'Why should they be?' Kiria said. 'They are coming, and nothing seems able to slow them.'
Searching, Murbella noted the general mark—a locus in space, poorly defined by only anecdotal coordinates—of the first encounter with the Enemy, where a long-dead Honored Matre named Lenise had stumbled upon the fringe outpost.
And now we are left to clean up the mess.
Maybe her beloved Duncan Idaho would survive far out there. She felt a pang for him in her heart. What if, at the end of fabled Kralizec, the only remnants of humanity were those few with Duncan and Sheeana aboard the no-ship? A life raft in the cosmos. She scanned the grand projection that filled the library. She had no idea where the vessel might be.
31
Each life is the sum total of its moments.
Duncan looked in on the ghola children as they engaged in a role-playing game inside one of the activity chambers. They had grown old enough now to show distinct personalities, to think and interact not only with each other but with the crew members. They understood their prior relationships and tried to deal with the oddities of their existence.
Genetically a grandmother to little Leto II, Jessica had bonded closely with him, but she acted more like his big sister. Stilgar and Liet-Kynes were close, as usual; Yueh tried to be friends with them, but he remained a perpetual outsider, though Garimi studied him very closely. Thufir Hawat seemed to have changed, matured, since his experiences on the planet of the Handlers; soon, Duncan expected the young warrior-Mentat to be very useful to their planning. Paul and Chani always stayed close to each other, though she seemed a veritable stranger to Liet, her 'father.'
So many living reminders of Duncan's pasts.
In her last assessment the Proctor Superior had offered her analysis that the Bene Gesserits should begin to awaken their memories. At least some of the ghola children were ready. Duncan felt a twinge of anxiety and anticipation.
As he turned to walk away, he saw Sheeana standing in the empty corridor, watching him with an enigmatic smile. He felt an involuntary flush of desire, followed by embarrassment. She had bonded him, broken him… saved him. But he would not let himself become trapped by her the way he had been bound to Murbella. He forced out the words. 'It is best if we keep our distance from each other. At least for now.'
'We're on the same ship, Duncan. We can't just hide.'
'But we can be careful.'
He felt burned by the sexual cauterization that had cured him of Murbella, but knew it had been necessary. His own weakness had made it necessary. He dared not let it happen again, and Sheeana had the power to ensnare him—if he let her. 'Love is too dangerous to play with, Sheeana. It is not a tool to be used.'
ONE LAST THING remained for him to do, and he couldn't avoid it any longer.
Duncan had retrieved all of Murbella's belongings. Master Scytale had carefully picked over them after Duncan had unceremoniously dropped them on the deck when the alarms rang. Duncan had demanded them back, then turned a deaf ear as the Tleilaxu Master insisted that most of the cells were too old, too long out of nullentropy storage, but the possibility of usable DNA fragments—Duncan had cut him off, walked away with the garments. He didn't want to hear any more, didn't want to know about the possibilities. All such possibilities were unwise ones.
He had tried to fool himself that he could just ignore the idea, make up his mind not to think about her anymore. Sheeana had freed him of his chains to Murbella… but, oh, the temptation! He felt like an alcoholic staring at an open bottle.
Enough. Duncan himself had to do the last of it.
He stared at the rumpled garments, the keepsakes, the few stray strands of amber hair. When he gathered everything in his arms, it was as if he held her—at least the essence of her, without the weight of her body.
His eyes misted over.
Murbella hadn't left much of herself behind. Despite all the time she'd spent on the no-ship with Duncan, she'd kept only a few temporary possessions here, never really calling it her home.
Remove the threat. Remove the temptation. Remove the possibility. Only then could he finally be free.
Marching down the corridors with intense concentration, he made his way to one of the small maintenance airlocks. Years ago, this was how they had ejected the mummified remains of Bene Gesserit Sisters into space during the memorial service. Now Duncan would perform another sort of funeral service.
He dumped the paraphernalia into the airlock booth and considered the rumpled debris of a past life. It seemed like so little, but with such great portent.
He stepped back and reached for the controls.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a strand of hair still clinging to his sleeve. One of Murbella's hairs had come loose from her garments, a single amber strand… as if she still wanted to cling to Duncan.
He plucked the hair with his fingertips, looked at it for a long, painful moment, and finally let it drift down among the other items. He sealed the airlock door and, before he could think, cycled the systems. The last breaths of air were evacuated, and the material was swept out into space.
Irretrievable.
He stared out into the emptiness, where the objects quickly disappeared from view. He felt immeasurably lighter… or perhaps that was just emptiness.
From now on, Duncan Idaho would rise above any temptations that were thrust in front of him. He would be his own man, no longer a piece to be moved around on someone else's game board.
32
At last, after our long journey, we have reached the beginning.
The Enemy ships cruised toward the Old Empire, thousands upon thousands of enormous vessels, each carrying weapons sufficient to sterilize a planet, plagues that could eradicate entire populations. Everything was going extremely well after so many millennia of planning.
Back on the central machine world, the old man had dropped his illusions. No more games or facades, only rigid preparations for the final conflict foretold both by human prophecy and extensive machine calculations: Kralizec.
'I assume you're quite pleased that you have already destroyed sixteen additional human planets on your march to victory.' The old woman had not yet dispensed with her guise.
'So far,' said the booming old man's voice that echoed from all buildings and all screens everywhere.
The structures in the endless machine city were alive and moving like an immense engine, tall towers and spires of flowmetal, enormous blocky constructions built to house substations and command nodes. With each new conquest, cities just like Synchrony would be built on planet after planet.
The old woman looked at her hands, brushed the front of her dress. 'Even these forms seem primitive to me, but I have grown rather fond of them. Perhaps accustomed is a more precise word.' At last, her voice faded, changed, and settled on an old familiar timbre. In her place stood the independent robot Erasmus, intellectual foil
