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The Tleilaxu Master felt a weary sadness weighing him down. "It is an instinctive process, not an intellectual one. It must come to you. If your memories don't return, then you are of no use to me. Why should I let you live?"
The boy was visibly struggling, but Scytale saw no flash of awe and relief, no sudden flood of a lifetime's experiences. Both Tleilaxu reeked of failure. With each passing moment, Scytale felt more and more of himself dying.
The fate of our race depends on the actions of an unlikely collection of misfits.
--from a Bene Gesserit study on the human condition
In his second life, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had done well for himself. At only seventeen, the awakened ghola already commanded a large castle filled with antique relics and a retinue of servants to satisfy his every whim. Better yet, it was Castle Caladan, the seat of House Atreides. He sat upon a high throne of fused black jewels, gazing around a large audience chamber as attendants went about their duties. Pomp and grandeur, all the trappings a Harkonnen deserved.
Despite appearances, though, the ghola Baron had very little real power, and he knew it. The Face Dancer myriad had created him for a specific purpose and, despite his reawakened memories, managed to keep him on a tight leash. Too many important questions remained unanswered, and too much was out of his control. He didn't like that.
The Face Dancers seemed much more interested in their young ghola of Paul Atreides--the one they called "Paolo." He was their real prize. Their leader Khrone said that this planet and the restored castle existed for the sole purpose of triggering Paolo's memories. The Baron was just a means to an end, of secondary importance in the "Kwisatz Haderach matter."
He resented the Atreides brat for it. The boy was only eight and still had much to learn from his mentor, though the Baron hadn't yet determined what the Face Dancers really wanted.
"Prepare him and raise him. See that he is primed for his destiny," Khrone had said. "There is a certain need he must fulfill."
A certain need. But what need?
You are his grandfather, said the annoying voice of Alia inside the Baron's head. Take good care of him. The little girl taunted him incessantly. From the moment his memories were restored, she had been there waiting for him in his mind. Her voice still contained a childhood lisp, exactly as she had sounded when she'd killed him with the poisoned needle of the gom jabbar.
"I'd rather take care of you, little Abomination!" he yelled. "Wring your neck, twist your head--once, twice, three times! Make your delicate little skull pop right off! Ha!"
But it's your own skull, dear Baron.
He clamped his hands against his temples. "Leave me alone!"
Seeing no one else in the room with their master, the servants looked at him uneasily. The Baron fumed and slumped back in his glittering black chair. Having embarrassed and angered him, the Alia voice whispered his name tauntingly one more time and faded away.
Just then, a jaunty and self-important Paolo strode into the chamber, followed by an entourage of androgynous Face Dancers who acted as his protectors. The child carried an air of overconfidence that the Baron found at once fascinating and disconcerting.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and this other Paul Atreides were inextricably meshed, simultaneously drawn together and repelled, like two powerful magnets. After the Baron's memories had been restored and he understood enough of who he was, Paolo had been brought to Caladan and handed over to the Baron's tender care . . . with dire warnings should any harm befall him.
From his high black chair, the Baron glared down at the cocky youth. What made Paolo so special? What was the "Kwisatz Haderach matter"? What did the Atreides know?
For some time, Paolo had been sensitive, thoughtful, even caring; he had a stubborn streak of innate goodness that the Baron had been working diligently to eradicate. Given time, and enough harsh training, he was sure he could cure even the honorable core of an Atreides. That would prime Paolo for his destiny, all right! Though the boy still struggled with his actions occasionally, he had made considerable progress.
Paolo came to an impertinent halt in front of the dais. One of the androgynous Face Dancers placed an antique handgun into the boy's hand.
Angrily, the Baron leaned forward for a better view. "Is that gun from my personal collection? I told you to stay out of those things."
"This is a relic of -House Atreides, so I'm entitled to use it. A disk gun, once carried by my sister Alia, according to the label."
The Baron shifted on his throne, nervous to have the loaded weapon so close to him.
"It's just a woman's gun."
Inside the thick black armrests the Baron had secreted his own weapons, any one of which could easily turn the boy into a wet smear--hmm, fresh material for growing another ghola, he thought. "Even so, it's a valuable relic, and I don't want it damaged by a reckless child."
"I won't damage it." Paolo seemed pensive. "I respect artifacts that my ancestors used."
Anxious to keep the bo
y from thinking too much, he stood. "Shall we take it outside, then, Paolo? Why don't we see how it works?" The Baron gave him an avuncular pat on the shoulder. "And afterward we can kill something with our bare hands, like we did to the mongrel hounds and ferrets."
Paolo seemed uncertain. "Maybe another day."
Nevertheless, the Baron hurried him out of the throne room. "Let's get rid of those noisy gulls around the midden piles. Have I mentioned how much you remind me of Feyd? Lovely Feyd."
"More than once."
Watched over by Face Dancers, they spent the next two hours at the castle's trash heap, taking turns shooting the raucous birds with the disk gun. Oblivious to the danger, the gulls swooped and shrieked at one another, fighting over morsels of rain-splattered garbage. Paolo took a shot, then the Baron. Despite its antiquity, the gun was quite accurate. Each spinning, microthin disk chopped a bird into bloody meat and dislodged feathers. Then the surviving gulls squabbled over the fresh gobbets.
Between them, they killed fourteen birds, although the Baron did not do nearly as well as the child, who had quite an aptitude for cool marksmanship. As the Baron raised the disk gun and aimed carefully, the girl's annoying voice rang in his head again. That's not my gun, you know.
He took the shot and missed by a wide margin. Alia giggled.
"What do you mean it's not yours?" He ignored Paolo's puzzled stare as the boy took the weapon for his turn.
It's a fake. I never had a disk gun like that.
"Leave me alone."
"Who are you talking to?" Paolo asked.
After reaching into a pocket the Baron offered several capsules of orange melange substitute to Paolo, who obediently took them. He grabbed the weapon back from the boy. "Don't be ridiculous. The antiquities dealer provided a certificate of authenticity and documentation when he sold the weapon to me."
Grandfather, you shouldn't be so easily fooled! My own gun shot larger disks. This is a cheap imitation and doesn't even have the maker's initials on the barrel, like the original.
