Miles Teg awoke in darkness to find himself being carried on a litter sling supported by suspensors. By their faint energy glow, he could see the tiny suspensor bulbs in an updangling row around him.

There was a gag in his mouth. His hands were securely tied behind his back. His eyes remained uncovered.

So they don't care what I see.

Who they were he could not tell. The bobbing motions of the dark shapes around him suggested they were descending uneven terrain. A trail? The litter sling rode smoothly on its suspensors. He could sense the faint humming from the suspensors when his party stopped to negotiate the turn of a difficult passage.

Now and then through some intervening obstruction, he saw the flickering of a light ahead. They entered the lighted area presently and stopped. He saw a single glowglobe about three meters off the ground, tethered on a pole and moving gently in a cold breeze. By its yellow glow he discerned a shack in the center of a muddy clearing, many tracks in trampled snow. He saw bushes and a few sparse trees around the clearing. Someone passed a brighter handlight across his face. Nothing was said but Teg saw a hand gesture toward the shack. He had seldom seen such a dilapidated structure. It looked ready to collapse at the slightest touch. He bet himself that the roof leaked.

Once more, his party lurched into motion, swinging him toward the shack. He studied his escort in the dim light - faces muffled to the eyes in a cover that obscured mouths and chins. Hoods hid their hair. The clothing was bulky and concealed body details except for the general articulation of arms and legs.

The pole-tethered glowglobe went dark.

A door opened in the shack, sending a brilliant glare across the clearing. His escort hustled him inside and left him there. He heard the door close behind them.

It was almost blindingly bright inside after the darkness. Teg blinked until his eyes adapted to the change. With an odd sense of displacement, he looked around him. He had expected the shack's interior to match its exterior but here was a neat room almost bare of furnishings - only three chairs, a small table and... he drew in a sharp breath: an Ixian Probe! Couldn't they smell the shere on his breath?

If they were that unaware, let them use the probe. It would be agony for him but they would get nothing from his mind.

Something clicked behind him and he heard motion. Three people came into his field of vision and ranged themselves around the foot of the litter. They stared at him silently. Teg moved his attention across the three. The one on his left wore a dark singlesuit with open lapels. Male. He had the squarish face Teg had seen on some Gammu natives - small, beady eyes that stared straight through Teg. It was the face of an inquisitor, one who would not be moved by your agony. The Harkonnens had imported a lot of those in their day. Single-purpose types who could create pain without the slightest change of expression.

The one directly at Teg's feet wore bulky clothing of black and gray similar to that of the escort but the hood was thrown back to reveal a bland face under closely cropped gray hair. The face gave nothing away and the clothing revealed little. No telling if this one was male or female. Teg recorded the face: wide forehead, square chin, large green eyes above a knife-ridged nose; a tiny mouth pursed around a moue of distaste.

The third member of this group held Teg's attention longest: tall, a tailored black singlesuit with a severe black jacket over it. Perfectly fitted. Expensive. No decorations or insignia. Male definitely. The man affected boredom and this gave Teg a tag for him. Narrow, supercilious face, brown eyes, thin-lipped mouth. Bored, bored, bored! All of this in here was an unwarranted demand on his very important time. He had vital business elsewhere and these other two, these underlings, must be made to realize that.

That one, Teg thought, is the official observer.

The bored one had been sent by the masters of this place to watch and report what he saw. Where was his datacase? Ahhhh, yes: There it was, propped against a wall behind him. Those cases were like a badge for such functionaries. On his inspection tour, Teg had seen these people walking the streets of Ysai and other Gammu cities. Small, thin cases. The more important the functionary, the smaller the case. This one's case would barely contain a few dataspools and a tiny comeye. He would never be without an 'eye to link him with his superiors. Thin case: This was an important functionary.

Teg found himself wondering what the observer would say if Teg asked: "What will you tell them about my composure?"

The answer was already there on that bored face. He would not even answer. He was not here to answer. When this one leaves, Teg thought, he will walk with long strides. His attention will be on distances where only he knows what powers await him. He will slap that case against his leg to remind himself of his importance and to call the attention of these others to his badge of authority.

The bulky figure at Teg's feet spoke, a compelling voice and definitely female in those vibrant tones.

"See how he holds himself and watches us? Silence will not break him. I told you that before we entered. You are wasting our time and we do not have all that much time for such nonsense."

Teg stared at her. Something vaguely familiar in the voice. It had some of that compelling quality found in a Reverend Mother. Was that possible?

The heavy-faced Gammu type nodded. "You are right, Materly. But I do not give the orders here."

Materly? Teg wondered. Name or title?

Both of them looked at the functionary. That one turned and bent to his datacase. He removed a small comeye from it and stood with the screen concealed from his companions and Teg. The 'eye came alight with a green glow, which cast a sickly illumination over the observer's features. His self-important smile vanished. He moved his lips silently, words formed only for someone on that 'eye to see.

Teg hid his ability to read lips. Anyone trained by the Bene Gesserit could read lips from almost any angle where they were visible. This man spoke a version of Old Galach.

"It is the Bashar Teg for sure," he said. "I have made identification."

The green light danced on the functionary's face while he stared into the 'eye. Whoever communicated with him was in agitated movement if that light meant anything.

Again, the functionary's lips moved soundlessly: "None of us doubts that he has been conditioned against pain and I can smell shere on him. He will..."

He fell silent as the green light once more danced on his face.

"I do not make excuses." His lips shaped the Old Galach words with care. "You know we will do our best but I recommend that we pursue with vigor all other means of intercepting the ghola."

The green light winked off.

The functionary clipped the 'eye to his waist, turned toward his companions and nodded once.

"The T-probe," the woman said.

They swung the probe over Teg's head.

She called it a T-probe, Teg thought. He looked up at the hood as they brought it over him. There was no Ixian stamp on the thing.

Teg experienced an odd sense of deja vu. He had the feeling that his own captivity here had occurred many times before. No single-incident deja vu, it was a deeply familiar recognition: the captive and the interrogators - these three... the probe. He felt emptied. How could he know this moment? He had never personally employed a probe but he had studied their use thoroughly. The Bene Gesserit often used pain but relied mostly on Truthsayers. Even more than that, the Sisterhood believed that some equipment could put them too much under Ixian influence. It was an admission of weakness, a sign that they could not do without such despicable devices. Teg had even suspected there was something in this attitude of a hangover from the Butlerian Jihad, rebellion against machines that could copy out the essence of a human's thoughts and memories.