Thufir Hawat and Rhombur Vernius could leave the cell at their leisure, while Leto was honor-bound to remain, in part for his own safety. The Mentat and the Ixian Prince often went out to discuss testimony with various crew members from the Atreides frigate and anyone else who might help their cause in any way.

Leto, meanwhile, sat at the desk alone in his cell. Although the old Mentat had always trained him never to sit with his back to a door, Leto felt that he should be safe enough inside a maximum-security cell.

For the moment he reveled in a few moments of silence and concentration as he pored over the copious evidence projections that had been prepared for him. Even with Sardaukar guards as escorts, he would have been reluctant to walk through the Imperial Palace knowing that the shadow of accusation still hung over him. He would face his peers soon enough and proclaim his innocence.

He heard a noise at the cell confinement field behind him, but delayed looking back. With a humming scriber in his hand, he finished a paragraph about the complete destruction of the first Tleilaxu ship, noting a technical detail he hadn’t considered before.

“Thufir?” Leto asked. “Have you forgotten something?” Casually, he glanced over his shoulder.

A tall Landsraad guard stood there in a colorful, billowing uniform. The man wore a strange expression on his broad face, especially in the dark eyes. His skin looked pasty, as if painted on. And Leto spotted something different about the body, an odd lumpiness in the man’s peculiar, jerky movements. A disturbing, grayish tone to the skin on the hands, but not the face . . .

Reaching under his desk, Leto slid his fingers over the handle of a knife that Hawat had sneaked into the cell for him. It hadn’t been difficult for the warrior Mentat. Leto felt the hilt, gripped it without shifting his position or changing the placid and expectant expression on his face.

Every lesson the weapons master had ever taught him simmered in his muscles, alert and ready. Spring-coiled, Leto didn’t speak, didn’t challenge the intruder. But he knew something was wrong, and his life was on the line.

In a heartbeat the tall man slipped out of the voluminous uniform, maneuvering the static-seals that held the cloth together— and when the fabric slid away, so did the dull, expressionless face. A mask! The hands and lower arms went, too, dropping in a pile on the floor of the cell.

Dizzy with confusion, Leto threw himself to one side, tumbled off the chair onto the floor, and crouched beside the slim shelter of the desk. He held the knife ready, still out of the intruder’s view, and considered his options.

The tall guard’s body split at the waist, as if breaking in half— and a pair of Tleilaxu men spun around to face him, each a leathery-faced dwarf. One leaped down from the shoulders of the other and tumbled to the floor. They were both dressed in tight black outfits that showed every rippling, thick muscle.

The Tleilaxu assassins moved away from one another, circling him. Their tiny eyes glittered like buckshot. Something gleamed in each of their hands— four weapons, indistinct but assuredly deadly. Leaping wildly at Leto, one of the Tleilaxu screeched, “Die, powindah devil!”

In a flash, Leto considered crawling under the desk or the cart, but first he decided to even the odds by killing one of the attackers . . . to keep them from acting in a coordinated plan. With well-practiced aim, he hurled Hawat’s knife. It found its mark, pierced the dwarf’s jugular and knocked him backward.

A silvery dart whizzed by Leto’s ear, and now he rolled behind the holo-cart, which continued to project images above the desk. A second dart struck the wall beside his head, chipping the stone.

Then he heard the hum of a lasgun. An arc of purple light filled the room.

The second Tleilaxu’s body slammed into the holo-cart, knocking it over. His face oozed onto the floor, liquefied by the hot beam of light. His body collapsed near Leto’s hiding place.

Thufir Hawat and a Landsraad guard captain strode into the cell and looked down at Leto. Behind them, guards inspected the two black-clad bodies. A burned-meat odor hung in the air.

“Somehow they got past our security,” the captain said.

“I wouldn’t call that security,” Hawat snapped at him.

One of the guards said, “This one’s got a knife in his throat.”

“Where’d the knife come from?” The captain helped Leto to his feet. “Did you throw it, sir?”

Leto glanced at his Mentat, but left it for Hawat to answer. “With all your security, Captain,” Hawat said with a withering sneer, “how could anyone possibly smuggle a weapon in here?”

“I wrested it from one of the attackers,” Leto said, his expression confident. “Then I killed him with it.” He blinked his gray eyes. His body trembled with the after-rush of adrenaline. “I guess the Bene Tleilax couldn’t wait for the trial to be over.”

“Vermilion hells!” Rhombur said, stepping in and looking around at the mess. “On the, uh, bright side, this won’t look good for the Tleilaxu in the trial. If they were so sure of winning, why should they try to take justice into their own hands?”

Flushing in embarrassment, the guard captain turned to his men and directed them in the removal of the bodies and in the cleanup.

“The assassins fired two darts,” Leto said, pointing to where the needles had stuck.

“Be careful handling them,” Hawat said. “They’re probably poisoned.”

When Leto, Rhombur, and Hawat were alone again, the Mentat slipped a smuggled maula pistol into a bottom drawer of the desk.

“Just in case,” he said. “Next time a dagger might not be sufficient.”