It entered Sheeana's awareness that she stood in the deadly path. Her thoughts,

not yet fully formed, recognized only that she had done a crazy thing. Much

later, as the Sisterhood's teachings rounded her consciousness, she would

realize that she had been overcome by the terror of loneliness. She had wanted

Shaitan to take her into the company of her dead.

A grating sound issued from beneath the worm.

Sheeana stifled a scream.

Slowly at first, then faster, the worm backed off several meters. It turned

there and gathered speed beside the twin-mounded track it had created coming

from the desert. The grating of its passage diminished in the distance.

Sheeana grew aware of another sound. She lifted her gaze to the sky. The

thwock-thwock of a priestly ornithopter swept over her, brushing her with its

shadow. The craft glistened in the morning sunlight as it followed the worm

into the desert.

Sheeana felt a more familiar fear then.

The priests!

She kept her gaze on the 'thopter. It hovered in the distance, then returned to

settle gently onto a patch of worm-smoothed sand nearby. She could smell the

lubricants and the sickly acridity of the 'thopter's fuel. The thing was a

giant insect nestled on the sand, waiting to pounce upon her.

A hatch popped open.

Sheeana threw back her shoulders and stood her ground. Very well; they had

caught her. She knew what to expect now. Nothing could be gained by flight.

Only the priests used 'thopters. They could go anywhere and see anything.

Two richly robed priests, their garments all gold and white with purple trim,

emerged and ran toward her across the sand. They knelt in front of Sheeana so

close she could smell their perspiration and the musky melange incense which

permeated their clothing. They were young but much like all the priests she

could remember: soft of features, uncalloused hands, careless of their moisture

losses. Neither of them wore a stillsuit under those robes.

The one on her left, his eyes on a level with Sheeana's, spoke.

"Child of Shai-hulud, we saw your Father bring you from His lands."

The words made no sense to Sheeana. Priests were men to be feared. Her parents

and all the adults she had ever known had impressed this upon her by words and

actions. Priests possessed ornithopters. Priests fed you to Shaitan for the

slightest infraction or for no infraction at all, for only priestly whims. Her

people knew many instances.

Sheeana backed away from the kneeling men and cast her glance around. Where

could she run?

The one who had spoken raised an imploring hand. "Stay with us."

"You're bad!" Sheeana's voice cracked with emotion.

Both priests fell prostrate on the sand.

Far away on the city's towers, sunlight flashed off lenses. Sheeana saw them.

She knew about such flashings. Priests were always watching you in the cities.

When you saw the lenses flash that was the signal to be inconspicuous, to "be

good."

Sheeana clasped her hands in front of her to still their trembling. She glanced

left and right and then at the prostrate priests. Something was wrong here.

Heads on the sand, the two priests shuddered with fear and waited. Neither

spoke.

Sheeana did not know how to respond. The crush of her immediate experiences

could not be absorbed by an eight-year-old mind. She knew that her parents and

all of her neighbors had been taken by Shaitan. Her own eyes had witnessed

this. And Shaitan had brought her here, refusing to take her into his awful

fires. She had been spared.

This was a word she understood. Spared. It had been explained to her when she

learned the dancing song.

"Shai-hulud spare us!

"Take Shaitan away . . ."

Slowly, not wanting to arouse the prostrate priests, Sheeana began the

shuffling, unrhythmic movements of the dance. As the remembered music grew

within her, she unclasped her hands and swung her arms wide. Her feet lifted

high in the stately movements. Her body turned, slowly at first and then more

swiftly as the dance ecstasy increased. Her long brown hair whipped around her

face.

The two priests dared to lift their heads. The strange child was performing The

Dance! They recognized the movements: The Dance of Propitiation. She asked

Shai-hulud to forgive his people. She asked God to forgive them!

They turned their heads to look at each other and, together, rocked back onto

their knees. There, they began clapping in the time-honored effort to distract

the dancer. Their hands clapped rhythmically as they chanted the ancient words:

"Our fathers ate manna in the desert,

"In the burning places where whirlwinds came!"

The priests excluded from their attention all except the child. She was a

slender thing, they saw, with stringy muscles, thin arms and legs. Her robe and

stillsuit were worn and patched like those of the poorest. Her cheekbones had

high planes that drew shadows across her olive skin. Brown eyes, they noted.

Reddish sun streaks drew their lines in her hair. There was a water-spare

sharpness about her features -- the narrow nose and chin, the wide forehead, the

wide thin mouth, the long neck. She looked like the Fremen portraits in the

holy of holies at Dar-es-Balat. Of course! The child of Shai-hulud would look

thus.

She danced well, too. Not the slightest quickly repeatable rhythm entered her

movements. There was rhythm but it was an admirably long beat, at least a

hundred steps apart. She kept it up while the sun lifted higher and higher. It

was almost noon before she fell exhausted to the sand.

The priests stood and looked out into the desert where Shai-hulud had gone. The

stampings of the dance had not summoned Him back. They were forgiven.

That was how Sheeana's new life began.

Loudly in their own quarters and for many days, the senior priests engaged in

arguments about her. At last, they brought their disputations and reports to

the High Priest, Hedley Tuek. They met in the afternoon within the Hall of

Small Convocations, Tuek and six priestly councillors. Murals of Leto II, a

human face on the great wormshape, looked down upon them with benevolence.

Tuek seated himself on a stone bench that had been recovered from Windgap

Sietch. Muad'dib himself was reputed to have sat on this bench. One of the

legs still bore the carvings of an Atreides hawk.

His councillors took lesser modern benches facing him.

The High Priest was an imposing figure; silky gray hair combed smoothly to his

shoulders. It was a suitable frame for the square face with its wide, thick

mouth and heavy chin. Tuek's eyes retained their original clear whites

surrounding dark blue pupils. Bushy, untrimmed gray eyebrows shaded his eyes.

The councillors were a motley lot. Scions of old priestly families each carried

in his heart the belief that matters would move better if he were sitting on

Tuek's bench.

The scrawny, pinch-faced Stiros put himself forward as opposition spokesman:

"She is nothing but a poor desert waif and she rode Shai-hulud. That is

forbidden and the punishment is mandatory."

Others spoke up immediately. "No! No Stiros. You have it wrong! She did not

stand on Shai-hulud's back as the Fremen did. She had no maker hooks or . . ."

Stiros tried to shout them down.

It was deadlocked, Tuek saw: three and three with Umphrud, a fat hedonist, as

advocate for "cautious acceptance."

"She had no way to guide Shai-hulud's course," Umphrud argued. "We all saw how

she came down to the sand unafraid and talked to Him."

Yes, they all had seen that, either at the moment or in the holophoto that a

thoughtful observer had recorded. Desert waif or not, she had confronted Shaihulud

and conversed with Him. And Shai-hulud had not engulfed her. No, indeed.

The Worm-of-God had drawn back at the child's command and had returned to the

desert.

"We will test her," Tuek said.

Early the following morning, an ornithopter flown by the two priests who had

brought her from the desert conveyed Sheeana far out away from the sight of

Keen's populace. The priests took her down to a dune top and planted a

meticulous copy of a Fremen thumper in the sand. When the thumper's catch was

released, a heavy beating trembled through the desert -- the ancient summons to

Shai-hulud. The priests fled to their 'thopter and waited high overhead while a

terrified Sheeana, her worst fears realized, stood alone some twenty meters from

the thumper.

Two worms came. They were not the largest the priests had ever seen, no more

than thirty meters long. One of them scooped up the thumper and silenced it.

Together, they rounded in parallel tracks and stopped side by side not six

meters from Sheeana.

She stood submissive, fists clenched at her sides. This was what priests did.

They fed you to Shaitan.

In their hovering 'thopter, the two priests watched with fascination. Their

lenses transmitted the scene to equally fascinated observers in the High

Priest's quarters at Keen. All of them had seen similar events before. It was

a standard punishment, a handy way to remove obstructionists from the populace

or priesthood, or to pave the way for acquisition of a new concubine. Never

before, though, had they seen a lone child as victim. And such a child!

The Worms-of-God crept forward slowly after their first stop. They became

motionless once more when only about three meters from Sheeana.

Resigned to her fate, Sheeana did not run. Soon, she thought, she would be with

her parents and friends. As the worms remained motionless, anger replaced her

terror. The bad priests had left her here! She could hear their 'thopter

overhead. The hot spice smell from the worms filled the air around her.

Abruptly, she raised her right hand and pointed up at the 'thopter.

"Go ahead and eat me! That's what they want!"

The priests overhead could not hear her words but the gesture was visible and

they could see that she was talking to the two Worms-of-God. The finger

pointing up at them did not bode well.

The worms did not move.

Sheeana lowered her hand. "You killed my mother and father and all my friends!"

she accused. She took a step forward and shook a fist at them.

The worms retreated, keeping their distance.

"If you don't want me, go back where you came from!" She waved them away toward

the desert.

Obediently, they backed farther and turned in unison.

The priests in the 'thopter tracked them until they slipped beneath the sand

more than a kilometer away. Only then did the priests return, fear and

trepidation in them. They plucked the child of Shai-hulud from the sand and

returned her to Keen.

The Bene Gesserit embassy at Keen had a full report by nightfall. Word was on

its way to the Chapter House by the following morning.

It had happened at last!

The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this,

because it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency in

susceptible types. Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors

back into an innocent population that is incapable of even imagining what such

returned soldiers might do.

-Teachings of the Golden Path, Bene Gesserit Archives

One of Miles Teg's early memories was of sitting at dinner with his parents and

his younger brother, Sabine. Teg had been only seven at the time, but the

events lay indelibly in his memory: the dining room on Lernaeus colorful with

freshly cut flowers, the low light of the yellow sun diffused by antique shades.

Bright blue dinnerware and glistening silver graced the table. Acolyte servants

stood ready at hand, because his mother might be permanently detached on special

duty but her function as a Bene Gesserit teacher was not to be wasted.

Janet Roxbrough-Teg, a large-boned woman who appeared cast for the part of

grande dame, looked down her nose from one end of the table, watching that the

dinner service not be impaired by the slightest misplacement. Loschy Teg,

Miles' father, always observed this with a faint air of amusement. He was a

thin man with high forehead, a face so narrow his dark eyes appeared to bulge at

the sides. His black hair was a perfect counterpoint for his wife's fairness.

Above the subdued sounds at the table and the rich smell of spiced edu soup, his

mother instructed his father on how to deal with an importunate Free Trader.

When she said "Tleilaxu," she had Miles' entire attention. His education had

just recently touched on the Bene Tleilax.

Even Sabine, who succumbed many years later to a poisoner on Romo, listened with

as much of his four-year-old awareness as he could muster. Sabine heroworshiped

his brother. Anything that caught the attention of Miles was of

interest to Sabine. Both boys listened silently.

"The man is fronting for the Tleilaxu," Lady Janet said. "I can hear it in his

voice."

"I do not doubt your ability to detect such things, my dear," Loschy Teg said.

"But what am I to do? He has the proper tokens of credit and he wishes to buy

the --"

"The order for the rice is unimportant at the moment. Never assume that what a

Face Dancer appears to seek is actually what it seeks."

"I'm sure he's not a Face Dancer. He --"

"Loschy! I know you have learned this well at my instruction and can detect a

Face Dancer. I agree that the Free Trader is not one of them. The Face Dancers

remain on his ship. They know I am here."

"They know they could not fool you. Yes, but -"

"Tleilaxu strategy is always woven within a web of strategies, any one of which

may be the real strategy. They learned that from us."

"My dear, if we are dealing with Tleilaxu, and I do not question your judgment,

then it immediately becomes a question of melange."

Lady Janet nodded her head gently. Indeed, even Miles knew about the Tleilaxu

connection with the spice. It was one of the things that fascinated him about

the Tleilaxu. For every milligram of melange produced on Rakis, the Bene

Tleilax tanks produced long tons. Use of melange had grown to fit the new

supply and even the Spacing Guild bent its knee before this power.

"But the rice . . ." Loschy Teg ventured.

"My dear husband, the Bene Tleilax have no need of that much pongi rice in our

sector. They require it for trade. We must find out who really needs the

rice."

"You want me to delay," he said.

"Precisely. You are superb at what we now require. Don't give that Free Trader

the chance to say yes or no. Someone trained by the Face Dancers will

appreciate such subtlety."

"We lure the Face Dancers out of the ship while you initiate inquiries

elsewhere."

Lady Janet smiled. "You are lovely when you leap ahead of me that way."

A look of understanding passed between them.

"He cannot go to another supplier in this sector," Loschy Teg said.

"He will wish to avoid a go, no-go confrontation," Lady Janet said, patting the

table. "Delay, delay, and more delay. You must draw the Face Dancers out of

the ship."

"They will realize, of course."

"Yes, my dear, and it is dangerous. You must always meet on your own ground and

with our own guards nearby."

