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Once, I was born of a natural mother, and then reborn many times as a ghola. Considering the millennia over which the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, and others have meddled with the gene pool, I wonder--are any of us truly natural anymore?
--ship's log, entry of
DUNCAN IDAHO
Today, Gurney Halleck would be born again. Paul Atreides had looked forward to this during the months-long gestation process. Since the recent birth of his sister Alia, the waiting had become nearly unbearable. But in a matter of hours, Gurney would be removed from the axlotl tank. The famed Gurney Halleck!
In his studies under Proctor Superior Garimi, Paul had read much about the troubadour warrior, had seen images of the man and heard recordings of his songs. But he wanted to know the real Gurney, his friend, mentor, and protector from an epic time. Someday, though their ages were topsy-turvy now, the two would remember how close their friendship had been.
Paul couldn't keep the grin off his face as he rushed to get ready. Whistling an old Atreides song that he'd learned from Gurney's recorded collection, he stepped into the corridor, and Chani emerged from her own quarters to join him. Two years his junior, the thirteen-year-old was whip-thin and fast, soft-spoken and beautiful, only a preview of the woman she would become again. Knowing their destinies, she and Paul were already inseparable. He took her hand, and the pair happily hurried toward the medical center.
He wondered if Gurney would be an ugly baby, or if he had only become a rolling lump of a man after being battered by the Harkonnens. He hoped the Gurney ghola would have a natural skill with the baliset, too. Paul was confident that the no-ship's stores could re-create one of the antique musical instruments. Maybe the two of them could play music together.
Others would be there for the new birth: his "mother" Jessica, Thufir Hawat, and almost certainly Duncan Idaho. Gurney had many friends aboard. No one on the ship had known Xavier Harkonnen or Serena Butler, the other two gholas who would be decanted today, but they were legends from the Butlerian Jihad. Each ghola, according to Sheeana, had a role to play, and any one of them--or all of them together--might be the key to defeating the Enemy.
Aside from the ghola children, many other boys and girls had been born over the years of the Ithaca's long flight. The Sisters bred with male Bene Gesserit workers who had also escaped from Chapterhouse; they understood the need to increase their population and prepare a solid foundation for a new colony, if the no-ship ever found a suitable planet to settle. The Rabbi's group of Jewish refugees, who had also married and begun families, still waited for a new home to fulfill their long quest. The no-ship was so vast, and the population aboard still so far below its capacity, that there was no real concern about running short on resources. Not yet.
As Paul and Chani approached the main birthing creche, four female proctors ran toward them down the hall, urgently calling for any qualified Suk doctor. "They're dead! All three of them."
Paul's heart stuttered. At fifteen, he was already training in some of the skills that had once made him the historical leader known as Muad'Dib. Summoning all the steel he could put into his voice, he demanded that the second proctor stop. "Explain yourself!"
The Bene Gesserit blurted, surprised into her answer. "Three axlotl tanks, three gholas. Sabotage--and murder. Someone destroyed them."
Paul and Chani rushed toward the medical center. Duncan and Sheeana were already in the doorway looking shaken. Inside the chamber, three axlotl tanks had been ripped from their life-support mechanisms and lay in puddles of burned flesh and spilled liquid. Someone had used an incinerating beam and corrosives to destroy not only the life-support machinery, but the core flesh of the tanks and the unborn gholas.
Gurney Halleck. Xavier Harkonnen. Serena Butler. All lost. And the tanks, which had once been living women.
Duncan looked at Paul, articulating the real horror here. "We have a saboteur aboard. Someone who wishes to harm the ghola project--or maybe all of us."
"But why now?" Paul asked. "The ship has been fleeing for two decades, and the ghola project began years ago. What changed?"
"Maybe someone was afraid of Gurney," Sheeana suggested. "Or Xavier Harkonnen, or Serena Butler."
Paul saw that the other three axlotl tanks in the creche had not been harmed, including the one that had recently given birth to the spice-saturated Alia.
Standing by Gurney's tank, he saw the dead, half-born baby among the burned and dissolved folds of flesh. Nauseated, he knelt to touch the few wisps of blond hair. "Poor Gurney."
As Duncan helped Paul to his feet, Sheeana said in a coldly businesslike voice, "We still have the cellular material. We can grow replacements for all of them." Paul could sense her deep fury, barely controlled by her strict Bene Gesserit training. "We will need more axlotl tanks. I'll send out a call for volunteers."
