he was forced to believe because he understood how it had been done.
In the beginning, he knew, there had been the fully formed ghola, adult flesh without name or memories-a palimpsest upon which the Tleilaxu could write almost anything they wished.
"You are Ghola," they had said. That had been his only name for a long time. Ghola had been taken like a malleable infant and conditioned to kill a particular man-a man so like the original Paul Muad'Dib he had served and adored that Idaho now suspected it might have been another ghola. But if that were true, where had they obtained the original cells?
Something in the Idaho cells had rebelled at killing an Atreides. He had found himself standing with a knife in one hand, the bound form of the pseudo-Paul staring up at him in angry terror.
Memories had gushered into his awareness. He remembered Ghola and he remembered Duncan Idaho. am Duncan Idaho, swordmaster of the Atreides.
He clung to this memory as he stood in the yellow room.
I died defending Paul and his mother in a cave-sietch beneath the sands of Dune. I have been returned to that planet, but Dune is no more. Now it is only Arrakis.
He had read the truncated history which the Tleilaxu provided, but he did not believe it. More than thirty-five hundred years? Who could believe his flesh existed after such a time? Except... with Tleilaxu it was possible. He had to believe his own senses.
"There have been many of you," his instructors had said.
"How many?"
"The Lord Leto will provide that information."
The Lord Leto?
The Tleilaxu history said this Lord Leto was Leto II, grandson of the Leto whom Idaho had served with fanatical devotion. But this second Leto (so the history said) had become something... something so strange that Idaho despaired of understanding the transformation.
How could a human slowly turn into a sandworm? How could any thinking creature live more than three thousand years? Not even the wildest projections of geriatric spice allowed such a lifespan.
Leto II, the God Emperor?
The Tleilaxu history was not to be believed!
Idaho remembered a strange child-twins, really: Leto and Ghanima, Paul's children, the children of Chani, who had died delivering them. The Tleilaxu history said Ghanima had died after a relatively normal life, but the God Emperor Leto lived on and on and on...
"He is a tyrant," Idaho's instructors had said. "He has ordered us to produce you from our axlotl tanks and to send you into his service. We do not know what has happened to your predecessor."
And here I am.
Once more, Idaho let his gaze wander around the featureless walls and ceiling.
The faint sound of voices intruded upon his awareness. He looked at the door. The voices were muted, but at least one of them sounded female.
Women of the Imperial Guard?
The door swung inward on noiseless hinges. Two women entered. The first thing to catch his attention was the fact that one of the women wore a mask, a cibus hood of shapeless, light-drinking black. She would see him clearly through the hood, he knew, but her features would never reveal themselves, not even to the most subtle instruments of penetration. The hood said that the Ixians or their inheritors were still at work in the Imperium. Both women wore one-piece uniforms of rich blue with the Atreides hawk in red braid at the left breast.
Idaho studied them as they closed the door and faced him.
The masked woman had a blocky, powerful body. She moved with the deceptive care of a professional muscle fanatic. The other woman was graceful and slender with almond eyes in sharp, high-boned features. Idaho had the feeling that he had seen her somewhere, but he could not fix the memory. Both women carried needle knives in hip sheaths. Something about their movements told Idaho these women would be extremely competent with such weapons.
The slender one spoke first.
"My name is Luli. Let me be the first to address you as Commander. My companion must remain anonymous. Our Lord Leto has commanded it. You may address her as Friend."
"Commander?" he asked.
"It is the Lord Leto's wish that you command his Royal Guard," Luli said.
"That so? Let's go talk to him about it."
"Oh, no!" Luli was visibly shocked. "The Lord Leto will summon you when it is time. For now, he wishes us to make you comfortable and happy."
"And I must obey?"
Luli merely shook her head in puzzlement.
"Am I a slave?"
Luli relaxed and smiled. "By no means. It's just. that the Lord Leto has many great concerns which require his personal attention. He must make time for you. He sent us because he was concerned about his Duncan Idaho. You have been a long time in the hands of the dirty Tleilaxu."
Dirty Tleilaxu, Idaho thought.
That, at least, had not changed.
He was concerned, though, by a particular reference in Luli's explanation.
"His Duncan Idaho?"
"Are you not an Atreides warrior?" Luli asked.
She had him there. Idaho nodded, turning his head slightly to stare at the enigmatic masked woman.
"Why are you masked?"
"It must not be known that I serve the Lord Leto," she said. Her voice was a pleasant contralto, but Idaho suspected that this, too, was masked by the cibus hood.
"Then why are you here?"
"The Lord Leto trusts me to determine if you have been tampered with by the dirty Tleilaxu."
Idaho tried to swallow in a suddenly dry throat. This thought had occurred to him several times aboard the Guild transport. If the Tleilaxu could condition a ghola to attempt the murder of a dear friend, what else might they plant in the psyche of the regrown flesh?
"I see that you have thought about this," the masked woman said.