"Have you brought the money?"
Both Topri and Siona had risen at his entry. Topri did not appear bothered by the question. He tapped the pouch beneath his robe, making it jingle.
"I have the money right here."
The Fremen was a wizened figure, crabbed and bent, wearing a copy of the old Fremen robes and some glistening garment underneath, probably their version of a stillsuit. His hood was drawn forward, shading his features. The torchlight sent shadows dancing across his face.
He peered first at Topri then at Siona before removing an object wrapped in cloth from beneath his robe.
"It is a true copy, but it is made of plastic," he said. "It will not cut cold grease."
He pulled the blade from its wrappings then and held it up.
Siona, who had seen crysknives only in museums and in the rare old visual recordings of her family's archives, had found herself oddly gripped by the sight of the blade in this setting. She felt something atavistic working on her and imagined this poor Museum Fremen with his plastic crysknife as a real Fremen of the old days. The thing he held was suddenly a silver-bladed crysknife shimmering in the yellow shadows.
"I guarantee the authenticity of the blade from which we copied it," the Fremen said. He spoke in a low voice, somehow made menacing by its lack of emphasis.
Siona heard it then, the way he carried his venom in a sleeve of soft vowels and she was suddenly alerted.
"Try treachery and we will hunt you down like vermin," she said.
Topri shot a startled glance at her.
The Museum Fremen appeared to shrivel, drawing in upon himself. The blade trembled in his hand, but his gnome fingers still curled inward around it as though clasping a throat.
"Treachery, Lady? Oh, no. But it occurred to us that we asked too little for this copy. Poor as it is, making it and selling it this way puts us in dreadful peril."
Siona glared at him, thinking of the old Fremen words from the Oral History: "Once you acquire a marketplace soul, the suk is the totality of existence."
"How much do you want?" she demanded.
Chapter Four
He named a sum twice his original figure.
Topri gasped.
Siona looked at Topri. "Do you have that much?"
"Not quite, but we agreed on..."
"Give him what you have, all of it," Siona said.
"All of it?"
"Isn't that what I said? Every coin in that bag." She faced the Museum Fremen. "You will accept this payment." It was not a question and the old man heard her correctly. He wrapped the blade in its cloth and passed it to her.
Topri handed over the pouch of coins, muttering under his breath.
Siona addressed herself to the Museum Fremen. "We know your name. You are Teishar, aide to Garun of Tuono. You have a suk mentality and you make me shudder at what Fremen have become."
"Lady, we all have to live," he protested.
"You are not alive," she said. "Be gone!"
Teishar had turned and scurried away, clutching the money pouch close to his chest.
Memory of that night did not sit well in Siona's mind as she watched Topri wave the crysknife copy in their rebel ceremony. We're no better than Teishar, she thought. A copy is worse than nothing. Topri brandished the stupid blade over his head as he neared the ceremony's conclusion.
Siona looked away from him and stared at Nayla seated off to her left. Nayla was looking first one direction and now another. She paid special attention to the new cadre of recruits at the back of the room. Nayla did not give her trust easily. Siona wrinkled her nose as a stirring of the air brought the smell of lubricants. The depths of Onn always smelled dangerously mechanical! She sniffed. And this room! She did not like their meeting place. It could easily be a trap. Guards could seal off the outer corridors and send in armed searchers. This could be too easily the place where their rebellion ended. Siona was made doubly uneasy by the fact that this room had been Topri's choice.
One of Ulot's few mistakes, she thought. Poor dead Ulot had approved Topri's admission to the rebellion.
"He is a minor functionary in city services," Ulot had explained. "Topri can find us many useful places to meet and arm ourselves."
Topri had reached almost the end of his ceremony. He placed the knife in an ornate case and put the case on the floor beside him.
"My face is my pledge," he said. He turned his profile to the room, first one side and then the other. "I show my face that you may know me anywhere and know that I am one of you."
Stupid ceremony, Siona thought.
But she dared not break the pattern of it. And when Topri pulled a black gauze mask from a pocket and placed it over his head, she took out her own mask and donned it. Everyone in the room did the same thing. There was a stirring around the room now. Most of the people here had been alerted that Topri had brought a special visitor. Siona secured her mask's tie behind her neck. She was anxious to see this visitor.
Topri moved to the room's one door. There was a clattering bustle as everyone stood and the chairs were folded and stacked against the wall opposite the door. At a signal from Siona, Topri tapped three times on the door panel. waited for a two count, then tapped four times.
The door opened and a tall man in a dark brown official singlet slipped into the room. He wore no mask, his face open for all of them to see - thin and imperious with a narrow mouth, a skinny blade of a nose, dark brown eyes deeply set under bushy brows. It was a face recognized by most of the room's occupants.
"My friends," Topri said, "I present Iyo Kobat, Ambassador from Ix."
"Ex-Ambassador," Kobat said. His voice was guttural and tightly controlled. He took a position with his back to the wall facing the masked people in the room. "I have this day received orders from our God Emperor to leave Arrakis in disgrace."