The Winds of Dune (17 page)

Primly, Wanna walked over to a comfortable well-lit spot near the outer wall, folding her hands in front of her. “The human psyche is complex, Wellington. Understanding it takes a long time.” She had short auburn hair, a small mouth, and thin lips that could quirk into a rare but radiant smile. “I’d like to ask you about Rhombur and Tessia Vernius. Since you are the Earl’s personal physician, you would know the answers.”

Yueh rubbed fingers along his drooping mustache, pursed his dark lips into a faint frown. “Is this your own curiosity, Wanna, or something the Sisterhood asks? Is that why the Sisters came here?”

“Oh, Wellington, my own curiosity benefits my Sisters.”

He tried not to sound defeated. “What is it you need to know?” Inside, he could already feel his walls rebuilding.

“Earl Rhombur’s cyborg enhancements are functioning properly? His life is relatively normal now?”

“As normal as it can be. Considering the amount of surviving cellular material I had to work with after the accident, Rhombur’s components function remarkably well.”

She continued, as if she had memorized a list of questions. “And what about the Lady Tessia? Bronso was born almost a dozen years ago, well after Rhombur’s accident. Can they have more children?”

“Tessia has no desire to, and Rhombur isn’t capable.”

“She is still fertile, but Rhombur is sterile?”

Yueh heard himself talking, the words escaping in a rush from his mouth. He longed to restore his intimate connection with her. “Bronso is not Rhombur’s biological son. Genetically, the father is his half brother, Tyros Reffa—the bastard son of old Emperor Elrood IX and Lady Shando Balut. Rhombur and Reffa had the same mother.” Unable to keep the alarm from his voice, Yueh added quickly, “The boy doesn’t know. We’ve kept the matter private. You know the prejudice against any artificial means of conception.”

Why did I reveal that to her?
His expression hardened. “It’s much like the prejudice against repairing damaged body parts with my cyborg components. The repairs I made to
you
demonstrated the potential of my work.” He felt the hurt growing inside him again. “You should have been able to conceive a child.”

Wanna sounded like a stranger as she said to him now, “Some things are not to be, Wellington. Be satisfied with what we have.”

He had always wanted a family, but early in their marriage Wanna had suffered a severe accident that damaged her reproductive organs. As she healed, Yueh had succeeded in replacing her injured tissue and organs so that she
was
capable of bearing children—in theory. But it had never happened. . . .

Now, sudden questions appeared in his mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers, but he spoke before he could stop himself. “Tell me the truth. Did the Sisters
instruct
you not to conceive?”

Wanna retained her calm demeanor for a moment longer, before it crumbled. Despite their years apart, he knew her well enough to read the subtle changes, the flickers of her expression. “Oh, I
conceived
, Wellington. I have delivered four children—offspring that the Bene
Gesserit demanded of me, important bloodlines, necessary genetic combinations.” Her body shuddered, and he held her woodenly, afraid to move, startled by her revelations. He couldn’t even express his disbelief . . . but he knew with a sinking sensation that she was telling the truth.

“My replacement parts functioned perfectly . . . but your bloodline, my love, did not fit into the Sisterhood’s plans.” She looked at him with anguished eyes. “I am so sorry. I could not . . .”

He knew she wanted him to pretend that he understood and accepted the realities of being married to a Bene Gesserit. But he froze, wrestling with the shock. “You’ve had . . . four children?”

“They were taken away from me as soon as they were born. I never stopped thinking of you, but I had to block off my feelings, shield myself. That is how the Bene Gesserit trained me to handle emotions, and now . . . I don’t know if I even remember what I once felt for you.” Leaving him speechless, stiffly trying to regain her composure, Wanna tried to pull away. “I should go.”

Shaken and nervous, he clutched her tightly. “So soon?”

Wanna looked at him, and her expression melted again. “No, not just yet. I can stay with you tonight.”

Of course we take substantial risks. That is how we live. Alas, that is also how we die
.

—
EARL DOMINIC VERNIUS OF IX

F
rom his mother, Paul had learned how to concentrate on his body, from the tiniest muscles to his whole being, aware of every nerve, isolating the smallest sensations. He could meditate and focus his attention on a problem for as long as it took to solve it.

Bronso Vernius, though, was unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. His interest shifted repeatedly. He had never done well in controlled study atmospheres with filmbooks or dreary instructors; rather, the eleven-year-old preferred to learn by asking questions of his father inside the Grand Palais. In that manner he learned of poisonings and murders and artificial spice manufacturing, of the Tleilaxu takeover on Ix and Prince Rhombur seeking sanctuary on Caladan . . . of his father’s horrific injuries and how Dr. Yueh had reassembled him with cyborg parts.

Paul had first met the copper-haired young Bronso when the Vernius party came to attend Duke Leto’s disastrous wedding to Ilesa Ecaz. The other boy was intense and interesting, and perhaps a bit odd. Though Paul had come to Ix to study, as well as to experience, a new culture, his companion had an entirely different agenda. “Are you ready to be scared, Paul? Really scared?”

