Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles #5)

Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles #5) Page 13

Teg could almost hear the old aide's response, that stiffly formal voice Patrin always used when he was chiding his commander.

"You will do your best, Bashar."

The most coldly progressive reasoning said Teg would never again see Patrin in the flesh nor hear the old man's actual voice. Still... the voice remained. The person persisted in memory.

"Shouldn't we be going?"

It was Lucilla, standing close in front of his position beneath the tree. Duncan waited beside her. Both of them had shouldered their packs.

While he sat thinking, night had fallen. Rich starlight created vague shadows in the glade. Teg lifted himself to his feet, took his pack and, bending to avoid the low branches, emerged into the glade. Duncan helped Teg shoulder his pack.

"Schwangyu will consider this eventually," Lucilla said. "Her searchers will come after us here. You know it."

"Not until they have followed out the false trail and found the end of it," Teg said. "Come."

He led the way westward through an opening in the trees.

Three nights he had led them along what he called "Patrin's memory-path." As he walked on this fourth night, Teg berated himself for not projecting the logical consequences of Patrin's behavior.

I understood the depths of his loyalty but I did not project that loyalty into a most obvious result. We were together so many years I thought I knew his mind as I knew my own. Patrin, damn you! There was no need for you to die!

Teg admitted to himself then that there had been a need. Patrin had seen it. The Mentat had not permitted himself to see it. Logic could move just as blindly as any other faculty.

As the Bene Gesserit often said and demonstrated.

So we walk. Schwangyu does not expect this.

Teg was forced to admit that walking the wild places of Gammu created a whole new perspective for him. This entire region had been allowed to overgrow with plant life during the Famine Times and the Scattering. It had been replanted later but mostly as a random wilderness. Secret trails and private landmarks guided today's access. Teg imagined Patrin as a youth learning this region - that rocky butte visible in starlight through a gap in the trees, that spiked promontory, these lanes through giant trees.

"They will expect us to make a run for a no-ship, " he and Patrin had agreed, fleshing out their plan. "The decoy must take the searchers in that direction."

Patrin had not said that he would be the decoy.

Teg swallowed past a lump in his throat.

Duncan could not be protected in the Keep, he justified himself.

That was true.

Lucilla had jittered through their first day under the life-shield that protected them from discovery by the instruments of aerial searchers.

"We must get word to Taraza!"

"When we can."

"What if something happens to you? I must know all of your escape plan."

"If something happens to me, you will not be able to follow Patrin's path. There isn't time to put it in your memory."

Duncan took little part in the conversation that day. He watched them silently or dozed, awakening fitful and with an angry look in his eyes.

On the second day under the shielding blanket, Duncan suddenly demanded of Teg: "Why do they want to kill me?"

"To frustrate the Sisterhood's plan for you," Teg said.

Duncan glared at Lucilla. "What is that plan?"

When Lucilla did not answer, Duncan said: "She knows. She knows because I'm supposed to depend on her. I'm supposed to love her!"

Teg thought Lucilla concealed her dismay quite well. Obviously, her plans for the ghola had fallen into disarray, all of the sequencing thrown out of joint by this flight.

Duncan's behavior revealed another possibility: Was the ghola a latent Truthsayer? What additional powers had been bred into this ghola by the sly Tleilaxu?

At their second nightfall in the wilderness, Lucilla was full of accusations. "Taraza ordered you to restore his original memories! How can you do that out here?"

"When we reach sanctuary."

A silent and acutely alert Duncan accompanied them that night. There was a new vitality in him. He had heard!

Nothing must harm Teg, Duncan thought. Wherever and whatever sanctuary might be, Teg must reach it safely. Then, I will know!

Duncan was not sure what he would know but now he fully accepted the prize in it. This wilderness must lead to that goal. He recalled staring out at the wild places from the Keep and how he had thought to be free here. That sense of untouched freedom had vanished. The wilderness was only a path to something more important.

Lucilla, bringing up the rear of this march, forced herself to remain calm, alert, and to accept what she could not change. Part of her awareness held firmly to Taraza's orders:

"Stay close to the ghola and, when the moment comes, complete your assignment."

One pace at a time, Teg's body measured out the kilometers. This was the fourth night. Patrin had estimated four nights to reach their goal.

And what a goal!

