Frank Herbert - Heretics of Dune

Lucilla turned her back on her companions and sent her senses probing onto the hillside above them and below. Even as she moved, sound erupted all around. Globs of sound filled their night - a great burst of rumblings off to the right, then silence. Another burst from downslope. Silence. From upslope! On all sides!

At the first sound, all three of them crouched into the shelter of the rocks outside the no-globe's cave entrance.

The sounds filling their night carried little definition: intrusive racketing, partly mechanical, partly squeaks and wails and hisses. Intermittently, a subterranean drumming made the ground vibrate.

Teg knew these sounds. There was a battle going on out there. He could hear the background hissing of burners and, in the distant sky, the lancing beams of armored lasguns.

Something flashed overhead -trailing blue and red sparks. Another and another! The earth trembled. Teg inhaled through his nose: burned acid and a suggestion of garlic.

No-ships! Many of them!

They were landing in the valley below the ancient no-globe.

"Back inside!" Teg ordered.

As he spoke, he saw it was too late. People were moving in from all around them. Teg lifted his long lasgun and aimed it downslope toward the loudest of the intrusive noises and the nearest detectable movement. Many people could be heard shouting down there. Free glowglobes moved among the screening trees, set loose by whoever came from there. The dancing lights drifted upslope on a cold breeze. Dark figures moved in the shifting illumination.

"Face Dancers!" Teg grunted, recognizing the attackers. Those drifting lights would be clear of the trees within seconds and on his position in less than a minute!

"We've been betrayed!" Lucilla said.

A great shout roared from the hill above them: "Bashar!" Many voices!

Burzmali? Teg asked himself. He glanced back in that direction and then down at the steadily advancing Face Dancers. No time to pick and choose. He leaned toward Lucilla. "That's Burzmali above us. Take Duncan and run!"

"But what if -"

"It's your only chance!"

"You fool!" she accused, even as she turned to obey.

Teg's "Yes!" did nothing to ease her fears. This was what came of depending on the plans of others!

Duncan had other thoughts. He understood what Teg was about to do - sacrifice himself that two might escape. Duncan hesitated, looking at the advancing attackers below them.

Seeing the hesitation, Teg blared at him: "This is a battle order! I am your commander!"

It was the closest thing to Voice Lucilla had ever heard from a man. She gaped at Teg.

Duncan saw only the face of the Old Duke telling him to obey. It was too much. He grabbed Lucilla's arm, but before hustling her up the slope, he said: "We'll lay down a covering fire once we're clear!"

Teg did not respond. He crouched against a snow-dusted rock as Lucilla and Duncan scrambled away. He knew he must sell himself dearly now. And there must be something else: the unexpected. A final signature from the old Bashar.

The advancing attackers were coming up faster, exchanging excited shouts.

Setting his lasgun on maxibeam, Teg pressed the trigger. A fiery arc swept across the slope below him. Trees burst into flame and crashed. People screamed. The weapon would not perform long at this discharge level but while it did the carnage produced its desired effect.

In the abrupt silence after that first sweep, Teg shifted his position to another screening rock on his left and again sent a flaming lance down the dark slope. Only a few of the drifting glowglobes had survived that first slashing violence with its falling trees and dismembered bodies.

More screams greeted his second counterattack. He turned and scrambled across the rocks to the other side of the no-globe's access cave. There, he sent sweeping fire down the opposite slope. More screams. More flames and crashing trees.

No answering fire came back.

They want us alive!

The Tleilaxu were prepared to spend whatever number of Face Dancer lives it required to run his lasgun out of its charges!

Teg shifted the sling of the old Harkonnen weapon to a better position on his shoulder, getting it ready to swing into action. He discarded the almost empty charge in his modern lasgun, recharged it and rested the weapon across the rocks. Teg doubted he would get the chance to recharge the second weapon. Let them think down there that he had run out of charge cartridges. But there were two Harkonnen handguns in his belt as a last resort. They would be potent at close range. Some of the Tleilaxu Masters, the ones who ordered such carnage, let them come closer!

Cautiously, Teg lifted his long lasgun from the rock and moved backward, drifting up into the higher rocks, slipping left and then right. He paused twice to sweep the slopes below him with short bursts as though conserving the gun's charge. There was no sense in trying to conceal his movements. They would have a life-tracer on him by now and, besides, there were the tracks in the snow.

