Dune Messiah
enlarge his moral nature, to delineate the positive-negative elements of life and religion.”
    Scytale smiled, passing a benign gaze over his companions. They were as he’d been led to expect. The old Reverend Mother wielded her emotions like a scythe. Irulan had been well trained for a task at which she had failed, a flawed Bene Gesserit creation. Edric was no more (and no less) than the magician’s hand: he might conceal and distract. For now, Edric relapsed into sullen silence as the others ignored him.
    “Do I understand that this Hayt is intended to poison Paul’s psyche?” Irulan asked.
    “More or less,” Scytale said.
    “And what of the Qizarate?” Irulan asked.
    “It requires only the slightest shift in emphasis, a glissade of the emotions, to transform envy into enmity,” Scytale said.
    “And CHOAM?” Irulan asked.
    “They will rally round profit,” Scytale said.
    “What of the other power groups?”
    “One invokes the name of government,” Scytale said. “We will annex the less powerful in the name of morality and progress. Our opposition will die of its own entanglements.”
    “Alia, too?”
    “Hayt is a multi-purpose ghola,” Scytale said. “The Emperor’s sister is of an age when she can be distracted by a charming male designed for that purpose. She will be attracted by his maleness and by his abilities as a mentat.”
    Mohiam allowed her old eyes to go wide in surprise. “The ghola’s a mentat? That’s a dangerous move.”
    “To be accurate,” Irulan said, “a mentat must have accurate data. What if Paul asks him to define the purpose behind our gift?”
    “Hayt will tell the truth,” Scytale said. “It makes no difference.”
    “So you leave an escape door open for Paul,” Irulan said.
    “A mentat!” Mohiam muttered.
    Scytale glanced at the old Reverend Mother, seeing the ancient hates which colored her responses. From the days of the Butlerian Jihad when “thinking machines” had been wiped from most of the universe, computers had inspired distrust. Old emotions colored the human computer as well.
    “I do not like the way you smile,” Mohiam said abruptly, speaking in the truth mode as she glared up at Scytale.
    In the same mode, Scytale said: “And I think less of what pleases you. But we must work together. We all see that.” He glanced at the Guildsman. “Don’t we, Edric?”
    “You teach painful lessons,” Edric said. “I presume you wished to make it plain that I must not assert myself against the combined judgments of my fellow conspirators.”
    “You see, he can be taught,” Scytale said.
    “I see other things as well,” Edric growled. “The Atreides holds a monopoly on the spice. Without it I cannot probe the future. The Bene Gesserit lose their truthsense. We have stockpiles, but these are finite. Melange is a powerful coin.”
    “Our civilization has more than one coin,” Scytale said. “Thus, the law of supply and demand fails.”
    “You think to steal the secret of it,” Mohiam wheezed. “And him with a planet guarded by his mad Fremen!”
    “The Fremen are civil, educated and ignorant,” Scytale said. “They’re not mad. They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”
    “But will I be left with something to father a royal dynasty?” Irulan asked.
    They all heard the commitment in her voice, but only Edric smiled at it.
    “Something,” Scytale said. “Something.”
    “It means the end of this Atreides as a ruling force,” Edric said.
    “I should imagine that others less gifted as oracles have made that prediction,” Scytale said. “For them, mektub al mellah , as the Fremen say.”
    “The thing was written with salt,” Irulan translated.
    As she spoke, Scytale recognized what the Bene Gesserit had arrayed here for him—a beautiful and intelligent female who could never be his. Ah, well , he thought, perhaps I’ll copy her for another.

Every civilization must contend
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