God Emperor of Dune Page 7

  "A warm bath and change of clothing would be pleasant," Idaho said.

  Luli continued to look at her Friend. "You are certain?"

  "The wisdom of the Lord cannot be questioned," the masked woman said.

  Idaho did not like the sound of fanaticism in this Friend's voice, but he felt secure in the integrity of the Atreides. They could appear cynical and cruel to outsiders and enemies, but to their own people they were just and they were loyal. Above all else, the Atreides were loyal to their own.

  And I am one of theirs, Idaho thought. But what happened to the me that I am replacing? He felt strongly that these two would not answer this question.

  But Leto will.

  "Shall we go?" he asked. "I'm anxious to wash the stink of the dirty Tleilaxu off me."

  Luli grinned at him.

  "Come. I shall bathe you myself."

  Enemies strengthen you.

  Allies weaken.

  I tell you this in the hope that it will help you understand why I act as I do in the full knowledge that great forces accumulate in my Empire with but one wish--the wish to destroy me. You who read these words may know full well what actually happened, but I doubt that you understand it.

  --THE STOLEN JOURNALS

  The ceremony of "Showing" by which the rebels began their meetings dragged on interminably for Siona. She sat in the front row and looked everywhere but at Topri, who was conducting the ceremony only a few paces away. This room in the service burrows beneath Onn was one they had never used before but it was so like all of their other meeting places that it could have been used as a standard model.

  Rebel Meeting Room-- Class B, she thought.

  It was officially designated as a storage chamber and the fixed glowglobes could not be tuned away from their blank white glaring. The room was about thirty paces long and slightly less in width. It could be reached only through a labyrinthine series of similar chambers, one of which was conveniently stocked with a supply of stiff folding chairs intended for the small sleeping chambers of the service personnel. Nineteen of Siona's fellow rebels now occupied these chairs around her, with a few empty for any latecomers who might still make the meeting.

  The time had been set between the midnight and morning shifts to mask the flow of extra people in the service warrens. Most of the rebels wore energy-worker disguises--thin gray disposable trousers and jackets. Some few, including Siona, were garbed in the green of machinery inspectors.

  Topri's voice was an insistent monotone in the room. He did not squeak at all while conducting the ceremony. In fact, Siona had to admit he was rather good at it, especially with new recruits. Since Nayla's flat statement that she did not trust the man, though, Siona had looked at Topri in a different way. Nayla could speak with a cutting naivete which pulled away masks. And there were things that Siona had learned about Topri since that confrontation.

  Siona turned at last and looked at the man. The cold silvery light did not help Topri's pale skin. He used a copy of a crysknife in the ceremony, a contraband copy bought from the Museum Fremen. Siona recalled the transaction as she looked at the blade in Topri's hands. It had been Topri's idea, and she had thought it a good one at the time. He had led her to the rendezvous in a hovel on the city's outskirts, leaving Onn just at dusk. They had waited well into the night until darkness could mask the Museum Fremen's coming. Fremen were not supposed to leave their sietch quarters without a special dispensation from the God Emperor.

  She had almost given up on him when the Fremen arrived, slipping in out of the night, his escort left behind to guard the door. Topri and Siona had been waiting on a crude bench against a dank wall of the absolutely plain room. The only light had come from a dim yellow torch supported on a stick driven into the crumbling mud wall.

  The Fremen's first words had filled Siona with misgivings.

  "Have you brought the money?"

  Both Topri and Siona had risen at his entry. Topri did not appear bothered by the question. He tapped the pouch beneath his robe, making it jingle.

  "I have the money right here."

  The Fremen was a wizened figure, crabbed and bent, wearing a copy of the old Fremen robes and some glistening garment underneath, probably their version of a stillsuit. His hood was drawn forward, shading his features. The torchlight sent shadows dancing across his face.

  He peered first at Topri then at Siona before removing an object wrapped in cloth from beneath his robe.

  "It is a true copy, but it is made of plastic," he said. "It will not cut cold grease."

  He pulled the blade from its wrappings then and held it up.

  Siona, who had seen crysknives only in museums and in the rare old visual recordings of her family's archives, had found herself oddly gripped by the sight of the blade in this setting. She felt something atavistic working on her and imagined this poor Museum Fremen with his plastic crysknife as a real Fremen of the old days. The thing he held was suddenly a silver-bladed crysknife shimmering in the yellow shadows.

  "I guarantee the authenticity of the blade from which we copied it," the Fremen said. He spoke in a low voice, somehow made menacing by its lack of emphasis.

  Siona heard it then, the way he carried his venom in a sleeve of soft vowels and she was suddenly alerted.

  "Try treachery and we will hunt you down like vermin," she said.

  Topri shot a startled glance at her.

