rank that he could not quite identify. He felt Margot’s back tense against his. She had noticed, too. An
Ereboam disappeared into the fog, though Fenring could hear him murmuring something reverential in a low tone. Prayers? “No need to worry,” the doctor said. “This fog is specially tuned to the subject’s metabolism, and has made him sleepy.”
When the mist thinned, Fenring saw the albino researcher standing next to what at first appeared to be an amorphous shape on the floor. Then he realized it was a classically proportioned human crouched over, head down, wearing a beige filmsuit that clung to his body and showed his muscles as if they had been carved by a master sculptor. One of the Twisting subjects they had seen in the laboratories? Fenring didn’t think so.
The crouched figure straightened, as if unfolding his body from a chrysalis. The filmsuit hid most of his skin except for his bare hands, feet, and head. The Count noticed his wife’s gaze move over the muscular form up to the strikingly handsome face, aquiline nose, and somewhat haughty pout. But Fenring could see past the physical perfection, and he was certain that Margot did as well. The mysterious man’s acorn brown eyes revealed a strange inner torment.
“Meet Thallo.” Ereboam’s voice was filled with pride. “Our Kwisatz Haderach.”
Lady Margot’s green-gray eyes took on a sudden, intense interest. “From your own genetic map?”
When speaking to a female, the researcher’s tone automatically became condescending. “Using sophisticated laboratory techniques instead of the unpleasant vagaries of natural human reproduction, we have achieved in only a few accelerated generations something that you Bene Gesserits could not accomplish in thousands of years.”
“Hmm, that remains to be seen.” Fenring walked slowly around Thallo, looking for flaws. “He looks, ahh, younger than Paul Atreides. He is what, seventeen or eighteen years old?”
Ereboam smiled. “Chronologically, Thallo is only nine, but we accelerated his physical growth. He has made a great deal of progress. In some respects he is quite polished, but in others he is somewhat raw and unrefined.”
Reaching up, Ereboam smoothed the dark, wavy hair on the back of Thallo’s head, a gentle, caring motion. The eyes of the strange creation grew more calm as the doctor spoke. “He is the pinnacle of Tleilaxu genetic accomplishment. Our Kwisatz Haderach possesses untapped mental and even prescient abilities that we can hardly begin to fathom.”
“Can it speak?” Fenring asked.
“I can speak better than the greatest orators in history,” Thallo said, in an erudite tone, with perfect diction. “I know all of the facts in every encyclopedic work in the Imperium. I am a Mentat with enhanced computational abilities. I could debate with all of you simultaneously, and defeat every argument.”
Ereboam brought a rectangular biscuit out of a pocket of his smock and handed the treat to Thallo, as if he were a pet. The creature chewed, fixing a hard gaze on Count Fenring. Between bites, Thallo said, “And I wish to inform these guests that I am not an
“Much more than a human being,” Ereboam asserted. “What better way to take down Emperor Paul- Muad’Dib than with our own superman?”
“Um-m-m-m-ah,” Fenring said. “Your champion would charge into the throne room and throw cookies at him?” Thallo smiled as he chewed.
14
Making a true decision requires more than cursory data. The correct choice must trigger feelings and sensations. The process is instinctive.
In the evenings, away from public appearances and closed-door meetings, Irulan relished her quiet time — but did not relax. She sat upon the billowing softness of her immense four-post bed, surrounded by the comforts that supposedly befitted her royal station. She heard only a few voices in the corridor outside, the ever-present female guards Paul had set at her door, not the normal beehive of activity that surrounded her husband.
This was her most productive time for writing.
According to Bludd’s master plan, her private apartments had been decorated with trappings stripped out of her cabin in Shaddam’s captured ship from the plains of Arrakeen. The Emperor’s ship and the now-defeated Sardaukar had all belonged to House Corrino — a legacy that had been mismanaged for years by her father, as she’d come to realize with great sadness. Her own lot in life, as a figurehead princess and the symbolic wife of a usurper, was a constant reminder of Shaddam’s failures. However, Irulan now held a role of greater potential significance than any position her Corrino destiny had offered.
A year earlier, Paul had allowed her to reestablish contact with the exiled Imperial family on Salusa Secundus, though Irulan did not doubt that he scanned every communique for evidence of conspiracies. That was to be expected. With his innate truthsense, he should realize that she had no intention of overthrowing or assassinating Emperor Muad’Dib in order to bring her father back into power. But she could not blame him for being cautious.
Even from isolated Salusa, the disgraced remnants of House Corrino controlled a network of spies, smugglers, and black-market traders who could tap into the hidden wealth that the Padishah Emperor had buried in the long years of his reign. Nevertheless, her father probably had only limited and inaccurate information about what was really happening in the rest of the ravaged Imperium. Shaddam could never comprehend the scope of the Jihad, as Irulan did.
She was sure that Earl Memnon Thorvald had been in contact with her father, but Irulan knew the rebellious lord had no great love for Shaddam either. After all, Thorvald’s sister Firenza had not survived long after marrying the Emperor, so many years ago….
Meanwhile, she concentrated on news from her family. Supposedly meaningless things. Wensicia had given birth to a healthy son, Shaddam’s first grandchild and only male heir. This event seemed to have brought her father little joy, however, since it could not restore the Corrino bloodline to the throne, as a son from Irulan and Paul would have done.
In her role here at Arrakeen, Irulan had sent formal, though heartfelt, congratulations and gifts for baby Farad’n, but her sister’s reply had been surprisingly cruel and accusatory. Wensicia insisted that the entire family considered her a traitor for staying with the usurper and writing his propaganda. “Sleeping with the enemy,” she called it.
Irulan could only smile bitterly at that.
Even sweet and innocent Rugi felt that way. Her youngest sister had scribbled a horrid little note as a postscript: “We all hate you for doing this to us! You don’t know what it’s like here.” That part had stung the most. Rugi had always been affectionate toward her.
Dismayed, Irulan looked past the billowing Nonian lace of her bed canopy to the handmade furnishings, the antique Balut lamps, and the priceless paintings. On the surface, Paul denied her no luxuries, no trappings of wealth or noble station. The wife of an Emperor was expected to have such things.
Despite the finery around her, Irulan felt an emptiness in her soul. She tried to imagine she was a girl again, bright-eyed and full of hope for the future, instead of a lonely, childless woman in her mid-thirties.
The Sisterhood still demanded that she preserve his bloodline by conceiving a child, and she wanted the same thing for herself, as much as the Imperium needed an heir.
But Paul had sworn in public that he would never share Irulan’s bed, further shaming her while demonstrating devotion to his desert concubine, though even Chani had not given him a second son.
Regardless, through the writing process Irulan had come to understand and even respect Paul’s relationship with Chani. The depth of the feelings those two shared went as deep as the sands of Arrakis, beyond the reach of politics or other outside influence. Irulan noticed how they gazed into one another’s eyes and exchanged wordless thoughts. They had their own communication system, a private language that genuine lovers shared. The
