"Thank you, Mother Superior. The desert is growing very fast."
Streggi's words gave Odrade a certain satisfaction, dispelling gloom that had
hampered her most of the day.
The cycle was getting another chance, turning once more as it was impelled to do
by those subterranean forces called "life" and "love" and other unnecessary
labels.
Thus it turns. Thus it renews. Magic. What witchery could take your attention
from this miracle?
In her workroom, she issued an order to Weather, then silenced the tools of her
office and went to the bow window. Chapterhouse glowed pale red in the night
from reflections of groundlights against low clouds. It gave a romantic
appearance to rooftops and walls that Odrade quickly rejected.
Romance? There was nothing romantic about what she had done in the Acolyte
Dining Hall.
I have finally done it. I have committed myself. Now, Duncan must restore our
Bashar's memories. A delicate assignment.
She continued to stare into the night, suppressing knots in her stomach.
I not only commit myself but I commit what remains of my Sisterhood. So this is
how it feels, Tar.
This is how it feels and your plan is tricky.
It was going to rain. Odrade sensed it in the air coming through the
ventilators around the window. No need to read a Weather Dispatch. She seldom
did that these days, anyway. Why bother? But Streggi's report carried a potent
warning.
Rains were becoming rarer here and rather to be welcomed.
Sisters would emerge to walk in it despite the cold. There was a touch of
sadness in the thought. Each rain she saw brought the same question: Is this
the last one?
The people of Weather did heroic things to keep an expanding desert dry and the
growing areas irrigated. Odrade did not know how they had managed this rain to
comply with her order. Before long, they would not be able to obey such
commands, even from Mother Superior. The desert will triumph because that is
what we have set in motion.
She opened the central panes of her window. The wind at this level had stopped.
Just the clouds moving overhead. Wind at higher elevations harrying things
along. A sense of urgency in the weather. The air was chilly. So they had
made temperature adjustments to bring this bit of rain. She closed the window,
feeling no desire to go outside. Mother Superior had no time to play the game
of last rain. One rain at a time. And always out there the desert moving
inexorably toward them.
That, we can map and watch. But what of the hunter behind me -- the nightmare
figure with the axe? What map tells me where she is tonight?
Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses,
hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of
personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an
unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that commandment daily
in the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest creativity.
-Bene Gesserit Credo
Murbella sat cross-legged on the practice floor, alone, shivering after her
exertions. Mother Superior had been here less than an hour this afternoon.
And, as often happened, Murbella felt she had been abandoned in a fever dream.
Odrade's parting words reverberated in the dream: "The hardest lesson for an
acolyte to learn is that she must always go the limit. Your abilities will take
you farther than you imagine. Don't imagine, then. Extend yourself."
What is my response? That I was taught to cheat?
Odrade had done something to call up the patterns of childhood and Honored Matre
education. I learned cheating as an infant. How to simulate a need and gain
attention. Many "how-to's" in the cheating pattern. The older she got, the
easier the cheating. She had learned what the big people around her were
demanding. I regurgitated on demand. That was called "education." Why were
the Bene Gesserit so remarkably different in their teaching?
"I don't ask you to be honest with me," Odrade had said. "Be honest with
yourself."
Murbella despaired of ever rooting out all of the cheating in her past. Why
should I? More cheating!
"Damn you, Odrade!"
Only after the words were out did she realize she had spoken them aloud. She
started to put a hand to her mouth and aborted the movement. Fever said:
"What's the difference?"
"Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity." Odrade
explaining. "The young must be damped down. Never let them know how good they
can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to
deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the
conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them
because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment.
"
She was talking about Honored Matres.
Conventional teachers?
There it was: Behind that facade of wisdom, the Bene Gesserit were
unconventional. They often did not think about teaching; they just did it.
Gods! I want to be like them!
The thought shocked her and she leaped to her feet, launching herself into a
training routine for wrists and arms.
Realization bit deeper than ever. She did not want to disappoint these
teachers. Candor and honesty. Every acolyte heard that. "Basic tools of
learning," Odrade said.
Distracted by her thoughts, Murbella tumbled hard and stood up, rubbing a
bruised shoulder.
She had thought at first that the Bene Gesserit protestation must be a lie. I
am being so candid with you that I must tell you about my unswerving honesty.
