What has happened to me?
It was something from his Atreides ancestry, he knew. Crisis had tipped him over into another dimension of human possibilities. Whatever the transformation, it was profound. He could see outward now into many necessities. And the people he had passed on his run to this alley had seemed like statues.
Will I ever think of them as muck?
It could only happen if he let it happen, he knew. But the temptation was there and he allowed himself a brief commiseration for the Honored Matres. Great Temptation had toppled them into their own muck.
What to do now?
The main line lay open to him. There was a man here in Ysai, one man who would be sure to know everyone Teg required. Teg looked around the alley. Yes, that man was near.
The fragrance of flowers and herbs wafted to Teg from somewhere down this alley. He moved toward this fragrance, aware that it led him where he needed to go and that no violent attack awaited him here. This was, temporarily, a quiet backwater.
He came to the fragrant source quickly. It was an inset doorway marked by a blue awning with two words on it in modern Galach: "Personal Service."
Teg entered and saw immediately what he had found. They were to be seen at many places in the Old Empire: eating establishments harking back to ancient times, eschewing automata from kitchen to table. Most of them were "in" establishments. You told friends about your latest "discovery" with an admonition to them not to spread the word.
"Don't want to spoil it with crowding."
This idea had always amused Teg. You spread the word about such places but you did it under the guise of keeping a secret.
Mouth-watering odors of cooking emerged from the kitchen at the rear. A waiter passed bearing a tray from which steam lifted, carrying the promise of good things.
A young woman in a short black dress with a white apron came up to him. "This way, sir. We have a table open in the corner."
She held a chair for him to be seated with his back to the wall. "Someone will be with you in a moment, sir." She passed him a stiff sheet of cheap double-thickness paper. "Our menu is printed. I hope you won't mind."
He watched her leave. The waiter he had seen passed going the other way toward the kitchen. The tray was empty.
Teg's feet had led him here as though he had been running on a fixed track. And there was the man he required, dining nearby.
The waiter had stopped to talk to the man Teg knew held the answer to the next moves required here. The two were laughing together. Teg scanned the rest of the room: only three other tables occupied. An older woman sat at a table in the far corner nibbling at some frosty confection. She was dressed in what Teg thought must be the peak of current fashion, a clinging short red gown cut low at the neck. Her shoes matched. A young couple sat at a table off to his right. They saw no one except each other. An older man in a tightly fitted old-fashioned brown tunic ate sparingly of a green vegetable dish near the door. He had eyes only for his food.
The man talking to the waiter laughed loudly.
Teg stared at the back of the waiter's head. Tufts of blond hair sprang from the nape of the waiter's neck like broken bunches of dead grass. The man's collar was frayed beneath the tufted hair. Teg lowered his gaze. The waiter's shoes were run over at the heels. The hem of his black jacket had been darned. Was it thrift in this place? Thrift or some other form of economic pressure? The odors from the kitchen did not suggest any stinting there. The tableware was shining and clean. No cracked dishes. But the striped red and white cloth on the table had been darned in several places, care taken to match the original fabric.
Once more, Teg studied the other customers. They looked substantial. None of the starving poor in this place. Teg had it registered then. Not only was this an "in" place, somebody had designed it for just that effect. There was a clever mind behind such an establishment. This was the kind of restaurant that rising young executives revealed to make points with prospective customers or to please a superior. The food would be superb and the portions generous. Teg realized that his instincts had led him here correctly. He bent his attention to the menu then, allowing hunger to enter his consciousness at last. The hunger was at least as fierce as that which had astonished the late Field Marshal Muzzafar.
The waiter appeared beside him with a tray on which were placed a small open box and a jar from which wafted the pungent odor of newskin ointment.
"I see you have injured your hand, Bashar," the man said. He placed the tray on the table. "Allow me to dress the injury before you order."
Teg lifted the injured hand and watched the swift competence of the treatment.
"You know me?" Teg asked.
"Yes, sir. And after what I've been hearing, it seems strange to see you in full uniform. There." He finished the dressing.
"What have you been hearing?" Teg spoke in a low voice.
"That the Honored Matres hunt you."
"I've just killed some of them and many of their... What should we call them?"
The man paled but he spoke firmly. "Slaves would be a good word, sir."
"You were at Renditai, weren't you," Teg said.
"Yes, sir. Many of us settled here afterward."
"I need food but I cannot pay you," Teg said.
"No one from Renditai has need of your money, Bashar. Do they know you came this way?"
"I don't believe they do."
"The people here now are regulars. None of them would betray you. I will try to warn you if someone dangerous comes. What did you wish to eat?"
"A great deal of food. I will leave the choice to you. About twice as much carbohydrate as protein. No stimulants."
