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A moment of shocked silence extended uneasily as she attempted to make eye contact with every individual. Scytale was not surprised that no one stepped forward. The old Rabbi looked simultaneously indignant and lost without the rest of his people. From the seat next to the old man, Teg told him to be patient. The Rabbi glared but did not argue.
"We have created a foolproof test." Sheeana sounded weary even though her voice boomed. "It will be tedious and time-consuming. But you will all submit to it."
"I hope none of you has anything better to do." Duncan crossed his arms over his chest and flashed a grim smile. "The doors will remain guarded until this process is complete."
Scytale and the Suk doctors came forward to the stage, carrying kits, syringes, and chemical swabs. "As each one of you is cleared, our ranks of reliable allies will grow. No Face Dancer can elude this scrutiny."
"Who was this Face Dancer you caught?" one of the Sisters asked, an undertone of anxiety in her voice. "And why do you assume there are others among us? What is your evidence?" When Sheeana explained how the worms had killed Thufir Hawat, stunned murmurs rippled through the audience.
The Bashar called from his seat, with an edge of guilt and revulsion in his tone. "We know that the false Thufir could not have been responsible for all the sabotage incidents we have on record. He was with me, in person, when several of the known incidents occurred."
"How do I know you're not all Face Dancers?" The Rabbi rose to his feet and glared at Sheeana, the Suk doctors, and especially Scytale. "Your behavior has never been comprehensible to me." Teg tugged him back down.
Sheeana ignored the old man's question and pointed to the front row. "I will take the first subject now."
Two female Suk doctors moved forward with their kits, and Sheeana said, "Make yourselves comfortable. This will take a while."
For Scytale, though, this process was primarily a diversion--and even the Bene Gesserits didn't know it. Feeling trapped, any Face Dancer in the audience would be trying to find a way to escape detection. Therefore, the Tleilaxu Master had to act precipitously, before any hidden shape-shifters could make a move. Watching the large audience closely, he fingered the small device he carried.
While the slow analytical procedure was certainly reliable, Scytale had fashioned his secret plan based on what he knew of the old Face Dancers created by the original Tleilaxu Masters. He was betting that the new shape-shifters from the Scattering were similar, at least in their fundamental responses. They must have emerged from the same basic blueprint. If so, he might know how to expose them, a weak and secondary test . . . but its very unexpectedness might work in his favor.
In the center of the meeting chamber, the Suk doctors performed their first test on a submissive Sister. She extended her hand, waiting for a drop of blood to be drawn.
Without warning, Scytale activated his high-pitched whistle emitter. A shrill tone warbled up and down, intense but faint, above the range of most human hearing. The original Face Dancers had once communicated with the Tleilaxu in a coded whistling language, a secret set of programming notes burned into their neurological structures. Scytale believed the irresistible noise would make any Face Dancer lose his disguise, at least temporarily.
Suddenly, out in the tiers of seats, the old Rabbi flickered, and his body convulsed. His leathery face shifted and smoothed behind his beard. He let out a cry of surprised outrage and lunged to his feet. Now the old man was unexpectedly supple, wiry, and vicious. His face was flat with sunken eyes and a pug nose, like a bare skull made of half-melted wax.
"Face Dancer!" someone shouted.
The Rabbi became a whirlwind and threw himself against the Bene Gesserits.
Never underestimate your enemy--or your allies.
--MILES TEG,
Memoirs of an Old Commander
Due to his constant complaints, negative attitude, and frail appearance, everyone aboard had dismissed or misjudged the old Rabbi. As had Miles Teg.
In moves as swift and deadly as a lasbeam, the Face Dancer slammed the Bashar with a blow that would have shattered his skull, if it had struck squarely. Just in time, Teg recoiled with a flash of inhuman speed. It was enough to save his life, but even so, the attack stunned him.
Abruptly, the Rabbi killed two Sisters on the other side of him, then moved in a direct, murderous line toward the nearest exit, clearing the way with a flurry of deadly blows. From hidden pockets in his dark, conservative clothes, the Face Dancer withdrew a small throwing dagger for each hand. The blades were no longer than his thumbs, but he hurled them with precision. The sharp tips, undoubtedly poisoned, pierced the throats of two male Bene Gesserits who guarded the door. With barely a sound, the Rabbi shoved their dying bodies out of the way and plunged out into the corridor.
Scytale urgently scanned the crowd to make certain that this one escaping enemy did not divert attention from any other Face Dancers hidden among those gathered in the chamber. The Tleilaxu saw no other sudden shiftings.
Sheeana shouted for others to pursue the Rabbi. "We know who he is, but he can change his shape. Now we have to track him down."
One of the Sisters tried to use the ship's intercom to warn Garimi, but got no response. "It's been damaged."
"Fix it." Sheeana realized that the Rabbi had had sufficient time during their quarantine in this large chamber to subtly perform more sabotage.
Dr. Yueh rushed to a groaning Teg and bent to check the severity of his injury; beside him, the two fallen Sisters were obviously dead. The look on the ghola doctor's face was of dismay rather than vindication. As he examined Teg, he murmured, as if trying to make sense of the situation. "The Rabb
i gave me the sample of the ghola baby's cells. He must have taken Piter de Vries's cells from storage and tricked me. He knew what I would do, how I would react."
Duncan glanced from Yueh and Teg to Sheeana. "The connection is obvious to me now. Thufir Hawat and the Rabbi. Why didn't I see it?"
Sheeana caught her breath as she suddenly realized the same thing. "Both went down to the planet of the Handlers!"
Duncan nodded. "Hawat and the Rabbi were alone together during the hunt of the Honored Matres. You all had to fight your way back to the lighter after you discovered that the Handlers were Face Dancers."
"Of course." Sheeana's face was grave. "Those two came running in from the forest at the last moment. It seems they didn't escape the Handlers after all."
"So the original Rabbi and Thufir--" Duncan began.
"Both dead long ago, replaced by Face Dancers on the planet, and their bodies discarded during the hunt."
Finally achieving Mentat focus, Duncan jumped to the next obvious conclusion. "Then it's been more than five years since the substitutions. Five years! In all that time, the Hawat and Rabbi duplicates must have been waiting for their opportunity, killing gholas and axlotl tanks, sabotaging our life-support systems, forcing us to stop at Qelso, where we were vulnerable to discovery by our pursuers. Did the Enemy pick up our trail there? So far, we've managed to elude the net, but now that the Face Dancers have been exposed--"
Sheeana paled. "And what about the stolen mines? What did the Rabbi do with the explosive mines? He can set them off at any time, if he gets to them."
Starting to recover but clearly woozy, Teg was already moving toward the door. "That Face Dancer knows he has to seize the no-ship before we can kill him. He will head for the navigation bridge."
"Garimi is there," Sheeana said. "Let's hope she can stop him."
BY THE TIME the Face Dancer reached the navigation bridge, he had resumed his disguise as the Rabbi. He contained all the memories, experiences, and personality details of the old man, and much more. The frail and frightened-looking Rabbi burst into the chamber, startling Garimi. "What are you doing up here?" she asked.
