Heretics of Dune (Page 90)

"It’s like a duel," Duncan said. "She tries to thrust through my guard and I counterattack."

"Have a care," Teg said. "That’s a full Reverend Mother."

"I’ve known a few of them in my time, Bashar."

Once more, Teg found himself confounded. He had been warned that he would have to readjust to this different Duncan Idaho but he had not fully anticipated the constant mental demands of that readjustment. The look in Duncan’s eyes right now was disconcerting.

"Our roles are changed a bit, Bashar," Duncan said. He picked up a towel from the floor and mopped his face.

"I’m no longer sure of what I can teach you," Teg admitted. He wished, though, that Duncan would take his warning about Lucilla. Did Duncan imagine that the Reverend Mothers of those ancient days were identical with the women of today? Teg thought that highly unlikely. In the way of all other life, the Sisterhood evolved and changed.

It was obvious to Teg that Duncan had come to a decision about his place in Taraza’s machinations. Duncan was not merely biding his time. He was training his body to a personally chosen peak and he had made a judgment about the Bene Gesserit.

He has made that judgment on insufficient data, Teg thought.

Duncan dropped the towel and looked at it for a moment. "Let me be the judge of what you can teach me, Bashar." He turned and stared narrowly at Teg seated in the cage.

Teg inhaled deeply. He smelled the faint ozone from all of this durable Harkonnen equipment ticking away in readiness for Duncan’s return to action. The ghola’s perspiration carried a bitter dominant.

Duncan sneezed.

Teg sniffed, recognizing the omnipresent dust of their activities. It could be more tasted than smelled at times. Alkaline. Over it all was the fragrance of the air scrubbers and oxy regenerators. There was a distinct floral aroma built into the system but Teg could not identify the flower. In the month of their occupation, the globe also had taken on human odors, slowly insinuated into the original composite – perspiration, cooking smells, the never-quite-suppressed acridity of waste reclamation. To Teg, these reminders of their presence were oddly offensive. And he found himself sniffing and listening for sounds of intrusion – something more than the echoing passage of their own footsteps and the subdued metallic clashings from the kitchen area.

Duncan’s voice intruded: "You’re an odd man, Bashar."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s your resemblance to the Duke Leto. The facial identity is weird. He was a bit shorter than you but the identity…" He shook his head, thinking of the Bene Gesserit designs behind those genetic markers in Teg’s face – that hawk look, the crease lines and that inner thing, that certainty of moral superiority.

Chapter Seventeen

How moral and how superior?

According to the records he had seen at the Keep (and Duncan was sure they had been placed there especially for him to discover) Teg’s reputation was an almost universal thing throughout human society of this age. At the Battle of Markon, it had been enough for the enemy to know that Teg was there opposite them in person. They sued for terms. Was that true?

Duncan looked at Teg in the console cage and put this question to him.

"Reputation can be a beautiful weapon," Teg said. "It often spills less blood."

"At Arbelough, why did you go to the front with your troops?" Duncan asked.

Teg showed surprise. "Where did you learn that?"

"At the Keep. You might have been killed. What would that have served?"

Teg reminded himself that this young flesh standing over him held unknown knowledge, which must guide Duncan’s quest for information. It was in that unknown area, Teg suspected, that Duncan was most valuable to the Sisterhood.

"We took severe losses at Arbelough on the preceding two days," Teg said. "I failed to make a correct assessment of the enemy’s fear and fanaticism."

"But the risk of…"

"My presence at the front said to my own people: ‘I share your risks.’ "

"The Keep’s records said Arbelough had been perverted by Face Dancers. Patrin told me you vetoed your aides when they urged you to sweep the planet clean, sterilize it and -"

"You were not there, Duncan."

"I am trying to be. So you spared your enemy against all advice."

"Except for the Face Dancers."

"But then you walked unarmed through the enemy ranks and before they had laid down their weapons."

"To assure them they would not be mistreated."

"That was very dangerous."

"Was it? Many of them came over to us for the final assault on Kroinin where we broke the anti-Sisterhood forces."

Duncan stared hard at Teg. Not only did this old Bashar resemble Duke Leto in appearance, but he also had that same Atreides charisma: a legendary figure even among his former enemies. Teg had said he was descended from Ghanima of the Atreides, but there had to be more in it than that. The ways of the Bene Gesserit breeding mastery awed him.

"We will go back to the practice now," Duncan said.

"Don’t damage yourself."

"You forget, Bashar. I remember a body as young as this one and right here on Giedi Prime."

"Gammu!"

"It was properly renamed but my body still recalls the original. That is why they sent me here. I know it."

Of course he would know it, Teg thought.

Restored by the brief respite, Teg introduced a new element in the attack and sent a sudden burn-line against Duncan’s left side.

How easily Duncan parried the attack!

He was using an oddly mixed variation on the five attitudes, each response seemingly invented before it was required.