The emergency escape plan centered on a discovery Patrin had made here as a teenager of one of Gammu's many mysteries. Patrin's words came back to Teg: "On the excuse of a personal reconnaissance, I returned to the place two days ago. It is untouched. I am still the only person who has ever been there."

"How can you be sure?"

"I took my own precautions when I left Gammu years ago, little things that would be disturbed by another person. Nothing has been moved."

"A Harkonnen no-globe?"

"Very ancient but the chambers are still intact and functioning."

"What about food, water... "

"Everything you could want or need is there, laid down in the nullentropy bins at the core."

Teg and Patrin made their plans, hoping they would never have to use this emergency bolt hole, holding the secret of it close while Patrin replayed for Teg the hidden way to this childhood discovery.

Behind Teg, Lucilla let out a small gasp as she tripped over a root.

I should have warned her, Teg thought. Duncan obviously was following Teg's lead by sound. Lucilla, just as obviously, had much of her attention on her own private thoughts.

Her facial resemblance to Darwi Odrade was remarkable, Teg told himself. Back there at the Keep, the two women side by side, he had marked the differences dictated by their differing ages. Lucilla's youth showed itself in more subcutaneous fat, a rounding of the facial flesh. But the voices! Timbre, accent, tricks of atonal inflection, the common stamp of Bene Gesserit speech mannerisms. They would be almost impossible to tell apart in the dark.

Knowing the Bene Gesserit as he did, Teg knew this was no accident. Given the Sisterhood's propensity for doubling and redoubling its prized genetic lines to protect the investment, there had to be a common ancestral source.

Atreides, all of us, he thought.

Taraza had not revealed her design for the ghola, but just being within that design gave Teg access to the growing shape of it. No complete pattern, but he could already sense a wholeness there.

Generation after generation, the Sisterhood dealing with the Tleilaxu, buying Idaho gholas, training them here on Gammu, only to have them assassinated. All of that time waiting for the right moment. It was like a terrible game, which had come into frenetic prominence because a girl capable of commanding the worms had appeared on Rakis.

Gammu itself had to be part of the design. Caladanian marks all over the place. Danian subtleties piled atop the more brutal ancient ways. Something other than population had come out of the Danian Sanctuary where the Tyrant's grandmother, the Lady Jessica, had lived out her days.

Teg had seen the overt and covert marks when he made his first reconnaissance tour of Gammu.

Wealth!

The signs were here to be read. It flowed around their universe, moving amoebalike to insinuate itself into any place where it could lodge. There was wealth from the Scattering on Gammu, Teg knew. Wealth so great that few suspected (or could imagine) its size and power.

He stopped walking abruptly. Physical patterns in the immediate landscape demanded his full attention. Ahead of them lay an exposed ledge of barren rock, its identifying markers planted in his memory by Patrin. This passage would be one of the more dangerous.

"No caves or heavy growth to conceal you. Have the blanket ready. "

Teg removed the life-shield from his pack and carried it over his arm. Once more he indicated that they should continue. The dark weave of the shield fabric hissed against his body as he moved.

Lucilla was becoming less of a cipher, he thought. She aspired to a Lady in front of her name. The Lady Lucilla. No doubt that had a pleasing sound to her. A few such titled Reverend Mothers were appearing now that Major Houses were emerging from the long obscurity imposed by the Tyrant's Golden Path.

Lucilla, the Seductress-Imprinter.

All such women of the Sisterhood were sexual adepts. Teg's own mother had educated him in the workings of that system, sending him to well-selected local women when he was quite young, sensitizing him to the signs he must observe within himself as well as in the women. It was a forbidden training outside of Chapter House surveillance, but Teg's mother had been one of the Sisterhood's heretics.

"You will have a need for this, Miles."

No doubt there had been some prescience in her. She had armed him against the Imprinters who were trained in orgasmic amplification to fix the unconscious ties - male to female.

Lucilla and Duncan. An imprint on her would be an imprint on Odrade.

Teg almost heard the pieces go snick as they locked together in his mind. Then what of the young woman on Rakis? Would Lucilla teach the techniques of seduction to her imprinted pupil, arm him to ensnare the one who commanded worms?

Not enough data yet for a Prime Computation.

Teg paused at the end of the dangerous open rock passage. He put away the blanket and sealed his pack while Duncan and Lucilla waited close behind. Teg heaved a sigh. The blanket always worried him. It did not have the deflective powers of a full battle shield but if a lasgun's beam hit the thing the consequent quick-fire could be fatal.

