Bene Gesserits had not brought her from the new axlotl tanks. 'Not at this time,' they'd said. Of course they could always do so later, but Leto II would remain separated in years from a person who should have been his twin, his other half. He felt sorry for the boy's needless pain.
Drawn together by their shared past, as well as their own instincts, Paul and six-year-old Chani sat side by side. He hunkered down on the floor, studying the layout. A holo blueprint shimmered in the air, giving far more detail than he needed. He focused on the structural walls, the main parts of the complex that was the largest man-made structure ever built.
Duncan knew that Garimi's assignment for the children had many layers of purpose, some artistic, some practical. By making a scaled-down replica of Muad'Dib's Grand Palace, these gholas could touch history. 'Tactile sensations and visual stimuli evoke a different understanding than mere words and archival records,' she had explained. Most of the eight gholas had been inside the actual structure in their previous lives; maybe this would feed their inner memories.
Though too small to help, Leto II could walk about clumsily and observe with fascination. Only a year earlier, Garimi and Stuka had tried to kill him in the creche. Placid and interested, Leto II spoke little, but showed a frightening level of intelligence and seemed to absorb everything around him.
The toddler sat down on the sandy floor and rocked back and forth in front of the Palace's projected main entrance, holding his knees. The two-year-old seemed to understand certain things as well as the other children did, perhaps even better.
Thufir Hawat, Stilgar, and Liet-Kynes worked together to raise the outer fortress walls. They laughed and played, seeing the task as a game instead of a lesson. Since reading of his original heroic life, Thufir had developed a bold personality. 'I wish we'd just find the Enemy and get on with it. I'm sure the Bashar and Duncan could fight them.'
'And now they have us to help,' Stilgar said brashly and nudged his friend Liet, inadvertently knocking some of the blocks down.
Watching, Duncan muttered, 'We don't exactly have you—not the you we want.'
Jessica created more blocks from the sensiplaz, and Yueh dutifully helped her.
Chani paced the boundaries, marking the general outline projected on the plan.
Then she and Paul set up a scale representation of the huge Annex that had housed all the Atreides attendants and their families—thirty-five million of them, at one time! The records had not been exaggerated, but the scope was difficult for any person to grasp.
'I can't imagine us living in a home like that,' Chani said, pacing around the newly marked boundaries.
'According to the Archives, we were happy there for many years.'
She smiled mischievously, understanding much more than a girl should have.
'This time, can we just eliminate Irulan's quarters?'
Secretly hearing this, even Duncan chuckled.
The cells of Irulan, daughter of Shaddam IV, were among those in Scytale's treasure trove, but the med- center axlotl tanks would not produce her anytime soon. No other gholas were scheduled, though Duncan had mixed feelings to know that Alia would have been next. Garimi and her conservatives certainly hadn't complained about putting a cautious halt to the ghola project.
Inside the model Palace, the children blocked out an independent structure, the Temple of St. Alia of the Knife. The temple had supported a burgeoning religion around the living Alia, and its priesthood and bureaucrats had brought down Muad'Dib's legacy. Duncan saw the great louvered window through which Alia—possessed and driven mad—had thrown herself to her death.
Studying the blueprints again, the gholas—each wearing shaper gloves—worked the sensiplaz into a quick approximation of the Palace's framework. They extruded representations of the immense entrance pillars and the capitol arch, leaving the numerous statues and staircases for later, as finishing touches.
Accurately including all of the ornamentation, the gifts and adornments presented by pilgrims from hundreds of worlds conquered in Muad'Dib's jihad, would have been an impossible task. But that was another part of the training: Rub their faces in an impossible task to see how far they would carry it forward.
Tired of feeling like a voyeur, Duncan turned from the spyplaz and walked into the training room. Glancing at him, the gholas noted his presence, and then went back to work. But Paul Atreides walked right up to him.
'Excuse me, Duncan. I have a question.'
'Only one?'
'Can you tell me how our memories will be restored? What techniques will the Bene Gesserit use, and how old will we be when it happens? I'm already eight.
Miles Teg was only ten when they reawakened him.'
Duncan stiffened. 'They were forced to do that. A time of extremis.'
Sheeana had done it herself, using a twisted variation of sexual imprinting techniques. Miles had been in the body of a ten-year-old boy, with the buried mind of an old, old man. The Bene Gesserits were willing to risk scarring his psyche because they had needed his military genius to defeat the Honored Matres. The young Bashar had been given no say in the matter.
'Aren't we in a time of extremis right now?'
Duncan studied the front of the model palace. 'You need know only that the restoration of your memories will be a traumatic process. We know of no other way to accomplish it. Because you each have a separate personality'—he glanced around at the children—'the awakening will be different for each of you. Your best defense is to understand who you were, so that when the memories come flooding back, you're ready for them.'
Young Wellington Yueh, five years old, piped up in a wavering childish voice.
'But I don't want to be who I was.'
Duncan felt the heaviness in his chest. 'I'm sorry, but none of us has that luxury.' Chani always stayed close to Paul. Her voice was small but the words were large. 'Do we have to live up to the Sisterhood's expectations?'
Duncan shrugged and forced a smile. 'Why not exceed them?' Together, they continued to build the walls of the Grand Palace.
3
Our aimless wandering is a metaphor for all of human history. The participants in great events do not see their place in the overall design. Our failure to see the larger pattern, however, does not disprove that one exists.
Sheeana walked the sands again. Her bare toes sank into the soft, grainy powder. The enclosed air held brittle flint odors and the fertile, cinnamony smell of fresh melange.
She had still not forgotten the strange Other Memory vision in which she had spoken to Sayyadina Ramallo and received her cryptic warning about the gholas.
Be careful what you create. Sheeana had taken the admonition seriously; as a Reverend Mother, she could do nothing else.
But exercising caution was not the same as stopping entirely. What had Ramallo meant? Despite searching through her mind, she was unable to find the ancient Fremen Sayyadina again. The clamor was too loud. She did, however, again encounter the even-more-ancient voice of Serena Butler. The legendary Jihad leader offered much wise advice.
Inside the no-ship's kilometer-long great hold, Sheeana trudged across the stirred sand, not bothering to use the careful stutter-step of Fremen on Dune.
The captive worms instinctively knew she had entered their domain, and Sheeana could sense them coming.
While waiting for the worms to charge toward her in a froth through the dunes, Sheeana lay down on the
