Part 3 (2/2)
Am I really expected to be content here while the whole galaxy goes mad? really expected to be content here while the whole galaxy goes mad?
Worse, edicts constantly arrived, words couched in terms from the mockery of a religion that had formed around Muad'Dib, all signed by a self-important functionary named Korba.
A Fremen commander gives me orders! Fremen commander gives me orders!
It was an outrage. After a taste of Muad'Dib's appalling bloodshed, the people would welcome Shaddam's return with songs and roses. Utilizing intrigue, kanly, or outright a.s.sa.s.sination, he vowed to dispatch his enemies, one by one. But so far he had seen no opportunities.
In the past year, Shaddam had taken steps to outsmart his distant captors. Among the hardened prison population, his Sardaukar commanders had located men with mechanical and inventive skills. He had put those men to work constructing a new city that could withstand the vagaries of the hostile weather. Some were hardened criminals - murderers, smugglers, thieves - but others had been put on the planet for political reasons, some by House Corrino, many more by Muad'Dib. The men, caring only that they were being offered better living conditions, were happy to work for Shaddam now.
Ringing the site of his new capital city were three huge piles of refuse and construction debris, each higher than his tallest makes.h.i.+ft buildings. He had ordered scavenging teams to reclaim materials from all over the planet, to seize them from other prison camps and a few ancient but st.u.r.dy ruins that had survived the long-ago atomic attack. But the recovery operation had produced pitiful results.
The city's great dome was not sealed yet, but eventually plants would grow inside a controlled environment. With the hodgepodge of construction activities, he felt like the manager of a large junkyard, salvaging parts to build a shantytown. Even his best efforts had resulted in nothing more than a pale imitation of the great Imperial Palace on Kaitain.
His private residence was a fortified structure inside a domed city that was continuously under construction. Through the supposed generosity of Muad'Dib, the residence was opulently furnished with Corrino antiques, handmade Kaitain rugs, and other articles moved from his Imperial Palace. Precious family heirlooms - a mocking reminder of the things he had lost. He had all of his royal clothing, even his personal weapons. Oddly, and perhaps as a slap in the face, his ”benefactors” had even sent him a container full of his childhood toys, including a stuffed Salusan bull.
Several separate but connectable keeps housed his family members and the top advisers who had accompanied him into exile. Shaddam's private keep was substantially different from the others. By far the largest, it had its own suspensor system that actually enabled the structure to fly out over the barren landscape of Salusa, where he could observe conditions firsthand. At least it gave him the illusion of mobility.
An Emperor should not have to scrounge for survival. should not have to scrounge for survival. He touched a fingerpad on the wall to replace the false window with s.h.i.+fting images of Kaitain - electronic artwork that he had been permitted to keep. He touched a fingerpad on the wall to replace the false window with s.h.i.+fting images of Kaitain - electronic artwork that he had been permitted to keep. They are so kind to me. They are so kind to me.
He turned to see an officer in the doorway dressed in Sardaukar gray with silver and gold trim. An elderly but powerfully built man, the colonel-bashar held his black helmet in one hand and saluted with the other. His face was craggy and weathered, as if sculpted on Salusa, where he had trained and served for so many years. ”You summoned me, Sire?”
Shaddam was glad to see one of his steadfastly loyal commanders. ”Yes, Bashar Garon. I have an important task for you.”
Zum Garon had once led all of Shaddam's Sardaukar legions, but now only a portion of the once-glorious fighting force remained - the few thousand Sardaukar that Paul Atreides had allowed him to keep. Garon's mouth twitched as he waited for his master to continue.
Shaddam went to a bureau from which he retrieved an ornate knife with a gold handle inset with jewels. ”The tyrant Muad'Dib and his fanatics ignore the rules of diplomacy and decency. Those of us who stand for civilization and stability must put aside our differences. I cannot do this all by myself.” He tapped the flat of the blade against his palm, then handed the weapon to the bashar, hilt first. ”Find my dear friend Hasimir Fenring and tell him how sorely I need his help now. He left us only months ago, so he cannot have entrenched himself elsewhere. Give him this blade as a gift from me. He will understand the significance.”
