When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training.
– THE LADY JESSICA, FROM "WISDOM OF ARRAKIS"
"At last, Mother Superior," a baritone voice invited Murbella to enter. Mother Superior strode into the room, her entourage following closely behind: two women in black abas, followed by a ten year old boy whose demeanor belied his young age.
The man they sought an audience with sat at the edge of a lavishly decorated armchair, black velvet with a gold crest. A Futar dressed in military uniform stood nearby. A small table acted as the divider between the man and four smaller black armchairs.
Murbella casually surveyed the space, which had been meticulously arranged within the confines of this neutral Ixian corvette, carefully inspected by both sides ahead of time. It matched the designs. As she approached her seat right in front, and slightly to the side of the table, she remained standing while allowing the Bene Gesserit delegation to take their seats.
I need to be the focal point, she reminded her tired self, so that he won't suspect we are bringing a Mentat and Master Zoel's Face Dancers. "Sir, do we have it correctly, that the Ones with Many Faces sent you?" she asked matter-of-factly. The man in front of her wore an unadorned black uniform, and his silver hair gleamed beneath the stark white lights. He perched at the edge of the crested armchair, his weight almost off of it, like it were a stool. His veined hand held a document reader. He offered only a cursory acknowledgment of their arrival, his eyes seemingly transfixed on the content on the page. The small table left very little distance between him, her, and the first of Zoel's Face Dancers on her right. The man was at less than an arm's reach, she thought. Are there protections here that we don't know about?, she pondered, shields?
"Very well, Mother Superior" he replied, still not lifting his gaze from the device. "You may address me by my official title: Majordomo."
Look at him, Miles. Direct. Unmoved by my lack of etiquette. Titles, not names. Teg had agreed to remain in the back in order to observe freely. The man's accent was rough and challenging to place; it hinted at a birthplace in the very far Scattering. He gestured with an open hand, inviting the Reverend Mother Superior to take a seat. "Please". Murbella quietly sat down, assuming the outwardly calm composure characteristic of the Bene Gesserit.
Now, let the great game begin.
"I am the Reverend Mother Superior Murbella of the Bene Gesserit," she opened, stating what the other already knew. The man offered a nod, briefly lifting his gaze to observe the delegation. "A ghola," the majordomo nodded toward Miles casually. But he did not give a second look at the two Face Dancers acting as Reverend Mothers. Protection, Master Zoel had insisted. You don't want to risk any more of your Sisters. My Face Dancers are obedient and disposable.
"We were told your detail would consist of a single Futar, majordomo. We heard they are formidable aides. We are honored by your trust and come with no protection of our own." The creature's intelligent eyes and quiet repose piqued Murbella's attention. Clever gears seemed to turn inside its jaguar-shaped head.
"That is appreciated. Be advised that my bodyguard will react violently should anybody or anything come too close to my person," the majordomo warned them.
"Majordomo, will anyone else from your staff be joining us?" Murbella inquired politely.
"I require no staff, Mother Superior," came the majordomo's response. Or, I won't bother wasting their time more than you will waste mine, Murbella translated.
"A resourceful man," she ventured, enacting her first gamble, "I always assumed that Face Dancers possess many talents, such as the ones they learn through their many acquisitions." If we are dealing with Face Dancers, you will learn more by having my Face Dancers in the room, Master Zoel had predicted. She had agreed even against Teg's counsel.
"Yes," confirmed the man lifting his gaze from the document to finally recognize her presence. He looked straight in Murbella's eyes, pensive but somewhat distracted, "except for the fact that I am not, by any means, a Face Dancer."
She studied the man's face — his aquiline nose and strong jawline — until a spark of recognition flickered within Mother Superior. An eerie sense of familiarity washed over her as she pieced together the puzzle. Yet she could not consciously tell what her intuition begged her to learn. Odrade-Within begged for an audience inside her head. Not the right time. She moved forward with the plan they had prepared so thoroughly. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to meet you, majordomo. But I did think your superiors would receive us directly."
"My masters have many duties," the majordomo replied. "And so do I. My presence here, which otherwise would have been completely unnecessary, is out of... curiosity."
"Curiosity in us?"
"The Bene Gesserit are well remembered in the Scattering."
"Have you ever met any of them there?"
"That is hard to say. There are many who claim to be, or descend from the legendary Sisterhood. But how would you tell a real Reverend Mother?"