But actions confirmed their claim. Odrade's voice persisted in the fever dream:
"That is how you judge."
They had something in the mind, in memory and a balance of intellect no Honored
Matre had ever possessed. This thought made her feel small. Enter corruption.
It was like liver spots in her feverish thoughts.
But I have talent! It required talent to become an Honored Matre.
Do I still think of myself as an Honored Matre?
The Bene Gesserit knew she had not fully committed herself to them. What skills
do I have that they could possibly want? Not the skills of deception.
"Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never
confine yourself to the words."
Murbella put her hands over her ears. Shut up, Odrade!
"How does a Truthsayer separate sincerity from a more fundamental judgment?"
Murbella dropped her hands to her sides. Maybe I'm really sick. She swept her
gaze around the long room. No one there to utter these words. Anyway, it was
Odrade's voice.
"If you convince yourself, sincerely, you can speak utter balderdash (marvelous
old word; look it up), absolute poppylarky in every word and you will be
believed. But not by one of our Truthsayers."
Murbella's shoulders sagged. She began to wander aimlessly around the practice
floor. Was there no place to escape?
"Look for the consequences, Murbella. That's how you ferret out things that
work. That's what our much-vaunted truths are all about."
Pragmatism?
Idaho found her then and responded to the wild look in her eyes. "What's
wrong?"
" I think I'm sick. Really sick. I thought it was something Odrade did to me
but . . ."
He caught her as she fell.
"Help us!"
For once, he was glad of the comeyes. A Suk was with them in less than a
minute. She bent over Murbella where Idaho cradled her on the floor.
The examination was brief. The Suk, a graying older Reverend Mother with the
traditional diamond brand on her forehead, straightened and said:
"Overstressed. She's not trying to find her limits, she's going beyond them.
We'll put her back into the sensitizing class before we let her continue. I'll
send the Proctors."
Odrade found Murbella in the Proctor's Ward that evening, propped up in a bed,
two Proctors taking turns testing her muscle responses. A small gesture and
they left Odrade alone with Murbella.
"I tried to avoid complicating things," Murbella said. Candor and honesty.
"Trying to avoid complications often creates them." Odrade sank into a chair
beside the bed and put a hand on Murbella's arm. Muscles quivered under the
hand. "We say 'words are slow, feeling's faster.' " Odrade withdrew. "What
decisions have you been making?"
"You let me make decisions?"
"Don't sneer." She lifted a hand to prevent interruption. "I didn't take your
previous conditioning into sufficient account. The Honored Matres left you
practically incapable of making decisions. Typical of power-hungry societies.
Teach their people to diddle around forever. 'Decisions bring bad results!'
You teach avoidance."
"What's that have to do with me collapsing?" Resentful.
"Murbella! The worst products of what I'm describing are almost basket cases --
can't make decisions about anything, or leave them until the last possible
second and then leap at them like desperate animals. "
"You told me to go the limit!" Almost wailing.
"Your limits, Murbella. Not mine. Not Bell's or those of anyone else. Yours."
"I've decided I want to be like you." Very faint.
"Marvelous! I don't believe I've ever tried to kill myself. Especially when I
was pregnant."
In spite of herself, Murbella grinned.
Odrade stood. "Sleep. You're going into a special class tomorrow where we'll
work on your ability to mesh your decisions with sensitivity to your limits.
Remember what I told you. We take care of our own."
"Am I yours?" Almost whispered.
"Since you repeated the oath before the Proctors." Odrade turned out the lights
as she left. Murbella heard her speak to someone before the door closed. "Stop
fussing with her. She needs rest."
Murbella closed her eyes. The fever dream was gone but in its place was her own
memory. "I am a Bene Gesserit. I exist only to serve."
She heard herself saying those words to the Proctors but memory gave them an
emphasis not in the original.
They knew I was being cynical.
What could you hide from such women?
She felt the remembered hand of the Proctor on her forehead and heard the words
that had possessed no meaning until this moment.
"I stand in the sacred human presence. As I do now, so should you stand some
day. I pray to your presence that this be so. Let the future remain uncertain
for that is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces
its perpetual tabula rasa. We possess no more than this moment where we
dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence we share and create."
Conventional but unconventional. She realized that she had not been physically
or emotionally prepared for this moment. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine
point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job
security.
