Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah

“Never mind,” he said. And he forced himself to inner stillness, opened the eyes of his vision to this moment. Yes—it was still here. Chani’s body lay on a pallet within a ring of light. Someone had straightened her white robe, smoothed it trying to hide the blood from the birth. No matter; he could not turn his awareness from the vision of her face: such a mirror of eternity in the still features!

He turned away, but the vision moved with him. She was gone … never to return. The air, the universe, all vacant—everywhere vacant. Was this the essence of his penance? he wondered. He wanted tears, but they would not come. Had he lived too long a Fremen? This death demanded its moisture!

Nearby, a baby cried and was hushed. The sound pulled a curtain on his vision. Paul welcomed the darkness. This is another world , he thought. Two children.

The thought came out of some lost oracular trance. He tried to recapture the timeless mind-dilation of the melange, but awareness fell short. No burst of the future came into this new consciousness. He felt himself rejecting the future—any future.

“Goodbye, my Sihaya,” he whispered.

Alia’s voice, harsh and demanding, came from somewhere behind him. “I’ve brought Lichna!”

Paul turned. “That’s not Lichna,” he said. “That’s a Face Dancer. Lichna’s dead.”

“But hear what she says,” Alia said.

Slowly, Paul moved toward his sister’s voice.

“I’m not surprised to find you alive, Atreides.” The voice was like Lichna’s, but with subtle differences, as though the speaker used Lichna’s vocal cords, but no longer bothered to control them sufficiently. Paul found himself struck by an odd note of honesty in the voice.

“Not surprised?” Paul asked.

“I am Scytale, a Tleilaxu of the Face Dancers, and I would know a thing before we bargain. Is that a ghola I see behind you, or Duncan Idaho?”

“It’s Duncan Idaho,” Paul said. “And I will not bargain with you.”

“I think you’ll bargain,” Scytale said.

“Duncan,” Paul said, speaking over his shoulder, “will you kill this Tleilaxu if I ask it?”

“Yes, m’Lord.” There was the suppressed rage of a berserker in Idaho’s voice.

“Wait!” Alia said. “You don’t know what you’re rejecting.”

“But I do know,” Paul said.

“So it’s truly Duncan Idaho of the Atreides,” Scytale said. “We found the lever! A ghola can regain his past.” Paul heard footsteps. Someone brushed past him on the left. Scytale’s voice came from behind him now. “What do you remember of your past, Duncan?”

“Everything. From my childhood on. I even remember you at the tank when they removed me from it,” Idaho said.

“Wonderful,” Scytale breathed. “Wonderful.”

Paul heard the voice moving. I need a vision, he thought. Darkness frustrated him. Bene Gesserit training warned him of terrifying menace in Scytale, yet the creature remained a voice, a shadow of movement—entirely beyond him.

“Are these the Atreides babies?” Scytale asked.

“Harah!” Paul cried. “Get her away from there!”

“Stay where you are!” Scytale shouted. “All of you! I warn you, a Face Dancer can move faster than you suspect. My knife can have both these lives before you touch me.”

Paul felt someone touch his right arm, then move off to the right.

“That’s far enough, Alia,” Scytale said.

“Alia,” Paul said. “Don’t.”

“It’s my fault,” Alia groaned. “My fault!”

“Atreides,” Scytale said, “shall we bargain now?”

Behind him, Paul heard a single hoarse curse. His throat constricted at the suppressed violence in Idaho’s voice. Idaho must not break! Scytale would kill the babies!

“To strike a bargain, one requires a thing to sell,” Scytale said. “Not so, Atreides? Will you have your Chani back? We can restore her to you. A ghola, Atreides. A ghola with full memory ! But we must hurry. Call your friends to bring a cryological tank to preserve the flesh.”

To hear Chani’s voice once more , Paul thought. To feel her presence beside me. Ahhh, that’s why they gave me Idaho as a ghola, to let me discover how much the re-creation is like the original. But now—full restoration … at their price. I’d be a Tleilaxu tool forevermore. And Chani … chained to the same fate by a threat to our children, exposed once more to the Qizarate’s plotting …

“What pressures would you use to restore Chani’s memory to her?” Paul asked, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Would you condition her to … to kill one of her own children?”

“We use whatever pressures we need,” Scytale said. “What say you, Atreides?”

“Alia,” Paul said, “bargain with this thing. I cannot bargain with what I cannot see.”

“A wise choice,” Scytale gloated. “Well, Alia, what do you offer me as your brother’s agent?”

Paul lowered his head, bringing himself to stillness within stillness. He’d glimpsed something just then—like a vision, but not a vision. It had been a knife close to him. There!

“Give me a moment to think,” Alia said.

“My knife is patient,” Scytale said, “but Chani’s flesh is not. Take a reasonable amount of time.”

Paul felt himself blinking. It could not be … but it was! He felt eyes! Their vantage point was odd and they moved in an erratic way. There! The knife swam into his view. With a breath-stilling shock, Paul recognized the viewpoint. It was that of one of his children! He was seeing Scytale’s knife hand from within the creche! It glittered only inches from him. Yes—and he could see himself across the room, as well—head down, standing quietly, a figure of no menace, ignored by the others in this room.

“To begin, you might assign us all your CHOAM holdings,” Scytale suggested.

“All of them?” Alia protested.

“All.”

Watching himself through the eyes in the creche, Paul slipped his crysknife from its belt sheath. The movement produced a strange sensation of duality. He measured the distance, the angle. There’d be no second chance. He prepared his body then in the Bene Gesserit way, armed himself like a cocked spring for a single concentrated movement, a prajna thing requiring all his muscles balanced in one exquisite unity.

The crysknife leaped from his hand. The milky blur of it flashed into Scytale’s right eye, jerked the Face Dancer’s head back. Scytale threw both hands up and staggered backward against the wall. His knife clattered off the ceiling, to hit the floor. Scytale rebounded from the wall; he fell face forward, dead before he touched the floor.

Still through the eyes in the creche, Paul watched the faces in the room turn toward his eyeless figure, read the combined shock. Then Alia rushed to the creche, bent over it and hid the view from him.

“Oh, they’re safe,” Alia said. “They’re safe.”

“M’Lord,” Idaho whispered, “was that part of your vision?”

“No.” He waved a hand in Idaho’s direction. “Let it be.”

“Forgive me, Paul,” Alia said. “But when that creature said they could … revive …”

“There are some prices an Atreides cannot pay,” Paul said. “You know that.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But I was tempted …”

“Who was not tempted?” Paul asked.

He turned away from them, groped his way to a wall, leaned against it and tried to understand what he had done. How? How? The eyes in the creche! He felt poised on the brink of terrifying revelation.

“My eyes, father.”

The word-shapings shimmered before his sightless vision.