  The Museum Fremen appeared to shrivel, drawing in upon himself. The blade trembled in his hand, but his gnome fingers still curled inward around it as though clasping a throat.

  "Treachery, Lady? Oh, no. But it occurred to us that we asked too little for this copy. Poor as it is, making it and selling it this way puts us in dreadful peril."

  Siona glared at him, thinking of the old Fremen words from the Oral History: "Once you acquire a marketplace soul, the suk is the totality of existence."

  "How much do you want?" she demanded.

  He named a sum twice his original figure.

  Topri gasped.

  Siona looked at Topri. "Do you have that much?"

  "Not quite, but we agreed on ..."

  "Give him what you have, all of it," Siona said.

  "All of it?"

  "Isn't that what I said? Every coin in that bag." She faced the Museum Fremen. "You will accept this payment." It was not a question and the old man heard her correctly. He wrapped the blade in its cloth and passed it to her.

  Topri handed over the pouch of coins, muttering under his breath.

  Siona addressed herself to the Museum Fremen. "We know your name. You are Teishar, aide to Garun of Tuono. You have a suk mentality and you make me shudder at what Fremen have become."

  "Lady, we all have to live," he protested.

  "You are not alive," she said. "Be gone!"

  Teishar had turned and scurried away, clutching the money pouch close to his chest.

  Memory of that night did not sit well in Siona's mind as she watched Topri wave the crysknife copy in their rebel ceremony. We're no better than Teishar, she thought. A copy is worse than nothing. Topri brandished the stupid blade over his head as he neared the ceremony's conclusion.

  Siona looked away from him and stared at Nayla seated off to her left. Nayla was looking first one direction and now another. She paid special attention to the new cadre of recruits at the back of the room. Nayla did not give her trust easily. Siona wrinkled her nose as a stirring of the air brought the smell of lubricants. The depths of Onn always smelled dangerously mechanical ! She sniffed. And this room! She did not like their meeting place. It could easily be a trap. Guards could seal off the outer corridors and send in armed searchers. This could be too easily the place where their rebellion ended. Siona was made doubly uneasy by the fact that this room had been Topri's choice.

  One of Ulot's few mistakes, she thought. Poor dead Ulot had approved Topri's admission to the rebellion.

  "He is a minor functionary in city services," Ulot had explained. "Topri can find
us many useful places to meet and arm ourselves."

  Topri had reached almost the end of his ceremony. He placed the knife in an ornate case and put the case on the floor beside him.

  "My face is my pledge," he said. He turned his profile to the room, first one side and then the other. "I show my face that you may know me anywhere and know that I am one of you."

  Stupid ceremony, Siona thought.

  But she dared not break the pattern of it. And when Topri pulled a black gauze mask from a pocket and placed it over his head, she took out her own mask and donned it. Everyone in the room did the same thing. There was a stirring around the room now. Most of the people here had been alerted that Topri had brought a special visitor. Siona secured her mask's tie behind her neck. She was anxious to see this visitor.

  Topri moved to the room's one door. There was a clattering bustle as everyone stood and the chairs were folded and stacked against the wall opposite the door. At a signal from Siona, Topri tapped three times on the door panel, waited for a two-count, then tapped four times.

  The door opened and a tall man in a dark brown official singlet slipped into the room. He wore no mask, his face open for all of them to see--thin and imperious with a narrow mouth, a skinny blade of a nose, dark brown eyes deeply set under bushy brows. It was a face recognized by most of the room's occupants.

  "My friends," Topri said, "I present Iyo Kobat, Ambassador from Ix."

  "Ex-Ambassador," Kobat said. His voice was guttural and tightly controlled. He took a position with his back to the wall facing the masked people in the room. "I have this day received orders from our God Emperor to leave Arrakis in disgrace."

  "Why?"

  Siona snapped the question at him without formality.

  Kobat jerked his head around, a quick movement which fixed his gaze on her masked face. "There has been an attempt on the God Emperor's life. He traced the weapon to me."

  Siona's companions opened a space between her and the ex-Ambassador, clearly signaling that they deferred to her.

  "Then why didn't he kill you?" she demanded.

  "I think he is telling me that I am not worth killing. There is also the fact that he uses me now to carry a message to Ix."

  "What message?" Siona moved through the cleared space to stop within two paces of Kobat. She recognized the sexual alertness in him as he studied her body.

  "You are Moneo's daughter," he said.

  Soundless tension exploded across the room. Why did he reveal that he recognized her? Who else did he recognize here? Kobat did not appear the fool. Why had he done this?

  "Your body, your voice and your manner are well known here in Onn," he said. "That mask is a foolishness."

  She ripped the mask from her head and smiled at him. "I agree. Now answer my question."

  She heard Nayla move up close on her left; two more aides chosen by Nayla came up beside her.

