Teg remained silently watchful.
“They killed me,” Duncan said. It was a flatly unemotional statement, all the more chilling for its positive delivery. A violent shudder passed through him and the trembling subsided. “At least a dozen of them in that little room.” He looked directly at Teg. “One of them got through at me like a meat cleaver right down on my head.” He hesitated, his throat working convulsively. His gaze remained on Teg. “Did I buy Paul enough time to escape?”
“Answer all of his questions truthfully.”
“He escaped.”
Now, they came to a testing moment. Where had the Tleilaxu acquired the Idaho cells? The Sisterhood’s tests said they were original, but suspicions remained. The Tleilaxu had done something of their own to this ghola. His memories could be a valuable clue to that thing.
“But the Harkonnens . . .” Duncan said. His memories from the Keep meshed. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes!” A fierce laugh shook him. He sent a roaring victory shout at the long-dead Baron Vladimir Harkonnen: “I paid you back, Baron! Oh, I did it to you for all of the ones you destroyed!”
“You remember the Keep and the things we taught you?” Teg asked.
A puzzled frown drew deep crease lines across Duncan’s forehead. Emotional pain warred with his physical pains. He nodded in response to Teg’s question. There were two lives, one that had been walled off behind the axlotl tanks and another . . . another . . . Duncan felt incomplete. Something remained suppressed within him. The reawakening was not finished. He stared angrily at Teg. Was there more? Teg had been brutal. Necessary brutality? Was this how you had to restore a ghola?
“I . . .” Duncan shook his head from side to side like a great wounded animal in front of the hunter.
“Do you have all of your memories?” Teg insisted.
“All? Oh, yes. I remember Gammu when it was Giedi Prime — the oil-soaked, blood-soaked hell hole of the Imperium! Yes, indeed, Bashar. I was your dutiful student. Regimental commander!” Again, he laughed, throwing his head back in an oddly adult gesture for that young body.
Teg experienced the sudden release of a deep satisfaction, far deeper than relief. It had worked as they said it would.
“Do you hate me?” he asked.
“Hate you? Didn’t I tell you I would be grateful?”
Abruptly, Duncan lifted his hands and peered at them. He shifted his gaze downward at his youthful body. “What a temptation!” he muttered. He dropped his hands and focused on Teg’s face, tracing the lines of identity. “Atreides,” he said. “You’re all so damned alike!”
“Not all,” Teg said.
“I’m not talking about appearance, Bashar.” His eyes went out of focus. “I asked my age.” There was a long silence, then: “Gods of the deep! So much time has passed!”
Teg said what he had been instructed to say: “The Sisterhood has need of you.”
“In this immature body? What am I supposed to do?”
“Truly, I don’t know, Duncan. The body will mature and I presume a Reverend Mother will explain matters to you.”
“Lucilla?”
Abruptly, Duncan looked up at the ornate ceiling, then at the alcove and its baroque clock. He remembered coming here with Teg and Lucilla. This place was the same but it was different. “Harkonnens,” he whispered. He sent a glowering look at Teg. “Do you know how many of my family the Harkonnens tortured and killed?”
“One of Taraza’s Archivists gave me a report.”
“A report? You think words can tell it?”
“No. But that was the only answer I had to your question.”
“Damn you, Bashar! Why do you Atreides always have to be so truthful and honorable?”
“I think it’s bred into us.”
“That’s quite right.” The voice was Lucilla’s and came from behind Teg.
Teg did not turn. How much had she heard? How long had she been there?
Lucilla came up to stand beside Teg but her attention was on Duncan. “I see that you’ve done it, Miles.”
“Taraza’s orders to the letter,” Teg said.
“You have been very clever, Miles,” she said. “Much more clever than I suspected you could be. That mother of yours should have been severely punished for what she taught you.”