Luli relaxed and smiled. “By no means. It’s just that the Lord Leto has many great concerns which require his personal attention. He must make time for you. He sent us because he was concerned about his Duncan Idaho. You have been a long time in the hands of the dirty Tleilaxu.”

Dirty Tleilaxu, Idaho thought.

That, at least, had not changed.

He was concerned, though, by a particular reference in Luli’s explanation.

“His Duncan Idaho?”

“Are you not an Atreides warrior?” Luli asked.

She had him there. Idaho nodded, turning his head slightly to stare at the enigmatic masked woman.

“Why are you masked?”

“It must not be known that I serve the Lord Leto,” she said. Her voice was a pleasant contralto but Idaho suspected that this, too, was masked by the cibus hood.

“Then why are you here?”

“The Lord Leto trusts me to determine if you have been tampered with by the dirty Tleilaxu.”

Idaho tried to swallow in a suddenly dry throat. This thought had occurred to him several times aboard the Guild transport. If the Tleilaxu could condition a ghola to attempt the murder of a dear friend, what else might they plant in the psyche of the regrown flesh?

“I see that you have thought about this,” the masked woman said.

“Are you a Mentat?” Idaho asked.

“Oh, no!” Luli interrupted. “The Lord Leto does not permit the training of Mentats.”

Idaho glanced at Luli, then returned his attention to the masked woman. No Mentats. The Tleilaxu history had not mentioned that interesting fact. Why would Leto prohibit Mentats? Surely, the human mind trained in the super-abilities of computation still had its uses. The Tleilaxu had assured him that the Great Convention remained in force and that mechanical computers were still anathema. Surely, these women would know that the Atreides themselves had used Mentats.

“What is your opinion?” the masked woman asked. “Have the dirty Tleilaxu tampered with your psyche?”

“I don’t… think so.”

“But you are not certain?”

“No.”

“Do not fear, Commander Idaho,” she said. “We have ways of making sure and ways of dealing with such problems should they arise. The dirty Tleilaxu have tried it only once and they paid dearly for their mistake.”

“That’s reassuring. Did the Lord Leto send me any messages?”

Luli spoke up: “He told us to assure you that he still loves you as the Atreides have always loved you.” She was obviously awed by her own words.

Idaho relaxed slightly. As an old Atreides hand, superbly trained by them, he had found it easy to determine several things from this encounter. These two had been heavily conditioned to a fanatic obedience. If a cibus mask could hide the identity of that woman, there had to be many more whose bodies were very similar. All of this spoke of dangers around Leto which still required the old and subtle services of spies and an imaginative arsenal of weapons.

Luli looked at her companion. “What say you, Friend?”