through his body, landing in tumbling disarray on the rough lawn.
Thallo laughed at her astonishment “I’m too fast for you!” His lips moved as he spoke, but once more the voice did not seem to come from the right direction. “I am the Kwisatz Haderach. I can do anything.”
Marie brushed herself off, glanced over at the observers, whose expressions showed consternation. “How did you
His face remained cool, like a porcelain mask. “Does a magician reveal the secret of his tricks?”
“To his best friend, he would.”
“Friends.” He had a perplexed, troubled expression. Then he whispered, “I can’t tell you here.”
Thallo stood like a statue, exploring his own internal realms. What was he thinking? Was he performing Mentat calculations? His face had gone uncharacteristically blank, and though he stared back toward Marie, he didn’t seem to see her. His expression shifted, as if currents were ebbing and flowing in his psyche. She noticed how quiet the training field had grown. On the other side of the bluish grass, the observers seemed to be holding their breath.
“Follow me.” Abruptly adopting a childlike personality, Thallo shouted, “Hide and seek!” With that, he darted off. As she ran after him, Marie heard the lab technicians trying to keep up, and calling ahead for assistance. She saw a guard spring into action, running toward them from the right.
With his long, muscular legs and athletic ability, Thallo easily outdistanced the guard and the technicians. Marie kept up with him as she ran down a short slope and entered a moss-overgrown tunnel that passed beneath a walking bridge. In the shadows, Thallo ducked to his right and disappeared from view. She hurried after him into another tunnel, but to her surprise she heard him call from behind, “Not that way. Over here — now!”
Confused, she turned and saw him in low light, just inside the entrance of another tunnel. Thalidei was riddled with them, but he couldn’t possibly have moved so swiftly. “How did you get here?”
“More magic.” Then, whispering in her ear, Thallo added, “That was just an enhanced solido holo-image out there. I adapted their technology beyond what even the Tleilaxu think they can do. That’s why you couldn’t touch me. I have been waiting down here all the time.”
A light flickered out in the opposite tunnel as the guards pushed inside, angrily trying find them. They did not guess what Thallo had done to their own systems.
Thallo continued in an excited rush, “I can defeat any security and surveillance system they have. This time I will let them catch me, but only because I’m not ready yet.”
“Not ready for what?”
“We don’t have much time.” He whispered his confession to her. “By being so close to perfection, I can plainly see how far I fall short of the mark. Dr. Ereboam knows I am not the flawless Kwisatz Haderach. As soon as the other Masters realize it, they will terminate the experiment — and Ereboam as well. Then they will try again.”
Their pursuers came at them from different directions in the shadowy tunnels, shouting, shining lights. Looking meek and immature again, Thallo stepped forward and raised his hands in mock surrender.
THAT EVENING, THALLO disabled the security systems around him and used the same trick for Marie, leaving full-spectrum holos of them in their respective beds. Though the girl was uneasy about slipping past her unsuspecting parents, she calculated that it was a wise investment to see what her purported friend had in mind.
On a moonless night, the pair of playmates slipped away into silent and brooding Thalidei. They found a place to sit in the middle of a skeletal, abandoned construction site near the shore of the fetid-smelling lake, and they talked for much of the night. As they gazed back toward the flickering lights of the city, Marie continued her own work of understanding, and perhaps even shaping, the young man’s psyche as her parents had taught her, hoping to shift Thallo’s loyalty to
This Kwisatz Haderach candidate had more potential than she’d realized at first. Maybe he really could peer into the murky future as he claimed, and maybe he did know with absolute certainty that he was doomed to failure. But if so, he had a blind spot when it came to Marie, and a glaring weakness that she intended to exploit. Thallo was desperate to escape the clutches of the Tleilaxu, and Marie would help him do exactly that.
7
Danger is the background noise of my life. I cannot separate out a particular threat any more than you could hear a single pop of static in the midst of a lost signal.
The Great Surrender ceremony was planned with even more care and precision than any military strike in Paul’s Jihad. When she was not spending time with Rugi, Irulan kept an eye on the preparations, making suggestions from time to time. Armies of devoted volunteer servants, all cleaned up and given new household uniforms, had decorated the enormous citadel in its entirety. Immense banners hung from the cliff faces to the north.
The people of Arrakeen, from beggars to merchants to city guards, had pleaded for a chance to perform even the most menial activities, just so they could say they had been a part of the event. Several deadly knife fights had occurred as people fought over limited slots on the expanded staff.
Security around Paul had been further tightened. Before being allowed to attend the ceremony, every Landsraad representative was interrogated a second time to weed out possible threats. Paul’s Fedaykin security did indeed uncover two admittedly inept schemes to smuggle weapons into the Celestial Audience Hall. The would-be assassins’ planning had not factored in the sheer size of the chamber in which Muad’Dib would receive them all. None of their little weapons even had the range to reach the Emperor, unless they happened to be seated in the front few rows, and neither of the suspicious nobles had the social standing to be anywhere but the rear of the room. Now, instead of attending the ceremony, the two awaited further interrogation sessions in deep, stone- walled cells.
Irulan saw to it that her sister Rugi had one of the most prominent seats in the hall, right in the first row near the inlaid stone dais. Emperor Muad’Dib would sit in a newly carved elaccawood throne designed and built especially for the occasion. He said the elaccawood from Ecaz reminded him of the War of Assassins from so long ago.
Paul had installed two lower chairs on either side of the new ceremonial chair, one for Irulan, the wife in name only, and the other for Chani, the more significant wife of his heart. One step lower and in the front rested a child-sized but equally ornate chair for Alia. Thus, Muad’Dib was surrounded by three uniquely powerful women.
In an apparent contradiction, Paul had issued orders that — for safety — no one was to use a personal shield in the huge audience chamber. For centuries, the fear of the devastating pseudo-atomic consequences of a lasgun- shield interaction had been a cornerstone of the rules for all forms of warfare. No man would have overstepped those bounds, knowing that the blast would kill not only a target but himself, as well as cause inconceivable collateral damage.
But the emotions, fanaticism, and hatred spurred by his Jihad had lifted many such restraints. One person firing a cleverly concealed lasgun — even a tiny one — upon a shielded person could vaporize the huge palace, Muad’Dib and his entire family, and much of Arrakeen. An act of once-inconceivable brutality was now a very real possibility. There would be no active shields for the ceremony.
The Celestial Hall was a cavernous, vaulted chamber displaying the pinnacle of architectural finesse and ostentation. Familiar with the Imperial Palace on Kaitain, Irulan had not thought she could be impressed with grandeur, but this was beyond even her ability to absorb. Everyone from the lowest handler of the dead to the wealthiest monarch of a conquered world would feel cowed by this immensity. Yes, Whitmore Bludd had surpassed all expectations.