  Siona saw the moment of realization come over Kobat--his death if he failed to satisfy her demands. His voice did not lose its tight control but he spoke slower, choosing his words more carefully.

  "The God Emperor has told me that he knows about an agreement between Ix and the Guild. We are attempting to make a mechanical amplifier of ... those Guild navigational talents which presently rely on melange."

  "In this room we call him the Worm," Siona said. "What would your Ixian machine do?"

  "You are aware that Guild Navigators require the spice before they can see the safe path to traverse?"

  "You would replace the navigators with a machine?"

  "It may be possible."

  "What message do you carry to your people concerning this machine?"

  "I am to tell my people that they may continue the project only if they send him daily reports on their progress."

  She shook her head. "He needs no such reports! That's a stupid message."

  Kobat swallowed, no longer concealing nervousness.

  "The Guild and the Sisterhood are excited by our project," he said. "They are participating."

  Siona nodded once. "And they pay for their participation by sharing spice with Ix."

  Kobat glared at her. "It's expensive work and we need the spice for comparative testing by Guild Navigators."

  "It is a lie and a cheat," she said. "Your device will never work and the Worm knows it."

  "How dare you accuse us of ..."

  "Be still! I have just told you the real message. The Worm is telling you Ixians to continue cheating the Guild and the Bene Gesserit. It amuses him."

  "It could work!" Kobat insisted.

  She merely smiled at him. "Who tried to kill the Worm?"

  "Duncan Idaho."

  Nayla gasped. There were other small signs of surprise around the room, a frown, an indrawn breath.

  "Is Idaho dead?" Siona asked.

  "I presume so, but the ... ahhh, Worm refuses to confirm it."

  "Why do you presume him dead?"

  "The Tleilaxu have sent another Idaho ghola."

  "I see."

  Siona turned and signaled to Nayla, who went to the side of the room and returned with a slim package wrapped in pink Suk paper, the kind of paper shopkeepers used to enclose small purchases. Nayla handed the package to Siona.

  "This is the price of our silence," Siona said, extending the package to Kobat. "This is why Topri was permitted to bring you here tonight."

  Kobat took the package without removing his attention from her face. "Silence?" he asked.

  "We undertake not to inform the Guild and Sisterhood that you are cheating them."

  "We are not cheat ..."

  "Don't be a fool!"

  Kobat tried to swallow in a dry throat. Her meaning had become plain to him: true or not, if the rebellion spread such a story it would be believed. It was "common sense" as Topri was fond of saying.

  Siona glanced at Topri who stood just behind Kobat. No one joined this rebellion for reasons of "common sense." Did Topri not realize that his "common sense" might betray him? She returned her attention to Kobat.

  "What's in this package?" he asked.

  Something in the way he asked it told Siona he already knew.

  "That is something I am sending to Ix. You will take it there for me. That is copies of two volumes we removed from the Worm's fortress."

  Kobat stared down at the package in his hands. It was obvious that he wanted to drop the thing, that his venture into rebellion had loaded him with a burden more deadly than he had expected. He shot a scowling glance at Topri which said as though he had spoken it: "Why didn't you warn me?"

  "What ..." He brought his gaze back to Siona, cleared his throat. "What's in these ... volumes?"

  "Your people may tell us that. We think they are the Worm's own words, written in a cipher which we cannot read."

  "What makes you think we ..."

  "You Ixians are clever at such things."

  "And if we fail?"

  She shrugged. "We will not blame you for that. However, should you use those volumes for any other purpose or fail to report a success fully ..."

  "How can anyone be sure we ..."

  "We will not depend only on you. Others will get copies. I think the Sisterhood and the Guild will not hesitate to try deciphering those volumes."

  Kobat slipped the package under his arm and pressed it against his body.

  "What makes you think the ... the Worm doesn't know about your intentions ... even about this meeting?"

  "I think he knows many such things, that he may even know who took those volumes. My father believes he is truly prescient."

  "Your father believes the Oral History!"

  "Everyone in this room believes it. The Oral History does not disagree with the Formal History on important matters."

  "Then why doesn't the Worm act against you?"

  She pointed to the package under Kobat's arm. "Perhaps the answer is in there."

  "Or you and these cryptic volumes are no real threat to him!" Kobat was not conceali
ng his anger. He did not like being forced into decisions.

  "Perhaps. Tell me why you mentioned the Oral History."

  Once more, Kobat heard the menace.

  "It says the Worm is incapable of human emotions."

  "That is not the reason," she said. "You will get one more chance to tell me the reason."

  Nayla moved two steps closer to Kobat.

  "I ... I was told to review the Oral History before coming here, that your people ..." He shrugged.

  "That we chant it?"

  "Yes."

  "Who told you this?"

  Kobat swallowed, cast a fearful glance at Topri, then back to Siona.

  "Topri?" Siona asked.