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 damnable witches? The implication that the Bene Gesserit had a traitor in the Tleilaxu core could not be ignored. How else could they know?