Dangerous toys!

This was how Teg always classified such weapons and mechanical devices. Better to rely on your wits, your own flesh, and the Five Attitudes of the Bene Gesserit Way as his mother had taught him.

Use the instruments only when they are absolutely required to amplify the flesh: that was the Bene Gesserit teaching.

"Why are we stopping?" Lucilla whispered.

"I am listening to the night," Teg said.

Duncan, his face a ghostly blur in the tree-filtered starlight, stared at Teg. Teg's features reassured him. They were lodged somewhere in an unavailable memory, Duncan thought. I can trust this man.

Lucilla suspected that they were stopping here because Teg's old body demanded respite but she could not bring herself to say this. Teg said his escape plan included a way of getting Duncan to Rakis. Very well. That was all that mattered for the moment.

She already had figured out that this sanctuary somewhere ahead of them must involve a no-ship or a no-chamber. Nothing else would suffice. Somehow, Patrin had been the key to it. Teg's few hints had revealed that Patrin was the source of their escape route.

Lucilla had been the first to realize how Patrin would have to pay for their escape. Patrin was the weakest link. He remained behind where Schwangyu could capture him. Capture of the decoy was inevitable. Only a fool would suppose that a Reverend Mother of Schwangyu's powers would be incapable of wresting secrets from a mere male. Schwangyu would not even require the heavy persuasion. The subtleties of Voice and those painful forms of interrogation that remained a Sisterhood monopoly - the agony box and nerve-node pressures - those were all she would require.

The form Patrin's loyalty would take had been clear to Lucilla then. How could Teg have been so blind?

Love!

That long, trusting bond between the two men. Schwangyu would act swiftly and brutally. Patrin knew it. Teg had not examined his own certain knowledge.

Duncan's voice shocked her from these thoughts.

" 'Thopter! Behind us!"

"Quick!" Teg whipped the blanket from his pack and threw it over them. They huddled in earth-smelling darkness, listening to the ornithopter pass above them. It did not pause or return.

When they felt certain they had not been detected, Teg once more led them up Patrin's memory-track.

"That was a searcher," Lucilla said. "They are beginning to suspect... or Patrin..."

"Save your energy for walking," Teg snapped.

She did not press him. They both knew Patrin was dead. Argument over this had been exhausted.

This Mentat goes deep, Lucilla told herself.

Teg was the child of a Reverend Mother and that mother had trained him beyond the permitted limits before the Sisterhood took him into their manipulative hands. The ghola was not the only one here with unknown resources.

Their trail turned back and forth upon itself, a game track climbing a steep hill through thick forest. Starlight did not penetrate the trees. Only the Mentat's marvelous memory kept them on the path.

Lucilla felt duff underfoot. She listened to Teg's movements, reading them to guide her feet.

How silent Duncan is, she thought. How closed in upon himself. He obeyed orders. He followed where Teg led them. She sensed the quality of Duncan's obedience. He kept his own counsel. Duncan obeyed because it suited him to do so - for now. Schwangyu's rebellion had planted something wildly independent in the ghola. And what things of their own had the Tleilaxu planted in him?

Teg stopped at a level spot beneath tall trees to regain his wind. Lucilla could hear him breathing deeply. This reminded her once more that the Mentat was a very old man, far too old for these exertions. She spoke quietly:

"Are you all right, Miles?"

"I'll tell you when I'm not."

"How much farther?" Duncan asked.

"Only a short way now."

Presently, he resumed his course through the night. "We must hurry," he said. "This saddle-back ridge is the last bit."

Now that he had accepted the fact of Patrin's death, Teg's thoughts swung like a compass needle to Schwangyu and what she must be experiencing. Schwangyu would feel her world falling in around her. The fugitives had been gone four nights! People who could elude a Reverend Mother this way might do anything! Of course, the fugitives probably were off-planet by now. A no-ship. But what if...

Schwangyu's thoughts would be full of what-ifs.

Patrin had been the fragile link but Patrin had been well trained in the removal of fragile links, trained by a master - Miles Teg.

Teg dashed dampness from his eyes with a quick shake of his head. Immediate necessity required that core of internal honesty which he could not avoid. Teg had never been a good liar, not even to himself. Quite early in his training, he had realized that his mother and the others involved in his upbringing had conditioned him to a deep sense of personal honesty.

Adherence to a code of honor.

