chemicals from writhing torture victims. Over the years, Uxtal had learned that certain types of pain led to differences in the purity and potency of the resulting substance. Hellica rewarded him for that sort of research and analysis.
Unsettled by Vladimir's near tantrum, he threw himself into the work, snapping orders to his assistants, monitoring the dull-eyed fear on the faces of the strapped victims being milked for pre-spice chemicals. At least they were cooperating. He wasn't going to give lizardlike Ingva anything to report to the Matre Superior.
Hours later, exhausted and anxious for a few moments of privacy in his quarters where he could complete his ritual ablutions and prayers, then mark off another day that he had survived, Uxtal left the pain laboratories. By now, the boy Vladimir had either gotten himself into trouble or found the Matre Superior to exchange cruelties with her. Uxtal didn't care.
Though weary, he headed toward the smaller laboratory section to check on the pregnant axlotl tank one final time, but the young Baron blocked the way, standing with his hands on his hips. 'I want another kitten. Right now.'
'I already said no.' Uxtal tried to go around, but the nine-year-old moved to block his way again. 'Or something else. A lamb! Get me a little lamb. Sligs are boring.'
'Stop this,' Uxtal snapped. Drawn by the commotion of voices, Ingva slinked out of the torture wing and watched them hungrily. He looked away from her, swallowing hard.
When the boy saw the old Honored Matre spy, his attention spun in another direction, like a projectile ricocheting off thick armor. 'Ingva told Matre Superior Hellica that my sexuality is very powerful for my age—and quite perverse.' He seemed to know the comment would be provocative. 'What did she mean by that? Do you think she wants to bond with me?'
Uxtal looked over his shoulder. 'Why don't you ask her yourself? In fact, why don't you go do that right now?' As he tried to step around the boy yet again, he became aware of an unusual sound in the laboratory. Splashing noises came from somewhere by the axlotl tank.
Startled, Uxtal roughly shoved Vladimir aside and hurried toward the tank.
'Wait!' the boy said, hurrying to catch up.
But Uxtal had already reached the mounded female form. 'What have you done?'
He ran to the flex-tube nutrient connections. Ripped loose, they were gushing red and yellow fluids all over the floor. The sympathetic nervous system in the womb-body caused the jellylike flesh to shudder. A thin squealing and sucking sound came from the slack remnants of its mouth, an almost-conscious sound of desperation. A surgical knife from the pain-encouragement rooms lay on the floor. An alarm klaxon went off.
In panic, Uxtal struggled to reconnect the lines. He whirled to grab the smug child by the shirt and shook him. 'Did you do this?'
'Of course. Don't be stupid.' Vladimir kicked at Uxtal's groin, but succeeded only in hitting his thigh, though it was enough to make the Tleilaxu release him. The boy ran off, shouting, 'I'm going to tell Hellica!'
Torn between his fears of the Matre Superior and the Face Dancers, Uxtal looked in dismay at the tank's mangled life-support systems. He couldn't let the womb-and the critically important child within—die. That poor baby… and poor Uxtal! Drawn by the alarm, two lab assistants rushed incompetent ones, thankfully, instead of Ingva. Maybe if they worked swiftly enough… Under Uxtal's direction, he and his assistants frantically installed new flexible tubing, refilled the reservoirs, pumped in stimulants and stabilizing drugs, and reconnected the monitors. He wiped sweat from his grayish brow.
Ultimately, Uxtal saved the tank. And the unborn ghola.
VLADIMIR THOUGHT he'd been clever. In contrast, his punishment was swift, severe, and, for him, most unexpected.
He went directly to Hellica to tattle on Uxtal for his abuses, but the Matre Superior's face was already flushed hot with anger. Ingva had been swifter, racing to the Palace to make her damning report.
Before the boy could tell his lying version of the story, Hellica grabbed him by the front of his shirt with fingers as sharp and strong as a tiger's claws.
'For your sake, you little bastard, the new ghola had better not be harmed.
You wanted to kill him, didn't you?'
'N-no. I wanted to play with him. Right now.' Terrified, Vladimir backed up a step. He tried to look as if he might cry. 'I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was trying to make him come out. I'm tired of waiting for my new playmate. I was going to cut him free. That's why I took the knife.'
'Uxtal interrupted him before he could succeed.' Ingva slinked out from behind a hanging where she had been eavesdropping.
Her eyes flashing orange, the Matre Superior gave him a stern lecture. 'Don't be such a fool, boy! Why would you destroy when you can control? Is that not a better revenge against House Atreides?'
Vladimir blinked; this had not occurred to him.
Hellica discarded him, as if he were a bothersome insect. 'Do you know what exile means? It means you're going back to Dan—or wherever Khrone wants to stash you away. As soon as I can obtain a Guild-ship, you will be in his hands.'
'You can't! I'm too important!' Even at a young age, his twisted little mind was beginning to understand plots and schemes, but he didn't yet grasp the deep intrigues of the politics that prevailed all around him.
Hellica silenced him with a threatening frown. 'Unfortunately for you, the ghola baby is far more important than you are.'
Part VI: FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER ESCAPE FROM CHAPTERHOUSE
1
The human body can achieve many things, but perhaps its greatest role is to act as a storage mechanism for the genetic information of the species.
His ghola son was himself… or would be, once the memories within were brought to the surface. But that could not happen for several years yet. Scytale hoped his aging body would last long enough.
Everything the Tleilaxu Master had experienced and learned in countless sequential lifetimes was stored in his own genetic memory and reflected in the same DNA that had been used to create the five-year-old Scytale duplicate who stood before him. This was actually a clone, not a true ghola, because the cells had been taken from a living donor. The child's predecessor was not dead. Yet.
But old Scytale could feel the increasing physical degeneration. A Tleilaxu Master should not fear death, because it had not been a real possibility for millennia-not since his race had discovered the means to immortality through ghola-reincarnation. Though his ghola child was flourishing, he was still much too young.
Year by year, the inevitable march of death paraded through his body's systems, making his organs function less efficiently than they once had.
Planned obsolescence. For millennia, the Masheikh elite of his race had met in secret councils, but never had they imagined a holocaust such as they now faced-such as Scytale now faced, as the last living Master.
Realistically, he did not know what he could accomplish alone. With unrestricted access to axlotl tanks, Scytale might have restored other Masters like himself, the true geniuses of his race. Cells of the last Tleilaxu Council had been stored within his nullentropy capsule, but the Bene Gesserit refused to consider creating gholas of those men. In fact, after the uproar surrounding the baby Leto II, as well as an ominous vision Sheeana claimed to have received in Other Memory, the witches had halted the entire ghola program. 'Temporarily,' they said.
