believe they were all gholas, like the copies of Piter de Vries that had been exterminated.
Lady Margot and Marie looked as if they were about to watch a Jongleur performance. The fidgeting albino doctor was a mass of nervous energy as he paced back and forth. “You are about to witness one of the chemical phases of indoctrination, only a small part of the preparatory process to soften the subject’s psyche for proper reconfiguration.”
“How much damage does it cause to the original personality?” Lady Margot asked.
The Tleilaxu man looked offended. “In some areas we are competitors of the Sisterhood. You cannot expect us to reveal everything.” She continued to stare intently at him, adding to his uneasiness, and finally he added, “The Twisting process includes a chemical and pharmacological component, a physical stress component, and a psychological component. In the end, the subject is broken and re-formed, completely pliable and extraordinarily trained. This is a particularly useful technique to use on Mentats, who require severe as well as delicate maneuvers to create a superior mental format.”
“So, ahh, drugs, psychological stresses, imposed conflicts that reach a crisis point.”
Marie watched eagerly, almost hungrily. “I want to see closer.” Fenring looked at the researcher, making sure Ereboam knew this was not a request.
The eight subjects were herded, sometimes roughly, into the tubes through side hatches, which were then sealed, trapping them within a cylindrical prison. Fenring stared at the growing expressions of alarm on the subjects’ faces; one of the men began to pound uselessly on the thick, curved wall.
“This is all routine,” Ereboam said dismissively. “All subjects are expected to be confused and alarmed. It is part of the process.”
With a gushing noise, the tubes began to fill with brown, syrupy liquid. Marie let out a cry, either of alarm or delight, as the hairless men were completely submerged. Although the eight subjects tried to swim higher as the fluid levels rose, soon they could no longer keep their heads above the surface. The gush of liquid stopped, and shadowy forms could be seen struggling in the murk. Ereboam did not move to stop the experiment.
“You’re drowning them?” Lady Margot said.
Standing at the base of the nearest tube, the doctor smiled reassuringly. “Once they inhale, they will fill their lungs with a highly oxygenated mixture. They will be able to breathe — after they fully surrender to the process. It is a lesson infused with spirituality, the need to put complete faith in something beyond their comprehension. To trust
“Hmm-ahh-ahh. I see how that would be effective.”
In the tubes, when all eight of the men stopped thrashing, bubbles drifted through the liquid. The subjects were inhaling the liquid and blowing air back out of their lungs.
“This also keys to the primitive programming in their brains, going back to before the species crawled out of the oceans,” Ereboam continued. “We expose our Twisting subjects to primordial conditions to bypass the clutter of human experience. In a sense, Twisting is a misnomer. I prefer to think of it as untwisting, a cleansing process by which we create a tabula rasa, a blank canvas upon which to perform our genetic arts.”
Ereboam raised his arms and pointed at the adjacent tubes, then the color of the liquid clarified to reveal the submerged subjects. “They look like fish in a tank,” Marie said. “Look at their lips.”
“Once they realize they are still alive, that they can breathe, we begin to change the chemical content, adding drugs that make them euphoric and therefore even more submissive. Soon, by repetition and by alternating the sensations of pain and fear, we will create a framework for their new mental template. Our template. The entire process requires years — which is why a true Twisted Mentat commands such a high price. More than half of the subjects fail.”
“They fail? Or they die?” Lady Margot asked.
Ereboam looked at her. “Failure is death. This is neither game nor diversion. We Tleilaxu have standards to uphold.”
“As do we, hmmm.” Fenring placed a paternal hand on the little girl’s shoulder. He himself had been training their daughter in highly sophisticated combat tricks, subtle ways of killing, and other nuanced niceties of assassination. Enhanced with Bene Gesserit mental disciplines from Lady Margot and the nanny, Marie was already as adept as an acolyte twice her age. “But we do not wish to put this dear child at such risk.”
Margot added, “The Bene Gesserit breeding program has proceeded for generations, and our daughter is the culmination of centuries of careful manipulation. She is a remarkable specimen.”
The Tleilaxu researcher surprised them by snorting. “We know of your Sisterhood’s breeding effort, and we Tleilaxu have long shared your goal of creating a Kwisatz Haderach.”
“Why would the Bene Tleilax need a Kwisatz Haderach?” Lady Margot said with a note of scorn in her voice.
“The same reason your Sisterhood wants one. Your plans may have culminated before ours, but they failed utterly. Look what the witches have set loose upon the universe.”
“And your plans would do better?” Margot looked at the albino man. Her own husband was a failed Kwisatz Haderach as well, but as she saw it, his “failure” had ultimately proved more triumphant than the alleged “success” of Paul Atreides.
“The fate of our candidate remains to be seen,” Ereboam said. “Our most promising specimen has not yet reached his culmination. We need a few more months, and then we will have a Kwisatz Haderach of our own.”
Fenring looked at his wife, the two of them sharing the same thought. A Tleilaxu-bred Kwisatz Haderach? That was another secret project they would have to insist on seeing.
8
I do not fear poisons or predators, daggers or natural hazards. It is people I fear, for they are harder to defend against, and much more difficult to understand.
Construction teams had erected tall towers and monuments throughout Arrakeen, many of them named after Alia Atreides, the unusual — and some said holy — sister of Muad’Dib. Though she had never asked for this honor, Alia found it amusing.
In the ongoing citadel project north of the city, Whitmore Bludd had designed an entire wing supposedly with her in mind, although the foppish Swordmaster had an unrealistic view of Alia’s interests and preferences. Unable to change his perception that she was not a mere child, he chose gentle pastel colors for her, elaborate and flowery archways, and rooms filled with sugar-and-spice ornamentation. Toys, playthings. As if she were a normal little girl.
Instead, Alia moved into a set of chambers that Bludd had labeled “guest quarters.” Her extravagant apartments remained unoccupied, much to the Swordmaster’s dismay; they could be turned into warehouses, as far as Alia was concerned.
Inside the room she had chosen, a large plaz-walled tank contained scuttling black creatures, seventeen of them. She could sit for hours watching their movements under an artificial heat panel. They loved to hide in the shadows or sun themselves on the decorative rocks. For the most part, the black scorpions rarely moved, but crouched waiting for prey, which Alia provided whenever it was feeding time. The scorpions sat motionless until some impulse triggered an instinctive reaction, a genetically programmed movement and response.
From her memories of countless lifetimes, Alia knew that children generally liked to have pets. Thus, she made a conscious decision to keep some of her own, though a part of her realized that she did it for the wrong reasons.
Alia removed the lid and leaned over the tank. She could identify all seventeen individual arachnids, although she had not taken the frivolous step of naming them. She wasn’t that much of a little girl.
Two of the creatures moved, while the rest remained motionless. Sometimes she would watch them fight