Miles Teg recalled that his father had, indeed, drawn the Face Dancers out of

their ship. His mother had taken Miles to the viewer where he watched the

copper-walled room in which his father drove the bargain that won CHOAM's

highest commendation and a rich bonus.

The first Face Dancers Miles Teg ever saw: Two small men as alike as twins.

Almost chinless round faces, pug noses, tiny mouths, black button eyes, and

short-cropped white hair that stood up from their heads like the bristles on a

brush. The two were dressed as the Free Trader had been -- black tunics and

trousers.

"Illusion, Miles," his mother said. "Illusion is their way. The fashioning of

illusion to achieve real goals, that is how the Tleilaxu work."

"Like the magician at the Winter Show?" Miles asked, his gaze intent on the

viewer and its toy-figure scene.

"Quite similar," his mother agreed. She too watched the viewer as she spoke but

one arm went protectively around her son's shoulders.

"You are looking at evil, Miles. Study it carefully. The faces you see can be

changed in an instant. They can grow taller, appear heavier. They could mimic

your father so that only I would recognize the substitution."

Miles Teg's mouth formed a soundless "O." He stared at the viewer, listening to

his father explain that the price of CHOAM's pongi rice once more had gone up

alarmingly.

"And the most terrible thing of all," his mother said. "Some of the newer Face

Dancers can, by touching the flesh of a victim, absorb some of the victim's

memories."

"They read minds?" Miles looked up at his mother.

"Not exactly. We think they take a print of the memories, almost a holophoto

process. They do not yet know that we are aware of this."

Miles understood. He was not to speak of this to anyone, not even to his father

or his mother. She had taught him the Bene Gesserit way of secrecy. He watched

the figures in the screen with care.

At his father's words, the Face Dancers betrayed no emotion, but their eyes

appeared to glitter more brightly.

"How did they get so evil?" Miles asked.

"They are communal beings, bred not to identify with any shape or face. The

appearance they present now is for my benefit. They know I am watching. They

have relaxed into their natural communal shape. Mark it closely."

Miles tipped his head to one side and studied the Face Dancers. They looked so

bland and ineffectual.

"They have no sense of self," his mother said. "They have only the instinct to

preserve their own lives unless ordered to die for their masters."

"Would they do that?"

"They have done it many times."

"Who are their masters?"

"Men who seldom leave the planets of the Bene Tleilax."

"Do they have children?"

"Not Face Dancers. They are mules, sterile. But their masters can breed. We

have taken a few of them but the offspring are strange. Few female births and

even then we cannot probe their Other Memories."

Miles frowned. He knew his mother was a Bene Gesserit. He knew the Reverend

Mothers carried a marvelous reservoir of Other Memories going back through all

the millennia of the Sisterhood. He even knew something of the Bene Gesserit

breeding design. Reverend Mothers chose particular men and had children by

those men.

"What are the Tleilaxu women like?" Miles asked.

It was a perceptive question that sent a surge of pride through the Lady Janet.

Yes, it was almost a certainty that she had a potential Mentat here. The

breeding mistresses had been right about the gene potential of Loschy Teg.

"No one outside of their planets has ever reported seeing a Tleilaxu female,"

the Lady Janet said.

"Do they exist or is it just the tanks?"

"They exist."

"Are any of the Face Dancers women?"

"At their own choice, they can be male or female. Observe them carefully. They

know what your father is doing and it angers them."

"Will they try to hurt my father?"

"They don't dare. We have taken precautions and they know it. See how the one

on the left works his jaws. That is one of their anger signs."

"You said they were com . . . communal beings."

"Like hive insects, Miles. They have no self-image. Without a sense of self,

they go beyond amorality. Nothing they say or do can be trusted."

Miles shuddered.

"We have never been able to detect an ethical code in them," the Lady Janet

said. "They are flesh made into automata. Without self, they have nothing to

esteem or even doubt. They are bred only to obey their masters."

"And they were told to come here and buy the rice."

"Exactly. They were told to get it and there's no other place in this sector

where they can do that."

"They must buy it from father?"

"He's their only source. At this very moment, son, they are paying in melange.

You see?"

Miles saw the orange-brown spice markers change hands, a tall stack of them,

which one of the Face Dancers removed from a case on the floor.

"The price is far, far higher than they ever anticipated," the Lady Janet said.

"This will be an easy trail to follow."

"Why?"

"Someone will be bankrupted acquiring that shipment. We think we know who the

buyer is. Whoever it is, we will learn of it. Then we will know what was

really being traded here."

Lady Janet then began to point out the identifiable incongruities that betrayed

a Face Dancer to trained eyes and ears. They were subtle signs but Miles picked

up on them immediately. His mother told him then that she thought he might

become a Mentat . . . perhaps even more.

Shortly before his thirteenth birthday, Miles Teg was sent away to advanced

schooling at the Bene Gesserit stronghold on Lampadas, where his mother's

assessment of him was confirmed. Word went back to her:

"You have given us the Warrior Mentat we had hoped for."

Teg did not see this note until sorting through his mother's effects after her

death. The words inscribed on a small sheet of ridulian crystal with the

Chapter House imprint below them filled him with an odd sense of displacement in

time. His memory put him suddenly back on Lampadas where the love-awe he had

felt for his mother was deftly transferred to the Sisterhood itself, as

originally intended. He had come to understand this only during his later

Mentat training but the understanding changed little. If anything, it bound him

even more strongly to the Bene Gesserit. It confirmed that the Sisterhood must

be one of his strengths. He already knew that the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood was

one of the most powerful forces in his universe -- equal at least to the Spacing

Guild, superior to the Fish Speaker Council that had inherited the core of the

old Atreides Empire, superior by far to CHOAM, and balanced somehow with the

Fabricators of Ix and with the Bene Tleilax. A small measure of the

Sisterhood's far-reaching authority could be deduced from the fact that they

held this authority despite Tleilaxu tank-grown melange, which had broken the

Rakian monopoly on the spice, just as Ixian navigation machines had broken the

Guild monopoly on space travel.

Miles Teg knew his history well by then. Guild Navigators no longer were the

only ones who could thread a ship through the folds of space -- in this galaxy

one instant, in a faraway galaxy the very next heartbeat.

The School Sisters held back little from him, revealing there for the first time

the fact of his Atreides ancestry. That revelation was necessary because of the

tests they gave him. They obviously were testing for prescience. Could he,

like a Guild Navigator, detect fatal obstructions? He failed. They tried him

next on no-chambers and no-ships. He was as blind to such devices as the rest

of humankind. For this test, though, they fed him increased doses of the spice

and he sensed the awakening of his True Self.

"The Mind at Its Beginning," a teaching Sister called it when he asked for an

explanation of this odd sensation.

For a time, the universe was magical as he looked at it through this new

awareness. His awareness was a circle, then a globe. Arbitrary forms became

transient. He fell into trance state without warning until the Sisters taught

him how to control this. They provided him with accounts of saints and mystics

and forced him to draw a freehand circle with either hand, following the line

with his awareness.

By the end of the term, his awareness resumed its touch with conventional

labels, but the memory of the magic never left him. He found that memory a

source of strength at the most difficult moments.

After accepting the assignment as Weapons Master to the ghola, Teg found his

magical memory increasingly with him. It was especially useful during his first

interview with Schwangyu at the Keep on Gammu. They met in the Reverend

Mother's study, a place of shiny metal walls and numerous instruments, most of

them with the stamp of Ix on them. Even the chair in which she sat, the morning

sun coming through a window behind her and making her face difficult to see,

even that chair was one of the Ixian self-molders. He was forced to sit in a

chairdog, though he realized she must know he detested the use of any life form

for such a demeaning task.

"You were chosen because you actually are a grandfatherly figure," Schwangyu

said. The bright sunlight formed a corona around her hooded head. Deliberate!

"Your wisdom will earn the child's love and respect."

"There's no way I could be a father figure."

"According to Taraza, you have the precise characteristics she requires. I know

of your honorable scars and their value to us."

This only reconfirmed his previous Mentat summation: They have been planning

this for a long time. They have bred for it. I was bred for it. I am part of

their larger plan.

All he said was: "Taraza expects this child to become a redoubtable warrior

when restored to his true self."

Schwangyu merely stared at him for a moment, then: "You must not answer any of

his questions about gholas, should he encounter the subject. Do not even use

the word until I give you permission. We will supply you with all of the ghola

data your duties require."

Coldly parceling out his words for emphasis, Teg said: "Perhaps the Reverend

Mother was not informed that I am well versed in the lore of Tleilaxu gholas. I

have met Tleilaxu in battle."

"You think you know enough about the Idaho series?"

"The Idahos are reputed to have been brilliant military strategists," Teg said.

"Then perhaps the great Bashar was not informed about the other characteristics

of our ghola."

No doubt of the mockery in her voice. Something else as well: jealousy and

great anger poorly concealed. Teg's mother had taught him ways of reading

through her own masks, a forbidden teaching, which he had always concealed. He

feigned chagrin and shrugged.

It was obvious, though, that Schwangyu knew he was Taraza's Bashar. The lines

had been drawn.

"At Bene Gesserit behest," Schwangyu said, "the Tleilaxu have made a significant

alteration in the present Idaho series. His nerve-muscle system has been

modernized."

"Without changing the original persona?" Teg fed the question to her blandly,

wondering how far she would go in revelation.

"He is a ghola, not a clone!"

"I see."

"Do you really? He requires the most careful prana-bindu training at all

stages."

"Taraza's orders exactly," Teg said. "And we will all obey those orders."

Schwangyu leaned forward, not concealing her anger. "You have been asked to

train a ghola whose role in certain plans is most dangerous to us all. I don't

think you even remotely understand what you will train!"

What you will train, Teg thought. Not whom. This ghola-child would never be a

whom for Schwangyu or any of the others who opposed Taraza. Perhaps the ghola

would not be a whom to anyone until restored to his original self, firmly seated

in that original Duncan Idaho identity.

Teg saw clearly now that Schwangyu harbored more than hidden reservations about

the ghola project. She was in active opposition just as Taraza had warned.

Schwangyu was the enemy and Taraza's orders had been explicit.

"You will protect that child against any threat."

Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis from human into the

sandworm of Rakis and historians still argue over his motives. Was he driven by

the desire for long life? He lived more than ten times the normal span of three

hundred SY, but consider the price he paid. Was it the lure of power? He is

called the Tyrant for good reason but what did power bring him that a human

might want? Was he driven to save humankind from itself? We have only his own

words about his Golden Path to answer this and I cannot accept the self-serving

records of Dar-es-Balat. Might there have been other gratifications, which only

his experiences would illuminate? Without better evidence the question is moot.

We are reduced to saying only that "He did it!" The physical fact alone is

undeniable.

-The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary Peroration by Gaus Andaud

Once more, Waff knew he was on lashkar. This time the stakes were as high as

they could go. An Honored Matre from the Scattering demanded his presence. A

powindah of powindahs! Descendants of Tleilaxu from the Scattering had told him

all they could about these terrible women.

"Far more terrible than Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit," they said.

And more numerous, Waff reminded himself.

He did not fully trust the returned Tleilaxu descendants, either. Their accents

were strange, their manners even stranger and their observances of the rituals

questionable. How could they be readmitted to the Great Kehl? What possible

rite of ghufran could cleanse them after all these centuries? It was beyond

belief that they had kept the Tleilaxu secret down the generations.

They were no longer malik-brothers and yet they were the only source of

information the Tleilaxu possessed about these returning Lost Ones. And the

revelations they had brought! Revelations that had been incorporated in the

Duncan Idaho gholas -- that was worth all of the risks of contamination by

powindah evil.

The meeting place with the Honored Matres was the presumed neutrality of an

Ixian no-ship that held a tight orbit around a mutually selected gas giant

planet in a mined-out solar system of the old Imperium. The Prophet himself had

drained the last of the wealth from this system. New Face Dancers walked as

Ixians among the no-ship's crew but Waff still sweated the first encounter. If

these Honored Matres were truly more terrible than the Bene Gesserit witches,

would the exchange of Face Dancers for Ixian crewmen be detected?

Selection of this meeting place and the arrangements had put a strain on the

Tleilaxu. Was it secure? He reassured himself that he carried two sealed

weapons never before seen off the Tleilaxu core planets. The weapons were the

painstaking result of long effort by his artificers: two minuscule dart

throwers concealed in his sleeves. He had trained with them for years until the

flipping of the sleeves and the discharge of the poisoned darts was almost an

instinctive reflex.

The walls of the meeting room were properly copper-toned, evidence that they

were shielded from Ixian spy devices. But what instruments might the people of

the Scattering have developed beyond the Ixian ken?

Waff entered the room with a hesitant step. The Honored Matre already was there

seated in a leather sling chair.

"You will call me what everyone else calls me," she greeted him. "Honored

Matre."

He bowed as he had been warned to do. "Honored Matre."

No hint of hidden powers in her voice. A low contralto with overtones that

spoke of disdain for him. She looked like an aged athlete or acrobat, slowed

and retired but still maintaining her muscle tone and some of her skills. Her

face was tight skin over a skull with prominent cheekbones. The thin-lipped

mouth produced a sense of arrogance when she spoke, as though every word were

projected downward onto lesser folk.

"Well, come in and sit down!" she commanded, waving at a sling chair facing

her.

Waff heard the hatch hiss closed behind him. He was alone with her! She was

wearing a snooper. He could see the lead for it going into her left ear. His

dart throwers had been sealed and "washed" against snoopers, then maintained at

minus 340° Kelvin in a radiation bath for five SY to make them proof against

snoopers. Had it been enough?

Gently, he lowered himself into the indicated chair.

Orange-tinted contact lenses covered the Honored Matre's eyes, giving them a

feral appearance. She was altogether daunting. And her clothing! Red leotards

beneath a dark blue cape. The surface of the cape had been decorated with some

pearly material to produce strange arabesques and dragon designs. She sat in

the chair as though it were a throne, her clawlike hands resting easily on the

arms.

Waff glanced around the room. His people had inspected this place in company

with Ixian maintenance workers and representatives of the Honored Matre.

We have done our best, he thought, and he tried to relax.

The Honored Matre laughed.

Waff stared at her with as calm an expression as he could muster. "You are

gauging me now," he accused. "You say to yourself that you have enormous

resources to employ against me, subtle and gross instruments to carry out your

commands."

"Do not take that tone with me." The words were low and flat but carried such a

weight of venom that Waff almost recoiled.

He stared at the stringy muscles of the woman's legs, that deep red leotard

fabric which flowed over her skin as though it were organic to her.

Their meeting time had been adjusted to bring them together at a mutually

personal mid-morning, their waking hours having been balanced en route. Waff

felt dislocated, though, and at a disadvantage. What if the stories of his

informants were true? She must have weapons here.

She smiled at him without humor.

"You are trying to intimidate me," Waff said.

"And succeeding." Anger surged through Waff. He kept this from his voice. "I

have come at your invitation."

"I hope you did not come to engage in a confrontation that you would surely

lose," she said.

"I came to forge a bond between us," he said. And he wondered: What do they

need from us? Surely they must need something.

"What bond can there be between us?" she asked. "Would you build an edifice on

a disintegrating raft? Hah! Agreements can be broken and often are."

"For what tokens do we bargain?" he asked.

"Bargain? I do not bargain. I am interested in this ghola you made for the

witches." Her tone gave away nothing but Waff's heartbeat quickened at her

question.

In one of his ghola lifetimes, Waff had trained under a renegade Mentat. The

capabilities of a Mentat were beyond him and besides, reasoning required words.

They had been forced to kill the powindah Mentat but there had been some things

of value in the experience. Waff allowed himself a small moue of distaste at

the memory but he recalled the things of value.

Attack and absorb the data that attack produces!

"You offer me nothing in exchange!" he said, his voice loud.

"Recompense is at my discretion," she said.

Waff produced a scornful gaze. "Do you play with me?"

She showed white teeth in a feral grin. "You would not survive my play, nor

want to."

"So I must be dependent upon your good will!"

"Dependency!" The word curled from her mouth as though it produced a

distasteful sensation. "Why do you sell these gholas to the witches and then

kill the gholas?"

Waff pressed his lips together and remained silent. .

"You have somehow changed this ghola while still making it possible for him to

regain his original memories," she said.

"You know so much!" Waff said. It was not quite a sneer and, he hoped,

revealed nothing. Spies! She had spies among the witches! Was there also a

traitor in the Tleilaxu heartlands?

"There is a girl-child on Rakis who figures in the plans of the witches," the

Honored Matre said.

"How do you know this?"

"The witches do not make a move without our knowing! You think of spies but you

cannot know how far our arms will reach!"

Waff was dismayed. Could she read his mind? Was it something born of the

Scattering? A wild talent from out there where the original human seed could

not observe?

"How have you changed this ghola?" she demanded.

Voice!

Waff, armed against such devices by his Mentat teacher, almost blurted an

answer. This Honored Matre had some of the witches' powers! It had been so

unexpected coming from her. You expected such things from a Reverend Mother and

were prepared. He was a moment recovering his balance. Waff steepled his hands

in front of his chin.

"You have interesting resources," she said.

A gamin expression came over Waff's features. He knew how disarmingly elflike

he could look.

Attack!

"We know how much you have learned from the Bene Gesserit," he said.

A look of rage swept over her face and was gone. "They have taught us nothing!"

Waff pitched his voice at a humorously appealing level, cajoling. "Surely, this

is not bargaining."

"Isn't it?" She actually appeared surprised.

Waff lowered his hands. "Come now, Honored Matre. You are interested in this

ghola. You speak of things on Rakis. What do you take us for?"

"Very little. You become less valuable by the instant."

Waff sensed the coldest machine logic in her response. There was no smell of

Mentat in it but something more chilling. She is capable of killing me right

here!

Where were her weapons? Would she even require weapons? He did not like the

look of those stringy muscles, the calluses on her hands, the hunter's gleam in

her orange eyes. Could she possibly guess (or even know) about the dart

throwers in his sleeves?

"We are confronted by a problem that cannot be resolved by logical means," she

said.

Waff stared at her in shock. A Zensunni Master might have said that! He had

said it himself on more than one occasion.

"You have probably never considered such a possibility," she said. It was as

though her words dropped a mask away from her face. Waff suddenly saw through

to the calculating person behind these postures. Did she take him for some

padfooted seelie fit only for collecting slig shit?

Bringing as much hesitant puzzlement into his voice as possible, he asked: "How

could such a problem be resolved?"

"The natural course of events will dispose of it," she said.

Waff continued to stare at her in simulated puzzlement. Her words did not smack

of revelation. Still, the things implied! He said: "Your words leave me

floundering."

"Humankind has become infinite," she said. "That is the true gift of the

Scattering."

Waff fought to conceal the turmoil these words created. "Infinite universes,

infinite time -- anything may happen," he said.

"Ahhh, you are a bright little manikin," she said. "How does one allow for

anything? It is not logical."

She sounded, Waff thought, like one of the ancient leaders of the Butlerian

Jihad, which had tried to rid humankind of mechanical minds. This Honored Matre

was strangely out of date.

"Our ancestors looked for an answer with computers," he ventured. Let her try

that!

"You already know that computers lack infinite storage capacity," she said.

Again, her words disconcerted him. Could she actually read minds? Was this a

form of mind-printing? What the Tleilaxu did with Face Dancers and gholas,

others might do as well. He centered his awareness and concentrated on Ixians,

on their evil machines. Powindah machines!

The Honored Matre swept her gaze around the room. "Are we wrong to trust the

Ixians?" she asked.

Waff held his breath.

"I don't think you fully trust them," she said. "Come, come, little man. I

offer you my good will."

Belatedly, Waff began to suspect that she was trying to be friendly and candid

with him. She certainly had put aside her earlier pose of angry superiority.

Waff's informants from the Lost Ones said the Honored Matres made sexual

decisions much in the manner of the Bene Gesserit. Was she trying to be

seductive? But she clearly understood and had exposed the weakness of logic.

It was very confusing!

"We are talking in circles," he said.

"Quite the contrary. Circles enclose. Circles limit. Humankind no longer is

limited by the space in which to grow."

There she went again! He spoke past a dry tongue: "It is said that what you

cannot control you must accept."

She leaned forward, the orange eyes intent on his face. "Do you accept the

possibility of a final disaster for the Bene Tleilax?"

"If that were the case I would not be here."

"When logic fails, another tool must be used."

Waff grinned. "That sounds logical."

"Don't mock me! How dare you!"

Waff lifted his hands defensively and assumed a placating tone: "What tool

would the Honored Matre suggest?"

"Energy!"

Her answer surprised him. "Energy? In what form and how much?"

"You demand logical answers," she said.

With a feeling of sadness, Waff realized that she was not, after all Zensunni.

The Honored Matre only played word games on the fringes of non-logic, circling

it, but her tool was logic.

"Rot at the core spreads outward," he said.

It was as though she had not heard his testing statement. "There is untapped

energy in the depths of any human we deign to touch," she said. She extended a

skeletal finger to within a few millimeters of his nose.

Waff pulled back into his chair until she dropped her arm. He said: "Is that

not what the Bene Gesserit said before producing their Kwisatz Haderach?"

"They lost control of themselves and of him," she sneered.

Again, Waff thought, she employed logic in thinking of the non-logical. How

much she had told him in these little lapses. He could glimpse the probable

history of these Honored Matres. One of the natural Reverend Mothers from the

Fremen of Rakis had gone out in the Scattering. Diverse people had fled on the

no-ships during and immediately after the Famine Times. A no-ship had seeded

the wild witch and her concepts somewhere. That seed had returned in the form

of this orange-eyed huntress.

Once more she hurled Voice at him, demanding: "What have you wrought with this

ghola?"

This time, Waff was prepared and shrugged it off. This Honored Matre would have

to be deflected or, if possible, slain. He had learned much from her but there

was no way of telling how much she had learned from him with her unguessed

talents.

They are sexual monsters, his informants had said. They enslave men by the

powers of sex.

"How little you know the joys I could give you," she said. Her voice coiled

like a whip around him. How tempting! How seductive!

Waff spoke defensively: "Tell me why you --"

"I need tell you nothing!"

"Then you did not come to bargain." He spoke sadly. The no-ships had, indeed,

seeded those other universes with rot. Waff sensed the weight of necessity on

his shoulders. What if he could not slay her?

"How dare you keep suggesting a bargain with an Honored Matre?" she demanded.

"Know you that we set the price!"

"I do not know your ways, Honored Matre," Waff said. "But I sense in your words

that I have offended."

"Apology accepted."

No apology intended! He stared at her blandly. Many things could be deduced

from her performance. Out of his millennial experiences, Waff reviewed what he

had learned here. This female from the Scattering came to him for an essential

piece of information. Therefore, she had no other source. He sensed

desperation in her. Well masked but definitely there. She needed confirmation

or refutation of something she feared.

How like a predatory bird she was, sitting there with her claw hands so lightly

on the arms of her chair! Rot at the core spreads outward. He had said it and

she had not heard. Clearly, atomic humankind continued to explode on its

Scatterings of Scatterings. The people represented by this Honored Matre had

not found a way to trace the no-ships. That was it, of course. She hunted the

no-ships just as the witches of the Bene Gesserit did.

"You seek the way to nullify a no-ship's invisibility," he said.

The statement obviously rocked her. She had not expected this from the elflike

manikin seated in front of her. He saw fear, then anger, then resolution pass

across her features before she resumed her predatory mask. She knew, though.

She knew he had seen.

"So that is what you do with your ghola," she said.

"It is what the witches of the Bene Gesserit seek with him," Waff lied.

"I underestimated you," she said. "Did you make the same mistake with me?"

"I do not think so, Honored Matre. The breeding scheme that produced you is

quite obviously formidable. I think you could kick out a foot and kill me

before I blinked an eye. The witches are not in the same league with you."

A smile of pleasure softened her features. "Are the Tleilaxu to be our willing

servants or compelled?"

He did not try to hide outrage. "You offer us slavery?"

"That is one of your options."

He had her now! Arrogance was her weakness. Submissively, he asked: "What

would you command me to do?"

"You will take back as your guests two younger Honored Matres. They are to be

bred with you and . . . teach you our ways of ecstasy."

Waff inhaled and exhaled two slow breaths.

"Are you sterile?" she asked.

"Only our Face Dancers are mules." She would already know that. It was common

knowledge.

"You call yourself Master," she said, "yet you have not mastered yourself."

More than you, Honored Matre bitch! And I call myself Masheikh, a fact that may

yet destroy you.

"The two Honored Matres I send with you will make an inspection of everything

Tleilaxu and return to me with their report," she said.

He sighed as though in resignation. "Are the two younger women comely?"

"Honored Matres!" she corrected him.

"Is that the only name you use?"

"If they choose to give you names, that is their privilege, not yours." She

leaned sideways and rapped a bony knuckle against the floor. Metal gleamed in

her hand. She had a way of penetrating this room's shielding!

The hatch opened and two women dressed much like his Honored Matre entered.

Their dark capes carried less decoration and both women were younger. Waff

stared at them. Were they both . . . He tried not to show elation but knew

he failed. No matter. The older one would think he admired the beauty of these

two. By signs known only to the Masters, he saw that one of the two newcomers

was a new Face Dancer. A successful exchange had been made and these Scattered

Ones could not detect it! The Tleilaxu had successfully passed a hurdle! Would

the Bene Gesserit be as blind to these new gholas?

"You are being sensibly agreeable about this, for which you will be rewarded,"

the old Honored Matre said.

"I recognize your powers, Honored Matre," he said. That was true. He bowed his

head to conceal the resolution that he knew he could not keep from his eyes.

She gestured to the newcomers. "These two will accompany you. Their slightest

whim is your command. They will be treated with all honor and respect."

"Of course, Honored Matre." Keeping his head bowed he lifted both arms as

though in salutation and submission. A dart hissed from each sleeve. As he

released the darts, Waff jerked himself sideways in his chair. The motion was

not quite rapid enough. The old Honored Matte's right foot shot out, catching

him in the left thigh and hurling him backward on his chair.

It was the old Honored Matre's last living act. The dart from his left sleeve

caught her in the back of her throat, entering through her opened mouth, a mouth

left gaping in surprise. Narcotic poison cut off any outcry. The other dart

hit the non-Face Dancer of the newcomers in the right eye. His Face Dancer

accomplice cut off any warning shout by a blurred chop to the throat.

Two bodies slumped in death.

Painfully, Waff disentangled himself from the chair and righted it as he got to

his feet. His thigh throbbed. A fraction of a meter more and she would have

broken his thigh! He realized that her reaction had not been mediated by her

central nervous system. As with some insects, attack could be initiated by the

required muscle system. That development would have to be investigated!

His Face Dancer accomplice was listening at the open hatch. She stepped aside

to allow the entry of another Face Dancer in the guise of an Ixian guard.

Waff massaged his injured thigh while his Face Dancers disrobed the dead women.

The one who copied the Ixian put her head to that of the dead old Honored Matre.

Things moved swiftly after that. Presently, there was no Ixian guard, only a

faithful copy of the old Honored Matre and a younger Honored Matre attendant.

Another pseudo-Ixian entered and copied the younger Honored Matre. Soon, there

were only ashes where dead flesh had been. A new Honored Matre scooped the

ashes into a bag and concealed it beneath her robe.

Waff made a careful examination of the room. The consequences of discovery made

him shudder. Such arrogance as he had seen here came from obviously awesome

powers. Those powers must be probed. He detained the Face Dancer who had

copied the old one.

"You have printed her?"

"Yes, Master. Her waking memories were still alive when I copied."

"Transfer to her." He gestured to the one who had been an Ixian guard. They

touched foreheads for a few heartbeats then parted.

"It is done," said the older one.

"How many other copies of these Honored Matres have we made?"

"Four, Master."

"None of them detected?"

"None, Master."

"Those four must return to the heartland of these Honored Matres and learn all

there is to know about them. One of those four must get back to us with what is

learned."

"That is impossible, Master."

"Impossible?"

"They have cut themselves off from their source. This is their way, Master.

They are a new cell and have established themselves on Gammu."

"But surely we could. . ."

"Your pardon, Master. The coordinates of their place in the Scattering were

contained only in a no-ship's workings and have been erased."

"Their tracks are completely covered?" There was dismay in his voice.

"Completely, Master."

Disaster! He was forced to rein in his thoughts from a sudden frenzied darting.

"They must not learn what we have done here," he muttered.

"They will not learn from us, Master."

"What talents have they developed? What powers? Quickly!"

"They are what you would expect from a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit but

without the melange memories."

"You're sure?"

"There is no hint of it. As you know, Master, we --

"Yes, yes. I know." He waved her to silence. "But the old one was so

arrogant, so . . ."

"Your pardon, Master, but time presses. These Honored Matres have perfected the

pleasures of sex far beyond that developed by any others."

"So it's true what our informants said."

"They went back to the primitive Tantric and developed their own ways of sexual

stimulation, Master. Through this, they accept the worship of their followers."

"Worship." He breathed the word. "Are they superior to the Breeding Mistresses

of the Sisterhood?"

"The Honored Matres believe so, Master. Shall we demon --"

"No!" Waff dropped his elfin mask at this discovery and assumed the expression

of a dominant Master. The Face Dancers nodded their heads in submission. A

look of glee came over Waff's face. The returned Tleilaxu of the Scattering

reported truthfully! By a simple mind-print he had confirmed this new weapon of

his people!

"What are your orders, Master?" the old one asked.

Waff resumed his elfin mask. "We will explore these matters only when we have

returned to the Tleilaxu core at Bandalong. Meanwhile, even a Master does not

give orders to an Honored Matre. You are my masters until we are free of prying

eyes."

"Of course, Master. Shall I now convey your orders to the others outside?"

"Yes, and these are my orders: This no-ship must never return to Gammu. It

must vanish without a trace. No survivors."

"It will be done, Master."

Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of

risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. Capital investment

follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize

how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and

thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our

universe can throw the dice.

-Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives

On the morning after that initial test in the desert, Sheeana awoke in the

priestly complex to find her bed surrounded by white-robed people.

Priests and priestesses!

"She's awake," a priestess said.

Fear gripped Sheeana. She clutched the bed covers close to her chin while she

stared out at those intent faces. Were they going to abandon her in the desert

again? She had slept the sleep of exhaustion in the softest bed with the

cleanest linen she had experienced in her eight years but she knew everything

the priests did could have a double meaning. They were not to be trusted!

"Did you sleep well?" It was the priestess who had spoken first. She was a

gray-haired older woman, her face framed in a white cowl with purple trim. The

old eyes were watery but alert. Pale blue. The nose was an upturned stub above

a narrow mouth and outjutting chin.

"Will you speak to us?" the woman persisted. "I am Cania, your night

attendant. Remember? I helped you into your bed."

At least, the tone of voice was reassuring. Sheeana sat up and took a better

look at these people. They were afraid! A desert child's nose could detect the

telltale pheromones. To Sheeana, it was a simple, straightforward observation:

That smell equals fear.

"You thought you would hurt me," she said. "Why did you do that?"

The people around her exchanged looks of consternation.

Sheeana's fear dissipated. She had sensed the new order of things and

yesterday's trial in the desert meant more change. She recalled how subservient

the older woman . . . Cania? She had been almost groveling the previous night.

Sheeana would learn in time that any person who lived through the decision to

die evolved a new emotional balance. Fears were transitory. This new condition

was interesting.

Cania's voice trembled when she responded: "Truly, Child of God, we did not

intend harm."

Sheeana straightened the bedcovers on her lap. "My name is Sheeana." That was

desert politeness. Cania already had produced a name. "Who are these others?"

"They will be sent away if you don't want them . . . Sheeana." Cania indicated

a florid-faced woman at her left dressed in a robe similar to her own. "All

except Alhosa, of course. She is your day attendant."

Alhosa curtsied at the introduction.

Sheeana stared up at a face puffy with waterfat, heavy features in a nimbus of

fluffy blond hair. Shifting her attention abruptly, Sheeana looked at the men

in the group. They watched her with heavy-lidded intentness, some with looks of

trembling suspicion. The fear smell was strong.

Priests!

"Send them away." Sheeana waved a hand at the priests. "They are haram!" It

was the gutter word, the lowest term of all for that which was most evil.

The priests recoiled in shock.

"Begone!" Cania commanded. There was no mistaking the look of malevolent glee

on her face. Cania had not been included among the vile ones. But these

priests clearly stood among those labeled as haram! They must have done

something hideous for God to send a child-priestess to chastise them. Cania

could believe it of priests. They had seldom treated her the way she deserved.

Like chastened bedogs, the priests bowed themselves backward and left Sheeana's

chamber. Among those who went out into the hallway was a historian-locutor

named Dromind, a dark man with a busy mind that tended to fasten onto ideas like

the beak of a carrion bird onto a morsel of meat. When the chamber door closed

behind them, Dromind told his trembling companions that the name Sheeana was a

modern form of the ancient name, Siona.

"You all know Siona's place in the histories," he said. "She served Shai-hulud

in His transformation from human shape into the Divided God."

Stiros, a wrinkled older priest with dark lips and pale, glistening eyes, looked

wonderingly at Dromind. "That is extremely curious," Stiros said. "The Oral

Histories claim that Siona was instrumental in His translation from the One into

the Many. Sheeana. Do you think. . ."

"Let us not forget the Hadi Benotto translation of God's own holy words,"

another priest interrupted. "Shai-hulud referred many times to Siona."

"Not always with favor," Stiros reminded them. "Remember her full name: Siona

Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa Atreides."

"Atreides," another priest whispered.

"We must study her with care," Dromind said.

A young acolyte-messenger hurried up the hallway to the group and sought among

them until he spied Stiros. "Stiros," the messenger said, "you must clear this

hallway immediately."

"Why?" It was an indignant voice from the press of the rejected priests.

"She is to be moved into the High Priest's quarters," the messenger said.

"By whose orders?" Stiros demanded.

"High Priest Tuek himself says this," the messenger said. "They have been

listening." He waved a hand vaguely toward the direction from which he had

come.

All of the group in the hall understood. Rooms could be shaped to send voices

from them into other places. There were always listeners.

"What have they heard?" Stiros demanded. His old voice quavered.

"She asked if her quarters were the best. They are about to move her and she

must not find any of you out here."

"But what are we to do?" Stiros asked.

"Study her," Dromind said.

The hall was cleared immediately and all of them began the process of studying

Sheeana. The pattern born here would print itself on all of their lives over

the subsequent years. The routine that took shape around Sheeana produced

changes felt in the farthest reaches of the Divided God's influence. Two words

ignited the change: "Study her."

How naive she was, the priests thought. How curiously naive. But she could

read and she displayed an intense interest in the Holy Books she found in Tuek's

quarters. Her quarters now.

All was propitiation from the highest to the lowest. Tuek moved into the

quarters of his chief assistant and the bumping process moved downward.

Fabricators waited upon Sheeana and measured her. The finest stillsuit was

fashioned for her. She acquired new robes of priestly gold and white with

purple trim.

People began avoiding historian-locutor Dromind. He took to buttonholing his

fellows and expounding the history of the original Siona as though this said

something important about the present bearer of the ancient name.

"Siona was the mate of the Holy Duncan Idaho," Dromind reminded anyone who would

listen. "Their descendants are everywhere."

"Indeed? Pardon me for not listening further but I am really on an urgent

errand."

At first, Tuek was more patient with Dromind. The history was interesting and

its lessons obvious. "God has sent us a new Siona," Tuek said. "All should be

clear."

Dromind went away and returned with more tidbits from the past. "The accounts

from Dar-es-Balat take on a new meaning now," Dromind told his High Priest.

"Should we not make further tests and comparisons of this child?"

Dromind had braced the High Priest immediately after breakfast. The remains of

Tuek's meal still occupied the serving table on the balcony. Through the open

window, they could hear stirrings overhead in Sheeana's quarters.

Tuek put a cautioning finger to his lips and spoke in a hushed voice. "The Holy

Child goes of her own choice to the desert." He went to a wall map and pointed

to an area southwest of Keen. "Apparently this is an area that interests her or

. . . I should say, calls her."

"I am told she makes frequent use of dictionaries," Dromind said. "Surely, that

cannot be a --"

"She is testing us," Tuek said. "Do not be fooled."

"But Lord Tuek, she asks the most childish questions of Cania and Alhosa."

"Do you question my judgment, Dromind?"

Belatedly, Dromind realized he had overstepped the proper bounds. He fell

silent but his expression said many more words were compressed within him.

"God has sent her to weed out some evil that has crept into the ranks of the

anointed," Tuek said. "Go! Pray and ask your self if that evil has lodged

itself within you."

When Dromind had gone, Tuek summoned a trusted aide. "Where is the Holy Child?"

"She has gone out into the desert, Lord, to commune with her Father."

"To the southwest?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Dromind must be taken far out to the east and left on the sand. Plant several

thumpers to make sure he never returns."

"Dromind, Lord?"

"Dromind."

Even after Dromind was translated into the Mouth of God, the priests continued

to follow his original injunction. They studied Sheeana.

Sheeana also studied.

Gradually, so gradually that she could not identify the point of transition, she

recognized her great power over those around her. At first, it was a game, a

continual Children's Day with adults jumping to obey each childish whim. But it

appeared that no whim was too difficult.

Did she require a rare fruit for her table?

The fruit was served to her on a golden dish.

Did she glimpse a child far below on the teeming streets and require that child

as a playmate?

That child was hustled up to Sheeana's temple quarters. When fear and shock

passed, the child might even join in some game, which the priests and

priestesses observed intently. Innocent skipping about on the rooftop garden,

giggling whispers -- all were subjected to intense analysis. Sheeana found the

awe of such children a burden. She seldom called the same child back to her,

preferring to learn new things from new playmates.

The priests achieved no consensus about the innocence of such encounters. The

playmates were put through fearful interrogation until Sheeana discovered this

and raged at her guardians.

Inevitably, word of Sheeana spread throughout Rakis and off-planet. The

Sisterhood's reports accumulated. The years passed in a kind of sublimely

autocratic routine -- feeding Sheeana's curiosity. It was a curiosity that

appeared to have no limits. None of those among the immediate attendants

thought of this as education: Sheeana teaching the priests of Rakis and they

teaching her. The Bene Gesserit, however, observed this aspect of Sheeana's

life at once and watched it closely.

"She is in good hands. Leave her there until she is ready for us," Taraza

ordered. "Keep a defense force on constant alert and see that I get regular

reports."

Not once did Sheeana reveal her true origins nor what Shaitan had done to her

family and neighbors. That was a private thing between Shaitan and herself.

She thought of her silence as payment for having been spared.

Some things paled for Sheeana. She made fewer trips into the desert. Curiosity

continued but it became obvious that an explanation of Shaitan's behavior toward

her might not be found on the open sand. And although she knew there were

embassies of other powers on Rakis, the Bene Gesserit spies among her attendants

made sure that Sheeana did not express too much interest in the Sisterhood.

Soothing answers to dampen such interest were provided and metered out to

Sheeana as required.

The message from Taraza to her observers on Rakis was direct and pointed: "The

generations of preparation have become the years of refinement. We will move

only at the proper moment. There is no longer any doubt that this child is the

one."

In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other

force in human history. Show me someone who says "Something must be done!" and

I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet.

What we must strive for always! is to find the natural flow and go with it.

-The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9

The overcast sky lifted as the sun of Gammu climbed, picking up the scents of

grass and surrounding forest extracted and condensed by the morning dampness.

Duncan Idaho stood at a Forbidden Window inhaling the smells. This morning

Patrin had told him: "You are fifteen years of age. You must consider yourself

a young man. You no longer are a child."

"Is it my birthday?"

They were in Duncan's sleeping chamber where Patrin had just aroused him with a

glass of citrus juice.

"I do not know your birthday."

"Do gholas have birthdays?"

Patrin remained silent. It was forbidden to speak of gholas with the ghola.

"Schwangyu says you can't answer that question," Duncan said.

Patrin spoke with obvious embarrassment. "The Bashar wishes me to tell you that

your training class will be delayed this morning. He wishes you to do the leg

and knee exercises until you are called."

"I did those yesterday!"

"I merely convey the Bashar's orders." Patrin took the empty glass and left

Duncan alone.

Duncan dressed quickly. They would expect him for breakfast in the Commissary.

Damn them! He did not need their breakfast. What was the Bashar doing? Why

couldn't he start the classes on time? Leg and knee exercises! That was just

make-work because Teg had some other unexpected duty. Angrily, Duncan took a

Forbidden Route to a Forbidden Window. Let the damned guards be punished!

He found the odors coming through the open window evocative but could not place

the memories that lurked at the edges of his awareness. He knew there were

memories. Duncan found this frightening but magnetic -- like walking along the

edge of a cliff or openly confronting Schwangyu with his defiance. He had never

walked along the edge of a cliff nor openly confronted Schwangyu with defiance,

but he could imagine such things. Just seeing a filmbook holophoto of a cliffedge

path was enough to make his stomach tighten. As for Schwangyu, he often

imagined angry disobedience and suffered the same physical reaction.

Someone else is in my mind, he thought.

Not just in his mind -- in his body. He could sense other experiences as though

he had just awakened, knowing he had dreamed but unable to recall the dream.

This dream-stuff called up knowledge that he knew he could not possess.

Yet he did possess it.

He could name some of the trees he smelled out there but those names were not in

the library's records.

This Forbidden Window was forbidden because it pierced an outer wall of the Keep

and could be opened. It was often open, as now, for ventilation. The window

was reached from his room by climbing over a balcony rail and slipping through a

storeroom air shaft. He had learned to do this without the slightest

disturbance of rail or storeroom or shaft. Quite early, it had been made clear

to him that those trained by the Bene Gesserit could read extremely small signs.

He could read some of those signs himself, thanks to the teachings of Teg and

Lucilla.

Standing well back in the shadows of the upper hallway, Duncan focused on

rolling slopes of forest climbing to rocky pinnacles. He found the forest

compelling. The pinnacles beyond it possessed a magical quality. It was easy

to imagine that no human had ever touched that land. How good it would be to

lose himself there, to be only his own person without worrying that another

person dwelled within him. A stranger there.

With a sigh, Duncan turned away and returned to his room along his secret route.

Only when he was back in the safety of his room did he allow himself to say that

he had done it once more. No one would be punished for this venture.

Punishments and pain, which hung like an aura around the places forbidden to

him, only made Duncan exercise extreme caution when he broke the rules.

He did not like to think of the pain Schwangyu would cause him if she discovered

him at a Forbidden Window. Even the worst pain, though, would not cause him to

cry out, he told himself. He had never cried out even at her nastier tricks.

He merely stared back at her, hating her but absorbing her lesson. To him,

Schwangyu's lesson was direct: Refine his ability to move unobserved, unseen

and unheard, leaving no spoor to betray his passage.

In his room, Duncan sat on the edge of his cot and contemplated the blank wall

in front of him. Once, when he had stared at that wall, an image had formed

there -- a young woman with light amber hair and sweetly rounded features. She

looked out of the wall at him and smiled. Her lips moved without sound. Duncan

already had learned lip reading, though, and he read the words clearly.

"Duncan, my sweet Duncan."

Was that his mother? he wondered. His real mother?

Even gholas had real mothers somewhere back there. Lost in the time behind the

axlotl tanks there had been a living woman who bore him and . . . and loved him.

Yes, loved him because he was her child. If that face on the wall was his

mother, how had her image found its way there? He could not identify the face

but he wanted it to be his mother.

The experience frightened him but fear did not prevent him from wanting to

repeat it. Whoever that young woman was, her fleeting presence tantalized him.

The stranger within him knew that young woman. He felt sure of this.

Sometimes, he wanted to be that stranger only for an instant -- long enough to

gather up all of those hidden memories -- but he feared this desire. He would

lose his real self, he thought, if the stranger entered his awareness.

Would that be like death? he wondered.

Duncan had seen death before he was six. His guards had repelled intruders and

one of the guards was killed. Four intruders died as well. Duncan had watched

the five bodies brought into the Keep -- flaccid muscles, arms dragging. Some

essential thing was gone from them. Nothing remained to call up memories --

self-memories or stranger-memories.

The five were taken somewhere deep within the Keep. He heard a guard say later

that the four intruders were loaded with "shere." That was his first encounter

with the idea of an Ixian Probe.

"An Ixian Probe can raid the mind even of a dead person," Geasa explained.

"Shere is a drug that protects you from the probe. Your cells will be totally

dead before the drug effect is gone."

Adroit listening told Duncan the four intruders were being probed in other ways

as well. These other ways were not explained to him but he suspected this must

be something secret to the Bene Gesserit. He thought of it as another hellish

trick of the Reverend Mothers. They must animate the dead and extract

information from the unwilling flesh. Duncan visualized depersonalized muscles

performing at the will of a diabolical observer.

The observer was always Schwangyu.

Such images filled Duncan's mind despite every effort by his teachers to dispel

"foolishness invented by the ignorant." His teachers said these wild stories

were valuable only to create fear of the Bene Gesserit among the uninitiated.

Duncan refused to believe that he was of the initiated. Looking at a Reverend

Mother he always thought: I'm not one of them!

Lucilla was most persistent lately. "Religion is a source of energy," she said.

"You must recognize this energy. It can be directed for your own purposes."

Their purposes, not mine, he thought.

He imagined his own purposes and projected his own images of himself triumphant

over the Sisterhood, especially over Schwangyu. Duncan felt that his

imaginative projections were a subterranean reality that worked on him from that

place where the stranger dwelled. But he learned to nod and give the appearance

that he, too, found such religious credulity amusing.

Lucilla recognized the dichotomy in him. She told Schwangyu: "He thinks

mystical forces are to be feared and, if possible, avoided. As long as he

persists in this belief he cannot learn to use our most essential knowledge."

They met for what Schwangyu called "a regular assessment session," just the two

of them in Schwangyu's study. The time was shortly after their light supper.

The sounds of the Keep around them were those of transition -- night patrols

beginning, off-duty personnel enjoying one of their brief free-time periods.

Schwangyu's study had not been completely insulated from such things, a

deliberate contrivance of the Sisterhood's renovators. The trained senses of a

Reverend Mother could detect many things from the sounds around her.

Schwangyu felt more and more at a loss in these "assessment sessions." It was

increasingly obvious that Lucilla could not be won over to those opposing

Taraza. Lucilla also was immune to a Reverend Mother's manipulative

subterfuges. Most damnable of all, Lucilla and Teg between them were imparting

highly volatile abilities to the ghola. Dangerous in the extreme. Added to all

of her other problems, Schwangyu nurtured a growing respect for Lucilla.

"He thinks we use occult powers to practice our arts," Lucilla said. "How did

he arrive at such a peculiar idea?"

Schwangyu felt the disadvantage imposed by this question. Lucilla already knew

this had been done to weaken the ghola. Lucilla was saying: "Disobedience is a

crime against our Sisterhood!"

"If he wants our knowledge, he will surely get it from you," Schwangyu said. No

matter how dangerous, in Schwangyu's view, this was certainly a truth.

"His desire for knowledge is my best lever," Lucilla said, "but we both know

that is not enough." There was no reproof in Lucilla's tone but Schwangyu felt

it nevertheless.

Damn her! She's trying to win me over! Schwangyu thought.

Several responses entered Schwangyu's mind: "I have not disobeyed my orders."

Pah! A disgusting excuse! "The ghola has been treated according to standard

Bene Gesserit training practices." Inadequate and untrue. And this ghola was

not a standard object of education. There were depths in him that could only be

matched by a potential Reverend Mother. And that was the problem!

"I have made mistakes," Schwangyu said.

There! That was a double-pronged answer that another Reverend Mother could

appreciate.

"You made no mistake when you damaged him," Lucilla said.

"But I failed to anticipate that another Reverend Mother might expose the flaws

in him," Schwangyu said.

"He wants our powers only to escape us," Lucilla said. "He's thinking: Someday

I'll know as much as they do and then I'll run away."

When Schwangyu did not respond, Lucilla said: "That was clever. If he runs, we

will have to hunt him down and destroy him ourselves."

Schwangyu smiled.

"I will not make your mistake," Lucilla said. "I tell you openly what I know

you would see anyway. I now understand why Taraza sent an Imprinter to one so

young."

Schwangyu's smile vanished. "What are you doing?"

"I am bonding him to me the way we bond all of our acolytes to their teachers.

I am treating him with candor and loyalty as one of our own."

"But he's male!"

"So the spice agony will be denied him, but nothing else. He is, I think,

responding."

"And when the time comes for the ultimate stage of imprinting?" Schwangyu

asked.

"Yes, that will be delicate. You think it will destroy him. That, of course,

was your plan."

"Lucilla, the Sisterhood is not unanimous in following Taraza's designs for this

ghola. Certainly, you know this."

It was Schwangyu's most powerful argument and the fact that it had been reserved

for this moment said much. The fears that they might produce another Kwisatz

Haderach were deep-seated and the dissension in the Bene Gesserit comparably

powerful.

"He is primitive genetic stock and not bred to be a Kwisatz Haderach," Lucilla

said.

"But the Tleilaxu have interfered with his genetic inheritance!"

"Yes; at our orders. They have sped up his nerve and muscle responses."

Is that all they have done?" Schwangyu asked.

"You've seen the cell studies," Lucilla said.

"If we could do as much as the Tleilaxu we would not need them," Schwangyu said.

"We would have our own axlotl tanks."

"You think they have hidden something from us," Lucilla said.

"They had him completely outside our observation for nine months!"

"I have heard all of these arguments," Lucilla said.

Schwangyu threw up her hands in a gesture of capitulation. "He's all yours,

then, Reverend Mother. And the consequences are on your head. But you will not

remove me from this post no matter what you report to Chapter House."

"Remove you? Certainly not. I don't want your faction sending someone unknown

to us."

"There is a limit to the insults I will take from you," Schwangyu said.

"And there's a limit to how much treachery Taraza will accept," Lucilla said.

"If we get another Paul Atreides or, the Gods forbid, another Tyrant, it will be

Taraza's doing," Schwangyu said. "Tell her I said so."

Lucilla stood. "You may as well know that Taraza left entirely at my discretion

how much melange I feed this ghola. I have already begun increasing his intake

of the spice."

Schwangyu pounded both fists on her desk. "Damn you all! You will destroy us

yet!"

The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm. Our tests prove that their sperm

does not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. Every

Tleilaxu we have examined has hidden his inner self from us. They are naturally

immune to an Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels, that is their ultimate

armor and their ultimate weapon.

-Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code: BTXX441WOR

On a morning of Sheeana's fourth year in priestly sanctuary, the reports of

their spies brought a gleam of special interest to the Bene Gesserit watchers on

Rakis.

"She was on the roof, you say?" the Mother Commander of the Rakian Keep asked.

Tamalane, the commander, had served previously on Gammu and knew more than most

about what the Sisterhood hoped to conjoin here. The spies' report had

interrupted Tamalane's breakfast of cifruit confit laced with melange. The

messenger stood at ease beside the table while Tamalane resumed eating as she

reread the report.

