-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
boast with passable calm. He needed time to think! To plan!
"Perhaps you would like to know the price of our silence," Taraza suggested.
She took Waff's stony glare for agreement and added: "For one thing, you will
share with us everything you learn about those Scattering-spawned whores who
call themselves Honored Matres."
Waff shuddered. Much had been confirmed by killing the Honored Matres. The
sexual intricacies! Only the strongest psyche could resist entanglement in such
ecstasies. The potential of this tool was enormous! Must that be shared with
these witches?
"Everything you learn from them," Taraza insisted.
"Why do you call them whores?"
"They try to copy us, yet they sell themselves for power and make a mockery of
everything we represent. Honored Matres!"
"They outnumber you at least ten thousand to one! We have seen the evidence."
"One of us could defeat them all," Taraza said.
Waff sat in silence, studying her. Was that merely a boast? You could never be
sure when it came to the Bene Gesserit witches. They did things. The dark side
of the magic universe belonged to them. On more than one occasion the witches
had blunted the Shariat. Was it God's will that the true believers pass through
another trial?
Taraza allowed the silence to continue building its own tensions. She sensed
Waff's turmoil. It reminded her of the Sisterhood's preliminary conference in
preparation for this meeting with him. Bellonda had asked the question of
deceptive simplicity:
"What do we really know about the Tleilaxu?"
Taraza had felt the answer surge into every mind around the Chapter House
conference table: We may know for sure only what they want us to know.
None of her analysts could avoid the suspicion that the Tleilaxu had
deliberately created a masking-image of themselves. Tleilaxu intelligence had
to be measured against the fact that they alone controlled the secret of the
axlotl tanks. Was that a lucky accident as some suggested? Then why had others
been unable to duplicate this accomplishment in all of these millennia?
Gholas.
Were the Tleilaxu using the ghola process for their own kind of immortality?
She could see suggestive hints in Waff's actions . . . nothing definite but
highly suspicious.
At the Chapter House conferences, Bellonda had returned repeatedly to their
basic suspicions, hammering at them: "All of it . . . all of it, I say!
Everything in our archives could be garbage fit only for slig fodder!"
This allusion had caused some of the more relaxed Reverend Mothers around the
table to shudder.
Sligs!
Those slowly creeping crosses between giant slugs and pigs might provide meat
for some of the most expensive meals in their universe but the creatures
themselves embodied everything the Sisterhood held repugnant about the Tleilaxu.
Sligs had been one of the earliest Bene Tleilax barter items, a product grown in
their tanks and formed with the helical core from which all life took its
shapes. That the Bene Tleilax made them added to the aura of obscenity around a
creature whose multimouths ground incessantly on almost any garbage, passing
that garbage swiftly into excrement that not only smelled of the sty but was
slimy.
"The sweetest meat this side of heaven," Bellonda had quoted from a CHOAM
promotion.
"And it comes from obscenity," Taraza had added.
Obscenity.
Taraza thought of this as she stared at Waff. For what possible reason might
people build around themselves a mask of obscenity? Waff's flare of pride could
not be fitted neatly into that image.
Waff coughed lightly into his hand. He felt the pressure of the seams where he
had concealed two of his potent dart-throwers. The minority among his
councillors had advised: "As with the Honored Matres, the winner in this
encounter with the Bene Gesserit will be the one who emerges carrying the most
secret information about the other. Death of the opponent guarantees success."
I might kill her but what then?
Three more full Reverend Mothers waited outside that hatch. Doubtless Taraza
had a signal prepared for the instant the hatch was opened. Without that
signal, violence and disaster were sure to ensue. He did not believe for an
instant that even his new Face Dancers could overcome those Reverend Mothers out
there. The witches would be on full alert. They would have recognized the
nature of Waff's guards.
"We will share," Waff said. The admissions implicit in this hurt him but he
knew he had no alternatives. Taraza's brag about relative abilities might be
inaccurate because of its extreme claim, but he sensed truth in it nonetheless.
He had no illusions, however, about what would ensue if the Honored Matres
learned what had actually happened to their envoys. The missing no-ship could
not yet be laid at the Tleilaxu door. Ships did vanish. Deliberate
assassination was another matter altogether. The Honored Matres surely would
try to exterminate such a brash opponent. If only as an example. Tleilaxu
returned from the Scattering said as much. Having seen Honored Matres, Waff now
believed those stories.
Taraza said: "My second agenda item for this meeting is our ghola."
Waff squirmed in the sling chair.
Taraza felt repelled by Waff's tiny eyes, the round face with its snub nose and
too-sharp teeth.
"You have been killing our gholas to control the movement of a project in which
you have no part other than to provide a single element," Taraza accused.
Waff once more wondered if he must kill her. Was nothing hidden from these [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- matkadziecka.xlx.pl