The unexpected! Could he suck them in close?

Well above the no-globe's access cave he found a deeper pocket in the rocks, its bottom filled with snow. Teg dropped into this position, admiring the fine field of fire this new vantage provided. He studied it briefly: protected behind him by higher crags and open downslope on three sides. He lifted his head cautiously and tried to see around the screening rocks upslope.

Only silence there.

Had that shout come from Burzmali's people? Even so, there was no guarantee that Duncan and Lucilla could escape in these circumstances. It depended on Burzmali now.

Is he as resourceful as I always thought?

There was no time to consider the possibilities or change a single element of the situation. Battle had been joined. He was committed. Teg drew a deep breath and peered downslope over the rocks.

Yes, they had recovered and were resuming the advance. Without telltale glowglobes this time and silently now. No more shouts of encouragement. Teg rested the long lasgun on a rock in front of him and swept a burning arc from left to right in one long burst, letting it fade out at the end in an obvious loss of charge.

Unslinging the old Harkonnen weapon, he readied it, waiting in silence. They would expect him to flee up the hill. He crouched behind the screening rocks, hoping there was enough movement above him to confuse the life-tracers. He still heard people below him on that fire-wracked slope. Teg counted silently to himself, spacing out the distance, knowing from long experience how much time the attackers would require to come within deadly range. And he listened carefully for another sound he knew from previous encounters with the Tleilaxu: the sharp barking of commands in high-pitched voices.

There they were!

The Masters were spread out farther downslope than he had anticipated. Fearful creatures! Teg set the old lasgun on maxibeam and lifted himself suddenly from his protective cradle in the rocks.

He saw the arc of advancing Face Dancers in the light of burning trees and brush. The high-pitched voices of command came from behind the advance, well out of the dancing orange light.

Aiming over the heads of the nearest attackers, Teg sighted beyond the jumble of flames and pressed the trigger: two long bursts, back and forth. He was momentarily surprised by the extent of the destructive energy in the antique weapon. The thing obviously was the product of superb craftsmanship but there had been no way to test it in the no-globe.

This time, the screams carried a different pitch: high and frantic!

Teg lowered his aim and cleared the immediate slope of Face Dancers, letting them feel the full force of the beam, revealing that he carried more than one weapon. Back and forth he swept the deadly arc, giving the attackers plenty of time to see the charge ebb into a final sputter.

Now! They had been sucked in once and would be more cautious. There just might be a chance to join Duncan and Lucilla. This thought full in his mind, Teg turned and scrambled out of his shelter across the upslope rocks. At his fifth step, he thought he had run into a hot wall. There was time for his mind to recognize what had happened: the shocking blast of a stunner full into his face and chest! It came from directly upslope where he had sent Duncan and Lucilla. Chagrin filled Teg as he fell into darkness.

Others could do the unexpected, too!

***

All organized religions face a common problem, a tender spot through which we may enter and shift them to our designs: How do they distinguish hubris from revelation?

Odrade kept her gaze carefully away from the cool green of the quadrangle below her where Sheeana sat with one of the teaching Sisters. The teaching Sister was the best, precisely fitted to this next phase in Sheeana's education. Taraza had chosen them all with care.

We proceed with your plan, Odrade thought. But did you anticipate, Mother Superior, how we might be marked by a chance discovery here on Rakis?

Or was it chance?

Odrade sent her gaze over the lower rooftops to the spread of the Sisterhood's central stronghold on Rakis. Rainbow tiles baked out there in glaring noon light.

All of this ours.

This was, she knew, quite the largest embassy the priests permitted in their holy city of Keen. And her presence in this Bene Gesserit stronghold defied the agreement she had made with Tuek. But that had been before the discoveries at Sietch Tabr. Besides, Tuek no longer really existed. The Tuek who marched the priestly precincts was a Face Dancer living out a precarious charade.

Odrade brought her thoughts back to Waff, who stood with two guardian Sisters, behind her, waiting near the door of this penthouse sanctuary with its fine view through armor-plaz windows and its impressive black furnishings into which a robed Reverend Mother might blend with only the lighter shades of her face visible to a visitor.

