mind of another.
The tube he thought of as his ultimate bargaining power. No one must know of it. For now, he catalogued flaws.
There were enough gaps in the no-ship's defenses to gratify him. In his serial lifetimes, he had collected skills the way his fellow Masters collected pleasing baubles. They had always considered him too serious but now he had found the place and time for vindication.
Study of the Bene Gesserit had always attracted him. Over the eons, he had acquired a body of knowledge about them. He knew it held myths and misinformation, but faith in the purposes of God assured him the view he held would serve the Great Belief, no matter the rigors of Holy Testing.
Part of his Bene Gesserit catalog he called 'Typicals,' from the frequent remark: 'That's typical of them!'
The typicals fascinated him.
It was typical for them to tolerate gross but non-threatening behavior in others they would not accept in themselves. 'Bene Gesserit standards are higher.' Scytale had heard that even from some of his late companions.
'We have the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us,' Odrade had once said.
Scytale included this among typicals, but her words did not accord with the Great Belief. Only God saw your ultimate self! Odrade's boast had the sound of hubris.
'They tell no casual lies. Truth serves them better.'
He often wondered about that. Mother Superior herself quoted it as a rule of the Bene Gesserit. There remained the fact that witches appeared to hold a cynical view of truth. She dared claim it was Zensunni. 'Whose truth? Modified in what way? In what context?'
They had been seated the previous afternoon in his no-ship quarters. He had asked for 'a consultation on mutual problems,' his euphemism for bargaining. They were alone except for comeyes and the comings and goings of watchful Sisters.
His quarters were comfortable enough: three plaz-walled rooms in restful green, a soft bed, chairs reduced to fit his diminutive body.
This was an Ixian no-ship and he felt certain his warders did not suspect how much he knew of it. As much as the Ixians. Ixian machines all around but never an Ixian to be seen. He doubted there was a single Ixian on Chapterhouse. The witches were notorious for doing their own maintenance.
Odrade moved and spoke slowly, watching him with care. 'They are not impulsive.' You heard that often.
She asked after his comfort and appeared concerned for him.
He glanced around his sitting room. 'I see no Ixians.'
She pursed her lips with displeasure. 'Is this why you asked for consultation?'
Of course not, witch! I merely practice my arts of distraction. You would not expect me to mention things I wished to conceal. Then why would I call your attention to Ixians when I know it is unlikely there are any dangerous intruders walking freely on your accursed planet? Ahhh, the much vaunted Ixian connection we Tleilaxu maintained so long. You know of that! You punished Ix memorably more than once.
The technocrats of Ix might hesitate to irritate the Bene Gesserit, he thought, but they would be extremely careful not to arouse the ire of Honored Matres. Secret trading was indicated by the presence of this no-ship but the price must have been ruinous and the circumlocutions exceptional. Very nasty, those whores from the Scattering. They might need Ix themselves, he guessed. And Ix might secretly defy the whores to make an arrangement with the Bene Gesserit. But the limits were tight and chances of betrayal many.
These thoughts comforted him as he bargained. Odrade, in a brittle mood, unsettled him several times with silences during which she stared at him in that disturbing Bene Gesserit way.
The bargaining chips were large - no less than survival for each of them and always in the pot that tenuous thing: ascendancy, control of the human universe, perpetuation of your own ways as the dominant pattern.
Give me a small opening that I may expand, Scytale thought. Give me my own Face Dancers. Give me servants who will do only my bidding.
'It is a small thing to ask,' he said. ' I seek personal comfort, my own servants.'
Odrade continued to stare at him in that weighted way of the Bene Gesserit that always seemed to peel away the masks and see deep into you.
But I have masks you have not penetrated.
He could see that she found him repulsive - the way her gaze fixed sequentially on each of his features. He knew what she was thinking. An elfin figure with narrow face and puckish eyes. Widow's peak. Her gaze moved down: tiny mouth with sharp teeth and pointed canines.
Scytale knew himself to be a figure out of humankind's most dangerously disturbing mythologies. Odrade would ask herself: Why did the Bene Tleilax choose this particular physical appearance when their control of genetics could have given them something more impressive?
For the very reason that it disturbs you, powindah dirt!
He thought immediately of another Typical: 'The Bene Gesserit seldom scatter dirt.'
Scytale had seen the dirty aftermath of many Bene Gesserit actions. Look at what happened to Dune! Burnt to cinders because you women of Shaitan chose that holy ground to challenge the whores. Even the revenants of our Prophet gone to their reward. Everyone dead!
And he hardly dared contemplate his own losses. No Tleilaxu planet had escaped the fate of Dune. The Bene Gesserit caused that! And he must suffer their tolerance - a refugee with only God to support him.
He asked Odrade about scattered dirt on Dune.
'You find that only when we are in extremis.'
'Is that why you attracted the violence of those whores?'
She refused to discuss it.
One of Scytale's late companions had said: 'The Bene Gesserit leave straight tracks. You might think them complex, but when you look closely their way smooths.'
That companion and all the others had been butchered by the whores. His only survival lay in cells of a nullentropy capsule. So much for a dead Master's wisdom!
Odrade wanted more technical information about axlotl tanks. Ohhhh, how cleverly she worded her questions!
Bargaining for survival, and each little bit carried a heavy weight. What had he received for his tiny measured pieces of data about the axlotl tanks? Odrade took him out of the ship occasionally now. But the whole planet was as much a prison to him as this ship. Where could he go that the witches would not find him?
What were they doing with their own axlotl tanks? He was not even sure about this. The witches lied with such facility.
Was it wrong to supply them even with limited knowledge? He realized now he had told them far more than the bare biotechnical details to which he had confined himself. They definitely deduced how Masters had created a limited immortality - always a ghola-replacement growing in the tanks. That, too, was lost! He wanted to scream this at her in his frustrated rage.
Questions... obvious questions.
He parried her questions with wordy arguments about 'my need for Face Dancer servants and my own Shipsystem console.'
She was slyly adamant, probing for more knowledge of the tanks. 'The information to produce melange from our tanks might induce us to be more liberal with our guest.'
Our tanks! Our guest!
These women were like a plasteel wall. No tanks for his personal use. All of that Tleilaxu power gone. It was a thought full of mournful self-pity. He restored himself with a reminder: God obviously tested his resourcefulness. They think they hold me in a trap. But their restrictions hurt. No Face Dancer servants? Very well. He would seek other servants. Not Face Dancers.
Scytale felt the deepest anguish of his many lives when he thought of his lost Face Dancers - his mutable slaves. Damn these women and their pretense that they shared the Great Belief! Omnipresent acolytes and Reverend Mothers always snooping around. Spies! And comeyes everywhere. Oppressive.
On first coming to Chapterhouse, he had sensed a shyness about his jailers, a privacy that became intense when he probed into the workings of their order. Later, he came to see this as a circling up, all facing outward at