"On the roof, yes, Reverend Mother," the messenger said. Tamalane glanced up at

the messenger, Kipuna, a Rakian native acolyte being groomed for sensitive local

duties. Swallowing a mouthful of her confit, Tamalane said: " 'Bring them

back!' Those were her exact words?"

Kipuna nodded curtly. She understood the question. Had Sheeana spoken with

preemptory command?

Tamalane resumed scanning the report, looking for the sensitive signals. She

was glad they had sent Kipuna herself. Tamalane respected the abilities of this

Rakian woman. Kipuna had the soft round features and fuzzy hair common among

much of the Rakian priestly class, but there was no fuzzy brain under that hair.

"Sheeana was displeased," Kipuna said. "The 'thopter passed nearby the rooftop

and she saw the two manacled prisoners in it quite clearly. She knew they were

being taken to death in the desert. "

Tamalane put down the report and smiled. "So she ordered the prisoners brought

back to her. I find her choice of words fascinating."

"Bring them back?" Kipuna asked. "That seems a simple enough order. How is it

fascinating?"

Tamalane admired the directness of the acolyte's interest. Kipuna was not about

to pass up a chance at learning how a real Reverend Mother's mind worked.

"It was not that part of her performance that interested me," Tamalane said.

She bent to the report, reading aloud: " 'You are servants unto Shaitan, not

servants unto servants.' " Tamalane looked up at Kipuna. "You saw and heard

all of this yourself?"

"Yes, Reverend Mother. It was judged important that I report to you personally

should you have other questions."

"She still calls him Shaitan," Tamalane said. "How that must gall them! Of

course, the Tyrant himself said it: 'They will call me Shaitan.' "

"I have seen the reports out of the hoard found at Dar-es-Balat," Kipuna said.

"There was no delay in bringing back the two prisoners?" Tamalane asked.

"As quickly as a message could be transmitted to the 'thopter, Reverend Mother.

They were returned within minutes."

"So they are watching her and listening all the time. Good. Did Sheeana give

any sign that she knew the two prisoners? Did any message pass between them?"

"I am sure they were strangers to her, Reverend Mother. Two ordinary people of

the lower orders, rather dirty and poorly clothed. They smelled of the unwashed

from the perimeter hovels."

"Sheeana ordered the manacles removed and then she spoke to this unwashed pair.

Her exact words now: What did she say?"

" 'You are my people.' "

"Lovely, lovely," Tamalane said. "Sheeana then ordered that these two be taken

away, bathed and given new clothes before being released. Tell me in your own

words what happened next."

"She summoned Tuek who came with three of his councillor-attendants. It was . .

. almost an argument."

"Memory-trance, please," Tamalane said. "Replay the exchange for me."

Kipuna closed her eyes, breathed deeply and fell into memory-trance. Then:

"Sheeana says, 'I do not like it when you feed my people to Shaitan.'

Councillor Stiros says, 'They are sacrificed to Shai-hulud!' Sheeana says, 'To

Shaitan!' Sheeana stamps her foot in anger. Tuek says, 'Enough, Stiros. I

will not hear more of this dissension.' Sheeana says, 'When will you learn?'

Stiros starts to speak but Tuek silences him with a glare and says, 'We have

learned, Holy Child.' Sheeana says, 'I want --' "

"Enough," Tamalane said.

The acolyte opened her eyes and waited silently.

Presently, Tamalane said, "Return to your post, Kipuna. You have done very

well, indeed."

"Thank you, Reverend Mother."

"There will be consternation among the priests," Tamalane said.

"Sheeana's wish is their command because Tuek believes in her. They will stop

using the worms as instruments of punishment."

"The two prisoners," Kipuna said.

"Yes, very observant of you. The two prisoners will tell what happened to them.

The story will be distorted. People will say that Sheeana protects them from

the priests."

"Isn't that exactly what she's doing, Reverend Mother?"

"Ahhhh, but consider the options open to the priests. They will increase their

alternative forms of punishment -- whippings and certain deprivations. While

fear of Shaitan eases because of Sheeana, fear of the priests will increase."

Within two months, Tamalane's reports to Chapter House contained confirmation of

her own words.

"Short rations, especially short water rations, have become the dominant form of

punishment," Tamalane reported. "Wild rumors have penetrated the farthest

reaches of Rakis and soon will find lodging on many other planets as well."

Tamalane considered the implications of her report with care. Many eyes would

see it, including some not in sympathy with Taraza. Any Reverend Mother would

be able to call up an image of what must be happening on Rakis. Many on Rakis

had seen Sheeana's arrival atop a wild worm from the desert. The priestly

response of secrecy had been flawed from the beginning. Curiosity unsatisfied

tended to create its own answers. Guesses were often more dangerous than facts.

Previous reports had told of the children brought to play with Sheeana. The

much-garbled stories of such children were repeated with increasing distortions

and those distortions had been dutifully sent on to Chapter House. The two

prisoners, returned to the streets in their new finery, only compounded the

growing mythology. The Sisterhood, artists in mythology, possessed on Rakis a

ready-made energy to be subtly amplified and directed.

"We have fed a wish-fulfillment belief into the populace," Tamalane reported.

She thought of the Bene Gesserit-originated phrases as she reread her latest

report.

"Sheeana is the one we have long awaited."

It was a simple enough statement that its meaning could be spread without

unacceptable distortion.

"The Child of Shai-hulud comes to chastise the priests!"

That one had been a bit more complicated. A few priests died in dark alleys as

a result of popular fervency. This had fed a new alertness into the corps of

priestly enforcers with predictable injustices inflicted upon the populace.

Tamalane thought of the priestly delegation that had waited upon Sheeana as a

result of turmoil among Tuek's councillors. Seven of them led by Stiros had

intruded upon Sheeana's luncheon with a child from the streets. Knowing that

this would happen Tamalane had been prepared and a secret recording of the

incident had been brought to her, the words audible, every expression visible,

the thoughts quite apparent to a Reverend Mother's trained eye.

"We were sacrificing to Shai-hulud!" Stiros protested.

"Tuek told you not to argue with me about that," Sheeana said.

How the priestesses smiled at the discomfiture of Stiros and the other priests!

"But Shai-hulud --" Stiros began.

"Shaitan!" Sheeana corrected him and her expression was easily read: Did these

stupid priests know nothing?

"But we have always thought --"

"You were wrong!" Sheeana stamped a foot.

Stiros feigned the need for instruction. "Are we to believe that Shai-hulud,

the Divided God, is also Shaitan?"

What a complete fool he was, Tamalane thought. Even a pubescent girl could

confound him, as Sheeana proceeded to do.

"Any child of the streets knows this almost as soon as she can walk!" Sheeana

ranted.

Stiros spoke slyly: "How do you know what is in the minds of street children?"

"You are evil to doubt me!" Sheeana accused. It was an answer she had learned

to use often, knowing it would get back to Tuek and cause trouble.

Stiros knew this only too well. He waited with downcast eyes while Sheeana,

speaking with heavy patience as one telling an old fable to a child, explained

to him that either god or devil or both could inhabit the worm of the desert.

Humans had only to accept this. It was not left to humans to decide such

things.

Stiros had sent people into the desert for speaking such heresy. His expression

(so carefully recorded for Bene Gesserit analysis) said such wild concepts were

always springing up from the muck at the bottom of the Rakian heap. But now!

He had to contend with Tuek's insistence that Sheeana spoke gospel truth!

As she looked at the recording, Tamalane thought the pot was boiling nicely.

This she reported to Chapter House. Doubts flogged Stiros; doubts everywhere

except among the populace in their devotion to Sheeana. Spies close to Tuek

said he was even beginning to doubt the wisdom of his decision to translate the

historian-locutor, Dromind.

"Was Dromind right to doubt her?" Tuek demanded of those around him.

"Impossible!" the sycophants said.

What else could they say? The High Priest could make no mistake in such

decisions. God would not allow it. Sheeana clearly confounded him, though.

She put the decisions of many previous High Priests into a terrible limbo.

Reinterpretation was being demanded on all sides.

Stiros kept pounding at Tuek: "What do we really know about her?"

Tamalane had a full account of the most recent such confrontation. Stiros and

Tuek alone, debating far into the night, just the two of them (they thought) in

Tuek's quarters, comfortably ensconced in rare blue chairdogs, melange-laced

confits close at hand. Tamalane's holophoto record of the meeting showed a

single yellow glowglobe drifting on its suspensors close above the pair, the

light dimmed to ease the strain on tired eyes.

"Perhaps that first time, leaving her in the desert with a thumper, was not a

good test," Stiros said.

It was a sly statement. Tuek was noted for not having an excessively

complicated mind. "Not a good test? Whatever do you mean?"

"God might wish us to perform other tests."

"You have seen her yourself! Many times in the desert talking to God!"

"Yes!" Stiros almost pounced. Clearly, it was the response he wanted. "If she

can stand unharmed in the presence of God, perhaps she can teach others how this

is accomplished."

"You know this angers her when we suggest it."

"Perhaps we have not approached the problem in quite the right way."

"Stiros! What if the child is right? We serve the Divided God. I have been

thinking long and earnestly upon this. Why would God divide? Is this not God's

ultimate test?"

The expression on Stiros' face said this was exactly the kind of mental

gymnastics his faction feared. He tried to divert the High Priest but Tuek was

not to be shifted from a single-track plunge into metaphysics.

"The ultimate test," Tuek insisted. "To see the good in evil and the evil in

good."

Stiros' expression could only be described as consternation. Tuek was God's

Supreme Anointed. No priest was allowed to doubt that! The thing that might

now arise if Tuek went public with such a concept would shake the foundations of

priestly authority! Clearly, Stiros was asking himself if the time had not come

to translate his High Priest.

"I would never suggest that I might debate such profound ideas with my High

Priest," Stiros said. "But perhaps I can offer a proposal that might resolve

many doubts."

"Propose then," Tuek said.

"Subtle instruments could be introduced in her clothing. We might listen when

she talks to --"

"Do you think God would not know what we did?"

"Such a thought never crossed my mind!"

"I will not order her taken into the desert," Tuek said.

"But if it is her own idea to go?" Stiros assumed his most ingratiating

expression. "She has done this many times."

"But not recently. She appears to have lost her need to consult with God."

"Could we not offer suggestions to her?" Stiros asked.

"Such as?"

"Sheeana, when will you speak again with your Father? Do you not long to stand

once more in His presence?"

"That has more the sound of prodding than suggestion."

"I am only proposing that --"

"This Holy Child is no simpleton! She talks to God, Stiros. God might punish

us sorely for such presumption."

"Did God not put her here for us to study?" Stiros asked.

This was too close to the Dromind heresy for Tuek's liking. He sent a baleful

stare at Stiros.

"What I mean," Stiros said, "is that surely God means us to learn from her."

Tuek himself had said this many times, never hearing in his own words a curious

echo of Dromind's words.

"She is not to be prodded and tested," Tuek said.

"Heaven forbid!" Stiros said. "I will be the soul of holy caution. And

everything I learn from the Holy Child will be reported to you immediately."

Tuek merely nodded. He had his own ways to be sure Stiros spoke the truth.

The subsequent sly proddings and testings were reported immediately to Chapter

House by Tamalane and her subordinates.

"Sheeana has a thoughtful look," Tamalane reported.

Among the Reverend Mothers on Rakis and those to whom they reported, this

thoughtful look had an obvious interpretation. Sheeana's antecedents had been

deduced long ago. Stiros' intrusions were making the child homesick. Sheeana

kept a wise silence but she clearly thought much about her life in a pioneer

village. Despite all of the fears and perils, those obviously had been happy

times for her. She would remember the laughter, poling the sand for its

weather, hunting scorpions in the crannies of the village hovels, smelling out

spice fragments in the dunes. From Sheeana's repeated trips to the area, the

Sisterhood had made a reasonably accurate guess as to the location of the lost

village and what had happened to it. Sheeana often stared at one of Tuek's old

maps on the wall of her quarters.

As Tamalane expected, one morning Sheeana stabbed a finger at the place on the

wall map where she had gone many times. "Take me there," Sheeana commanded her

attendants.

A 'thopter was summoned.

While priests listened avidly in a 'thopter hovering far overhead, Sheeana once

more confronted her nemesis in the sand. Tamalane and her advisors, tuned into

the priestly circuits, observed just as avidly.

Nothing even remotely suggesting a village remained on the duneswept waste where

Sheeana ordered herself deposited. She used a thumper this time however.

Another of Stiros' sly suggestions accompanied by careful instructions on use of

the ancient means to summon the Divided God.

A worm came.

Tamalane watched on her own relay projector, thinking the worm only a middling

monster. Its length she estimated at about fifty meters. Sheeana stood only

about three meters in front of the gaping mouth. The huffing of the worm's

interior fires was clearly audible to the observers.

"Will you tell me why you did it?" Sheeana demanded.

