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Standing coolly at attention, Teg and Duncan faced the Reverend Mothers Sheeana, Garimi, and Elyen, who had consumed the last available doses of the truthtrance drug. All of the women were armed and highly suspicious. Sheeana said, "Under various pretexts, we have isolated everyone aboard, using layers of observers. Most of them think we're searching for the missing explosive mines. So far, very few people know about Thufir Hawat. Other Face Dancers would not be aware that they are at risk of exposure."
"I would have thought the entire idea absurd--until recently. Now no suspicion seems too paranoid." Duncan locked gazes with the Bashar, and both nodded.
"My truthtrance is deeper than it has been before," Elyen said, sounding distant.
"Perhaps we didn't ask the correct questions previously." Garimi put her elbows on the table.
Teg said, "Ask away, then. The sooner you clear us of suspicion, the faster we can root out this cancer. We need a different kind of test."
Normally a trained Bene Gesserit should have been able to uncover deception with a mere question or two, but this extraordinary inquiry lasted an hour. Because they were building a cadre of trustworthy allies, Sheeana and her Sisters needed to be thorough. And they needed to do a better job than before. The three Reverend Mothers watched for even the slightest flicker of evasion. Neither Duncan nor Teg gave them any.
"We believe you," Garimi finally said. "Unless you give us cause to change our minds."
Sheeana nodded. "Provisionally, we accept that you two are exactly who you say you are."
Teg seemed bitterly amused. "And Duncan and I accept you three as well. Provisionally."
"Face Dancers are mimics. They can change their appearance, but they cannot change their DNA. Now that we have cell samples from the Hawat impostor, our Suk doctors should be able to develop an accurate test."
"So we believe," Teg said. With the loss of his protege, the Bashar seemed fundamentally disturbed. He no longer took anything at face value.
With an iron-hard scowl, Garimi said, "The obvious answer is that Hawat was born a Face Dancer, then carefully planted and manipulated by our Tleilaxu Master. Who would know Face Dancers better than old Scytale? We know he had the cells in his nullentropy tube. If that scenario is true, the deception went on for almost eighteen years."
Sheeana continued, "A Face Dancer infant could have mimicked a generic human baby from the very beginning. As he grew, he took a shape based on archival records of the young Atreides warrior-Mentat. Since no one here--not even you, Duncan--remembers the original Hawat as an adolescent, the disguise would not need to be perfect."
Duncan knew she was right. In his original lifetime, when he'd escaped from the Harkonnens and gone to Caladan, Thufir Hawat had already been a weathered battle veteran. Duncan remembered his first real conversation with Hawat. He'd been a stable boy at Castle Caladan, working with the Salusan bulls that Old Duke Paulus loved to fight in grand spectacles. Someone had drugged the bulls into a frenzy, and young Duncan had tried to raise the alarm, but no one believed him. After Paulus was gored to death, Hawat himself had led the investigation, hauling young Duncan before a board of inquiry, since evidence indicated that he was a Harkonnen spy . . . .
And now this Thufir was a Face Dancer! Duncan still had trouble wrapping his mind around the undeniable reality.
"Then all of the ghola babies could be Face Dancers," Duncan said. "I suggest you summon Scytale. He's now our prime suspect."
"Or," Teg said in a brittle voice, "he may be our best resource. As Garimi already stated, who would know the Face Dancers better?"
When the Tleilaxu Master was brought into the copper-walled chamber, Duncan and Teg took seats at the other side of the table, part of the growing inquisition to root out the Face Dancer infiltration. Scytale appeared frightened and unsettled. The Tleilaxu ghola was fifteen years old, but he did not look like a boy. His elfin features, sharp teeth, and gray skin made him seem alien and suspicious, but Duncan realized that was only a knee-jerk response based on primitive superstitions and previous experiences.
After Scytale sat down, Elyen leaned forward. She looked the sternest of them all. "What have you done, Tleilaxu? What is your plan? How have you tried to betray us?" She used an edge of Voice, enough to make Scytale jerk.
"I did nothing."
"You and your genetic predecessor knew what you were growing in the axlotl tanks. We tested the cells before allowing you to create them, but you deceived us somehow with Thufir Hawat." They showed him images of the dead Face Dancer. Duncan could see that the Tleilaxu's surprise was genuine.
