"We will do the unexpected," Burzmali told his searchers.
He had noted the distinctive lime green of pilingitam leaves during his first overflight of the region. The forests of this planet had been raided and otherwise logged off during the Famine Times but venerable O-Ps were still nurtured among the evergreens and hardwoods replanted at the Sisterhood's orders.
Burzmali's searchers found one such O-P dominating a ridge above the no-globe site. It spread its leaves over almost three hectares. On the afternoon of the critical day, Burzmali placed decoys at a distance from this position and opened a tunnel from a shallow swale into the pilingitam's roomy core. There, he set up his command post and the backup necessities for escape.
"The tree is a life form," he explained to his people. "It will mask us from tracers."
The unexpected.
Nowhere in his planning did Burzmali assume that all of his actions would go undetected. He could only spread his vulnerability.
When the attack came, he saw that it appeared to follow a predicted pattern. He had anticipated that attackers would rely on no-ships and great numbers as they had in the assault on the Gammu Keep. The Sisterhood's analysts assured him that the major threat was from forces out of the Scattering--de--scendants of the Tleilaxu deployed by wildly brutal women calling themselves Honored Matres. He saw this as overconfidence and not audacity. A real audacity was in the arsenal of every student taught by the Bashar Miles Teg. It also helped that Teg could be relied upon to improvise within the limits of a plan.
Through his relays, Burzmali followed the scrambling escape of Duncan and Lucilla. Troopers with com-helmets and night lenses created a great display of activity at the decoy positions while Burzmali and his select reserves kept watch on the attackers, never betraying their position. Teg's movements were easily followed by his violent response to the attackers.
Burzmali noted with approval that Lucilla did not pause when she heard the battle sounds intensify. Duncan, however, tried to stop and almost ruined the plan. Lucilla saved the moment by jabbing Duncan in a sensitive nerve and barking: "You can't help him!"
Hearing her voice clearly through his helmet amplifiers, Burzmali cursed under his breath. Others would hear her, too! No doubt they already were tracking her, though.
Burzmali issued a subvocal command through the microphone implanted in his neck and prepared to abandon his post. He kept most of his attention on the approach of Lucilla and Duncan. If all went as planned, his people would bring down the pair of them while two helmetless and suitably garbed troopers continued the flight toward the decoy positions.
In the interim, Teg was creating an admirable path of destruction through which a groundcar might escape.
An aide intruded on Burzmali: "Two attackers are closing in behind the Bashar!"
Burzmali waved the man aside. He could give little thought to Teg's chances. Everything had to be focused on saving the ghola. Burzmali's thoughts were intense as he watched:
Come on! Run! Run, damn you!
Lucilla held a similar thought as she urged Duncan forward, keeping herself close behind him to shield him from the rear. Everything about her was marshaled for ultimate resistance. Everything in her breeding and training came to the fore in these moments. Never give up! To give up was to pass her consciousness into the Memory Lives of a Sister or into oblivion. Even Schwangyu had redeemed herself in the end by reverting to total resistance and had died admirably in the Bene Gesserit tradition, resisting to the last. Burzmali had reported it through Teg. Lucilla, assembling her uncounted lives, thought: I can do no less!
She followed Duncan down into a shallow swale beside the bole of a giant pilingitam and, when people arose out of the darkness to drag them down, she almost responded in berserker mode but a voice speaking Chakobsa in her ear said: "Friends!" This delayed her response for a heartbeat while she saw the decoys continue the flight out of the swale. That more than anything else revealed the plan and the identity of the people holding them against the rich leafy smells of the earth. When the people slid Duncan ahead of her into a tunnel aimed at the giant tree and (still in Chakobsa) cautioned speed, Lucilla knew she was caught in a typical Teg-style audacity.
Duncan saw it, too. At the stygian outlet of the tunnel, he identified her by smell and tapped out a message against her arm in the old Atreides silent battle language.
"Let them lead."
The form of the message startled her momentarily until she realized that the ghola of course would know this communication method.