Garon took the knife. Behind his stony facade, the Sardaukar commander often seemed to be holding back a flood of emotions.
Shaddam added, ”I have not spoken with him since he departed from his exile here - unlike me, he was here on a voluntary basis. I want you to ask about his dear wife and their child. Why, the baby would be almost three years old by now! And be sure to remind him that my daughter Wensicia just married his cousin, Dalak Zor-Fenring. My friend might not know that yet.”
He forced a smile, tried to swallow the bitterness in his throat. So many little defeats! With no other betrothal prospects in exile, Shaddam had arranged for his own middle daughter Wensicia to marry Hasimir Fenring's cousin after the Count had left. He secretly hoped that his boyhood companion would look upon this favorably and return to his side. How he missed Fenring! Despite their falling-out, Shaddam was sure that their long friends.h.i.+p would outweigh the wounds. Corrino and Fenring had been inextricably twined for most of their lives. Soon enough, he hoped, a grandchild would be on the way, to strengthen the ties.
Garon cleared his throat. ”Count Fenring may not be easy to locate, Sire.”
”Since when does a Sardaukar commander flinch from a difficult task?”
”Never, Sire. I will do my best.”
It is easier to judge an alien culture than to understand it. We tend to look at things through the filters of our own racial and cultural biases. Are we capable of reaching out? And if we do, are we capable of comprehension?
-excerpt from a Bene Gesserit report on galactic settlements
Count Hasimir Fenring had encountered many unusual races in his work for Shaddam IV, but the Bene Tleilax pushed the very definition of humanity. Through genetic manipulation, the ruling caste of Tleilaxu Masters had intentionally adopted strange physical characteristics - probative little eyes, sharp teeth, and a furtive way of moving about, as if constantly on the alert for predators. Other members of their race were taller and looked like ordinary people, but in their topsy-turvy society, the rodent-men were the highest of the Tleilaxu castes.
And now he and his family had made a home among them.
Feeling out of place and trying to ignore it, the Count and his wife, Margot, strolled along a lakesh.o.r.e walk in the city of Thalidei, where the Tleilaxu Masters had allowed them to stay. Beyond rooftops, he saw the high, fortified wall that encircled the industrial complex that had been built at the edge of a dead and noisome lake, almost an inland sea. For these people, the pollution, the mix of chemicals, the unusual organic reactions were all seen as possibilities, possibilities, an experimental brew that yielded interesting compounds to be harvested and tested. an experimental brew that yielded interesting compounds to be harvested and tested.
Unlike the sacred city of Bandalong, outsiders were permitted here, though the Tleilaxu still took considerable measures to isolate the Fenrings. Security scanning devices were visible in front of many smooth-walled structures, bathing entryways in pearlescent light and blocking the pa.s.sage of infidels. Some of the most important Tleilaxu programs were carried on in Thalidei, including the sophisticated and mysterious process of Twisting certain Mentat candidates. Sooner or later, Fenring had vowed to see the details for himself.
Only a month after Paul Atreides sent the deposed Emperor to Salusa Secundus, Fenring realized that he could not bear to share exile with Shaddam and his dismal, complaining moods. The two had quarreled constantly, and so the Count had made arrangements to leave. If forced to stay longer, he feared he might have killed his long-time friend, and that was one murder he did not particularly want to commit.
Since Muad'Dib's exile order did not directly relate to him, Fenring had easily slipped away from Salusa. He had been able to move from planet to planet in disguise as he wished, though he had openly admitted his ident.i.ty to the Tleilaxu, with whom he had previously worked. Margot had a precious little daughter, and Salusa Secundus was not a good place to raise her. Instead, the Count had chosen Tleilax as an unexpected location to go to ground - a comparatively safe, un.o.btrusive place to train and school their daughter, out of view. The Tleilaxu were annoying enough, but they did know how to keep secrets. They certainly had plenty of their own.
Fenring had called in many favors, hinted at dangerous knowledge he had acquired in his previous dealings with the Tleilaxu - which would be widely released if any harm came to him. With only a little grumbling, the Tleilaxu had allowed the Fenrings to stay, and the family planned to remain for several years. But they did not really fit in. They were powindah.
