'I have given him that command,' Hellica said with a sniff. 'For many years he has failed me.'
'Then he must cease failing.'
Uxtal wrung his hands. 'It is not a trivial task. Worlds full of Tleilaxu Masters worked all throughout the Famine Times to perfect the complex process.
I am only one man, and the old Masters did not share their secrets with the Lost Tleilaxu.' He gulped again. Surely the Guild knew all this already?
'If your people are so ignorant, how did they create Face Dancers so superior to any previous ones?' the Navigator asked. Uxtal shuddered, knowing—now—that his people had not, after all, created Khrone or his superior breed of shape-shifters. Apparently, they had merely been found out in the Scattering.
'I am not interested in Face Dancers,' Hellica snapped. She had always seemed at odds with Khrone. 'I am interested in profits from melange.'
Uxtal swallowed. 'When the Masters all died, their knowledge died with the last one. I have been working diligently to reacquire the technique.' He did not remind them that the Honored Matres themselves were responsible for losing those secrets; Hellica did not take even implied criticism well.
'Then use the indirect approach.' Edrik delivered his words like a blow.
'Bring one of them back.'
The idea took Uxtal by surprise. He certainly had the ability to use an axiotl tank to resurrect one of the Masters, provided he had viable cells. 'But… they are all dead. Even in Bandalong, the Masters were killed many years ago.'
He remembered the boy Baron and Hellica gleefully feeding body parts to the sligs. 'Where am I to get cells for such a ghola?'
The Matre Superior stopped her tigerlike pacing and spun toward him as if to deliver a fatal thrust. 'That is all you needed? A few cells? Thirteen years and you did not tell me you required only a few cells to solve this problem?'
The orange in her eyes glowed like embers.
He quailed. The idea had never occurred to him. 'I did not think it a possibility! The Masters are gone—'
She growled at him. 'How stupid do you think we are, little man? We would not dispose of anything so valuable. If the Navigator's scheme will work—if we can create melange and sell it to the Guild—then I will give you the cells you need!'
Edrik's enormous head bobbed behind the plaz walls, and his bulging eyes glared at the quivering researcher. 'You accept this project?'
'We accept it. This Lost Tleilaxu man works for us, and survives only at our pleasure.'
Uxtal was still reeling from the revelation. 'Then… then some of the old Masters are still alive?'
Her quirk of a smile was frightening. 'Alive? After a fashion. Alive enough to provide the cells you need.' She gave the Navigator a perfunctory bow and grabbed Uxtal by the arm. 'I will take you to them. You must start right away.' AS THE MATRE Superior led him into a lower level of the commandeered Bandalong Palace, the stench grew worse with every step. He stumbled, but she dragged him along like a rag doll. Though Honored Matres decorated themselves with colorful fabrics and gaudy adornments, they were not particularly clean or fastidious. Hellica wasn't bothered by the stink wafting out of the dim chambers ahead; to her, it was the smell of suffering.
'They still live, but you won't get anything from their minds, little man.'
Hellica gestured for Uxtal to precede her. 'That isn't what we kept them for.'
With uncertain steps, he entered the shadowy room. He heard bubbling noises, the rhythmic hiss of respirators, gurgling pumps. It reminded him of the noisome lair of some foul beast. Ruddy light seeped from glowpanels near the floor and ceiling. He drew shallow breaths to keep himself from gagging as his eyes adjusted.
Inside he saw twenty-four small men, or what remained of them. He counted quickly before absorbing other details, searching for numerical significance.
Twenty-four-three groups of eight.
The gray-skinned men had the distinctive features of old Masters, higher-caste leaders of the Tleilaxu. Over many centuries, genetic drift and inbreeding had given the Lost Tleilaxu a somewhat distinctive appearance; to outsiders, the gnomish men all looked alike, but Uxtal easily noted the differences.
All of them lay strapped to flat, hard tables, as if they'd been mounted on racks. Though the victims were naked, so many tubes and sensors were connected to them that he could see little of their gaunt forms.
'The Tleilaxu Masters had a nasty habit of constantly growing gholas of themselves as replacements. Like regurgitating food again and again.' Hellica walked up to one of the tables, looked down at the slack-faced man there.
'These were gholas of one of the last Tleilaxu Masters, spare bodies to be exchanged when he grew too old.' She pointed. 'This one was called Waff and had dealings with the Honored Matres. He was killed on Rakis, I believe, and never had the chance to reawaken his ghola.' Uxtal was reluctant to approach.
Stunned, he looked at all the silent, identical men in the room. 'Where did they come from?'
'We found them stored and preserved after we had eliminated all the other Masters.' She smiled. 'So, we chemically destroyed their brains and put them to a better use here.'
The twenty-four sets of machinery hummed and hissed. Snakelike tentacles and tubes mounted to the groins of the mindless gholas began to pump; the strapped-down bodies twitched as the machinery made loud sucking sounds.
'Now the only thing they're good for is to provide sperm, should we ever decide to use it. Not that we particularly value your race's disappointing genetic material, but decent males seem to be in short supply here on Tleilax.' Scowling, she turned away as Uxtal looked on in horror. She seemed to be hiding something; he sensed she hadn't told him all of her reasons.
'They are like your axlotl tanks, in a way. A good use for the males of your race. Isn't it what you Tleilaxu have done to females for so many millennia?
These men deserved nothing better.' She looked down her nose. 'I'm sure you agree.'
Uxtal struggled to cover his revulsion. How they must despise us! To do such a thing to males—even to a Tleilaxu Master, his enemy—was monstrous! The words of the Great Belief made clear that God had created females for the sole purpose of reproduction. A female could serve God in no greater way than to become an axlotl tank; her brain was merely extraneous tissue. But to think of males in similar terms was inconceivable. If he hadn't been so terrified of her, he might have told Hellica a thing or two!
This sacrilege would surely bring down the wrath of God. Uxtal had loathed these Honored Matres before. Now he could barely keep himself from fainting.
The machines continued to milk the mindless males on the tables.
'Hurry up and take your cell scrapings,' Hellica snapped. 'I don't have all day, and neither do you. Guild Navigators aren't as pleasant to work with as I am.'
4
Axlotl tanks have brought forth gholas and melange, as well as Face Dancers and Twisted Mentats. Out in the Scattering, Lost Tleilaxu genetic work was most likely responsible for creating Futars and Phibians. What other axlotl-grown creatures did they concoct in those fecund wombs? What else remains out there that is still unknown to us?
In the two years since Gammu, one Honored Matre stronghold had fallen after another, a total of twelve smaller rebel enclaves eradicated in maneuvers that would have made even the best Swordmaster of Ginaz proud. Murbella's Valkyries had proven themselves time and again.
Soon, the last festering wound would be cauterized. Then humanity would be ready to face the far worse challenge.