Without speaking, the people around them removed Duncan's bulky antique lasgun and hustled the fugitives into the hatch of a vehicle that she did not identify. A brief red light flared in the darkness.
Burzmali spoke subvocally to his people: "There they go!"
Twenty-eight groundcars and eleven flitter-thopters scrambled from the decoy positions. A proper diversion, Burzmali thought.
Pressure in Lucilla's ears told her a hatch had been sealed. Again the red light flared and went dark.
Explosives shattered the great tree around them and their vehicle, now identifiable as an armored groundcar, surged up and out on suspensors and jets. Lucilla could follow their course only by flashes of fire and the twisting patterns of stars visible through frames of oval plaz. The enclosing suspensor field made the motions eerie, sensed only by the eyes. They sat cradled in plasteel seats while their car rocketed downslope directly across Teg's holdout position, shifting and darting in violent changes of direction. None of this wild motion transmitted itself to the flesh of the occupants. There were only the dancing blurs of trees and brush, some of them burning, and then the stars.
They were hugging the tops of the forest wreckage left by Teg's lasguns! Only then did she dare to hope that they might win free. Abruptly, their vehicle trembled into slow flight. The visible stars, framed by the tiny ovals of plaz, tipped and were obscured by a dark obstruction. Gravity returned and there was dim light. Lucilla saw Burzmali fling open a hatch on her left.
"Out!" he snapped. "Not a second to spare!"
Duncan ahead of her, Lucilla scrambled out of the hatch onto damp earth. Burzmali thumped her back, grabbed Duncan's arm and hustled them away from the car. "Quick! This way!" They crashed through tall bushes onto a narrow paved roadway. Burzmali, a hand on each of them now, rushed them across the road and pushed them flat in a ditch. He whipped a life-shield blanket over them and lifted his head to look back in the direction from which they had come.
Lucilla peered past him and saw starlight on a snowy slope. She felt Duncan stir beside her.
Far up the slope, a speeding groundcar, its jet-pod modifications visible against the stars, lifted on a plume of red, climbing, climbing... climbing. Suddenly, it darted off to the right.
"Ours?" Duncan whispered.
"Yes."
"How did it get up there without showing a... "
"An abandoned aqueduct tunnel," Burzmali whispered. "The car was programed to go on automatic." He continued to stare at the distant red plume. Abruptly, a gigantic burst of blue light rolled outward from the faraway red tracery. The light was followed immediately by a dull thump.
"Ahhhhh," Burzmali breathed.
Duncan, his voice low, said: "They are supposed to think you overloaded your drive."
Burzmali shot a startled look at the young face, ghostly gray in starlight.
"Duncan Idaho was one of the finest pilots in Atreides service," Lucilla said. It was an esoteric bit of knowledge and it served its purpose. Burzmali saw immediately that he was not just guardian of two fugitives. His charges possessed abilities that could be used if needed.
Blue and red sparks flashed across the sky where the modified groundcar had exploded. The no-ships were sniffing that distant globe of hot gases. What would the sniffers decide? The blue and red sparks slipped down behind the starlit bulges of the hills.
Burzmali whirled at the sound of footsteps on the roadway. Duncan had a handgun out
so swiftly that Lucilla gasped. She put a restraining hand on his arm but he shook it off. Didn't he see that Burzmali had accepted this intrusion?
A voice called softly from the roadway above them: "Follow me. Hurry."
The speaker, a moving blot of darkness, jumped down beside them and went crashing through a gap in the bushes lining the road. Dark spots on the snowy slope beyond the screening bushes resolved themselves into at least a dozen armed figures. Five of this party grouped themselves around Duncan and Lucilia and urged them silently along a snow-covered trail beside the bushes. The rest of the armed party ran openly down across the snowslope into a dark line of trees.
Within a hundred paces, the five silent figures formed their party into single file, two of their number ahead, three behind, the fugitives sheltered between them with Burzmali leading and Lucilla close behind Duncan. They came presently to a cleft in dark rocks and under a ledge where they waited, listening to more modified groundcars thunder into the air behind them.