The code itself, as he recognized its shape in him, attracted Teg's fascinated attention. It began with recognition that humans were not created equal, that they possessed different inherited abilities and experienced different events in their lives. This produced people of different accomplishments and different worth.

To obey this code, Teg realized early that he must place himself accurately into the flow of observable hierarchies accepting that a moment might come when he could evolve no further.

The code's conditioning went deep. He could never find its ultimate roots. It obviously was attached to something intrinsic to his humanity. It dictated with enormous power the limits of behavior permitted to those above as well as to those below him in the hierarchical pyramid.

The key token of exchange: loyalty.

Loyalty went upward and downward, lodging wherever it found a deserving attachment. Such loyalties, Teg knew, were securely locked into him. He felt no doubts that Taraza would support him in everything except a situation demanding that he be sacrificed to the survival of the Sisterhood. And that was right in itself. That was where the loyalties of all of them eventually lodged.

I am Taraza's Bashar. That is what the code says.

And this was the code that had killed Patrin.

I hope you suffered no pain, old friend.

Once more, Teg paused under the trees. Taking his fighting knife from its boot sheath, he scratched a small mark in a tree beside him.

"What are you doing?" Lucilla demanded.

"This is a secret mark," Teg said. "Only the people I have trained know about it. And Taraza, of course."

"But why are you..."

"I will explain later."

Teg moved forward, stopping at another tree where he made the tiny mark, a thing which an animal might make with a claw, something to blend into the natural forms of this wilderness.

As he worked his way ahead, Teg realized he had come to a decision about Lucilla. Her plans for Duncan must be deflected. Every Mentat projection Teg could make about Duncan's safety and sanity required this. The awakening of Duncan's pre-ghola memories must come ahead of any Imprint by Lucilla. It would not be easy to block her, Teg knew. It required a better liar than he had ever been to dissemble for a Reverend Mother.

It must be made to appear accidental, the normal outcome of the circumstances. Lucilla must never suspect opposition.

Teg held few illusions about succeeding against an aroused Reverend Mother in close quarters. Better to kill her. That, he thought he could do. But the consequences! Taraza could never be made to see such a bloody act as obedience to her orders.

No, he would have to bide his time, wait and watch and listen.

They emerged into a small open area with a high barrier of volcanic rock close ahead of them. Scrubby bushes and low thorn trees grew close against the rock, visible as dark blotches in the starlight.

Teg saw the blacker outline of a crawl space under the bushes.

"It's belly crawling from here in," Teg said.

"I smell ashes," Lucilla said. "Something's been burned here."

"This is where the decoy came," Teg said. "He left a charred area just down to our left - simulating the marks of a no-ship's take-off burn."

Lucilla's quickly indrawn breath was audible. The audacity! Should Schwangyu dare bring in a prescient searcher to follow Duncan's tracks (because Duncan alone among them had no Siona blood in his ancestry to shield him) all of the marks would agree that they had come this way and fled off-planet in a no-ship... provided...

"But where are you taking us?" she asked.

"It's a Harkonnen no-globe," Teg said. "It has been here for millennia and now it's ours."

Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition. The powerful want a "safe line of investigations," which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables does not insure such a "safe line of investigations." -Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives

Hedley Tuek, High Priest and titular ruler of Rakis, felt himself inadequate to the demands just imposed upon him.

Dust-fogged night enveloped the city of Keen, but here in his private audience chamber the brilliance of many glowglobes dispelled shadows. Even here, in the heart of the Temple, though, the wind could be heard, a distant moan, this planet's periodic torment.

The audience chamber was an irregular room seven meters long and four meters at its widest end. The opposite end was almost imperceptibly narrower. The ceiling, too, made a gentle slope in that direction. Spice fiber hangings and clever shadings in light yellows and grays concealed these irregularities. One of the hangings covered a focusing horn that carried even the smallest sounds to listeners outside the room.

Only Darwi Odrade, the new commander of the Bene Gesserit Keep on Rakis, sat with Tuek in the audience chamber. The two of them faced each other across a narrow space defined by their soft green cushions.

Tuek tried to conceal a grimace. The effort twisted his normally imposing features into a revealing mask. He had taken great care in preparing himself for this night's confrontations. Dressers had smoothed his robe over his tall, rather stout figure. Golden sandals covered his long feet. The stillsuit under his robe was only for display: no pumps or catchpockets, no uncomfortable and time-consuming adjustments required. His silky gray hair was combed long to his shoulders, a suitable frame for his square face with its wide thick mouth and heavy chin. His eyes fell abruptly into a look of benevolence, an expression he had copied from his grandfather. This was how he had looked on entering the audience chamber to meet Odrade. He had felt himself altogether imposing, but, now, he suddenly felt naked and disheveled.