Had she gauged Waff correctly? Everything had been done precisely according to Missionaria Protectiva teachings. Had she opened the crack in his psychic armor sufficiently? He should be goaded to speak soon. Then she would know.

Waff stood back there calmly enough. She could see his reflection in the plaz. He gave no sign of understanding that the two tall, dark-haired Sisters flanking him were there to prevent his possible violence. But he certainly knew.

My guardians, not his.

He stood with his head bent to conceal his features from her but she knew he was uncertain. That part was sure. Doubts could be like a starving animal and she had fed those hungry doubts well. He had been so sure that their venture into the desert would be the occasion for his death. His Zensunni and Sufi beliefs were telling him now that God's will preserved him there.

Surely, though, Waff was reviewing now his agreement with the Bene Gesserit, seeing at last the ways he had compromised his people, how he had put his precious Tleilaxu civilization in terrible jeopardy. Yes, his composure was wearing thin, but only Bene Gesserit eyes detected this. It would be time soon to begin rebuilding his awareness into a pattern more amenable to the Sisterhood's needs. Let him stew a bit longer.

Odrade returned her attention to the view, loading the suspense of this delay. The Bene Gesserit had chosen this embassy location because of the extensive rebuilding that had changed the entire northeastern quarter of the old city. They could build and remodel here in their own way and for their own purposes. Ancient structures designed for easy access by people on foot, wide lanes for official groundcars and occasional squares in which ornithopters might land - all of that had been changed.

Keeping up with the times.

These new buildings stood much closer to the green-planted avenues whose tall and exotic trees flaunted their enormous water consumption. 'Thopters were relegated to rooftop landing pads on selected buildings. Pedestrian lanes clung to narrow elevations attached to the buildings. Coin-operated, key-operated and palm-identification liftslots had been inset into the new buildings, their glowing energy fields masked by dark brown, vaguely transparent covers. The liftslots were spines of darker color in the flat gray of plascrete and plaz. Humans dimly seen in the tubes gave the effect of impurities moving up and down in otherwise pure mechanical sausages.

All in the name of modernization.

Waff stirred behind her and cleared his throat.

Odrade did not turn. The two guardian Sisters knew what she was doing and gave no sign. Waff's mounting nervousness was merely confirmation that all went well.

Odrade did not feel that all was going truly well.

She interpreted the view out her window as just another disquieting symptom of this disquieting planet. Tuek, she recalled, had not liked this modernization of his city. He had complained that some way must be found to stop it and preserve the old landmarks. His Face Dancer replacement continued that argument.

How like Tuek himself this new Face Dancer was. Did such Face Dancers think for themselves or just play out their parts in accordance with a Master's orders? Were they still mules, these new ones? How much different were these Face Dancers from the fully human?

Things about the deception worried Odrade.

The false Tuek's councillors, the ones fully involved in what they thought of as "the Tleilaxu plot," spoke of public support for modernization and openly gloated that they had their way at last. Albertus regularly reported everything to Odrade. Each new report worried her more. Even the obvious subservience of Albertus bothered her.

"Of course, the councillors do not mean public public support," Albertus said.

She could only agree. The behavior of the councillors signaled that they had powerful backing among the middle echelons of the priesthood, among the climbers who dared joke about their Divided God at weekend parties... among those being soothed by the hoard Odrade had found at Sietch Tabr.

Ninety thousand long tons! Half a year's harvest from the deserts of Rakis. Even a third of it represented a significant bargaining chip in the new balances.

I wish I had never met you, Albertus.

She had wanted to restore in him the one who cares. What she had actually done was easily recognized by one trained in the Missionaria Protectiva's ways.

A groveling sycophant!

It made no difference now that his subservience was driven by an absolute belief in her holy association with Sheeana. Odrade had never before focused on how easily the Missionaria Protectiva's teachings destroyed human independence. That was always the goal, of course: Make them followers, obedient to our needs.

The Tyrant's words in that secret chamber had done more than ignite her fears for the Sisterhood's future.

"I bequeath to you my fear and loneliness."

From that millennial distance, he had planted doubts in her as surely as she had planted them in Waff.