“How?” He knew Gurney and Duncan would try to stop him if he exposed himself to danger. And he had only just arrived.

Bronso rose from the study table inside his quarters, pushed aside filmbooks listing summaries and statistics of the numerous planets in the Imperium. “By climbing the buildings—from the outside. Are you ready?”

“I’ve climbed sea cliffs on the Caladan coast.” Paul paused. “Do you bother with harnesses and equipment, or should we do it freehand?”

The other boy laughed. “I like you, Paul Atreides! Sea cliffs! You’ll be crying like an infant when I get done with you.” From his personal equipment locker, he retrieved a set of traction pads and a suspensor harness, which he tossed to Paul. “Here, take mine. They’re already broken in.” He rummaged around until he found a new set for himself and unsealed the packaging.

Paul followed his friend through corridors and passages to an open balcony so high up on the cavern ceiling that air currents whistled around them. With an extended finger, Bronso traced their route to a support beam, then to an adjacent walkway, and then onto a dangling roof. “See the line we can take, from there, to there, and if you’ve got the stamina for it we’ll circle back to the Grand Palais.”

As the other boy donned his equipment, Paul studied the traction pads that Bronso had used frequently. Some of the seams looked freshly split, as if from the delicate touch of a vibrating blade. Though unfamiliar with the equipment, his instinct told him to look more closely. “Something isn’t right here.” He tugged at a seam, and it easily ripped away. “Look, this would have failed as soon as I got out onto a rock face!”

Bronso scowled at the pad. “I climb with that equipment almost every day. It’s always been reliable before.” He poked at it. “This was tampered with.”

“Is someone trying to kill you?” Though the question seemed melodramatic, Paul had been caught up in other deadly feuds and rivalries.

Bronso laughed—a bit too loudly. “The Technocrat Council would be very happy if the only Vernius heir suffered an ‘accident.’ They’ve tried to arrange something unpleasant for my father, but they’ve never targeted me before.”

“We’ve got to report this.” Paul remembered the careful training he had undergone from Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho. Poison snoopers, personal shields, guards . . . it was a way of life for noble families in the Landsraad.

“I’ll show this to my father, but Bolig Avati is too clever to leave any proof. Still, this is an escalation that will not make my parents happy.”

Paul said with great confidence, “Thufir Hawat told me that once you’re aware of a threat, you have done half the work of defeating it.”

A human being can become a terrible weapon. But all weapons can backfire
.

—
Bene Gesserit Acolytes’ Manual

T
essia often spent the darkest, quietest hours of night alone in their private chambers, because Rhombur needed little sleep, and the restless cyborg leader spent his nights walking through the ceiling tunnels of Vernii, and across the transparent walkways that connected the stalactite structures.

She awoke out of a troubled sleep to a deep, foreboding darkness, and a sensation that something was wrong. As she blinked, Tessia was startled to realize that someone stood near her—an intruder! Her dark-adapted pupils widened as she opened her mouth, sucked in a breath to shout.

A command uttered with the perfect precision of Voice chopped across her consciousness like an axe blade. A female voice. “
Silence!
”

Tessia’s larynx shut down, her vocal cords locked. Even her lungs refused to exhale. As a Bene Gesserit, she’d been taught how to resist Voice, but this aural blow had been delivered by a powerful expert, someone who had gauged Tessia, measured her, and knew her precise weak points.

As her eyes adjusted, she discerned the looming form of Reverend Mother Stokiah. Tessia felt like an insect specimen pinned to a mounting board by a long needle. She wanted badly to scream, but her voluntary muscles had shut down.

Stokiah leaned closer, her breath soft as a whisper. “You have been deluded into believing that you have freedom of choice.
Stand
.”

Tessia’s body swung itself out of her bed, like a puppet. Her legs straightened, and her knees locked as she stood before the Reverend Mother.

“The Sisterhood’s rules countermand the wishes of the individual. You have always accepted this. You need to be reminded of your important, yet minuscule, place in our world . . . the
Bene Gesserit
world.”

Tessia managed to rasp, surprising herself with her own strength, “
Refuse
.”

“You cannot refuse. I already made that clear.” The wrinkles on Stokiah’s face were a map of black fissures in the gloom. “You have always had a purpose to serve, but now I have another use for you. The Sisterhood cannot allow open defiance without consequences. Therefore everyone must see your guilt, and you must
feel
it. You must
know
it.” Her papery lips formed a smile. “The Sisterhood has developed a new weapon, a technique that combines both psychological and Jongleur training. I am one of the first, and most powerful, Bene Gesserit guilt-casters, and you
will
obey.”

Guilt-casters . . . women able to manipulate thoughts and emotions to magnify a person’s own doubts and regrets and reflect them back like a lasbeam ricocheting off a mirror. Tessia had thought them only a frightening rumor leaked by the proctors in order to compel unruly acolytes.