He's really a rather empty-headed fellow, Odrade thought.

Tuek was thinking: I cannot discuss that terrible Manifesto with her! Not with a Tleilaxu Master and those Face Dancers listening in the other room. What ever possessed me to allow that?

"It is heresy, pure and simple," Tuek said.

"But you are only one religion among many," Odrade countered. "And with people returning from the Scattering, the proliferation of schisms and variant beliefs..."

"We are the only true belief!" Tuek said.

Odrade hid a smile. He said it right on cue. And Waff surely heard him. Tuek was remarkably easy to lead. If the Sisterhood was right about Waff, Tuek's words would enrage the Tleilaxu Master.

In a deep and portentous tone, Odrade said: "The Manifesto raises questions that all must address, believers and non-believers alike."

"What has all this to do with the Holy Child?" Tuek demanded. "You told me we must meet on matters concerning -"

"Indeed! Don't try to deny that you know there are many people who are beginning to worship Sheeana. The Manifesto implicates -"

"Manifesto! Manifesto! It is a heretical document, which will be obliterated. As for Sheeana, she must be returned to our exclusive care!"

"No." Odrade spoke softly.

How agitated Tuek was, she thought. His stiff neck moved minimally as he turned his head from side to side. The movements pointed to a wall hanging on Odrade's right, defining the place as though Tuek's head carried an illuminating beam to reveal that particular hanging. What a transparent man, this High Priest. He might just as well announce that Waff listened to them somewhere behind that hanging.

"Next, you will spirit her away from Rakis," Tuek said.

"She stays here," Odrade said. "Just as we promised you."

"But why can't she..."

"Come now! Sheeana has made her wishes clear and I'm sure her words have been reported to you. She wishes to be a Reverend Mother."

"She already is the -"

"M'Lord Tuek! Don't try to dissemble with me. She has stated her wishes and we are happy to comply. Why should you object? Reverend Mothers served the Divided God in the Fremen times. Why not now?"

"You Bene Gesserit have ways of making people say things they do not want to say," Tuek accused. "We should not be discussing this privately. My councillors -"

"Your councillors would only muddy our discussion. The implications of the Atreides Manifesto -"

"I will discuss only Sheeana!" Tuek drew himself up in what he thought of as his posture of adamant High Priest.

"We are discussing her," Odrade said.

"Then let me make it clear that we require more of our people in her entourage. She must be guarded at all -"

"The way she was guarded on that rooftop?" Odrade asked.

"Reverend Mother Odrade, this is Holy Rakis! You have no rights here that we do not grant!"

"Rights? Sheeana has become the target, yes the target! of many ambitions and you wish to discuss rights?"

"My duties as High Priest are clear. The Holy Church of the Divided God will -"

"M'Lord Tuek! I am trying very hard to maintain the necessary courtesies. What I do is for your benefit as well as our own. The actions we have taken -"

"Actions? What actions?" The words were pressed from Tuek with a hoarse grunting. These terrible Bene Gesserit witches! Tleilaxu behind him and a Reverend Mother in front! Tuek felt like a ball in a fearsome game, bounced back and forth between terrifying energies. Peaceful Rakis, the secure place of his daily routines, had vanished and he had been projected into an arena whose rules he did not fully understand.

"I have sent for the Bashar Miles Teg," Odrade said. "That is all. His advance party should arrive soon. We are going to reinforce your planetary defenses."

"You dare to take over -"

"We take over nothing. At your own father's request, Teg's people redesigned your defenses. The agreement under which this was done contains, at your father's insistence, a clause requiring our periodic review."

Tuek sat in dazed silence. Waff, that ominous little Tleilaxu, had heard all of this. There would be conflict! The Tleilaxu wanted a secret agreement setting melange prices. They would not permit Bene Gesserit interference.

Odrade had spoken of Tuek's father and now Tuek wished only that his long-dead father sat here. A hard man. He would have known how to deal with these opposing forces. He had always handled the Tleilaxu quite well. Tuek recalled listening (just as Waff listened now!) to a Tleilaxu envoy named Wose... and another one named Pook. Ledden Pook. What odd names they had.

