A guard captain bowed to Count Fenring. "Your orders, my Lord?"
"We will ah-h-h wait for the worst mm-m-m crush to um-m-m pass," the Count said.
"Yes, m'Lord." The man bowed himself back three paces.
Count Fenring faced his lady, spoke again in their personal humming-code tongue: "You saw it, of course?"
In the same humming tongue, she said: "The lad knew the gladiator wouldn't be drugged. There was a moment of fear, yes, but no surprise."
"It was planned," he said. "The entire performance."
"Without a doubt."
"It stinks of Hawat."
"Indeed," she said.
"I demanded earlier that the Baron eliminate Hawat."
"That was an error, my dear."
"I see that now."
"The Harkonnens may have a new Baron ere long."
"If that's Hawat's plan."
"That will bear examination, true," she said.
"The young one will be more amenable to control."
"For us . . . after tonight," she said.
"You don't anticipate difficulty seducing him, my little brood-mother?"
"No, my love. You saw how he looked at me."
"Yes, and I can see now why we must have that bloodline."
"Indeed, and it's obvious we must have a hold on him. I'll plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him."
"We'll leave as soon as possible--as soon as you're sure," he said.
She shuddered. "By all means. I should not want to bear a child in this terrible place."
"The things we do in the name of humanity," he said.
"Yours is the easy part," she said.
"There are some ancient prejudices I overcome," he said. "They're quite primordial, you know."
"My poor dear," she said, and patted his cheek. "You know this is the only way to be sure of saving that bloodline."
He spoke in a dry voice: "I quite understand what we do."
"We won't fail," she said.
"Guilt starts as a feeling of failure," he reminded.
"There'll be no guilt," she said. "Hypno-ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche and his child in my womb--then we go."
"That uncle," he said. "Have you ever seen such distortion?"
"He's pretty fierce," she said, "but the nephew could well grow to be worse."
"Thanks to that uncle. You know, when you think what this lad could've been with some other upbringing--with the Atreides code to guide him, for example."
"It's sad, "she said.
"Would that we could've saved both the Atreides youth and this one. From what I heard of that young Paul--a most admirable lad, good union of breeding and training." He shook his head. "But we shouldn't waste sorrow over the aristocracy of misfortune."
"There's a Bene Gesserit saying," she said.
"You have sayings for everything!" he protested.
"You'll like this one," she said. "It goes: 'Do not count a human dead until you've seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.' "
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