Dune

Justice? Who asks for justice. We make our own justice. We make it here on Arrakis—win or die. Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.

—LETO I: BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES

The no-ship came in low over the Rakian sands. Its passage stirred up dusty whirlwinds that drifted around it as it settled in a crunching disturbance of the dunes. The silvered yellow sun was sinking into a horizon disturbed by the heat devils of a long hot day. The no-ship sat there creaking, a glistening steely ball whose presence could be detected by the eyes and ears but not by any prescient or long-range instrument. Teg’s doubled vision made him confident that no unwanted eyes saw his arrival.

“I want the armored ’thopters and cars out there in no more than ten minutes,” he said.

People stirred into action behind him.

“Are you certain they’re here, Bashar?” The voice was that of a drinking companion from the Gammu bar, a trusted officer from Renditai whose mood no longer was that of someone recapturing the thrills of his youth. This one had seen old friends die in the battle on Gammu. As with most of the others who survived to come here, he had left a family whose fate he did not know. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice, as though he were trying to convince himself that he had been tricked into this venture.

“They will be here soon,” Teg said. “They will arrive riding on the back of a worm.”

“How do you know that?”

“It was all arranged.”

Teg closed his eyes. He did not need eyes to see the activity all around him. This was like so many command posts he had occupied: an oval room of instruments and people who operated them, officers waiting to obey.

“What is this place?” someone asked.

“Those rocks to the north of us,” Teg said. “See them? They were a high cliff once. It was called Wind Trap. There was a Fremen sietch there, little more than a cave now. A few Rakian pioneers live in it.”

“Fremen,” someone whispered. “Gods! I want to see that worm coming. I never thought I’d ever see such a thing.”

“Another one of your unexpected arrangements, eh?” asked the officer of the growing bitterness.

What would he say if I revealed my new abilities? Teg wondered. He might think I concealed purposes that would not bear close examination. And he would be right. That man is on the edge of a revelation. Would he remain loyal if his eyes were opened? Teg shook his head. The officer would have little choice. None of them had much choice except to fight and die.

It was true, Teg thought then, that the process of arranging conflicts involved the hoodwinking of large masses. How easy it was to fall into the attitude of the Honored Matres.

Muck!

The hoodwinking was not as difficult as some supposed. Most people wanted to be led. That officer back there had wanted it. There were deep tribal instincts (powerful unconscious motivations) to account for this. The natural reaction when you began to recognize how easily you were led was to look for scapegoats. That officer back there wanted a scapegoat now.

“Burzmali wants to see you,” someone off to Teg’s left said.

“Not now,” Teg said.

Burzmali could wait. He would have his day of command soon enough. Meanwhile, he was a distraction. There would be time later for him to skirt dangerously near the role of scapegoat.

How easy it was to produce scapegoats and how readily they were accepted! This was especially true when the alternative was to find yourself either guilty or stupid or both. Teg wanted to say for all of those around him:

“Look to the hoodwinking! Then you’ll know our true intentions!”

The communications officer on Teg’s left said: “That Reverend Mother is with Burzmali now. She insists they be allowed in to see you.”

“Tell Burzmali I want him to go back and stay with Duncan,” Teg said. “And have him look in on Murbella, make sure she’s secured. Lucilla can come in.”

It had to be, Teg thought.

Lucilla was increasingly suspicious about the changes in him. Trust a Reverend Mother to see the difference.

Lucilla swept in, her robes swishing to accent her vehemence. She was angry but concealing it well.

“I demand an explanation, Miles!”

That was a good opening line, he thought. “Of what?” he said.

“Why didn’t we just go in at the—”

“Because the Honored Matres and their Tleilaxu companions from the Scattering hold most of the Rakian centers.”

“How . . . how do you . . .”

“They’ve killed Taraza, you know,” he said.

That stopped her, but not for long. “Miles, I insist that you tell me—”

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “The next satellite passage will show us on the surface here.”

“But the defenses of Rakis—”

“Are as vulnerable as any other defenses when they become static,” he said. “The families of the defenders are down here. Take the families and you have effective control of the defenders.”

“But why are we out here in—”

“To pick up Odrade and that girl with her. Oh, and their worm, too.”

“What will we do with a—”

“Odrade will know what to do with the worm. She’s your Mother Superior now, you know.”

“So you’re going to whisk us off into—”

“You’ll whisk yourselves! My people and I will remain to create a diversion.”

That brought a shocked silence throughout the command station.

Diversion, Teg thought. What an inadequate word.

The resistance he had in mind would create hysteria among the Honored Matres, especially when they were made to believe the ghola was here. Not only would they counterattack, they eventually would resort to sterilization procedures. Most of Rakis would become a charred ruin. There was little likelihood that any humans, worms, or sandtrout would survive.

“The Honored Matres have been trying to locate and capture a worm without success,” he said. “I really don’t understand how they could be so blind in their concept of how you transplant one of them.”

“Transplant?” Lucilla was floundering. Teg had seldom seen a Reverend Mother at such a loss. She was trying to assemble the things he had said. The Sisterhood had some of the Mentats’ capabilities, he had observed. A Mentat could come to a qualified conviction without sufficient data. He thought that he would be long out of her reach (or the reach of any other Reverend Mother) before she assembled this data. Then there would be a scrambling for his offspring! They would pick up Dimela for their Breeding Mistresses, of course. And Odrade. She would not escape.

They had the key to the Tleilaxu axlotl tanks, too. It would be only a matter of time now until the Bene Gesserit overcame its scruples and mastered that source of the spice. A human body produced it!

“We’re in danger here, then,” Lucilla said.

“Some danger, yes. The trouble with the Honored Matres is that they’re too wealthy. They make the mistakes of the wealthy.”

“Depraved whores!” she said.

“I suggest you get to the entry port,” he said. “Odrade will be here soon.”

She left him without another word.

“Armor is all out and deployed,” the communications officer said.

“Alert Burzmali to be ready for command here,” Teg said. “The rest of us will be going out soon.”

“You expect all of us to join you?” That was the one who looked for a scapegoat.

“I am going out,” Teg said. “I will go alone if necessary. Only those who wish need join me.”

After that, all of them would come, he thought. Peer pressure was little understood by anyone except those trained by the Bene Gesserit.

It grew silent in the command station except for the faint hummings and clicks of instruments. Teg fell to thinking about the “depraved whores.”

It was not correct to call them depraved, he thought. Sometimes, the supremely rich did become depraved. That came from believing that money (power) could buy anything and everything. And why shouldn’t they believe this? They saw it happening every day. It was easy to believe in absolutes.

Hope springs eternal and all of that gornaw!

It was like another faith. Money would buy the impossible.

Then came depravity.

It was not the same for the Honored Matres. They were, somehow, beyond depravity. They had come through it; he could see that. But now they were into something else so far beyond depravity that Teg wondered if he really wanted to know about it.

The knowledge was there, though, inescapable in his new awareness. Not one of those people would hesitate an instant before consigning an entire planet to torture if that meant personal gain. Or if the payoff were some imagined pleasure. Or if the torture produced even a few more days or hours of living.

What pleased them? What gratified? They were like semuta addicts. Whatever simulated pleasure for them, they required more of it every time.

And they know this!

How they must rage inside! Caught in such a trap! They had seen it all and none of it was enough—not good enough nor evil enough. They had entirely lost the knack of moderation.

They were dangerous, though. And perhaps he was wrong about one thing: Perhaps they no longer remembered what it had been like before the awful transformation of that strange tart-smelling stimulant that painted orange in their eyes. Memories of memories could become distorted. Every Mentat was sensitized to this flaw in himself.

“There’s the worm!”

It was the communications officer.

Teg swiveled in his chair and looked at the projection, a miniature holo of the exterior to the southwest. The worm with its two tiny dots of human passengers was a distant sliver of wriggling movement.

“Bring Odrade in here alone when they arrive,” he said. “Sheeana—that’s the young girl—will remain behind to help herd that worm into the hold. It will obey her. Be sure Burzmali is standing ready nearby. We won’t have much time for the transfer of command.”

When Odrade entered the command station she was still breathing hard and exuding the smells of the desert, a compound of melange, flint, and human perspiration. Teg sat in his chair apparently resting. His eyes remained closed.

Odrade thought she had caught the Bashar in an uncharacteristic attitude of repose, almost pensive. He opened his eyes then and she saw the change about which Lucilla had only been able to blurt a small warning—along with a few hasty words about the ghola’s transformation. What was it that had happened to Teg? He was almost posing for her, daring her to see it in him. The chin was firm and held slightly upthrust in his normal attitude of observation. The narrow face with its webwork of age lines had lost none of its alertness. The long, thin nose so characteristic of the Corrinos and Atreides in his ancestry had grown a bit longer with advancing years. But the gray hair remained thick and that small peak at the forehead centered the observing gaze . . .

On his eyes!

“How did you know to meet us here?” Odrade demanded. “We had no idea where the worm was taking us.”

“There are very few inhabited places here in the meridian desert,” he said. “Gambler’s choice. This seemed likely.”

Gambler’s choice? She knew the Mentat phrase but had never understood it.

Teg lifted himself from his chair. “Take this ship and go to the place you know best,” he said.

Chapter House? She almost said it but thought of the others around her, these military strangers Teg had assembled. Who were they? Lucilla’s brief explanation did not satisfy.

“We change Taraza’s design somewhat,” Teg said. “The ghola does not stay. He must go with you.”

She understood. They would need Duncan Idaho’s new talents to counter the whores. He was no longer merely bait for the destruction of Rakis.

“He will not be able to leave the no-ship’s concealment, of course,” Teg said.

She nodded. Duncan was not shielded from prescient searchers . . . such as the Guild navigators.

“Bashar!” It was the communications officer. “We’ve been bleeped by a satellite!”

“All right, you ground hogs!” Teg shouted. “Everybody outside! Get Burzmali in here.”

A hatch at the rear of the station flew open. Burzmali lunged through. “Bashar, what are we—”

“No time! Take over!” Teg lifted himself from his command chair and waved for Burzmali to take it. “Odrade here will tell you where to go.” On an impulse that he knew was partly vindictive, Teg grasped Odrade’s left arm, leaned close, and kissed her cheek. “Do what you must, daughter,” he whispered. “That worm in the hold may soon be the only one in the universe.”

Odrade saw it then: Teg knew Taraza’s complete design and intended to carry out his Mother Superior’s orders to the very end.

“Do what you must.” That said it all.