3
Do our enemies occur naturally, or do we create them through our own actions?
The very existence of the Leto II ghola was an offense to Garimi. Little Tyrant! A baby with the destruction of the human race in his genes! How many more reminders of Bene Gesserit shame and human failure must they face? How could her fellow Sisters refuse to learn from mistakes? Blind hubris and foolishness!
From the very beginning Garimi and her staunchly conservative allies had argued against the creation of these historical gholas, for obvious reasons.
Those figures had already lived their lifetimes. Many had caused great damage and turned the universe upside down. Leto II—the God Emperor of Dune who became known as the Tyrant—was the worst, by far.
Garimi shuddered to think of the unspeakably huge risks Sheeana was taking with all of them. Not even Paul Atreides, the long sought-after and yet uncontrolled Kwisatz Haderach, had caused as much damage as Leto II. Paul had at least maintained an element of caution, keeping part of his humanity and refusing to do the terrible things that his own son had later embraced.
Muad'Dib at least had the good grace to feel guilty.
But not Leto II.
The Tyrant had sacrificed his humanity from the beginning. Without remorse, he had accepted the awful consequences of merging with a sandworm and he forged ahead, plowing through history like a whirlwind, casting innocent lives around him like discarded chaff. Even he had known how hated he would be when he said, 'I am necessary, so that never again in all of history will you need someone like me.'
And now Sheeana had brought the little monster back, despite the risk that he might do even more damage! But Duncan, Teg, Sheeana, and others felt Leto II might be the most powerful of all the gholas. Most powerful? Most dangerous, instead! At the moment, Leto was just a one-year-old baby in the creche, helpless and weak.
He would never be this vulnerable again.
Garimi and her loyal Sisters decided to make their move without delay.
Morally, they had no choice but to destroy him.
She and her broad-shouldered companion Stuka slipped along the dim corridors of the Ithaca. In deference to ancient human biological cycles, Duncan the 'captain' had imposed a regular diurnal shifting of bright lights and dimness to simulate days and nights. Though it was not necessary to adhere to such a clock, most people aboard found it socially convenient to do so.
Together, the two women stalked around corners and dropped through tubes and lift platforms from one deck to the next. Now, as most of the passengers prepared for sleep, she and Stuka entered the silent creche near the expansive medical chambers. Two-year-old Stilgar and three-year-old Liet-Kynes were in the nursery, while the other five young gholas were with proctors. Leto II was the only baby currently in the creche, though the axlotl tanks were sure to create more, eventually.
Using her knowledge of the ship's controls, Garimi worked from the hall station to bypass the observation imagers. She wanted no record of the supposed crime that she and Stuka were about to commit, though Garimi knew she could not keep her secret for long. Many of the Reverend Mothers aboard were Truthsayers. They could ferret out the murderers with proven methods of interrogation, even if they had to question all the refugees aboard. Garimi had made her choice. Stuka, too, swore she would sacrifice her life to do what was right. And if the two of them didn't succeed, Garimi knew of at least a dozen other Sisters who would gladly do the same, given the chance.
She looked at her friend and partner. 'Are you ready for this?'
Stuka's wide face, though young and smooth, seemed to carry an infinite age and sadness. 'I have made my peace.' She took a deep breath. 'I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.' The two Sisters intoned the rest of the Litany together; Garimi found that it had never ceased to be useful.
With the surveillance imagers successfully deactivated, the pair entered the creche, using all of the Bene Gesserit stealth and silence they could manage.
Baby Leto lay in one of the small monitored cradles, by all appearances an innocent little child, looking so human. Innocent! Garimi sneered. How deceptive appearances could be.
She certainly did not need Stuka's assistance. It should be simple enough to smother the little monster. Nevertheless, the two angry Bene Gesserits shored up each other's confidence.
Stuka looked down at Leto and whispered to her companion. 'In his original life, the Tyrant's mother died in childbirth, and a Face Dancer tried to murder the twins when they were only hours old. Their father went off blind into the desert, leaving the babies to be raised by others. Neither Leto nor his twin sister were ever held warmly in their parents' arms.'
Garimi shot her a sour glance. 'Don't start going soft on me,' she husked.
'This is more than just a baby. In that crib lies a beast, not a mere child.'
'But we do not know where or when the Tleilaxu acquired the cells to make this ghola. How could scrapings have been stolen from the immense God Emperor? If that was truly where the cells came from, why wasn't he born as a half man, half sandworm? More likely, they kept secret samplings of the boy Leto's cells from before he underwent his transformation. That means this child is technically still an innocent, his cells taken from an innocent body. Even when he gets his memories back, he will not be the hated God Emperor.'
Garimi glowered at her. 'Do we dare take that risk? Even as children, Leto II and his twin sister Ghanima had special and awesome powers of prescience. No matter what else, this is still an Atreides. He still has all the genetic markers that led to two dangerous Kwisatz Haderachs. That cannot be denied!'
Her voice began to grow too loud. Glancing down at the stirring child, Garimi saw his bright eyes looking at her with a startling sentience, his mouth slightly open. Leto seemed to know why she was there. He recognized her… and yet he did not flinch.
'If he is prescient,' Stuka said uncertainly, 'then maybe he knows what we're going to do to him.'
'I was thinking exactly the same thing.'
As if in response, one of the monitoring alarms bleeped, and Garimi raced to the controls in order to bypass them. She could not allow a signal to alert the Suk doctors. 'Quickly! We have no more time. Do it now—or I will!'
The other woman picked up a thick pillow and raised it above the baby's face.
Garimi frantically worked at the alarm panel as Stuka pushed the pillow down to smother him.
Then Stuka screamed, and Garimi whirled to see a brief flash of tan segments, a writhing shape that rose up from the monitoring cradle. Stuka recoiled in panic. The pillow in her hands was shredded, its fabric spraying out in tatters.
Garimi couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her vision seemed to be doubled, as if two separate things were occurring in the same place at the same time. A wide-ringed mouth of tiny crystalline teeth lashed out from the crib, striking the broad-shouldered woman in the side. There was a splash of blood. Gulping panicked breaths, Stuka clutched at a gash that ripped through her robes and laid open the skin down to the ribs.
Garimi stumbled forward, but by the time she got to the small bed she saw only the quietly resting child Leto. The boy lay back, gazing up at her calmly with his bright eyes.
Ceasing her cries of pain, Stuka used her Bene Gesserit abilities to stop the flow of blood from the jagged tear in her side. She fought for balance as she reeled away from the crib, her eyes wide. Garimi looked from her back to the child in its cradle. Had she truly seen Leto transform into a sandworm?
There were no surveillance images. Garimi could never prove what she thought she had seen. But how else to explain Stuka's wound?
'What are you, little Tyrant?' Garimi saw no blood on the small fingers or mouth. Leto blinked back at her.