She did not flinch from the worm's hot breath. Sand crackled beneath the

monster but she gave no sign that she heard.

"Answer me!" Sheeana commanded.

No voice came from the worm but Sheeana appeared to be listening, her head

cocked to one side.

"Then go back where you came from," Sheeana said. She waved the worm away.

Obediently, the worm backed off and returned beneath the sands.

For days, while the Sisterhood spied upon them with glee, the priests debated

that sparse encounter. Sheeana could not be questioned lest she learn that she

had been overheard. As before, she refused to discuss anything about her visits

to the desert.

Stiros continued his sly prodding. The result was precisely what the Sisterhood

expected. Without any warning, Sheeana would awaken some days and say: "Today,

I will go into the desert."

Sometimes she used a thumper, sometimes she danced her summons. Far out on the

sands beyond the sight of Keen or any other inhabited place, the worms came to

her. Sheeana alone in front of a worm talked to it while others listened.

Tamalane found the accumulated recordings fascinating as they passed through her

hands on their way to Chapter House.

"I should hate you!"

What a turmoil that caused among the priests! Tuek wanted an open debate:

"Should all of us hate the Divided God at the same time we love Him?"

Stiros barely shut off this suggestion with the argument that God's wishes had

not been made clear.

Sheeana asked one of her gigantic visitors: "Will you let me ride you again?"

When she approached, the worm retreated and would not let her mount.

On another occasion, she asked: "Must I stay with the priests?"

This particular worm proved to be the target of many questions, and among them:

"Where do people go when you eat them?"

"Why are people false to me?"

"Should I punish the bad priests?"

Tamalane laughed at that final question, thinking of the turmoil it would cause

among Tuek's people. Her spies duly reported the dismay of the priests.

"How does He answer her?" Tuek asked. "Has anyone heard God respond?"

"Perhaps He speaks directly into her soul," a councillor ventured.

"That's it!" Tuek leaped at this offering. "We must ask her what God tells her

to do."

Sheeana refused to be drawn into such discussions.

"She has a pretty fair assessment of her powers," Tamalane reported. "She's not

going into the desert very much now despite Stiros' proddings. As we might

expect, the attraction has waned. Fear and elation will carry her just so far

before paling. She has, however, learned an effective command:

"Go away!"

The Sisterhood marked this as an important development. When even the Divided

God obeyed, no priest or priestess was about to question her authority to issue

such a command.

"The priests are building towers in the desert," Tamalane reported. "They want

more secure places from which to observe Sheeana when she does go out there."

The Sisterhood had anticipated this development and had even done some of its

own prodding to speed up the projects.

Each tower had its own windtrap, its own maintenance staff, its own water

barrier, gardens and other elements of civilization. Each was a small community

spreading the established areas of Rakis farther and farther into the domain of

the worms.

Pioneer villages no longer were necessary and Sheeana got the credit for this

development.

"She is our priestess," the populace said.

Tuek and his councillors spun on the point of a pin: Shaitan and Shai-hulud in

one body? Stiros lived in daily fear that Tuek would announce the fact.

Stiros' advisors finally rejected the suggestion that Tuek be translated.

Another suggestion that Priestess Sheeana have a fatal accident was greeted with

horror by all, even Stiros finding it too great a venture.

"Even if we remove this thorn, God may visit us with an even more terrible

intrusion," he said. And he warned: "The oldest books say that a little child

shall lead us."

Stiros was only the most recent among those who looked upon Sheeana as something

not quite mortal. It was observable that those around her, Cania included, had

come to love Sheeana. She was so ingenuous, so bright and responsive.

Many observed that this growing affection for Sheeana extended even to Tuek.

For the people touched by this power, the Sisterhood had an immediate

recognition. The Bene Gesserit knew a label for this ancient effect: expanding

worship. Tamalane reported profound changes moving through Rakis as people

everywhere on the planet began praying to Sheeana instead of to Shaitan or even

to Shai-hulud.

"They see that Sheeana intercedes for the weakest people," Tamalane reported.

"It is a familiar pattern. All goes as ordered. When do you send the ghola?"

The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the center of the damned

thing! That's the whole point of the Scattering!

-Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new investigative probes be

sent out among the Lost Ones

One of the Sisterhood's swifter lighters took Miles Teg up to the Guild

Transport circling Gammu. He did not like leaving the Keep at this moment but

the priorities were obvious. He also had a gut reaction about this venture. In

his three centuries of experience, Teg had learned to trust his gut reactions.

Matters were not going well on Gammu. Every patrol, every report of remote

sensors, the accounts of Patrin's spies in the cities -- everything fueled Teg's

disquiet.

Mentat fashion, Teg felt the movement of forces around the Keep and within it.

His ghola charge was threatened. The order for him to report aboard the Guild

Transport prepared for violence, however, came from Taraza herself with an

unmistakable crypto-identifier on it.

On the lighter taking him upward, Teg set himself for battle. Those

preparations he could make had been made. Lucilla was warned. He felt

confident about Lucilla. Schwangyu was another matter. He fully intended to

discuss with Taraza a few essential changes in the Gammu Keep. First, though,

he had another battle to win. Teg had not the slightest doubt that he was

entering combat.

As his lighter moved in to dock, Teg looked out a port and saw the gigantic

Ixian symbol within the Guild cartouche on the Transport's dark side. This was

a ship the Guild had converted to Ixian mechanism, substituting machines for the

traditional navigator. There would be Ixian technicians aboard to service the

equipment. A genuine Guild navigator would be there, too. The Guild had never

quite learned to trust a machine even while they paraded these converted

Transports as a message to Tleilaxu and Rakians.

"You see: we do not absolutely require your melange!"

This was the announcement contained in that giant symbol of Ix on the

spaceship's side.

Teg felt the slight lurch of the docking grapples and took a deep, quieting

breath. He felt as he always did just before battle: Empty of all false

dreams. This was a failure. The talking had failed and now came the contest of

blood . . . unless he could prevail in some other way. Combat these days was

seldom a massive thing but death was there nonetheless. That represented a more

permanent kind of failure. If we cannot adjust our differences peacefully we

are less than human.

An attendant with the unmistakable signs of Ix in his speech guided Teg to the

room where Taraza waited. All along the corridors and in the pneumotubes

carrying him to Taraza, Teg looked for signs to confirm the secret warning in

the Mother Superior's message. All seemed serene and ordinary -- the attendant

properly deferential toward the Bashar. "I was a Tireg commander at Andioyu,"

the attendant said, naming one of the almost-battles where Teg had prevailed.

They came to an ordinary oval hatch in the wall of an ordinary corridor. The

hatch opened and Teg entered a white-walled room of comfortable dimensions --

sling chairs, low side tables, glowglobes tuned to yellow. The hatch slid into

its seals behind him with a solid thump, leaving his guide behind him in the

corridor.

A Bene Gesserit acolyte parted the gossamer hangings that concealed a passage on

Teg's right. She nodded to him. He had been seen. Taraza would be notified.

Teg suppressed a trembling in his calf muscles.

Violence?

He had not misinterpreted Taraza's secret warning. Were his preparations

adequate? There was a black sling chair at his left, a long table in front of

it and another chair at the end of the table. Teg went to this side of the room

and waited with his back to the wall. The brown dust of Gammu still clung to

his boot toes, he noted.

Peculiar smell in the room. He sniffed. Shere! Had Taraza and her people

armed themselves against an Ixian Probe? Teg had taken his usual shere capsule

before embarking on the lighter. Too much knowledge in his head that might be

useful to an enemy. The fact that Taraza left the smell of shere around her

quarters had another implication: It was a statement to some observer whose

presence she could not prevent.

Taraza entered through the gossamer hangings. She appeared tired, he thought.

He found this remarkable because the Sisters were capable of concealing fatigue

until almost ready to drop. Was she actually low in energy or was this another

gesture for hidden observers?

Pausing just into the room, Taraza studied Teg. The Bashar appeared much older

than when she had last seen him, Taraza thought. Duty on Gammu was having its

effect, but she found this reassuring. Teg was doing his job.

"Your quick response is appreciated, Miles," she said.

Appreciated! Their agreed word for "We are being watched secretly by a

dangerous foe."

Teg nodded while his gaze went to the hangings where Taraza had entered.

Taraza smiled and moved farther into the room. No signs of the melange cycle in

Teg, she observed. Teg's advanced years always raised the suspicion that he

might resort to the leavening effect of the spice. Nothing about him revealed

even the faintest hint of the melange addiction that even the strongest

sometimes turned to when they felt their end approaching. Teg wore his old

uniform jacket of Supreme Bashar but without the gold starbursts at shoulder and

collar. This was a signal she recognized. He said: "Remember how I earned

this in your service. I have not failed you this time, either."

The eyes that studied her were level; no hint of judgment escaped them. His

entire appearance spoke of quiet within, everything at variance with what she

knew must be occurring in him at this moment. He awaited her signal.

"Our ghola must be awakened at the first opportunity," she said. She waved a

hand to silence him as he started to respond. "I have seen Lucilla's reports

and I know he is too young. But we are required to act."

She spoke for the watchers, he realized. Were her words to be believed?

"I now give you the order to awaken him," she said and she flexed her left wrist

in the confirmation gesture of their secret language.

It was true! Teg glanced at the hangings that concealed the passage where

Taraza had entered. Who was it listening there?

He put his Mentat talents to the problem. There were missing pieces but that

did not stop him. A Mentat could work without certain pieces if he had enough

to create a pattern. Sometimes, the sketchiest outline was enough. It supplied

the hidden shape and then he could fit the missing pieces to complete a whole.

Mentats seldom had all the data they might desire, but he was trained to sense

patterns, to recognize systems and wholeness. Teg reminded himself now that he

also had been trained in the ultimate military sense: You trained a recruit to

train a weapon, to aim the weapon correctly.

Taraza was aiming him. His assessment of their situation had been confirmed.

"Desperate attempts will be made to kill or capture our ghola before you can

awaken him," she said.

He recognized her tone: the coldly analytic offering of data to a Mentat. She

saw that he was in Mentat mode, then.

The Mentat pattern-search rolled through his mind. First, there was the

Sisterhood's design for the ghola, largely unknown to him, but ranging somehow

around the presence of a young female on Rakis who (so they said) could command

worms. Idaho gholas: charming persona and with something else that had made

the Tyrant and the Tleilaxu repeat him countless times. Duncans by the

shipload! What service did this ghola provide that the Tyrant had not let him

remain among the dead? And the Tleilaxu: They had decanted Duncan Idaho gholas

from their axlotl tanks for millennia, even after the death of the Tyrant. The

Tleilaxu had sold this ghola to the Sisterhood twelve times and the Sisterhood

had paid in the hardest currency: melange from their own precious stores. Why

did the Tleilaxu accept in payment something they produced so copiously?

Obvious: to deplete the Sisterhood's supplies. A special form of greed there.

The Tleilaxu were buying supremacy -- a power game!

Teg focused on the quietly waiting Mother Superior. "The Tleilaxu have been

killing our gholas to control our timing," he said.

Taraza nodded but did not speak. So there was more. Once again, he fell into

Mentat mode.

The Bene Gesserit were a valuable market for the Tleilaxu melange, not the only

source because there was always the trickle from Rakis, but valuable, yes; very

valuable. It was not reasonable that the Tleilaxu would alienate a valuable

market unless they had a more valuable market standing ready.

Who else had an interest in Bene Gesserit activities? The Ixians without a

doubt. But Ixians were not a good market for melange. The Ixian presence on

this ship spoke of their independence. Since Ixians and Fish Speakers made

common cause, the Fish Speakers could be set aside from this pattern quest.

What great power or assemblage of powers in this universe possessed . . .

Teg froze that thought as though he had applied the dive brakes in a 'thopter,

letting his mind float free while he sorted other considerations.

Not in this universe.

The pattern took shape. Wealth. Gammu assumed a new role in his Mentat

computations. Gammu had been gutted long ago by the Harkonnens, abandoned as a

festering carcass, which the Danians had restored. There was a time, though,

when even Gammu's hopes were gone. Without hopes there had not even been

dreams. Climbing from that cesspool, the population had employed only the

basest pragmatism. If it works, it is good.

Wealth.

In his first survey of Gammu he had noted the numbers of banking houses. They

were even marked, some of them, as Bene Gesserit -- safe. Gammu served as the

fulcrum for manipulation of enormous wealth. The bank he had visited to study

its use as an emergency contact came back fully into his Mentat awareness. He

had realized at once that the place did not confine itself to purely planetary

business. It was a bankers' bank.

Not just wealth but WEALTH.

A Prime Pattern development did not come into Teg's mind but he had enough for a

Testing Projection. Wealth not of this universe. People from the Scattering.