"What do you mean by a great deal, sir?"
"Keep bringing it until I tell you to stop... or until you feel I have overstepped your generosity."
"In spite of appearances, sir, this is not a poor establishment. The extras here have made me a rich man."
Score one for his assessment, Teg thought. The thrift here was a calculated pose.
The waiter left and again spoke to the man at the central table. Teg studied the man openly after the waiter went on into the kitchen. Yes, that was the man. The diner concentrated on a plate heaped with some green-garnished pasta.
There was very little sign in this man of a woman's care, Teg thought. His collar had been closed awry, the clingstraps tangled. Spots of the greenish sauce soiled his left cuff. He was naturally righthanded but ate while his left hand remained in the path of spillage. Frayed cuffs on his trousers. One trouser hem, partly released from its threaded bondage, dragged at the heel. Stockings mismatched - one blue and one pale yellow. None of this appeared to bother him. No mother or other woman had ever dragged this one back from a doorway with orders to make himself presentable. His basic attitude was announced in his whole appearance:
"What you see is as presentable as it gets."
The man looked up suddenly, a jerking motion as though he had been goosed. He sent a brown-eyed gaze around the room, pausing at each face in turn as though he looked for a particular visage. This done, he returned his attention to his plate.
The waiter returned with a clear soup in which shreds of egg and some green vegetables could be seen.
"While the rest of your meal is being prepared, sir," he said.
"Did you come here directly after Renditai?" Teg asked.
"Yes, sir. But I served with you also at Acline."
"The sixty-seventh Gammu," Teg said.
"Yes, sir!"
"We saved a good many lives that time," Teg said. "Theirs and ours."
When Teg still did not begin eating, the waiter spoke in a rather cold voice, "Would you require a snooper, sir?"
"Not while you're serving me," Teg said. He meant what he said but he felt a bit of a fraud because doubled vision told him the food was safe.
The waiter started to turn away, pleased.
"One moment," Teg said.
"Sir?"
"The man at that central table. He is one of your regulars?"
"Professor Delnay? Oh, yes, sir."
"Delnay. Yes, I thought so."
"Professor of martial arts, sir. And the history of same."
"I know. When it comes time to serve my dessert, please ask Professor Delnay if he would join me."
"Shall I tell him who you are, sir?"
"Don't you think he already knows?"
"That would seem likely, sir, but still..."
"Caution where caution belongs," Teg said. "Bring on the food."
Delnay's interest was fully aroused long before the waiter relayed Teg's invitation. The professor's first words as he seated himself across from Teg were: "That was the most remarkable gastronomic performance I have ever seen. Are you sure you can eat a dessert?"
"Two or three of them at least," Teg said.
"Astonishing!"
Teg sampled a spoonful of a honey-sweetened confection. He swallowed it, then: "This place is a jewel."
"I have kept it a careful secret," Delnay said. "Except for a few close friends, of course. To what do I owe the honor of your invitation?"
"Have you ever been... ah, marked by an Honored Matre?"
"Lords of perdition, no! I'm not important enough for that."
"I was hoping to ask you to risk your life, Delnay."
"In what way?" No hesitation. That was reassuring.
"There is a place in Ysai where my old soldiers meet. I want to go there and see as many of them as possible."
"Through the streets in full regalia the way you are now?"
"In any way you can arrange it."
Delnay put a finger to his lower lip and leaned back to stare at Teg. "You're not an easy figure to disguise, you know. However, there may be a way." He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes." He smiled. "You won't like it, I'm afraid."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Some padding and other alterations. We will pass you off as a Bordano overseer. You'll smell of the sewer, of course. And you'll have to carry it off that you don't notice."
"Why do you think that will succeed?" Teg asked.
"Oh, there's going to be a storm tonight. Regular thing this time of year. Laying down the moisture for next year's open crops. And filling the reservoirs for the heated fields, you know."
"I don't understand your reasoning, but when I've finished another of these confections, we'll go," Teg said.
"You'll like the place where we take refuge from the storm," Delnay said. "I'm mad, you know, to do this. But the proprietor here said I was to help you or never come here again."
It was an hour after dark when Delnay led him to the rendezvous point. Teg, dressed in leathers and affecting a limp, was forced to use much of his mental power to ignore his own odors. Delnay's friends had plastered Teg with sewage and then hosed him off. The forced-air drying brought back most of the effluent aromas.
A remote-reading weather station at the door of the meeting place told Teg it had dropped fifteen degrees outside in the preceding hour. Delnay preceded him and hurried away into a crowded room where there was much noise and the sound of clinking glassware. Teg paused to study the doorside station. The wind was gusting to thirty klicks, he saw. Barometric pressure down. He looked at the sign above the station:
