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But two of the deadly women remained alive, and one was coming toward the observation tower at that very moment.
She ran out of the trees, her face scratched by lashing branches, her left arm mauled and hanging useless, her bare feet torn and bleeding from fleeing across the rough ground. But she showed no signs of slowing.
The Rabbi squirmed and put a hand over his eyes, as if offended. "I will not watch this."
As the woman burst into the clearing, looking over her shoulder, two Futars sprang from their hiding places in the trees and surprised their prey. Another pair of hunting Futars closed in from behind her, running hard. Thufir leaned over the railing to get a better view, while the Rabbi cringed back.
Without pausing in her stride, the Honored Matre bent to snatch up a fallen branch with her good hand. Using amazing strength, she spun and shoved it like a wobbly, off-balance javelin. The splintered end skewered one of the leaping Futars. Mortally wounded, he fell, yelping and thrashing, as she sprang aside.
Another Futar jumped the woman, striking at her wounded side, hoping to latch onto her shoulder and wrench her already-mauled arm out of its socket. Thufir saw instantly that the Honored Matre had merely been feigning the severity of her injury. Her mangled arm darted up and grabbed the Futar by his throat. His jaws snapped only a centimeter from her face. With a loud grunt, the whore pushed the creature away. The Futar staggered backward and crashed into one of the silvery trunks. Stunned, he struggled to his feet.
As the other two Futars closed with her, the Honored Matre looked sideways. Her orange eyes fixed on the two Handlers standing guard by the lookout tower. With a burst of desperate, vengeful speed, she ran directly toward them, leaving the beast-men behind.
Both of the long, lanky men raised their stun-goads, but she outmatched them with a hurricane of movement. Her callused hand knocked the staffs away and she drove in, relishing the brief look of fear behind her first victim's eyes. With a single, powerful blow, she broke the Handler's neck, and he crumpled to the ground.
She lunged toward the second Handler, but the nearest Futar intercepted her to protect his master. The other two beast-men came closer, one of them limping. Seeing that she could not fight off the creatures, the Honored Matre grabbed the fallen stun-goad and bounded off into the forest again. Snarling, the Futars ran after her.
Thufir grabbed the Rabbi's arm. "Quickly!" He went to the steep wooden stairs that would take them down to the ground. "Maybe we can help."
The Rabbi hesitated. "But he is already dead, and it is safe up here. We should stay--"
"I am tired of being a spectator!" Thufir descended swiftly, two creaking steps at a time. The Rabbi came after him, grumbling.
When Thufir reached the ground, the remaining Handler guard was bent over his comrade. Thufir expected to hear the lanky man wailing in grief or shouting in anger; instead, he seemed more intent.
Unusual. Curious.
From far off in the forest came a bloodcurdling shriek as the three Futars cornered the Honored Matre again. She hurled obscenities. Thufir heard a crashing violence, a crack that sounded like breaking bone, terrible snarls followed by a brief scream . . . and then silence. After a moment's pause, Thufir's sensitive ears caught the unmistakable sounds of feeding.
Huffing great breaths, the Rabbi reached the base of the observation tower, and steadied himself by holding the wooden rail. Thufir hurried toward the Handler and his dead companion. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
Hunched over, the surviving Handler's back suddenly tensed, as if he'd forgotten the two were there. He swiveled his head on a long neck and looked at them. The dark band was a heavy shadow across his eyes.
Then Thufir glimpsed the dead Handler lying on the ground.
The corpse's features had shifted, changed . . . reverted. He was no longer tall and lanky, and his face was not streamlined; he had no black mask around his eyes. Instead, the dead Handler had grayish skin, dark, close-set eyes, and a pug nose.
Thufir recognized it from archival images--a Face Dancer!
The other Handler guard glared at them, then let his face revert to its neutral state. No longer human, but cadaverous . . . and blank.
Thufir's mind spun, and he wished desperately that he had Mentat abilities. The Handlers were Face Dancers? All of them, or just a few? Handlers fought the Honored Matres, a common enemy. The Enemy. Handlers, Face Dancers, Enemy . . .
This planet was not at all as it seemed.
He flashed a glance at the Rabbi. The old man had seen the same thing, and though his horror and surprise had made him freeze for an instant, he seemed to be drawing the same conclusions.
The powerful Handler drew himself up and came toward them with his stun-goad.
"We'd better run," Thufir said.
Even the most delicate plans can be thrown into turmoil by an impetuous action from our supposed masters. Is it not ironic when they claim that Face Dancers are shiftless and changeable?
--KHRONE,
communique to Face Dancer myriad
F
rom inside the reconstructed Castle Caladan, Khrone pulled his strings, played his roles, and moved his game pieces. The Face Dancer myriad had manipulated the Ixians, the Guild, CHOAM, and the Honored Matre rebels who still ruled Tleilax. They had already achieved many milestones of success. Khrone had traveled wherever he was needed, wherever he was summoned, but he always came back here to his pair of precious gholas. The Baron and Paolo. The work continued.
On Caladan, year after year, the group of machine-augmented observers sent regular reports to the distant old man and woman. Despite their bodily degeneration, they showed damnable patience, and still they'd found nothing to fault him for. Khrone was always watched by the patchwork observers, but never discovered. Even those hideous spies didn't know everything.
The summons came to him from the castle tower, interrupting his work and concentration. Khrone trudged up the stone staircase to see what the spies wanted. When they invoked the name of their masters, he coul
d not refuse--not yet. He had to keep up appearances for a little while longer, until he could finish this part of his project.
He knew the old man and woman understood the wisdom of his alternative plan. Since their efforts to find the lost no-ship kept failing, it made sense to pursue another route for obtaining their Kwisatz Haderach: the Paolo ghola.
But would the old man and woman allow him the necessary time to awaken the child? Paolo was only six, and it would be several years yet before Khrone could even begin the process of triggering his memories, saturating him with spice, preparing him for his destiny. The distant masters had made their demands and set their schedules. According to sparse reports from the patchwork observers, the old man and woman were ready to launch their vast fleet on a long-anticipated conquest of everything, whether the Kwisatz Haderach was ready or not. . . .
Silent and stony, the hideous emissaries awaited him inside the high tower room. Just as Khrone reached the top of the winding stairs, the men turned with stuttering movements to face him. He put his hands on his hips. "You are delaying my work."
One emissary's head twitched from side to side, as if his neurons were firing conflicting impulses that caused his neck and shoulder muscles to spasm. "This message--we cannot deliver--deliver this message--ourselves." He balled his bony hand into a fist. Bubbles gurgled through the tubes. "Deliver a message."
"What is it?" Khrone crossed his arms. "I have work to complete for our masters."
The lead emissary opened his hands wide in a beckoning gesture. The other augmented humans stood motionless, presumably recording his every movement. Khrone stepped into the gallery room while the pale-faced horrors retreated to the wall. He frowned. "What is this--"
Suddenly his vision fuzzed around the edges, and the walls of the tower became indistinct. Reality shifted around him. At first Khrone saw the ethereal grid of the net, strands of connected tachyons completing an infinite chain. Then he found himself in another place, a simulation of a simulation.
