large office. “I must have a full report.”
Ajidica drummed his fingers on the frostplaz desktop. He grew tired of explaining himself to outsiders. They always asked such inane questions. One day I will no longer have to deal with idiots.
After Ajidica had summarized the meeting, Zaaf announced in a pompous tone, “Now we wish to observe your amal tests ourselves. We have the right.”
Though Zaaf was his superior, Ajidica feared nothing from the man, since no one could replace him on this project. “There are thousands of ongoing experiments. You wish to see all of them? How long is your life span, Master Zaaf?”
“Show us the most significant. Don’t you agree, gentlemen?” Zaaf glanced at his companions. They nodded and grunted.
“Watch this test, then.” With a confident smile, Ajidica took the vial of liquid ajidamal from his pocket and poured the rest of the contents into his own mouth. He tasted the substance on his tongue, inhaled the cinnamon essence into his sinuses, and swallowed.
This was the first time he’d actually consumed so much at once. Within seconds, a pleasantly warm feeling permeated his stomach and brain, matching any experience he’d ever enjoyed with genuine melange. He chuckled at the shocked expressions on his visitors’ faces. “I’ve been doing this for weeks,” he lied, “and there have been no ill effects.” He was convinced God would not permit anything bad to happen to him. “There can be no doubt whatsoever.”
The Tleilaxu politicians chattered excitedly, congratulating each other as if they’d had a hand in this success. Zaaf flashed small teeth and bent forward with a conspiratorial expression. “Excellent, Master Researcher. We shall see that you are properly rewarded. But first, we have an important matter to discuss.”
Suffused in the warmth of ajidamal, Ajidica listened to Zaaf. The Bene Tleilax were still stinging from Duke Leto’s rebuff of their calculated offer to make a ghola of his dead son Victor. Burning to avenge what they still believed to be an Atreides attack decades before, and angry at the continuing Ixian resistance here on Xuttuh that used Prince Rhombur Vernius as a figurehead, Zaaf wanted to seize Vernius and Atreides genetic lines for Bene Tleilax schemes.
With that vital DNA, they might tailor special diseases that could potentially wipe out House Atreides and House Vernius. If the Tleilaxu felt particularly vengeful, they could even clone simulacrums of Leto and Rhombur and publicly torture them to death— over and over again, if they wished! How much could the Atreides stand? Even fragmented genetic material from those bloodlines would be sufficient to perform many experiments.
But the Duke’s refusal had crushed those plans.
To Ajidica’s hyperfocused mind, Zaaf’s words were distant and irrelevant. But he listened without comment, allowing Zaaf to plod through his plans to thwart House Atreides and House Vernius. He described a war memorial in the jungles of Beakkal, where almost a millennium ago Atreides and Vernius troops had fought side by side in a legendary last stand known as the Senasar Defense. Several of their heroic ancestors had been entombed there in a jungle shrine.
Ajidica fought off boredom as Zaaf continued, “We have arranged with the Beakkali government to exhume and take cellular ‘samples’ from any bodies we find there. Not an ideal situation, but it should provide enough genetic fragments for our purposes.”
“And Leto Atreides can do nothing to prevent it,” chimed in one of his companions. “Thus, we will get what we want— the perfect revenge.”
The Tleilaxu never considered all the possibilities, though. Ajidica tried to keep the disgust from his expression. “The Duke will be furious when he discovers your intent. Do you not fear Atreides reprisals?”
“Leto is crippled with grief and has completely neglected his Landsraad duties.” Master Zaaf looked far too smug. “We need fear nothing from him. Our retrieval operations are already under way, but we have encountered a small snag. The Prime Magistrate of Beakkal has demanded a huge payment from us. I… was hoping we could pay him with amal and allow him to think it is melange. Is your substitute good enough to fool them?”
Ajidica laughed, already envisioning new possibilities. “Absolutely.” But he would use an early formula, similar enough to dupe them without wasting the precious ajidamal. The Beakkali used melange only in food and drink anyway, so they wouldn’t notice the difference. It would be a simple matter.…
“I can produce as much as you require.”
There are tides of leadership, rising and falling. Into each Emperor’s reign flow the tides, ebbing and surging.
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