntarily. An animal version of Voice?