-Bene Gesserit Coda
On her restless prowlings through Central (infrequent these days but more
intense because of that), Odrade looked for signs of slackness and especially
for areas of responsibility that were running too smoothly.
The Senior Watchdog had her own watchwords: "Show me a completely smooth
operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock."
She said this often and it became an identifying phrase the Sisters (and even
some acolytes) employed to comment on Mother Superior.
"Real boats rock." Soft chuckles.
Bellonda accompanied Odrade on today's early morning inspection, not mentioning
that "once a month" had been stretched to "once every two months" -- if that.
This inspection was a week past the mark. Bell wanted to use this time for
warnings about Idaho. And she had dragged Tamalane along although Tam was
supposed to be reviewing Proctor performance at this hour.
Two against one? Odrade wondered. She did not think Bell or Tam suspected what
Mother Superior intended. Well, it would come out, as had Taraza's plan. In
its own time, eh, Tar?
Down the corridors they stalked, black robes swishing with urgency, eyes missing
little. It was all familiar and yet they looked for things that were new.
Odrade carried her Ear-C over her left shoulder like a misplaced diving weight.
Never be out of communication range these days.
Behind the scenes in any Bene Gesserit center were the support facilities:
clinic-hospital, kitchen, morgue, garbage control, reclamation systems (attached
to sewage and garbage), transport and communications, kitchen provisioning,
training and physical maintenance halls, schools for acolytes and postulants,
quarters for all of the denominations, meeting centers, testing facilities and
much more. Personnel often changed because of the Scattering and movement of
people into new responsibilities, all according to subtle Bene Gesserit
awareness. But tasks and places for them remained.
As they strode swiftly from one area to another, Odrade spoke of the Sisterhood
Scattering, not trying to hide her dismay at "the atomic family" they had
become.
"I find it difficult to contemplate humankind spreading into an unlimited
universe," Tam said. "The possibilities . . ."
"Infinite numbers game." Odrade stepped across a broken curb. "That should be
repaired. We've been playing the infinity game since we learned to jump
Foldspace."
There was no joy in Bellonda. "It's not a game!"
Odrade could appreciate Bellonda's feelings. We have never seen empty space.
Always more galaxies. Tam's right. It's daunting when you focus on that Golden
Path.
Memories of explorations gave the Sisterhood a statistical handle on it but
little else. So many habitable planets in a given assemblage and, among those,
an expected additional number that could be terraformed.
"What's evolving out there?" Tamalane demanded.
A question they could not answer. Ask what Infinity might produce and the only
answer possible was, "Anything."
Any good, any evil; any god, any devil.
"What if Honored Matres are fleeing something?" Odrade asked. "Interesting
possibility?"
"These speculations are useless," Bellonda muttered. "We don't even know if
Foldspace introduces us to one universe or many . . . or even an infinite number
of expanding and collapsing bubbles."
"Did the Tyrant understand this any better than we do?" Tamalane asked.
They paused while Odrade looked into a room where five Advanced acolytes and a
Proctor studied a projection of regional melange stores. The crystal holding
the information performed an intricate dance in the projector, bouncing on its
beam like a ball on a fountain. Odrade saw the summation and turned away before
scowling. Tam and Bell did not see Odrade's expression. We will have to start
limiting access to melange data. Too depressing to morale.
Administration! It all came back to Mother Superior. Delegate heavily to only
the same people and you fell into bureaucracy.
Odrade knew she depended too much on her inner sense of administration. A
system frequently tested and revised, using automation only where essential.
"The machinery" they called it. By the time they became Reverend Mothers, all
of them had some sensitivity to "the machinery" and tended to use it without
question thereafter. There lay the danger. Odrade pressed for constant
improvements (even tiny ones) to introduce change into their activities.
Randomness! No absolute patterns that others could find and use against them.
One person might not see such shifts in a lifetime but differences over longer
periods were sure to be measurable.
Odrade's party came down to ground level and onto the major thoroughfare of
Central. "The Way," Sisters called it. An in-joke, referring to the training
regimen popularly known as "The Bene Gesserit Way."
The Way reached from the square beside Odrade's tower to the southern outskirts
of the urban area -- straight as a lasgun beam, almost twelve klicks of tall
buildings and low ones. The low ones all had something in common: they had
been built strong enough to expand upward.