"And your curiosity in us is a matter of..."
"It's a personal matter. A pastime, one may say."
"Oh?" asked Murbella.
Miles interjected with his contralto voice: "I feel compelled to point out," he said loudly from the back, "that one could infer some shared ancestry between the two of us, majordomo."
That shook Murbella out of her train of thought. She looked deeply into the man's eyes. It couldn't be, but that was the unmistakable pattern, that telltale markers, it had to be...
An Atreides in the Scattering!
This man would easily pass for Miles' father, Murbella realized. Odrade-Within made her presence felt.
"It could be, couldn't it?" replied the majordomo, his tone suddenly interested. "Siona's genes traveled far and wide. The legends say the Sisterhood always had an interest in royal blood. I do spend my free time researching my kin. Would you be open to comparing genotypes? Ah, but you must excuse my manners. I asked my aides to bring refreshments for all." As he spoke, visibly relaxed, the back door opened and two attendants entered the room, carrying trays. Murbella glanced back at Miles, who subtly shook his head. That was unplanned. But no danger, it seemed.
The aides served a beverage that looked like coffee in brown cups, leaving the coffee pot behind and discreetly heading toward the walls. Murbella wrapped her hands around the warm cup, uncomfortable about the small table that was all that stood between her and the Atreides. Zoel's Face Dancer sat next to her, hands resting on the opaque table surface, and smiled before sipping the brown liquid with the identical composure and appearance of the Reverend Mother Bellonda. She smiled. Master Zoel preferred his creatures to be poison-testers; he did not care for the Reverend Mother's supreme control of their body's chemistry. He had insisted that she bring his creature here, to protect her. Murbella relaxed, sipped the liquid which tasted like coffee with a hint of cocoa, and allowed her attention to be fully absorbed by the stranger sitting across the table. She focused on the Atreides' weary and contrite look. How similar but how less disciplined he looked than the portrait of the old Bashar. What shape have the Atreides genes take in the wild Scattering?
"It would certainly please me to find out if we are related. Siona's genes traveled far, and Duncan Idaho's traveled farther," Miles added, more for the benefit of the Bene Gesserit party. The aides discreetly retreated. A direct descendant of Siona and Duncan, at par with Odrade, Miles, and the late Lucilla.
"You need to know that where I am from, directness is the best protocol," stated the Atreides majordomo, finally shifting the conversation to its intended topic. "To focus on the matter at hand: it is in our interest that you clarify your position with respect to the nuisance that calls themselves Honored Matres."
Evasion. "We are the Bene Gesserit of old," Murbella declared, "the same Sisterhood that features in the legends and myths about the Imperium. Once again why wouldn't your masters receive us directly?"
"Before I answer that. Do you host Honored Matres among you or not?" reiterated the Atreides, implying that the nature of the answer would commit him to radically different courses of action.
Murbella paused. The majordomo spoke while his attention was elsewhere, using manners and tone that a man would use to speak with a stranger while casually crushing a crawling insect underfoot. He appeared pensive, no, distracted even, while she had come here ready for battle or worse, to sacrifice her life to shape a better future for the Sisterhood. But all the Million Worlds could be but a coffee stain inadvertently spilled on one of the maps of this Atreides man. So much of his behavior exuded an air of superiority not dictated by arrogance, but by a habit of dealing with concerns magnitudes larger than the current topic at hand. "Why the interest? Do you fear we have been infiltrated? Isn't this room saturated with a virus designed to affect only laiz-addicted Honored Matres, majordomo?"
Slightly taken aback, the man replied: "How direct. I like it. Perceptive, but no, there is no virus. My Futar bodyguard would slay any woman in your entourage that smelled like a Matre fugitive, though."
"Matre?" hissed the Futar, baring its teeth but remaining in its place. It wasn't clear whether the humanoid concealed weapons other than his claws and fangs.
Murbella chose her words carefully. "Understood. We are... to the Honored Matres what a cocoon is to a caterpillar," she ventured.
"Ambitious," was the majordomo's cold reply. "Please explain."
"We have successfully reigned in the bulk of the Honored Matres so that at the end of their planned transformation, they become harmless."
"Are Reverend Mothers harmless?"
"Look at it as a composting facility. Whatever waste comes in, fertile humus comes out. We are humble recyclers."
"You turn Honored Matres into loyal Reverend Mothers?"