All of this Mentat sorting had taken only a few seconds. Having reached a

testing point, Teg set himself loose-of-muscle and nerve, glanced once at Taraza

and strode across to the concealed entry. He noted that, Taraza gave no sign of

alarm at his movements. Whipping aside the hangings, Teg confronted a man

almost as tall as himself: military-style clothing with crossed spears at the

collar tabs. The face was heavy, the jaws wide; green eyes. A look of

surprised alertness, one hand poised above a pocket that bulged obviously with a

weapon.

Teg smiled at the man, let the hangings fall and returned to Taraza.

"We are being observed by people from the Scattering," he said.

Taraza relaxed. Teg's performance had been memorable.

The hangings swished aside. The tall stranger entered and stopped about two

paces from Teg. A glacial expression of anger gripped his features.

"I warned you not to tell him!" The voice was a grating baritone with an accent

new to Teg.

"And I warned you about the powers of this Mentat Bashar," Taraza said. A look

of loathing flashed across her features.

The man subsided and a subtle look of fear came over his face. "Honored Matre,

I --"

"Don't you dare call me that!" Taraza's body tensed in a fighting posture that

Teg had never before seen her display.

The man inclined his head slightly. "Dear lady, you do not control the

situation here. I must remind you that my orders --"

Teg had heard enough. "Through me, she does control here," he said. "Before

coming here I set certain protective measures in motion. This . . ." he glanced

around him and returned his attention to the intruder, whose face now bore a

wary expression " . . . is not a no-ship. Two of our no-ship monitors have you

in their sights at this moment."

"You would not survive!" the man barked.

Teg smiled amiably. "No one on this ship would survive." He clenched his jaw

to key the nerve signal and activate the tiny pulsetimer in his skull. It

played its graphic signals against his visual centers. "And you don't have much

time in which to make a decision."

"Tell him how you knew to do this," Taraza said.

"The Mother Superior and I have our own private means of communication," Teg

said. "But further than that, there was no need for her to warn me. Her

summons was enough. The Mother Superior on a Guild Transport at a time like

this? Impossible!"

"Impasse," the man growled.

"Perhaps," Teg said. "But neither Guild nor Ix will risk a total and all-out

attack by Bene Gesserit forces under the command of a leader trained by me. I

refer to the Bashar Burzmali. Your support has just dissolved and vanished."

"I told him nothing of this," Taraza said. "You have just witnessed the

performance of a Mentat Bashar, which I doubt could be equaled in your universe.

Think of that if you consider going against Burzmali, a man trained by this

Mentat."

The intruder looked from Taraza to Teg and back to Taraza. "This is the way out

of our seeming impasse," Teg said. "The Mother Superior Taraza and her

entourage leave with me. You must decide immediately. Time is running out."

"You're bluffing." There was no force in the words.

Teg faced Taraza and bowed. "It has been a great honor to serve you, Reverend

Mother Superior. I bid you farewell."

"Perhaps death will not part us," Taraza said. It was the traditional farewell

of a Reverend Mother to a Sister-equal.

"Go!" The heavy-featured man dashed to the corridor hatchway and flung it open,

revealing two Ixian guards, looks of surprise on their faces. His voice hoarse,

the man ordered: "Take them to their lighter."

Still relaxed and calm, Teg said: "Summon your people, Mother Superior." To

the man standing at the hatchway, Teg said: "You value your own skin too much

to be a good soldier. None of my people would have made such an error."

"There are true Honored Matres aboard this ship," the man grated. "I am sworn

to protect them."

Teg grimaced and turned to where Taraza was leading her people from the

adjoining room: two Reverend Mothers and four acolytes. Teg recognized one of

the Reverend Mothers: Darwi Odrade. He had seen her before only at a distance

but the oval face and lovely eyes were arresting: so like Lucilla.

"Do we have time for introductions?" Taraza asked.

"Of course, Mother Superior."

Teg nodded and grasped the hand of each woman as Taraza presented them.

As they left, Teg turned to the uniformed stranger. "One must always observe

the niceties," Teg said. "Otherwise we are less than human."

Not until they were on the lighter, Taraza seated beside him and her entourage

nearby, did Teg ask the overriding question.

"How did they take you?"

The lighter was plunging planetward. The screen in front of Teg showed that the

Ix-branded Guildship obeyed his command to remain in orbit until his party was

safely behind its planetary defenses.

Before Taraza could respond, Odrade leaned across the aisle separating them and

said: "I have countermanded the Bashar's orders to destroy that Guildship,

Mother."

Teg swiveled his head sharply and glared at Odrade. "But they took you captive

and . . ." He scowled. "How did you know I --"

"Miles!"

Taraza's voice conveyed overwhelming reproof. He grinned ruefully. Yes, she

knew him almost as well as he knew himself . . . better in some respects.

"They did not just capture us, Miles," Taraza said. "We allowed ourselves to be

taken. Ostensibly, I was escorting Dar to Rakis. We left our no-ship at

Junction and asked for the fastest Guild Transport. All of my Council,

including Burzmali, agreed that these intruders from the Scattering would

subvert the Transport and take us to you, aiming to pick up all the pieces of

the ghola project."

Teg was aghast. The risk!

"We knew you would rescue us," Taraza said. "Burzmali was standing by in case

you failed."

"That Guildship you've spared," Teg said, "will summon assistance and attack our

--"

"They will not attack Gammu," Taraza said. "Too many diverse forces from the

Scattering are assembled on Gammu. They would not dare alienate so many."

"I wish I were as certain of that as you appear to be," Teg said.

"Be certain, Miles. Besides, there are other reasons for not destroying the

Guildship. Ix and the Guild have been caught taking sides. That's bad for

business and they need all of the business they can get."

"Unless they have more important customers offering greater profits!"

"Ahhhhh, Miles." She spoke in a musing voice. "What we latter-day Bene

Gesserit really do is try to let matters achieve a calmer tone, a balance. You

know this."

Teg found this true but he locked on one phrase: ". . . latter-day . . ." The

words conveyed a sense of summation-at-death. Before he could question this,

Taraza continued:

"We like to settle the most passionate situations off the battlefield. I must

admit we have the Tyrant to thank for that attitude. I don't suppose you've

ever thought of yourself as a product of the Tyrant's conditioning, Miles, but

you are."

Teg accepted this without comment. It was a factor in the entire spread of

human society. No Mentat could avoid it as a datum.

"That quality in you, Miles, drew us to you in the first place," Taraza said.

"You can be damnably frustrating at times but we wouldn't have you any other

way."

By subtle revelations in tone and manner, Teg realized that Taraza was not

speaking solely for his benefit, but was also directing her words at her

entourage.

"Have you any idea, Miles, how maddening it is to hear you argue both sides of

an issue with equal force? But your simpatico is a powerful weapon. How

terrified some of our foes have been to find you confronting them where they had

not the slightest suspicion you might appear!"

Teg allowed himself a tight smile. He glanced at the women seated across the

aisle from them. Why was Taraza directing such words at this group? Darwi

Odrade appeared to be resting, head back, eyes closed. Several of the others

were chatting among themselves. None of this was conclusive to Teg. Even Bene

Gesserit acolytes could follow several trains of thought simultaneously. He

returned his attention to Taraza.

"You really feel things the way the enemy feels them," Taraza said. "That is

what I mean. And, of course, when you're in that mental frame there is no enemy

for you."

"Yes, there is!"

"Don't mistake my words, Miles. We have never doubted your loyalty. But it's

uncanny how you make us see things we have no other way of seeing. There are

times when you are our eyes."

Darwi Odrade, Teg saw, had opened her eyes and was looking at him. She was a

lovely woman. Something disturbing about her appearance. As with Lucilla, she

reminded him of someone in his past. Before Teg could follow this thought,

Taraza spoke.

"Has the ghola this ability to balance between opposing forces?" she asked.

"He could be a Mentat," Teg said.

"He was a Mentat in one incarnation, Miles."

"Do you really want him awakened so young?"

"It is necessary, Miles. Deadly necessary."

The failure of CHOAM? Quite simple: They ignore the fact that larger

commercial powers wait at the edges of their activities, powers that could

swallow them the way a slig swallows garbage. This is the true threat of the

Scattering -- to them and to us all.

-Bene Gesserit Council notes, Archives #SXX90CH

Odrade spared only part of her awareness to the conversation between Teg and

Taraza. Their lighter was a small one, its passenger quarters cramped. It

would use atmospherics to dampen its descent, she knew, and she prepared herself

for the buffeting. The pilot would be sparing of their suspensors on such a

craft, saving energy.

She used these moments as she used all such time now to gird herself for the

coming necessities. Time pressed; a special calendar drove her. She had looked

at a calendar before leaving Chapter House, caught as often happened to her by

the persistence of time and its language: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,

months, years . . . Standard Years, to be precise. Persistence was an

inadequate word for the phenomenon. Inviolability was more like it. Tradition.

Never disturb tradition. She held the comparisons firmly in mind, the ancient

flow of time imposed on planets that did not tick to the primitive human clock.

A week was seven days. Seven! How powerful that number remained. Mystical.

It was enshrined in the Orange Catholic Bible. The Lord made a world in six

days "and on the seventh day He rested."

Good for Him! Odrade thought. We all should rest after great labors.

Odrade turned her head slightly and looked across the aisle at Teg. He had no

idea how many memories of him she possessed. She could mark how the years had

treated that strong face. Teaching the ghola had drained his energies, she saw.

That child in the Gammu Keep must be a sponge absorbing anything and everything

around him.

Miles Teg, do you know how we use you? she wondered.

It was a thought that weakened her but she allowed it to persist in her

awareness almost with a feeling of defiance. How easy it would be to love that

old man! Not as a mate, of course . . . but love, nonetheless. She could feel

the bond tugging at her and recognized it with the fine edge of her Bene

Gesserit abilities. Love, damnable love, weakening love.

Odrade had felt this tugging with the first mate she had been sent to seduce.

Curious sensation. Her years of Bene Gesserit conditioning had made her wary of

it. None of her proctors had allowed her the luxury of that unquestioning

warmth, and she had learned in time the reasons behind such isolating care. But

there she was, sent by the breeding mistresses, ordered to get that close to a

single individual, to let him enter her. All of the clinical data lay there in

her awareness and she could read the sexual excitement in her partner even as

she allowed it in herself. She had, after all, been carefully prepared for this

role by men the Breeding Mistresses selected and conditioned with exquisite

nicety for just such training.

Odrade sighed and looked away from Teg, closing her eyes in remembrance.

Training Males never let their emotions reflect a bonding abandonment to their

students. It was a necessary flaw in the sexual education.

That first seduction upon which she had been sent: She had been quite

unprepared for the melting ecstasy of a simultaneous orgasm, a mutuality and

sharing as old as humankind . . . older! And with powers capable of

overwhelming the reason. The look on her male companion's face, the sweet kiss,

his total abandonment of all self-protective reserves, unguarded and supremely

vulnerable. No Training Male had ever done that! Desperately, she grasped for

the Bene Gesserit lessons. Through those lessons, she saw the essence of this

man on his face, felt that essence in her deepest fibers. For just an instant,

she permitted an equal response, experiencing a new height of ecstasy that none

of her teachers had hinted might be attainable. For that instant, she

understood what had happened to the Lady Jessica and the other Bene Gesserit

failures.

This feeling was love!

Its power frightened her (as the Breeding Mistresses had known it would) and she

fell back into the careful Bene Gesserit conditioning, allowing a mask of

pleasure to take over the brief natural expression on her face, employing

calculated caresses where natural caresses would have been easier (but less

effective).

The male responded as expected, stupidly. It helped to think of him as stupid.

Her second seduction had been easier. She could still call up the features of

that first one, though, doing it sometimes with a calloused sense of wonder.

Sometimes, his face came to her of itself and for no reason she could identify

immediately.

With the other males she had been sent to breed, the memory markers were

different. She had to hunt her past for the look of them. The sensory

recordings of those experiences did not go as deep. Not so with that first one!

Such was the dangerous power of love.

And look at the troubles this hidden force had caused the Bene Gesserit over the

millennia. The Lady Jessica and her love for her Duke had been only one example

among countless others. Love clouded reason. It diverted the Sisters from

their duties. Love could be tolerated only where it caused no immediate and

obvious disruptions or where it served the larger purposes of the Bene Gesserit.

Otherwise it was to be avoided.

Always, though, it remained an object of disquieting watchfulness.

Odrade opened her eyes and glanced again at Teg and Taraza. The Mother Superior

had taken up a new subject. How irritating Taraza's voice could be at times!

Odrade closed her eyes and listened to the conversation, tied to those two

voices by some link in her awareness that she could not avoid.

"Very few people realize how much of the infrastructure in a civilization is

dependency infrastructure," Taraza said. "We have made quite a study of this."

Love is a dependency-infrastructure, Odrade thought. Why had Taraza hit on this

subject at this time? The Mother Superior seldom did anything without deep

motives. "Dependency infrastructure is a term that includes all things

necessary for a human population to survive at existing or increased numbers,"

Taraza said.

"Melange?" Teg asked.