The ghola of Thufir Hawat entered and stared in disbelief at what had happened, his face an ashen mask. After the ordeal on the planet of the Handlers, he and Miles Teg had bonded closely; Thufir now helped the Bashar with security and defenses aboard the ship. The fourteen-year-old struggled to sound authoritative. "We will find out who did this."
"Scan the security images," Sheeana said. "The killer can't hide."
Thufir looked embarrassed, as well as angry and so very young. "I already checked. The security imagers were deactivated, intentionally, but there must be other evidence."
"All of us were attacked, not just these axlotl tanks." Duncan's anger was plain as he turned toward young Thufir. "The Bashar has cited several previous incidents that he believes may be sabotage."
"Those were never proved," Thufir said. "They could have been mechanical breakdowns, systems fatigue, natural failures."
Paul's voice was ice as he took a last, lingering look at the infant that would have been Gurney Halleck. "This was no natural failure."
Then Paul's legs went suddenly rubbery. Dizziness rose around him, and his consciousness blurred. As Chani rushed to grab him, he reeled, lost his footing, and hit his head hard on the deck. For a moment blackness enveloped him, a gloom that brightened into a frightening vision. Paul Atreides had seen it before, but he didn't know if it was memory or prescience.
He saw himself lying on the floor in a spacious, unknown place. A knife wound deep inside him sucked out his life. A mortal wound. His life's blood poured onto the floor, and his vision turned to dark static. Gazing up, he saw his own young face looking back at him, laughing. "I have killed you!"
Chani was shaking him, shouting into his ear. "Usul! Usul, look at me!"
He felt the touch of her hand on his own, and when his vision cleared he saw another concerned face. For a moment he thought it was Gurney Halleck, complete with an inkvine scar on his jawline, the glass-splinter eyes, the wispy blond hair.
The image shifted, and he realized it was the black-haired Duncan Idaho. Another old friend and guardian. "Will you protect me from danger, Duncan?" Paul's voice hitched. "As you vowed to do when I was a child? Gurney is no longer able."
"Yes, Master Paul. Always."
The Honored Matres clearly devised their own name for themselves, for no one else would ever apply the term "honor" after seeing their cowardly, self-serving actions. Most people have a very different way of referring to those women.
--MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA,
assessment of past and present strengths
Weapons and battleships were as important as air and food during these supposed End Times. Murbella knew she would have to change the way she approached the problem, but she had never expected such resistance from her own Sisterhood.
With both
anger and disdain, Kiria cried, "You offer them Obliterators, Mother Commander? We can't just hand over such destructive weapons to Ix."
She had no patience for this. "Who else will build them for us? Holding secrets among ourselves only benefits the Enemy. You know as well as I do that only the Ixians can decipher the technology and manufacture great quantities for the coming war. Therefore, Ix must have full access. There is no other answer."
Many worlds were building their own gigantic fleets, armoring every ship they could find, working on new weapon designs, but nothing had so far proved even remotely effective against the Enemy. The technology of the thinking machines was unsurpassed. But with a supply of new Obliterators, Murbella could turn the machines' own destructive power against them.
After snatching the weapons from fringe machine outposts centuries ago, the Honored Matres could have formed an impenetrable line and hurled Obliterators at the oncoming Enemy. If they had stood together for the common good, they could have prevented this whole problem. Instead, those Honored Matres had fled.
Thinking about the hidden history she had excavated from deep within Other Memory, Murbella continued to be annoyed at those ancestors. They had taken the weapons, used them without understanding them, and depleted most of their stockpiles in their petty revenge against the hated Tleilaxu. Yes, many generations earlier the Tleilaxu had tormented their females, and the Honored Matres had good reason to direct vengeful violence against them.
But such a waste!
Because the Honored Matres had been so profligate in using the planet-roasting weapons against any world that offended them, only a few Obliterators remained intact. Recently, when cracking down on the rebel Honored Matre strongholds, Murbella had expected to unearth greater stockpiles. But they had found nothing. Had someone else stolen the weapons? The Guild perhaps, under their original pretext of helping the Honored Matres? Or had the whores truly used them all, holding nothing in reserve?
Now the human race had insufficient weapons left to stand against the real Enemy. The Obliterators were as incomprehensible as any device Tio Holtzman had ever created for folding space, and the women had never known how to create more. For the sake of humanity, she hoped the Ixians could do so.