Tuek's confused thoughts abruptly offered up another name. Odrade had just mentioned it: Teg! Was that old monster still active?

Odrade was speaking once more. Tuek tried to swallow in a dry throat as he leaned forward, forcing himself to pay attention.

"Teg will also look into your on-planet defenses. After that rooftop fiasco -"

"I officially forbid this interference with our internal affairs," Tuek said. "There is no need. Our Priest Guardians are adequate to -"

"Adequate?" Odrade shook her head sadly. "What an inadequate word, given the new circumstances on Rakis."

"What new circumstances?" There was terror in Tuek's voice.

Odrade merely sat there staring at him.

Tuek tried to force some order into his thoughts. Could she know about the Tleilaxu listening back there? Impossible! He inhaled a trembling breath. What was this about the defenses of Rakis? The defenses were excellent, he reassured himself. They had the best Ixian monitors and no-ships. More than that, it was to the advantage of all independent powers that Rakis remain equally independent as another source of the spice.

To the advantage of everyone except the Tleilaxu with the damnable melange overproduction from their axlotl tanks!

This was a shattering thought. A Tleilaxu Master had heard every word spoken in this audience chamber!

Tuek called on Shai-hulud, the Divided God, to protect him. That terrible little man back there said he spoke also for Ixians and Fish Speakers. He produced documents. Was that the "new circumstances" of which Odrade spoke? Nothing remained long hidden from the witches!

The High Priest could not repress a shudder at the thought of Waff: that round little head, those glittering eyes; that pug nose and those sharp teeth in that brittle smile. Waff looked like a slightly enlarged child until you met those eyes and heard him speak in his squeaky voice. Tuek recalled that his own father had complained of those voices: "The Tleilaxu say such terrible things in their childish voices!"

Odrade shifted on her cushions. She thought of Waff listening out there. Had he heard enough? Her own secret listeners certainly would be asking themselves that question now. Reverend Mothers always replayed these verbal contests, seeking improvements and new advantages for the Sisterhood.

Waff has heard enough, Odrade told herself. Time to shift the play.

In her most matter-of-fact tones, Odrade said: "M'Lord Tuek, someone important is listening to what we say here. Is it polite that such a person listen secretly?"

Tuek closed his eyes. She knows!

He opened his eyes and met Odrade's unrevealing stare. She looked like someone who might wait through eternity for his response.

"Polite? I... I..."

"Invite the secret listener to come sit with us," Odrade said.

Tuek passed a hand across his damp forehead. His father and grandfather, High Priests before him, had laid down ritual responses for most occasions, but nothing for a moment such as this. Invite the Tleilaxu to sit here? In this chamber with... Tuek was reminded suddenly that he did not like the smell of Tleilaxu Masters. His father had complained of that: "They smell of disgusting food!"

Odrade got to her feet. "I would much rather look upon those who hear my words," she said. "Shall I go myself and invite the hidden listener to -"

"Please!" Tuek remained seated but lifted a hand to stop her. "I had little choice. He comes with documents from Fish Speakers and Ixians. He said he would help us to return Sheeana to our -"

"Help you?" Odrade looked down at the sweating priest with something akin to pity. This one thought he ruled Rakis?

"He is of the Bene Tleilax," Tuek said. "He is called Waff and -"

"I know what he is called and I know why he is here, M'Lord Tuek. What astonishes me is that you would allow him to spy on -"

"It is not spying! We were negotiating. I mean, there are new forces to which we must adjust our -"

"New forces? Oh, yes: the whores from the Scattering. Does this Waff bring some of them with him?"

Before Tuek could respond, the audience chamber's side door opened. Waff entered right on cue, two Face Dancers behind him.

He was told not to bring Face Dancers! Odrade thought.

"Just you!" Odrade said, pointing. "Those others were not invited, were they, M'Lord?"

Tuek lifted himself heavily to his feet, noting the nearness of Odrade, remembering all of the terrible stories about the Reverend Mothers' physical prowess. The presence of Face Dancers added to his confusion. They always filled him with such terrible misgivings.

Turning toward the door and trying to compose his features into a look of invitation, Tuek said: "Only... only Ambassador Waff, please."

Speech hurt Tuek's throat. This was worse than terrible! He felt naked before these people.

Odrade gestured to a cushion near her. "Waff is it? Please come and sit down."