”Look at those men standing on street corners doing nothing,” Margot said in a low tone. ”Where are the women?”
”Those are upper-caste men,” Fenring said. ”They consider themselves, hmmm, ent.i.tled ent.i.tled to do nothing, although I would find that rather dull.” to do nothing, although I would find that rather dull.”
”I've never seen even lower-caste women or female children here.” Lady Margot looked around with her piercing gaze. They both had their suspicions that the Tleilaxu held their females as slaves or experiments.
”Without question, my dear, you are, hmmm, the most beautiful woman in Thalidei.”
”You embarra.s.s me, my love.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and moved on, ever alert. Margot always kept herself well armed with hidden weapons and in prime fighting condition; they never allowed their young daughter to be unguarded even for a moment.
In their relations.h.i.+p, the couple depended on each other greatly, but did not trespa.s.s into each other's private territory. Fenring had even accepted the necessity of Margot conceiving a child by Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. Just business. When he'd chosen to marry a Reverend Mother decades ago, he had acknowledged certain things as a matter of course.
Little Marie was back in their flat now, several blocks away, looked after by a talented woman Margot had acquired from the Sisterhood - an acolyte named Tonia Obregah-Xo who served as nanny, tutor, and devoted bodyguard to the child. Though Fenring was sure the Bene Gesserit nanny was also a spy, sending reports on little Marie's progress back to Wallach IX, he was also certain that the watchful Obregah-Xo would defend the girl with her life. The Sisterhood wanted her bloodline for their own uses.
The breeze turned, driving some of the polluted lake's stench back out onto the rank water. Fis.h.i.+ng trawlers dredged the sediment, hauling up interesting mutations of the few species of marine life that had survived in such a contaminated environment. Every once in a while, large tentacles could be seen rising out of the water, far from sh.o.r.e, but none of the Tleilaxu boats ventured into such deep waters, and the mysterious creature had never been caught or catalogued.
Factory lines delivered fresh slime from the lake bottom into holding pools and separation tanks, in which bodysuited lower-caste Tleilaxu waded, sampling the chemical compositions. Black gulls circled around, screaming at the mess. Cranes hoisted algae-covered screens from growth solutions steeped in the shallows.
He and Lady Margot came within view of a white building eight stories tall - eight, a sacred number to this superst.i.tious race. ”Hmmm, at first, Master Ereboam refused to let me bring you here, my dear, but he finally a.s.sented. He even decided to show us something special.”
”Perhaps I should have worn an opera dress for the occasion,” she said with clear sarcasm.
”Be sweet, Margot. I know you can do it. Don't insult our host.”
”I haven't yet.” She manufactured a smile. ”But there's a first time for everything.” She took him by the arm and they walked toward the building.
The Tleilaxu doctor waited for them by the security field of the arched main doorway of the facility. The pockets of his traditional white laboratory smock bulged, as if filled with secrets. With milky white skin and hair and a pointed white goatee, Master Ereboam was a startling albino in a race that was commonly gray-skinned and black-haired - an unsettling hereditary accident among genetic experts.
Ereboam called out in a cheerful voice. ”My spotters say you took the long way here. An alleyway connector would have reduced your walk by at least five minutes.”
”I don't like alleys,” Fenring said. Too many shadows and places for an ambush. many shadows and places for an ambush.
”Very well, I accept your apology.” He patted Fenring on the back in a manner uncharacteristic of the normally reserved Tleilaxu. Ignoring Margot entirely, as he invariably did, Dr. Ereboam led the two of them through the security field, down a hallway, and into a windowless room where thirty tall, slender men stood with their backs turned. All wore body filmsuits, in accordance with the typical Tleilaxu prudishness; Fenring doubted if the Masters ever looked at themselves themselves naked. naked.
In unison, the men all faced forward, and Fenring chuckled, as did Margot. Though of varying ages, every one of them looked identical - all duplicates of the Baron Harkonnen's Twisted Mentat Piter de Vries, staring ahead with eyes set in narrow-featured faces.
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