"Decoys upon decoys," Burzmali whispered. "We overload them with decoys. They know we must flee in panic as fast as possible. Now, we will wait nearby in concealment. Later, we will proceed slowly ... on foot."
"The unexpected," Lucilla whispered.
"Teg?" It was Duncan, his voice little more than a breath.
Burzmali leaned close to Duncan's left ear: "I think they got him." Burzmali's whisper carried a deep tone of sadness.
One of their dark companions said: "Quickly now. Down here."
They were herded through the narrow cleft. Something emitted a creaking sound nearby. Hands hustled them into an enclosed passage. The creaking sounded from behind them.
"Get that door fixed," someone said.
Light flared around them.
Duncan and Lucilla stared around at a large, richly furnished room apparently cut into rock. Soft carpets covered the floor--dark reds and golds with a figured pattern like repetitive battlements worked in pale green. A bundle of clothing lay in a jumble on a table near Burzmali, who was in low-voiced conversation with one of their escort: a fair-haired man with high forehead and piercing green eyes.
Lucilla listened carefully. The words were understandable, relating how guards had been posted, but the green-eyed man's accent was one she had never before heard, a tumble of gutturals and consonants clicked off with surprising abruptness.
"Is this a no-chamber?" she asked.
"No." The answer was supplied by a man behind her speaking in that same accent. "The algae protect us."
She did not turn toward the speaker but looked up instead at the light yellow-green algae thick on the ceiling and walls. Only a few patches of dark rock were visible near the floors.
Burzmali broke off his conversation. "We are safe here. The algae is grown especially for this. Life scanners report only the presence of plant life and nothing else that the algae shields."
Lucilla pivoted on one heel, sorting the room's details: that Harkonnen griffin worked into a crystal table, the exotic fabrics on chairs and couches. A weapons rack against one wall held two rows of long field-style lasguns of a design she had never before seen. Each was bell-mouthed and with a curling gold guard over the trigger.
Burzmali had returned to his conversation with the green-eyed man. It was an argument over how they would be disguised. She listened with part of her mind while she studied the two members of their escort remaining in the room. The other three from the escort had filed out through a passage near the weapons cabinet, an opening covered by a thick hanging of shimmering silvery threads. Duncan, she saw, was watching her responses with care, his hand on the small lasgun in his belt.
People of the Scattering? Lucilla wondered. What are their loyalties?
Casually, she crossed to Duncan's side and, using the finger-touch language on his arm, relayed her suspicions. Both of them looked at Burzmali. Treachery?
Lucilla went back to her study of the room. Were they being watched by unseen eyes?
Nine glowglobes lighted the space, creating their own peculiar islands of intense illumination. It reached outward into a common concentration near where Burzmali still talked to the green-eyed man. Part of the light came directly from the drifting globes, all of them tuned into rich gold, and part of it was reflected more softly off the algae. The result was a lack of dark shadows, even under the furnishings.
The shimmering silver threads of the inner doorway parted. An old woman entered the room. Lucilla stared at her. The woman had a seamed face as dark as old rosewood. Her features were sharply defined in a narrow frame of straggling gray hair that fell almost to her shoulders. She wore a long black robe worked with golden threads in a pattern of mythological dragons. The woman stopped behind a settee and placed her deeply veined hands on the back.
Burzmali and his companion broke off their conversation.
Lucilla looked from the old woman down to her own robe. Except for the golden dragons, the garments were similar in design, the hoods draped back onto the shoulders. Only in the side cut and the way it opened down the front was the design of the dragon robe different.
When the woman did not speak, Lucilla looked to Burzmali for explanation. Burzmali stared back at her with a look of intense concentration. The old woman continued to study Lucilla silently.
The intensity of attention filled Lucilla with disquiet. Duncan felt it, too, she saw. He kept his hand on the small lasgun. The long silence while eyes examined her amplified her unease. There was something almost Bene Gesserit about the way the old woman just stood there looking.
Duncan broke the silence, demanding of Burzmali: "Who is she?"
"I'm the one who'll save your skins," the old woman said. She had a thin voice that crackled weakly, but that same strange accent.
