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"What bothers you?" she asked.
His lips moved. A voice emerged, brittle, tight: "He was ... he was ..." A tear slid down his cheek.
Alia found herself stilled by Fremen awe. He gave water to the dead! Compulsively, she touched a finger to his cheek, felt the tear.
"Duncan," she whispered.
He appeared locked to the 'thopter's controls, gaze fastened to the tomb below.
She raised her voice: "Duncan!"
He swallowed, shook his head, looked at her, the metal eyes glistening. "I ... felt ... an arm ... on my shoulders," he whispered. "I felt it! An arm." His throat worked. "It was ... a friend. It was ... my friend."
"Who?"
"I don't know. I think it was ... I don't know."
The call light began flashing in front of Alia, their escort captain wanting to know why they returned to the desert. She took the microphone, explained that they had paid a brief homage to her father's tomb. The captain reminded her that it was late.
"We will go to Arrakeen now," she said, replacing the microphone.
Hayt took a deep breath, banked their 'thopter around to the north.
"It was my father's arm you felt, wasn't it?" she asked.
"Perhaps."
His voice was that of the mentat computing probabilities, and she saw he had regained his composure.
"Are you aware of how I know my father?" she asked.
"I have some idea."
"Let me make it clear," she said. Briefly, she explained how she had awakened to Reverend Mother awareness before birth, a terrified fetus with the knowledge of countless lives embedded in her nerve cells--and all this after the death of her father.
"I know my father as my mother knew him," she said. "In every last detail of every experience she shared with him. In a way, I am my mother. I have all her memories up to the moment when she drank the Water of Life and entered the trance of transmigration."
"Your brother explained something of this."
"He did? Why?"
"I asked."
"Why?"
"A mentat requires data."
"Oh." She looked down at the flat expanse of the Shield Wall--tortured rock, pits and crevices.
He saw the direction of her gaze, said: "A very exposed place, that down there."
"But an easy place to hide," she said. She looked at him. "It reminds me of a human mind ... with all its concealments."
"Ahhh," he said.
"Ahhh? What does that mean--ahhh?" She was suddenly angry with him and the reason for it escaped her.
"You'd like to know what my mind conceals," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
"How do you know I haven't exposed you for what you are by my powers of prescience?" she demanded.
"Have you?" He seemed genuinely curious.
"No!"
"Sibyls have limits," he said.
He appeared to be amused and this reduced Alia's anger. "Amused? Have you no respect for my powers?" she asked. The question sounded weakly argumentative even to her own ears.
"I respect your omens and portents perhaps more than you think," he said. "I was in the audience for your Morning Ritual."
"And what does that signify?"
"You've great ability with symbols," he said, keeping his attention on the 'thopter's controls. "That's a Bene Gesserit thing, I'd say. But, as with many witches, you've become careless of your powers."
She felt a spasm of fear, blared: "How dare you?"
"I dare much more than my makers anticipated," he said. "Because of that rare fact, I remain with your brother."
Alia studied the steel balls which were his eyes: no human expression there. The stillsuit hood concealed the line of his jaw. His mouth remained firm, though. Great strength in it ... and determination. His words had carried a reassuring intensity. "... dare much more ..." That was a thing Duncan Idaho might have said. Had the Tleilaxu fashioned their ghola better than they knew--or was this mere sham, part of his conditioning?
"Explain yourself, ghola," she commanded.
"Know thyself, is that thy commandment?" he asked.
Again, she felt that he was amused. "Don't bandy words with me, you ... you thing!" she said. She put a hand to the crysknife in its throat sheath. "Why were you given to my brother?"
"Your brother tells me that you watched the presentation," he said. "You've heard me answer that question for him."
"Answer it again ... for me!"
"I am intended to destroy him."
"Is that the mentat speaking?"
"You know the answer to that without asking," he chided. "And you know, as well, that such a gift wasn't necessary. Your brother already was destroying himself quite adequately."
She weighed these words, her hand remaining on the haft of her knife. A tricky answer, but there was sincerity in the voice.
"Then why such a gift?" she probed.
"It may have amused the Tleilaxu. And, it is true, that the Guild asked for me as a gift."
"Why?"
"Same answer."
"How am I careless of my powers?"
"How are you employing them?" he countered.
His question slashed through to her own misgivings. She took her hand away from the knife, asked: "Why do you say my brother was destroying himself?"
"Oh, come now, child! Where are these vaunted powers? Have you no ability to reason?"
Controlling anger, she said: "Reason for me, mentat."
"Very well." He glanced around at their escort, returned his attention to their course. The plain of Arrakeen was beginning to show beyond the northern rim of the Shield Wall. The pattern of the pan and graben villages remained indistinct beneath a dust pall, but the distant gleam of Arrakeen could be discerned.
"Symptoms," he said. "Your brother keeps an official Panegyrist who--"
"Who was a gift of the Fremen Naibs!"
"An odd gift from friends," he said. "Why would they surround him with flattery and servility? Have you really listened to this Panegyrist? 'The people are illuminated by Muad'dib. The Umma Regent, our Emperor, came out of darkness to shine resplendently upon all men. He is our Sire. He is precious water from an endless fountain. He spills joy for all the universe to drink,' Pah!"
Speaking softly, Alia said: "If I but repeated your words for our Fremen escort, they'd hack you into bird feed."
"Then tell them."
"My brother rules by the natural law of heaven!"
"You don't believe that, so why say it?"
"How do you know what I believe?" She experienced trembling that no Bene Gesserit powers could control. This ghola was having an effect she hadn't anticipated.
"You commanded me to reason as a mentat," he reminded her.
"No mentat knows what I believe!" She took two deep, shuddering breaths. "How dare you judge us?"
"Judge you? I don't judge."
"You've no idea how we were taught!"
"Both of you were taught to govern," he said. "You were conditioned to an overweening thirst for power. You were imbued with a shrewd grasp of politics and a deep understanding for the uses of war and ritual. Natural law? What natural law? That myth haunts human history. Haunts! It's a ghost. It's insubstantial, unreal. Is your Jihad a natural law?"
"Mentat jabber," she sneered.
"I'm a servant of the Atreides and I speak with candor," he said.
"Servant? We've no servants; only disciples."
"And I am a disciple of awareness," he said. "Understand that, child, and you--"
"Don't call me child!" she snapped. She slipped her crysknife half out of its sheath.
"I stand corrected." He glanced at her, smiled, returned his attention to piloting the 'thopter. The cliffsided structure of the Atreides Keep could be made out now, dominating the northern suburbs of Arrakeen. "You are something ancient in flesh that is little more than a child," he said. "And the flesh is disturbed by its new womanhood."
"I don't know why I listen to you,"
she growled, but she let the crysknife fall back into its sheath, wiped her palm on her robe. The palm, wet with perspiration, disturbed her sense of Fremen frugality. Such a waste of the body's moisture!
"You listen because you know I'm devoted to your brother," he said. "My actions are clear and easily understood."
"Nothing about you is clear and easily understood. You're the most complex creature I've ever seen. How do I know what the Tleilaxu built into you?"
"By mistake or intent," he said, "they gave me freedom to mold myself."
"You retreat into Zensunni parables," she accused. "The wise man molds himself--the fool lives only to die." Her voice was heavy with mimicry. "Disciple of awareness!"
"Men cannot separate means and enlightenment," he said.
