streamlined; he had no black mask around his eyes. Instead, the dead Handler had grayish skin, dark, closeset eyes, and a pug nose.
Thufir recognized it from archival images—a Face Dancer!
The other Handler guard glared at them, then let his face revert to its neutral state. No longer human, but cadaverous… and blank.
Thufir's mind spun, and he wished desperately that he had Mentat abilities.
The Handlers were Face Dancers? All of them, or just a few? Handlers fought the Honored Matres, a common enemy. The Enemy. Handlers, Face Dancers, Enemy… This planet was not at all as it seemed.
He flashed a glance at the Rabbi. The old man had seen the same thing, and though his horror and surprise had made him freeze for an instant, he seemed to be drawing the same conclusions.
The powerful Handler drew himself up and came toward them with his stun-goad.
'We'd better run,' Thufir said.
19
Even the most delicate plans can be thrown into turmoil by an impetuous action from our supposed masters. Is it not ironic when they claim that Face Dancers are shiftless and changeable?
From inside the reconstructed Castle Caladan, Khrone pulled his strings, played his roles, and moved his game pieces. The Face Dancer myriad had manipulated the Ixians, the Guild, CHOAM, and the Honored Matre rebels who still ruled Tleilax. They had already achieved many milestones of success.
Khrone had traveled wherever he was needed, wherever he was summoned, but he always came back here to his pair of precious gholas. The Baron and Paolo. The work continued.
On Caladan, year after year, the group of machine-augmented observers sent regular reports to the distant old man and woman. Despite their bodily degeneration, they showed damnable patience, and still they'd found nothing to fault him for. Khrone was always watched by the patchwork observers, but never discovered. Even those hideous spies didn't know everything.
The summons came to him from the castle tower, interrupting his work and concentration. Khrone trudged up the stone staircase to see what the spies wanted. When they invoked the name of their masters, he could not refuse—not yet. He had to keep up appearances for a little while longer, until he could finish this part of his project. He knew the old man and woman understood the wisdom of his alternative plan. Since their efforts to find the lost no-ship kept failing, it made sense to pursue another route for obtaining their Kwisatz Haderach: the Paolo ghola.
But would the old man and woman allow him the necessary time to awaken the child? Paolo was only six, and it would be several years yet before Khrone could even begin the process of triggering his memories, saturating him with spice, preparing him for his destiny. The distant masters had made their demands and set their schedules. According to sparse reports from the patchwork observers, the old man and woman were ready to launch their vast fleet on a long-anticipated conquest of everything, whether the Kwisatz Haderach was ready or not…
Silent and stony, the hideous emissaries awaited him inside the high tower room. Just as Khrone reached the top of the winding stairs, the men turned with stuttering movements to face him. He put his hands on his hips. 'You are delaying my work.'
One emissary's head twitched from side to side, as if his neurons were firing conflicting impulses that caused his neck and shoulder muscles to spasm. 'This message—we cannot deliver—deliver this message—ourselves.' He balled his bony hand into a fist. Bubbles gurgled through the tubes. 'Deliver a message.'
'What is it?' Khrone crossed his arms. 'I have work to complete for our masters.'
The lead emissary opened his hands wide in a beckoning gesture. The other augmented humans stood motionless, presumably recording his every movement.
Khrone stepped into the gallery room while the pale-faced horrors retreated to the wall. He frowned. 'What is this—'
Suddenly his vision fuzzed around the edges, and the walls of the tower became indistinct. Reality shifted around him. At first Khrone saw the ethereal grid of the net, strands of connected tachyons completing an infinite chain. Then he found himself in another place, a simulation of a simulation.
He heard the sound of plodding hoofs, smelled manure, and listened to the creaking of rough wheels. Turning to his right, he saw the old man and old woman sitting in a wooden cart drawn by a gray mule. The beast walked along with infinite weariness and patience. No one seemed to be in a hurry.
Khrone had to take a step to follow the cart, which was loaded high with paradan melons, their olive green rinds mottled with splotchy patterns. He looked around, trying to understand the metaphor of their dream world. Far ahead, the road led toward crowded geometric buildings that seemed to move and flow together, an enormous city that looked alive. The perfectly angled structures were like patterns on a circuit board.
In the foreground the old man sat next to the woman on the buck-board, casually holding leather reins. He looked down at Khrone. 'We have news. Your time-consuming project is no longer relevant. We have no need for you or your Baron Harkonnen, or for the Paul Atreides ghola you have grown for us.'
The old woman chimed in, 'In other words, we will not have to wait so many years for your alternate Kwisatz Haderach candidate.'
The man lifted the reins and urged the mule to greater speed, but the beast ignored the command. 'It is time to be done with all this tinkering.'
Khrone walked along beside them. 'What do you mean? I am ever so close to—'
'For nineteen years, our sophisticated nets have failed to capture the no-ship, but now we've been fortunate. We have laid a primitive trap, an old-fashioned trick, and very soon the no-ship and all those aboard will be in our control. We will have what we need without resorting to your alternative Kwisatz Haderach. Your plan is obsolete.'
Khrone gritted his teeth, trying not to show his alarm. 'How did you find the ship after all this time? My Face Dancers—'
'The ship came to our planet of Handlers, and now we have them.' The old man smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. 'We are about to spring our trap.'
On the buckboard, the woman leaned back and said, 'When we have the no-ship and its passengers, we will control what the mathematical prophecy says we require. All of our prescient-level projections indicate that the Kwisatz Haderach is aboard. He will stand beside us during Kralizec.'
'Our massive fleets are about to launch a full-scale offensive against the worlds of the Old Empire. It will all be over soon. We have waited so long.' The old man snapped the reins again, looked smug.
The old woman's wrinkled lips curled upward in an apologetic smile.
'Therefore, Khrone, your time-consuming and costly plan simply isn't necessary anymore.'
Aghast, the Face Dancer took two more steps beside the cart to maintain his pace. 'But you can't do that! I have already awakened the Baron's memories, and the Paolo ghola is perfect, ripe for our purposes.'
'Speculation. We no longer need him,' the old man repeated. 'Once we seize the no-ship, we will have the Kwisatz Haderach.'
As if she were giving him a consolation prize, the woman reached into the back of the cart, selected a small paradan melon, and extended it to Khrone. 'It was nice to work with you. Here, have a melon.'
He took it, confused and disturbed. The illusion around him twinkled and washed out, fading until he found himself back in the tower room. He was empty-handed, his palms cradling a nonexistent paradan melon.
He found himself standing at the very edge of the high tower window, his feet on the brink. The plaz panes were open, and a gusty sea breeze slapped his face. The stomach-lurching drop extended to the rugged rocks at the tide line far below. Another half step, and he would plunge to his death.
Khrone pinwheeled his arms and staggered backward, collapsing to the flagstone floor with an embarrassing lack of grace.