"Are all of the ghola children similarly tainted?" Sheeana demanded.
"None of them are," Scytale insisted. "Unless they were replaced sometime after being decanted from the tanks."
Elyen narrowed her gaze. "He's telling the truth. I see none of the indicators." Sheeana and Garimi silently consulted each other and nodded simultaneously. Then Sheeana said, "Unless he is himself a Face Dancer."
"Scytale isn't likely to be a Face Dancer substitute simply because so few of us trust him anyway," Duncan pointed out. "A Face Dancer would choose to be someone who could more easily move among us."
"Someone like Thufir Hawat," Teg said.
Young Scytale looked greatly disturbed. "Those new Face Dancers were brought back from the Scattering. The Lost Tleilaxu claimed to have modified them in ways we didn't understand. Much to my dismay, I have now learned that even I can't detect one of them. Believe me, I never suspected Hawat."
"Then how did a Face Dancer get aboard, if not grown from the Face Dancer cells in your nullentropy capsule?" Sheeana asked.
"The Face Dancer could already have been posing as one of us when we left Chapterhouse," Duncan mused. "How carefully did you check all of the original hundred and fifty who rushed aboard during the escape?"
Teg shook his head. "But why wait more than two decades to strike? It makes no sense."
"A sleeper agent, perhaps," Sheeana suggested. "Or, could the Face Dancer have been someone else for a long time, and only recently replaced Thufir?"
"Yes, look for a scapegoat to persecute," Scytale said bitterly, slumping in the overlarge interrogation chair. "Preferably a Tleilaxu."
Sheeana had fire in her eyes. "As a precaution, we have sealed all of the ghola children in separate rooms, where they can cause no damage if another of them is a Face Dancer. I've already directed our Suk doctors to take blood samples. They won't escape."
Duncan wondered if her vehemence might suggest that she was a Face Dancer. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and continued to watch her. He would have to watch everyone he could, at all times.
Garimi looked around at their small trusted cadre. "I--or another of our choosing--will remain on the navigation bridge and monitor the no-ship while every single person aboard is brought into the main meeting chamber. Herd them in, account for every one, even the children. Lock the doors and test them all. One by one. Learn the truth."
"What definitive tests can we use?" Teg asked. "On any of us?"
Scytale piped up, "I believe I can develop a reliable method. Using a tissue sample from the Hawat Face Dancer, I will prepare a comparison panel. There are certain . . . techniques I could use. He is one of the new breed brought back by the Lost Tleilaxu, and he differs from the old ones. But with this sample--"
"And why should we trust you?" Garimi said. "Your own purity hasn't yet been proven."
Scytale wore a forlorn expression. "You have to trust someone."
"Do we?"
"I would allow myself to be observed by your experts at all times during the preparations."
Duncan glanced at the Tleilaxu Master. "Scytale's suggestion is a good one."
"Or I can offer another option. When the Face Dancers betrayed my fellow Masters back on Tleilax and our other worlds, some of us had time to fight back. We created a toxin that specifically targets Face Dancers--a selective poison. If you grant me access to laboratory facilities, I can
recreate that toxin and deploy it as a gas."
"To what purpose?" Teg asked. Then his expression changed to one of understanding. "Ah, to flood the Ithaca's air systems. We would kill any Face Dancers who remain among us."
"The quantities necessary to saturate our ship would be huge," Duncan said, racing through a Mentat calculation to estimate the volume of air within the gigantic vessel, the concentration of gas that would prove lethal to the shape-shifters, the possibility of making others ill and debilitating the crew.
Garimi couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You're suggesting we let this Tleilaxu release an unknown gas into our ship? They created the Face Dancers!"
Scytale answered her in a voice heavy with scorn. "You witches fail to think. Don't you see that I myself face a dire threat? These are new Face Dancers, brought in from outside by the Lost Tleilaxu--our bastard stepbrothers who cooperated with the Honored Matres to annihilate all the old Masters like myself. Think! If other Face Dancers are aboard the Ithaca, then I am in greater personal danger than anyone else. Can't you understand that?"
"Scytale's gas must only be a last resort," Duncan said.
