'Are you trying to shut me up?' Angry.
'Our job is to think like our enemy,' he said. 'We do have a common enemy?'
'You're sneering at me, Duncan.'
'Are your eyes orange?'
'Melange doesn't allow that and you know... Oh.'
'The Bene Gesserit need your knowledge but you must cultivate it!' He turned on a glowglobe and found her flaring at him. Not unexpected and not really Bene Gesserit.
Hybrid.
The word leaped into his mind. Was it hybrid vigor? Did the Sisterhood expect this of Murbella? The Bene Gesserit surprised you sometimes. You found them facing you in odd corridors, eyes unwavering, faces masked in that way of theirs and, behind the masks, unusual responses brewing. That was where Teg learned to do the unexpected. But this? Idaho thought he could grow to dislike this new Murbella.
She saw this in him, naturally. He remained open to her as to no other person.
'Don't hate me, Duncan.' No pleading but something deeply hurt behind the words.
'I'll never hate you.' But he turned off the light.
She nestled against him almost the way she had before the Agony. Almost. The difference tore at him.
'Honored Matres see the Bene Gesserit as competitors for power,' Murbella said. 'It's not so much that men who follow my former Sisters are fanatics, but they're made incapable of self-determination by their addiction.'
'Is that the way we are?'
'Now, Duncan.'
'You mean I could get this commodity at another store?'
She chose to assume he was talking about Honored Matre fears. 'Many would abandon them if they could.' Turning toward him fiercely, she demanded a sexual response. Her abandon shocked him. As though this might be the last time she could experience such ecstasy.
Afterward, he lay exhausted.
'I hope I'm pregnant again,' she whispered. 'We still need our babies.'
We need. The Bene Gesserit need. No longer 'they need.'
He fell asleep to dream he was in the ship's armory. It was a dream touched by realities. The ship remained a weapons factory as it actually had become. Odrade was talking to him in the dream armory. 'I make decisions of necessity, Duncan. Little likelihood you'll break out and run amok.'
'I am too much the Mentat for that!' How self-important his dream voice! I'm dreaming and I know I dream. Why am I in the armory with Odrade?
A list of weapons scrolled before his eyes.
Atomics. (He saw big blasters and deadly dusts.) Lasguns. (No counting the various models.) Bacteriologicals.
The scroll was interrupted by Odrade's voice. 'We can assume smugglers concentrate as usual on small things that bring a big price. '
'Soostones, of course.' Still self-important. I'm not that way!
'Assassination weapons,' she said. 'Plans and specifications for new devices.'
'Theft of trade secrets is a big item with smugglers.' I'm insufferable!
'There are always medicines and the diseases that require them,' she said.
Where is she? I can hear her but I can't see her. 'Do Honored Matres know our universe harbors blackguards not above sowing the problem before providing the solution?' Blackguards? I never use that word.
'All things relative, Duncan. They burned Lampadas and butchered four million of our finest.'
He awoke and sat upright. Specifications for new devices! There it was in delicate detail, a way to miniaturize Holzmann generators. Two centimeters, no more. And much cheaper! How was that smuggled into my mind?
He slipped out of bed, not awakening Murbella, and groped his way to a robe. He heard her snuffle as he let himself out into the workroom.
Seating himself at his console, he copied the design from his mind and studied it. Perfect! Englobement for sure. He transmitted to Archives with a flag for Odrade and Bellonda.
With a sigh, he sat back and examined his design once more. It vanished in a return to his dream scroll. Am I still dreaming? No! He could feel the chair, touch the console, hear the field buzzing. Dreams do that.
The scroll produced cutting and stabbing weapons, including some designed to introduce poisons or bacteria into enemy flesh.
Projectiles.
He wondered how to stop the scroll and study details.
'It's all in your head!'
Humans and other animals bred for attack scrolled past his eyes, hiding the console and its projection. Futars? How did Futars get in there? What do I know about Futars?
Disruptors replaced the animals. Weapons to cloud mental activity or interfere with life itself. Disruptors? I've never heard that name before.
Disruptors were succeeded by null-G 'seekers' designed to hunt specific targets. Those I know.
Explosives next, including ones to spread poisons and bacteriologicals.
Deceptives, to project false targets. Teg had used those.
Energizers appeared next. He had a private arsenal of those: ways of increasing capacities of your troops.
Abruptly, the shimmering net from his vision replaced scrolling weapons and he saw the elderly couple in their garden. They glared at him. The man's voice became audible. 'Stop spying on us!'
Idaho gripped the arms of his chair and jerked himself forward but the vision disappeared before he could study details.
Spying?
He sensed a residue of the scroll in his mind, no longer visible but a musing voice... masculine.
'Defenses often must take on characteristics of the attack weapons. Sometimes, however, simple systems can divert the most devastating weapons.'
Simple systems! He laughed aloud. 'Miles! Where the hell are you, Teg? I have your disguised attack vessels! Inflated decoys! Empty except for a miniature Holzmann generator and lasgun.' He added this to his Archives transmissions.
When he was finished, he asked himself once more about the visions. Influencing my dreams? What have I tapped?
In every spare minute since becoming Teg's Weapons Master, he had been calling up Archival records. There had to be some clue in all of that massive accumulation!
Resonances and tachyon theory held his attention for a time. Tachyon theory figured in Holzmann's original design. 'Techys,' Holzmann had called his energy source.
A wave system that ignored light speed's limits. Light speed obviously did not limit foldspace ships. Techys?
'It works because it works,' Idaho muttered. 'Faith. Like any other religion.'
Mentats squirreled away much seemingly inconsequential data. He had a storehouse marked 'Techys' and proceeded to go through it without satisfaction.
Not even Guild Navigators professed knowledge of how they guided foldspace ships. Ixian scientists made machines to duplicate Navigator abilities but still could not define what they did.
'Holzmann's formulae can be trusted.'
No one claimed to understand Holzmann. They merely used his formulae because they worked. It was the 'ether' of space travel. You folded space. One instant you were here and the next instant you were countless parsecs distant.
Someone 'out there' has found another way to use Holzmann's theories! It was a full Mentat Projection. He knew its accuracy from the new questions it produced.
Murbella's Other Memory ramblings haunted him now even though he recognized basic Bene Gesserit teachings in them.
