She sighed. "Thufir, I want you to examine your own emotional involvement in this. The natural human's an animal without logic. Your projections of logic onto all affairs is unnatural, but suffered to continue for its usefulness.
You're the embodiment of logic--a Mentat. Yet, your problem solutions are concepts that, in a very real sense, are projected outside yourself, there to be studied and rolled around, examined from all sides."
"You think now to teach me my trade?" he asked, and he did not try to hide the disdain in his voice.
"Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it,"
she said. "But it's a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that's really chewing on us."
"You're deliberately attempting to undermine my faith in my abilities as a Mentat," he rasped. "Were I to find one of our people attempting thus to sabotage any other weapon in our arsenal, I should not hesitate to denounce and destroy him."
"The finest Mentats have a healthy respect for the error factor in their computations," she said.
"I've never said otherwise!"
"Then apply yourself to these symptoms we've both seen: drunkenness among the men, quarrels--they gossip and exchange wild rumors about Arrakis; they ignore the most simple--"
"Idleness, no more," he said. "Don't try to divert my attention by trying to make a simple matter appear mysterious."
She stared at him, thinking of the Duke's men rubbing their woes together in the barracks until you could almost smell the charge there, like burnt insulation. They're becoming like the men of the pre-Guild legend, she thought: Like the men of the lost star-searcher, Ampoliros--sick at their guns--forever seeking, forever prepared and forever unready.
"Why have you never made full use of my abilities in your service to the Duke?" she asked. "Do you fear a rival for your position?"
He glared at her, the old eyes blazing. "I know some of the training they give you Bene Gesserit . . . " He broke off, scowling.
"Go ahead, say it," she said. "Bene Gesserit witches."
"I know something of the real training they give you," he said. "I've seen it come out in Paul. I'm not fooled by what your schools tell the public: you exist only to serve."
The shock must be severe and he's almost ready for it, she thought.
"You listen respectfully to me in Council," she said, "yet you seldom heed my advice. Why?"
"I don't trust your Bene Gesserit motives," he said. "You may think you can look through a man; you may think you can make a man do exactly what you--"
"You poor fool, Thufir!" she raged.
He scowled, pushing himself back in the chair.
"Whatever rumors you've heard about our schools," she said, "the truth is far greater. If I wished to destroy the Duke . . . or you, or any other person within my reach, you could not stop me."
And she thought: Why do I let pride drive such words out of me? This is not the way I was trained. This is not how I must shock him.
Hawat slipped a hand beneath his tunic where he kept a tiny projector of poison darts. She wears no shield, he thought. Is this just a brag she makes? I could slay her now . . . but, ah-h-h-h, the consequences if I'm wrong.
Jessica saw the gesture toward his pocket, said: "Let us pray violence shall never be necessary between us."
"A worthy prayer," he agreed.
"Meanwhile, the sickness spreads among us," she said. "I must ask you again: Isn't it more reasonable to suppose the Harkonnens have planted this suspicion to pit the two of us against each other?"
"We appear to've returned to stalemate," he said.
She sighed, thinking: He's almost ready for it.
"The Duke and I are father and mother surrogates to our people," she said.
"The position--"
"He hasn't married you," Hawat said.
She forced herself to calmness, thinking: A good riposte, that.
"But he'll not marry anyone else," she said. "Not as long as I live. And we are surrogates, as I've said. To break up this natural order in our affairs, to disturb, disrupt, and confuse us--which target offers itself most enticingly to the Harkonnens?"
He sensed the direction she was taking, and his brows drew down in a lowering scowl.
"The Duke?" she asked. "Attractive target, yes, but no one with the possible exception of Paul is better guarded. Me? I tempt them, surely, but they must know the Bene Gesserit make difficult targets. And there's a better target, one whose duties create, necessarily, a monstrous blind spot. One to whom suspicion is as natural as breathing. One who builds his entire life on innuendo and mystery." She darted her right hand toward him. "You!"
Hawat started to leap from his chair.
"I have not dismissed you, Thufir!" she flared.
The old Mentat almost fell back into the chair, so quickly did his muscles betray him.
She smiled without mirth.
"Now you know something of the real training they give us," she said.
