way for real civilization! The only plants he wanted to see were factory buildings sprouting up. He hated clean water spilling all over the place, wanted to see manufactory chemicals darken it and give it a sulfurous odor.
With a fiendish grin, Vladimir activated the gun and saw its muzzle glow orange in his hands. He touched the yellow button for the first-stage burner and watched a fine mist of concentrated incendiary particles spread over the meadow, the seeds of destruction. Moving to a safer area of rock, he tapped the red second-stage button, and an immense blowtorch vomited from the weapon's barrel. The flammable particles caught fire, transforming the entire meadow into a conflagration.
Beautiful!
Filled with malignant glee, he scurried to a higher vantage point and watched the flames burn and crackle, sending smoke and sparks hundreds of meters into the air. On the other side of the meadow, fire licked up the rock face as if searching for prey. It burned with such intensity that the heat cracked the stone itself, causing large chunks to fall into the peaceful pool in a loud cascade.
'Much better!'
The ambitious young man had seen holopictures of Gammu and compared them with images of its earlier incarnation as Giedi Prime under the Harkonnens. Over the centuries his ancestral home had been ruined, falling into a state of agricultural primitivity. The hard-fought signs of civilization had faded into soft squalor.
Now, with the cleansing odors of fire and smoke filling his nostrils, he wished he had bigger inferno guns and massive equipment: the means to reshape this entire planet. Given time, tools, and a proper workforce, he could turn backwater Caladan into a civilized place.
In the process he could torch vast expanses of the verdant landscape to make way for new manufactories, landing fields, strip mines, and metals-processing plants. The mountains in the distance were ugly, too, with their white-capped summits. He would like to flatten the whole range with powerful explosives, cover it with factories to produce goods for export. And profit! Now that would really put Caladan on the galactic map. He would not entirely destroy the ecosystem, of course—not the way the Honored Matres did with their planet-burners. In remote areas, unsuitable for industry, he would leave enough plants to maintain the oxygen levels. The seas would have to provide enough fish and kelp for food, because importing supplies from offworld was prohibitively expensive.
Caladan was such a waste now. How unadorned this world was… but how beautiful it could be with a little work. A great deal of work, actually. But it would be worth the effort, sculpting the homeworld of his mortal enemies—House Atreides—to his own vision. A Harkonnen vision.
These sensations and fantasies made him feel much, much better. Vladimir wondered if his memories might be ready to come back, a little at a time. He hoped so.
Hearing a clatter of stones behind him, he turned. 'I've been watching you at play,' Khrone said. 'I am pleased to see you thinking along correct lines, just as the old Baron Harkonnen did. You will need some of these techniques when we place Paolo in your care.'
'When do I get to play with him?'
'Your own survival depends on certain things. Understand this: helping us with the Paul Atreides ghola is the most important objective of your entire life.
He is the key to our many plans, and your survival depends upon how well he does.'
Vladimir formed a feral smile. 'It is my destiny to be together with Paolo, and to succeed with him.' He kissed the Face Dancer passionately on the mouth, and Khrone pushed him away.
Inside, Vladimir was not smiling at all. Even in this odd reenactment of his life, he still felt a need to strangle the Atreides ghola.
3
The meek see potential threats everywhere. The bold see potential profits.
More pain, more torture, more spice substitute. Still no success — not even anything that qualified as minor progress — in making melange with the axlotl tanks. In other words, business as usual.
Uxtal worked in his Bandalong laboratories, serving the needs of the Honored Matres. At least the two brats had been gone for years now, two less things to be terrified about. In his quarters, he had marked off more days and searched for ways to change his situation, to escape, to hide. But none of his solutions seemed remotely viable.
With the exception of God, he hated everyone who held authority over him.
Beyond the things his superiors wanted from him, beyond the excuses and lies he told them concerning his work, Uxtal searched for signs and portents, numerical patterns, anything to reveal to him the significance of his own holy mission. He had survived for so long in this nightmare that there must be a purpose behind it!
Since taking away the newborn Paul Atreides ghola, the Face Dancers had not commanded him to do anything further for them, yet the little researcher felt no relief. He was not free. They were sure to come back and demand something even more impossible. The Honored Matres still pressured him to produce real melange with axlotl tanks, so he performed extravagant sham experiments to demonstrate how hard he was working—though completely without success.
Now that the Face Dancers no longer seemed to care about him, he was completely at the mercy of Matre Superior Hellica. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and considered how difficult his life had been for so many years.
Since the New Sisterhood had conquered most of their other strongholds, the Honored Matres needed less and less of the adrenaline-based drug. That did not make life easier for him, though. What if the terrible women got it into their heads that they didn't require him at all anymore? He had achieved nothing new in quite some time and was sure they were convinced he would never make melange. (He had been convinced of that himself for several years now.) Focused on business above all else, Guildships and CHOAM merchants flew in and out of the devastated zones on Tleilax. Necessarily neutral in the conflict, they traded without playing politics. Honored Matres required certain supplies and offworld items, especially with their extravagant tastes in clothing, jewels, rare foods.
Once, the whores had been fabulously wealthy, controlling the Guild Bank and carrying valuable currencies with them as they swept across star systems and planets, leaving scorched earth in their wake. Uxtal did not understand them, could not comprehend what could have created such monsters or what had chased them out of the Scattering. As usual, no one told him anything.
WHEN THE GUILD Navigators approached Hellica and her entrenched rebels on Tleilax with a proposal, Uxtal just knew his nightmare was about to get worse.
A messenger arrived in Bandalong from a high-orbiting Heighliner. Hellica herself came to escort Uxtal past the suspicious stares of Ingva and the browbeaten lab workers. 'Uxtal, you and I will travel to meet with Navigator Edrik. He awaits us aboard the Heighliner.'
Though confused and intimidated, Uxtal could not argue. A Navigator? He gulped. He had never seen one of them before. He did not know why he was being singled out for such attention, but it couldn't be good news. How had the Navigator learned of his existence? Through prescience? He wondered if this might be an opportunity for him to escape, or get a reprieve… or be saddled with another impossible task.
Aboard the Guildship, though no one could overhear them inside the shielded chamber, Uxtal still did not feel safe. He stood silent, trembling, while Hellica strutted in front of the great armored tank. Behind the curved plaz walls, the mist-shrouded form of Edrik was so peculiar that Uxtal could not tell if the filtered voice carried an implied threat.
The Navigator spoke directly to him rather than to the Matre Superior, which was sure to set her off. 'The old Tleilaxu Masters knew how to create melange with axlotl tanks. You will rediscover this process for us.' The Navigator's distorted inhuman face floated behind the glass.
Uxtal groaned inside. He had already proved himself incapable of that.
