It was a small room tinged with the odor of ozone and reduced to a shadowy greyness by dimmed glowglobes and the metallic blue light of a single transeye-monitoring screen. The screen was about a meter wide and only two-thirds of a meter in height. It revealed in remote detail a barren, rocky valley with two Laza tigers feeding on the bloody remnants of a recent kill. On the hillside above the tigers could be seen a slender man in Sardaukar working uniform, Levenbrech insignia at his collar. He wore a servo-control keyboard against his chest.
One veriform suspensor chair faced the screen, occupied by a fair-haired woman of indeterminate age. She had a heart-shaped face and slender hands which gripped the chair arms as she watched. The fullness of a white robe trimmed in gold concealed her figure. A pace to her right stood a blocky man dressed in the bronze and gold uniform of a Bashar Aide in the old Imperial Sardaukar. His greying hair had been closely cropped over square, emotionless features.
The woman coughed, said: "It went as you predicted, Tyekanik."
"Assuredly, Princess," the Bashar Aide said, his voice hoarse.
She smiled at the tension in his voice, asked: "Tell me, Tyekanik, how will my son like the sound of Emperor Farad'n I?"
"The title suits him, Princess."
"That was not my question."
"He might not approve some of the things done to gain him that, ahh, title."
"Then again..." She turned, peered up through the gloom at him. "You served my father well. It was not your fault that he lost the throne to the Atreides. But surely the sting of that loss must be felt as keenly by you as by any -"
"Does the Princess Wensicia have some special task for me?" Tyekanik asked. His voice remained hoarse, but there was a sharp edge to it now.
"You have a bad habit of interrupting me," she said.
Now he smiled, displaying thick teeth which glistened in the light from the screen. "At times you remind me of your father," he said. "Always these circumlocutions before a request for a delicate... ahh, assignment."
She jerked her gaze away from him to conceal anger, asked: "Do you really think those Lazas will put my son on the throne?"
"It's distinctly possible, Princess. You must admit that the bastard get of Paul Atreides would be no more than juicy morsels for those two. And with those twins gone..." He shrugged.
"The grandson of Shaddam IV becomes the logical successor," she said. "That is if we can remove the objections of the Fremen, the Landsraad and CHOAM, not to mention any surviving Atreides who might -"
"Javid assures me that his people can take care of Alia quite easily. I do not count the Lady Jessica as an Atreides. Who else remains?"
"Landsraad and CHOAM will go where the profit goes," she said, "but what of the Fremen?"
"We'll drown them in their Muad'Dib's religion!"
"Easier said than done, my dear Tyekanik."
"I see," he said. "We're back to that old argument."
"House Corrino has done worse things to gain power," she said.
"But to embrace this... this Mahdi's religion!"
"My son respects you," she said.
"Princess, I long for the day when House Corrino returns to its rightful seat of power. So does every remaining Sardaukar here on Salusa. But if you -"
"Tyekanik! This is the planet Salusa Secundus. Do not fall into the lazy ways which spread through our Imperium. Full name, complete title - attention to every detail. Those attributes will send the Atreides lifeblood into the sands of Arrakis. Every detail, Tyekanik!"
He knew what she was doing with this attack. It was part of the shifty trickiness she'd learned from her sister, Irulan. But he felt himself losing ground.
"Do you hear me, Tyekanik?"
"I hear, Princess."
"I want you to embrace this Muad'Dib religion," she said.
"Princess, I would walk into fire for you, but this..."
"That is an order, Tyekanik!"
He swallowed, stared into the screen. The Laza tigers had finished feeding and now lay on the sand completing their toilet, long tongues moving across their forepaws.
"An order, Tyekanik - do you understand me?"
"I hear and obey, Princess." His voice did not change tone.
She sighed. "Ohh, if my father were only alive..."
"Yes, Princess."
"Don't mock me, Tyekanik. I know how distasteful this is to you. But if you set the example..."
"He may not follow, Princess."
"He'll follow." She pointed at the screen. "It occurs to me that the Levenbrech out there could be a problem."
"A problem? How is that?"
"How many people know this thing of the tigers?"
"That Levenbrech who is their trainer... one transport pilot, you, and of course..." He tapped his own chest.
"What about the buyers?"
"They know nothing. What is it you fear, Princess?"
"My son is, well, sensitive."
"Sardaukar do not reveal secrets," he said.
"Neither do dead men." She reached forward and depressed a red key beneath the lighted screen.
Immediately the Laza tigers raised their heads. They got to their feet and looked up the hill at the Levenbrech. Moving as one, they turned and began a scrambling run up the hillside.
Appearing calm at first, the Levenbrech depressed a key on his console. His movements were assured but, as the cats continued their dash toward him, he became more frenzied, pressing the key harder and harder. A look of startled awareness came over his features and his hand jerked toward the working knife at his waist. The movement came too late. A raking claw hit his chest and sent him sprawling. As he fell, the other tiger took his neck in one great-fanged bite and shook him. His spine snapped.
"Attention to detail," the Princess said. She turned, stiffened as Tyekanik drew his knife. But he presented the blade to her, handle foremost.
"Perhaps you'd like to use my knife to attend to another detail," he said.
"Put that back in its sheath and don't act the fool!" she raged. "Sometimes, Tyekanik, you try me to the -"
"That was a good man out there, Princess. One of my best."
"One of my best," she corrected him.
He drew a deep, trembling breath, sheathed his knife. "And what of my transport pilot?"
"This will be ascribed to an accident," she said. "You will advise him to employ the utmost caution when he brings those tigers back to us. And of course, when he has delivered our pets to Javid's people on the transport..." She looked at his knife.
"Is that an order, Princess?"
"It is."
"Shall I, then, fall on my knife, or will you take care of that, ahhh, detail?"
She spoke with a false calm, her voice heavy: "Tyekanik, were I not absolutely convinced that you would fall on your knife at my command, you would not be standing here beside me - armed."