"Yes."
"But, loyal? How can you be sure?"
"We have irresistible ways to get them to see from our vantage point."
The new information seemed to give the man pause. She could not but notice how the man's arm twitched at times, revealing a surprising lack of self-control. As he concentrated, she noticed he was manipulating a small object in his hand.
"Recycling, then? How about their Rajak Order?"
"Surrendered but a fortnight ago." commented Miles.
"The Leio Order?"
"Fully absorbed within Bene Gesserit ranks. Many new Reverend Mothers, from that order," Murbella replied.
"Sukuntai?"
"Escaped somewhere else in the Scattering. We lost track of that one."
The majordomo shook his head. "The Sukuntai order was massacred by local uprisings in a sector not too far from your reach," he filled them in.
We are only confirming what he already knows, and he knows vastly more.
"In what capacity have you requested this encounter, majordomo? To parlay? To assess us?" intervened Murbella, her gaze fixed on the man. His patterns betrayed a great awareness and mastery of power, even more than a grown-up Miles Teg. In the old days this majordomo would have carried himself with the same dignified aura of the Corrino emperors. Yet she guessed the authority this man was invested with reached a far larger scope than any of the emperors of old.
"My capacity here is that of a caretaker's," he explained enigmatically, "Threat assessment is a prerequisite to establish direct contact with interstellar neighbors. As a metaphor, before one sows, one needs to weed and plow."
And the Honored Matres were the weeds. And what are we in his eyes?
"It's no casual weed that you have been driving toward us, majordomo," said Miles, echoing her thoughts. "A rather invasive species." The man's hand continued to toy with something. The silence confirmed Miles' implicit statement: that these people had driven the Honored Matres away from their bases in the Scattering and to the Imperium, a rag-tag band of fugitives, whose sheer numbers had dwarfed anything the Imperium had seen before. An exodus. His hand opened briefly to reveal a small blue capsule it was rolling over the edges of his palm.
"Regrettable, is it not, when an experiment goes haywire," he replied almost apologetically.
"Experiment?" asked Miles, suppressing a gasp.
"You will be pleased to know we have made it a mission to convert them into more benign material," said Murbella soothingly. "I was a Matre for one," she ventured.
"Were you?" replied the majordomo raising an eyebrow, and glancing obliquely at his Futar, but otherwise unfazed. One guard, no aides - what incredible confidence puts him here, at risk in neutral space, against an entire delegation of trained fighters?
The confidence of the gardener who exterminates weeds.
"Our means are subtle, but our results are definitive," Murbella added.
"Yes, you are no longer a Matre," the man confirmed. For the first time since the beginning of the meeting, he smiled. "This is news indeed. Excellent news. Somewhere in the Universe, an adequate immune response has taken shape." He sipped coffee, then continued. "If you allow me to be frank, I do not care for your wars and conversions. The Matres will be handled eventually. But your effort is appreciated, and it could be that our direct action is no longer needed here." With this declaration, he nonchalantly popped the capsule he had been idly toying with into his mouth and washed it down with the last remnants of his coffee. "The larger matter at hand, is that neutralizing the Honored Matres is but one goal I care to achieve."
"I see. It is not entirely unsurprising to find the Returned Ones have developed a taste for the spice melange, just like it is one for us in the Million worlds," Miles chimed in.
Murbella's psyche quivered under the epiphany in Miles' words. The azure pill, the accompanying sip of coffee—a spice capsule concealed in plain sight. Now we get to know our opponent, Bashar! But the majordomo betrayed no sign of nervousness at the revelation. Does he realize how much knowledge he is leaking to us?"
"My ghola," she smiled. "Is kindly reminding that the majordomo shares a habit that us of the Reverend Mothers are intimately familiar with," she declared. Can you tell now the smell of his pheromones? And the dryness in the iris, the gleam revealing contact lenses covering the blue in his eyes?
"Daily spice addiction, and a high tolerance, until the addiction itself becomes commonplace, and the dependency something that is out in plain view because, who else in the cosmos would be able to recognize it directly. Except, obviously, others like us. A habit of a lifetime is hard to conceal." She smiled. "And yet the life-prolonging benefits of the melange..." Murbella had discerned the man's fundamental patterns now—deep-seated habits, a lack of discipline, an aloof presence—all encapsulated within an Atreides descendant. She wondered whether the Voice would prove effective.