Lucilla's Other Memories brought up a suggestive comparison for the old woman's garment: Similar to that worn by ancient playfems.
Lucilla almost shook her head. Surely this woman was too old for such a role. And the shape of the mythic dragons worked into the fabric differed from those supplied by memory. Lucilla returned her attention to the old face: eyes humid with the illnesses of age. A dry crust had settled into the creases where each eyelid touched the channels beside her nose. Far too old for a playfem.
The old woman spoke to Burzmali. "I think she can wear it well enough." She began divesting herself of her dragon robe. To Lucilla she said: "This is for you. Wear it with respect. We killed to get it for you."
"Who did you kill?" Lucilla demanded.
"A postulant of the Honored Matres!" There was pride in the old woman's husky tone.
"Why should I wear that robe?" Lucilla demanded.
"You will trade garments with me," the old woman said.
"Not without explanation." Lucilla refused to accept the robe being extended to her.
Burzmali took one step forward. "You can trust her."
"I am a friend of your friends," the old woman said. She shook the robe in front of Lucilla. "Here, take it."
Lucilla addressed Burzmali. "I must know your plan."
"We both must know it," Duncan said. "On whose authority are we asked to trust these people?"
"Teg's," Burzmali said. "And mine." He looked at the old woman. "You can tell them, Sirafa. We have time."
"You will wear this robe while you accompany Burzmali into Ysai," Sirafa said.
Sirafa, Lucilla thought. The name had almost the sound of a Bene Gesserit Lineal Variant.
Sirafa studied Duncan. "Yes, he is small enough yet. He will be disguised and conveyed separately."
"No!" Lucilla said. "I am commanded to guard him!"
"You are being foolish," Sirafa said. "They will be looking for a woman of your appearance accompanied by someone of this young man's appearance. They will not be looking for a playfem of the Honored Matres with her companion of the night... nor for a Tleilaxu Master and his entourage."
Lucilla wet her lips with her tongue. Sirafa spoke with the confident assurance
of a House Proctor.
Sirafa draped the dragon robe over the back of the settee. She stood revealed in a clinging black leotard that concealed nothing of a body still lithe and supple, even well rounded. The body looked much younger than the face. As Lucilla looked at her, Sirafa passed her palms across her forehead and cheeks, smoothing them backward. Age lines grew shallow and a younger face was revealed.
A Face Dancer?
Lucilla stared hard at the woman. There were none of the other Face Dancer stigmata. Still...
"Get your robe off!" Sirafa ordered. Now her voice was younger and even more commanding.
"You must do it," Burzmali pleaded. "Sirafa will take your place as another decoy. It's the only way we'll get through."
"Get through to what?" Duncan asked.
"To a no-ship," Burzmali said.
"And where will that take us?" Lucilla demanded.
"To safety," Burzmali said. "We will be loaded with shere but I cannot say more. Even shere wears off in time."
"How will I be disguised as a Tleilaxu?" Duncan asked.
"Trust us that it will be done," Burzmali said. He kept his attention on Lucilla. "Reverend Mother?"
"You give me no choice," Lucilla said. She undid the quick fasteners and dropped her robe. She removed the small handgun from her bodice and tossed it onto the settee. Her own leotard was light gray and she saw Sirafa making note of this and of the knives in their leg sheaths.
"We sometimes wear black undergarments," Lucilla said as she slipped into the dragon robe. The fabric looked heavy but felt light. She pivoted in it, sensing the way it flared and fitted itself to her body almost as though it had been made just for her. There was a rough spot at the neck. She reached up and ran a finger along it.
"That is where the dart struck her," Sirafa said. "We moved fast but the acid scarred the fabric slightly. It is not visible to the eye."
"Is the appearance correct?" Burzmali asked Sirafa.
"Very good. But I will have to instruct her. She must make no mistakes or they will have both of you like that!" Sirafa clapped her hands for emphasis.
Where have I seen that gesture? Lucilla asked herself.
Duncan touched the back of Lucilla's right arm, his fingers secretly quick-talking: "That hand clap! A mannerism of Giedi Prime."