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.The walls collapsed, breaking through the polymer sheathand sealing him and his men down there.But he had never intended to leaveanyway.The Sardaukar would cut their way through the barrier within minutes.They hadsmelled the blood of Dominic Vernius and would not stop until they had him intheir hands.He allowed himself a mirthless smile.Shaddam's men were in for a surprise.Dominic used the palm lock to seal the vault doors, even as he saw the collapsedbarricade glowing with inner heat.Solid walls muffled the sounds behind him.Shielded by the heavy vault door, Dominic turned to look at the remaining itemsin his atomic stockpile.He chose one of the stone burners, a smaller weaponwhose yield could be calibrated to destroy an entire planet, or just wreak havocin a specified area.The Sardaukar began hammering on the thick door as he removed the stone burnerfrom its case and studied the controls.He never thought he'd need tounderstand these weapons.They were meant as doomsday devices, never to be used-- whose mere existence should have been a sufficient deterrent against overtaggression.Under the Great Convention, any use of atomics would bring down thecombined military forces of the Landsraad to destroy the offending family.The men out in the corridor were already dead.Dominic had nothing left tolose.He tamped down the fuel consumption of the stone burner and set the activationmechanism to vaporize only the vicinity of the base.No need to wipe out allthe innocents on Arrakis.That was the sort of thing only a Corrino would do. He felt like an ancient sea captain going down with his ship.Dominic harboredonly one regret: that he hadn't had a chance to say his farewells to Rhomburand Kailea after all, to tell them how much he loved them.They would have tocarry on without him.Through a blur of tears, he thought he saw a shimmering image of Shando again,her ghost.or just his wishful desires.She moved her mouth, but hecouldn't tell if she was scolding him for his recklessness -- or welcoming himto join her.The Sardaukar cut their way through the frozen wall itself, bypassing the thickdoor.As they entered the vault, smug and victorious, Dominic did not fire atthem.He simply looked down at the scant remaining time on the stone burner.The Sardaukar saw it, too.Then everything turned white-hot.If God wishes thee to perish, He causes thy steps to lead thee to the place ofthy demise.-Cant of the ShariatOF ALL THE COVERT ATTEMPTS C'tair Pilru had made during twenty years as aguerrilla fighter on Ix, he had never dared to disguise himself as one of theTleilaxu Masters.Until now.Desperate and alone, he could think of nothing else to do.Miral Alechem hadvanished.The other rebels were dead, and he had lost all contact with hisoutside supporters, the smugglers, the transport officials willing to acceptbribes.Young women continued to disappear, and the Tleilaxu operated withcomplete impunity.He hated them all.With cold calculation, C'tair waited in a deserted corridor up in the officelevels and killed the tallest robed Master he could find.He preferred not toresort to murder to achieve his aims, but he did not shrink from it, either.Some actions were necessary.Compared to the blood on the hands of the Tleilaxu, his heart and conscienceremained clean.He stole the gnomish man's clothes and identity cards and prepared to discoverthe secret of the Bene Tleilax research pavilion.Why was Ix so important thatthe Emperor would send his Sardaukar here to support the invaders? Where had all the captive women been taken? It had to be more than simple politics, morethan the petty revenge of Shaddam's father against Earl Vernius.The answer must lie within the high-security laboratory.Miral had long suspected an illegal biological project, one that operated withcovert Imperial support -- perhaps even something that went against thestrictures of the Butlerian Jihad.Why else would the Corrinos be willing torisk so much, for so long? Why else had they invested so heavily here, whileoverall Ixian profits diminished?Determined to discover the answers, he donned the robes of the slain TleilaxuMaster, shifting the folds and cinching the maroon sash to hide the dark stainof drying blood.Then he disposed of the body, dumping it into the reopenedfield-lined shafts to the molten core of the planet.Where the garbage wassupposed to go.In a secret storeroom, he applied chemicals to his face and hands to leach theremaining color from his already-pale flesh, and smeared wrinkling substances onhis face to give himself the gray-skinned, shriveled appearance of a Tleilaxuoverlord.He wore thin-soled slippers to keep his height down, and hunched overa little.He wasn't a large man, and he was aided by the fact that the Tleilaxuwere not the most observant of people.C'tair needed to be most wary of theSardaukar.He checked his records, memorizing the passwords and override commands he hadhoarded for years.His identity cards and signal jammers should be sufficientto get him past any scrutiny.Even there.Taking on a hauteur to complete his masquerade, he emerged from his hiddenchamber into the expansive grotto.He strode to the front of a crowd andstepped aboard a linked transport.After slipping his card through the scannerport, he punched in the location for the sealed research pavilion.The private bubble closed around him and detached itself from the rest of thetransport system.The vessel cruised in midair above the crisscrossed paths ofsurveillance pods.None of the transeyes turned toward him.The transportbubble recognized his right to travel to the laboratory complex.No alarms wereraised.No one paid attention to him.Below, workers moved about in their labors, guarded by an increasing number ofSardaukar.They did not bother to look up at the vessels drifting across theenclosed grotto sky.One step at a time, C'tair passed through successive guarded gates and securityfields, and finally into the hivelike industrial mass.The windows were sealed,the corridors glowing with an orange-tinged light.The stuffy air was warm andhumid, with a putrid undertone of rotting flesh and unpleasant human residue.Huddled in his disguise, he walked along, trying to conceal the fact he was lostand uncertain of his destination.C'tair didn't know where the answers mightlie, but he dared not hesitate or look confused.He didn't want anyone to takenotice of him.Robed Tleilaxu moved from chamber to chamber, absorbed in their work.Theypulled hoods over their ears and heads, so C'tair did the same, glad for the added camouflage.He withdrew a sheaf of ridulian-crystal reports written in astrange code that he could not decipher, and pretended to study them.He turned down corridors at random, changing course whenever he heard otherpeople approaching.Several gnomish men marched past him, speaking to eachother in heated voices in their private Tleilaxu language, gesturing with long-fingered hands.They paid no attention to C'tair.He located biological laboratories, research facilities with plazchrome-platedtables and surgical scanners -- visible through open doorways that seemed to beprotected by special scanning devices that he didn't want to try to penetrate.Nothing, however, provided him with the answers he needed.Breathing hard andsweating with tension, he followed main corridors that led toward the heart ofthe research pavilion.Finally, C'tair found a higher level, an open-windowed observation gallery.Thecorridor behind him was empty.The air smelled metallic with chemicals anddisinfectants, a scrubbed, sterile environment.And a faint but distinct odor reminiscent of cinnamon.He peered through the broad window into the huge central gallery of thelaboratory complex
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