"If you've concluded your attempt at dissecting me," the majordomo started, impatience tainting his voice. The Face Dancer sitting next to Murbella, the Bellonda simulacrum - so close to her, and just across the table to this strange Atreides creature! - shifted uneasily in her seat. Yes, the real Bellonda would not like this man. Despite Master Zoel's orders, Murbella hoped the Face Dancer would not try to touch the majordomo.
"I merely pointed that out, because we can offer spice if that is something your masters are interested in," Miles offered. "Certainly you know all the universe's stockpiles are finite, now that Rakis and the Tleilaxu are no more?"
"Mine will last long enough," replied the majordomo.
"Then what interests you? Or your masters?" Murbella asked.
Once again the majordomo ignored the question. "We are sure that in the near future you will join us." The answer was given with mathematical certainty, with the same finality of a Mentat at the end of his computation.
That's the source of his confidence. Power? Or something else?
"So soon?"
"Inevitably, Mother Superior."
"Is this a parley then, or an ultimatum?"
"I am not following," said the majordomo, who seemed for a moment truly dumbfounded. "Why would you resist joining forces? You will find useful employment."
"Us! Who is this 'us'? And what is the nature of this employment? Or captivity?"
"With all that we have in common? Have the Bene Gesserit Mothers changed so much? Do you not care about guarding the Golden Path?"
"What Golden Path?" asked Miles. Beware, Miles! He is using our own ideas against us.
"The one I swore by, of course. Guldur's own, the God Emperor's," continued the man, once again uncomfortably surprised.
"Golden Path. A label for empty words! How can anyone even begin to define it?"
"Define it?" the Atreides persisted. "Have you not read this? Aren't there so many Bene Gesserit of Atreides descent? Any of you could be the author, I bet!" The majordomo presented the document he had been perusing a moment earlier, its holographic cover adorned with intricate gothic lettering bearing the title: The Atreides Manifesto. "I found it quite pertinent. Wordless revelations, you see? And here is the supreme revelation: the Golden Path."
"The Manifesto does not speak of the Golden Path at all," protested Murbella.
Miles Teg once again cut in from the back: "You speak of it as though it's a reality you have experienced, majordomo."
"The Path!" he exclaimed, "How could one comprehend it, without having seen it first-hand?" The majordomo brought a hand to his eyes and by means of tuning some subtle implants they could not see, his eyes changed color to reveal an all-too-familiar blue on blue.
Miles quickly intervened: "I offer my apologies for not understanding a moment ago. The Atreides lineage: in the God-Emperor times, even the male Atreides were known to survive the spice ordeal. And majordomo is a title straight from Leto II's age."
The majordomo stood there, dignified by the acknowledgement.
"Prescience," Murbella ventured.
Miles shook his head briefly as a warning.
Turning now to a contemptuous tone one may reserve to children, the majordomo explained: "The Emperor held the lines of vision in his hands, not the majordomos; we are gifted with a single experience of the Emperor's design though. The Water of Life opens the tome but burns the pages. But alas, I see that you have not seen." He made a gesture toward the Futar, the chakobsa 'remain alert, but refrain from aggression'.
"The Water of Life?" exclaimed Murbella, shocked, "From where did you procure it?" Implicit in her question was another one: are there sandworms in the Scattering?
"My family took away from the Imperium the only known cache."
"That must have been centuries ago!"
"So it did."
"Murbella," Miles spoke, "our majordomo is trying to tell us he descends directly from the bloodline of the Atreides majordomos."
Murbella feigned a gasp, mostly for the majordomo's own sake. "Please excuse my sluggishness. We are honored to be in your presence." But our bashar could run circles around this one! She realized she had found a weakness in him. This one is vain.
"Never depend on honor. My family did a lot of dishonorable things to escape the Famine Times, at a time when a single briefcase of spice could buy you a kingdom, or the loyalty of humanity of all sorts."
"So, please enlighten us," Murbella prompted after a pause, "what lies ahead on Leto's Golden Path?"
"History yielded no one but two Kwisatz Haderach," the majordomo explained, "the first to unveil the tether that prescience fastened upon humanity; the second to nullify it, ensuring that another Kwisatz Haderach would never raise to enslave humanity ever again."
"Which brings us to you, and your masters."
"The Emperor's surviving threads require careful caretakers."
"You claim to be following the Golden Path. But the Tyrant professed never to look at the future beyond his reign!"
"Yet I observe that His plan endures. Consider us the anti-Kwisatz Haderach. But to get to the point. what we are here to discuss today, Mother Superior, is my offer to join us in an alliance."
He thinks he has vowed us into submission.
"Direct words are always appreciated. On what terms?" replied Murbella.
"My masters will guarantee your independence against any foe."
"We are perfectly able to defend ourselves."
"You aren't and you know it."
"And if we decline the offer?"
"Will you decline?"
"I reserve the right to it."
"Due to your own sovereignty, or self-determination?"
"It does not matter."
"Indeed."
Silence fell in the room.
Teg had argued with this potential scenario many times in Council. How many times has the Bene Gesserit turned the tables on more powerful allies? But committing the Sisterhood to another's domination was no decision to be made on a whim, and with so little information.
"To be allies, we would expect to be in equal standing," Murbella broke the silence.
"Do you?"
"With equal access to intelligence," Miles asked from the back. "Shared resources and decision making. Do you have any reservations about that?"
"That would be... challenging, I admit" the majordomo replied.
"And we have not even met your masters, let alone understand what is this power we'd ally to? Our majordomo here wants to shake our hand with just his little finger, Miles," commented Murbella. "So easily such an alliance may simply mean you establishing a protectorate over the Bene Gesserit."
"If that path came to be, you do not possess the resources to resist us," the Atreides warned them plainly.
"Resources? You didn't even exterminate the Honored Matres," Murbella rebuked him.
"Only a matter of time."
"Think of the ruin you have caused across the universe by not stopping them promptly, majordomo."
"We expected the disease would create its own immune response."
"And now that you found us to be that response, you want to annex us."
"You know so little of the ways we could work together."
"We won't become yet another experiment."
"Words."
Murbella paused for more words. Part of her was unnecessarily distracted by the Face Dancer, who was toying with the cup in its hands; she sought the quick, almost telepathic exchange of glances with Miles, but he was uncomfortably behind her, making it hard to do so undetected. But so at last the intent behind the meeting was fully revealed to them. "An ultimatum. That's what this encounter is all about," she concluded.
"Out of respect for your Sisterhood, I felt obliged to deliver the message in person, to seek to explain - if you will let me," said the majordomo, "and to show how joining forces would open new doors for the Reverend Mothers."
"You said yourself many of the Bene Gesserit are your next of kin, majordomo."
"More the reason to extend a friendly hand."
"So you expect us to capitulate, now."
"A war with me would be cumbersome, and ineffectual. And we'd lose many of you."
"We will resist you and your masters, may that mean the end of the Bene Gesserit."
"Humanity deserves better. Humanity needs the Bene Gesserit."
"We deserve better than your aggression, majordomo."
"You have no bargaining power."
"You said yourself we have the precious Atreides bloodlines!" Murbella protested.
"A pastime. My masters do not care."
"Our Missionaria Protectiva? Our fighting abilities?"
"Mildly interesting assets."
"I can go as far back as I need in time. Do you want me to describe to you Ikonicre's life in detail? Not the one in the books, the real one."
"Ikonicre's biography is well known."
"Not that he was the only man to successfully plant an agent among the Bene Tleilax."
"He did?"
Murbella paused once again, but this time not to talk.
"As a historian, I am enormously interested, Mother Superior," the Atreides replied gravely, "yet as a statesman, I am no allowed to care."
"The worms," whispered Miles.
Miles! Don't...
"We have the sandworms." Miles continued. They will be destroyed if you attack us. And we can produce the spice melange. Your masters will care. They are a symbol."
The majordomo raised an eyebrow. Master Zoel's Face Dancers were holding their breath.
"I will also personally see to the destruction of every historical report about the Atreides, not to speak of the direct descendants of the last surviving Duncan Idaho."
"Miles, stop!" Murbella protested. "What do you have to offer, majordomo?"
A long pause ensued.
Finally, the majordomo smiled. "Well, this has been a most productive meeting," he commented while refilling his cup from the pot on the table. "I don't have every day the opportunity to discuss the Golden Path, Ikonicre, sandworms, spice... I concede there is much more you have to offer than I originally suspected." The majordomo seemed suddenly shy. "I cannot change the future, but for the sake of our shared ancestry, I will tolerate your neutrality for now. That is, at the condition that diplomatic relations start immediately. You will depart from here with my chosen ambassador. I expect a tight collaboration."
Murbella almost betrayed her relief. But Miles! The cost of what you have revealed!
"And we will send ours," she replied quickly.
"Miles Teg," spoke the majordomo, addressing the bashar by name for the first time. "I would very much like to meet Duncan Idaho's last children."
"It can be arranged, as well as any genetic analysis you'd like to pursue that you believe to be important." Miles had relaxed too. They had found levers. This was the room they so desperately required to learn about an adversary they knew so little about, and grow strong.
"Just a past time, just a past time," replied the majordomo. But Murbella read elation in the Atreides. He reached a hand out toward the coffee pot, arm slightly shaking - out of excitement? or spice withdrawal? - and bumped his hand against it so that the pot was jolted, wobbled uncertainly in a circular fashion on the table, and then started tilting slowly but inevitably toward one side. The Face Dancer next to Murbella - Bellonda's replica - jumped forward, arm extended to to catch the hot spinning object, sending in the excitement of the moment its own cup hurtling forward, which slid on the smooth surface of the table splashing hot liquid forward. The majordomo moved sideways to avoid burning himself, but doing so he put his head right in a collision course with the Face Dancers's arm now moving at speed over the table...
But Bellonda's hand never reached the pot nor the Atreides, as the Futar's fangs came in between with a snap. Murbella's synaptic bypasses were fast but even then things happened rather quickly.
The Futar's jaws snapped around the Face Dancer's arm, protecting the majordomo it was sworn to defend.
The majordomo's two aides rushed from the side walls they had retreated against, closing in on the scene. Fast! The one to the left of the Mother Superior lashed out a kick at such speed that Murbella only barely avoided it by throwing herself back from the chair and rolling onto the floor, her unhealed wounds releasing insufferable pain for every movement. She rolled and stood up. Teg had jumped forward from the back row, faster than anything Murbella had seen in her life. The second aide was about to bring down a heavy tray down on Miles' head, but was bewildered to discover that the boy's head was no longer there. In a split second, the surprise look froze on his face as a gash opened at the neck, letting out a drip of blood.
"Hoo..!" the majordomo gasped. Murbella's assailant had moved to get closer, shielding the Atreides, while the body of Master Zoel's Face Dancer was tangled in the Futar's.
Miles' assailant started only now to collapse toward the floor like a lifeless puppet. The Futar snarled as it fought the Face Dancer. Murbella saw now her assailant slip out a gun from a hoist over the Futar's uniform...
"..oold!" the majordomo continued.
Murbella rushed against the assailant with the gun...
The Face Dancer continued to wrestle the Futar, which turned upside down in mid-air, its jaws still closed around the Dancer's arm. And right in front of Murbella, Miles Teg had already blocked the gun-holding aide in a bind and was pushing the hand holding the gun toward the Futar - the criticality of not revealing to these people that the Reverend Mother in the black aba was in fact a Face Dancer hit Murbella like a revelation...
"Stop!" Miles roared at the top of his lungs. And yet the crazed Futar moved faster, hitting the aide's arm with an extended leg which sent the creature crashing on the table, and Miles on the floor.
Murbella saw the fingers pressing the trigger.
To the right, the Face Dancer fell over behind the table, mortally wounded.
On the left, the aide's eyes went blank as Miles did something with a broken cup, something she only understood as after-images composed themselves in her mind. The aide's body caved backwards, started its rush toward the floor, the hand not holding the gun anymore...
There was a thump.
The coffee pot had hit the floor, splashing hot brown liquid everywhere.
"Mother Superior!" somebody screamed from the back. It was the second of Master Zoel's Face Dancers, who had so far stayed at the edges of the scuffle. Murbella turned to watch it point a finger toward the front.
"Everybody hold! This is a misunderstanding!" Murbella cried.
There was a second thump.
The Futar had retreated behind the table to cover his master, eyes bloodshot and teeth bared, growling. The small boy that was Miles Teg was already walking calmly to it. While Murbella's eyes remained fixed on the creature, she cried: "Miles, stay back! Majordomo, it's a misunderstanding!"
The Futar growled, baring its fangs.
"It won't attack..." Miles panted, catching his breath.
"That's not what I just saw," replied Murbella.
"... because its master is already dead."