Odrade flagged an open transporter with empty seats and the three of them
crowded into a space where they could continue to talk. Frontage on The Way
carried an old-fashioned appeal, Odrade thought. Buildings such as these with
their tall rectangular windows of insulating plaz had framed Bene Gesserit
"Ways" through much of the Sisterhood's history. Down the center ran a line of
elms genetically tailored for height and narrow profile. Birds nested in them
and the morning was bright with flitting spots of red and orange -- orioles,
tanagers.
Is it dangerously patterned for us to prefer this familiar setting?
Odrade led them off the transporter at Tipsy Trail, thinking how Bene Gesserit
humor came out in curious names. Waggish in the streets. Tipsy Trail because
the foundation of one building had subsided slightly, giving that structure a
curiously drunken appearance. The one member of the group stepping out of line.
Like Mother Superior. Only they don't know it yet.
Her Ear-C buzzed as they came to Tower Lane. "Mother Superior?" It was
Streggi. Without stopping, Odrade signaled that she was on-line. "You asked
for a report on Murbella. Suk Central says she is fit for assigned classes."
"Then assign her." They continued down Tower Lane: all one-story buildings.
Odrade spared a brief glance for the low buildings on both sides of the street.
A two-story addition was being made to one of them. Might be a real Tower Lane
here someday and the joke (such as it was) abandoned.
It was argued that naming was just a convenience anyway and they might as well
enjoy this venture into what was a delicate subject for the Sisterhood.
Odrade stopped abruptly on a busy walkway and turned to her companions. "What
would you say if I suggested we name streets and places after departed Sisters?"
"You're full of nonsense today!" Bellonda accused.
"They are not departed," Tamalane said.
Odrade resumed her prowling walk. She had expected that. Bell's thoughts could
almost be heard. We carry the "departed" around in Other Memory!
Odrade wanted no argument here in the open but she thought her idea had merit.
Some Sisters died without Sharing. Major Memory Lines were duplicated but you
lost a thread and its terminated carrier. Schwangyu of the Gammu Keep had gone
that way, killed by attacking Honored Matres. Plenty of memories remained to
carry her good qualities . . . and complexities. One hesitated to say her
mistakes taught more than her successes.
Bellonda increased her pace to walk beside Odrade in a relatively empty stretch.
"I must speak of Idaho. A Mentat, yes, but those multiple memories. Supremely
dangerous!"
They were passing a morgue, the strong smell of antiseptics even in the street.
The arched doorway stood open.
"Who died?" Odrade asked, ignoring Bellonda's anxiety.
"A Proctor from Section Four and an orchard maintenance man," Tamalane said.
Tam always knew.
Bellonda was furious at being ignored and made no attempt to hide it. "Will you
two stick to the point?"
"What is the point?" Odrade asked. Very mild.
They emerged on the south terrace and stopped at the stone rail to look over the
plantations -- vineyards and orchards. The morning light had a dusty haze in it
not at all like the mists created of moisture.
"You know the point!" Bell would not be deflected.
Odrade stared at the vista, pressing herself against the stones. The railing
was frigid. That mist out there was a different color, she thought. Sunlight
came through dust with a different reflective spectrum. More bounce and
sharpness to the light. Absorbed in a different way. The nimbus was tighter.
The blowing dust and sand crept into every crevice the way water did but the
grating and rasping betrayed its source. The same with Bell's persistence. No
lubrication.
"That's desert light," Odrade said, pointing.
"Stop avoiding me," Bellonda said.
Odrade chose not to answer. The dusty light was a classical thing, but not
reassuring in the way of the elder painters and their misty mornings.
Tamalane came up beside Odrade. "Beautiful in its own way." The remote tone
said she made Other Memory comparisons similar to Odrade's.
If that's how you were conditioned to look for beauty. But something deep
within Odrade said this was not the beauty for which she longed.
In the shallow swales below them, where once there had been greenery, now there
was dryness and a sense of the earth being gutted the way ancient Egyptians had
prepared their dead -- dried to essential matter, preserved for their Eternity.
Desert as deathmaster, swaddling the dirt in nitron, embalming our beautiful
planet with all of its jewels concealed.
Bellonda stood behind them, muttering and shaking her head, refusing to look at
what their planet would become.
Odrade almost shuddered in a sudden thrust of simulflow. Memory flooded her:
She felt herself searching Sietch Tabr's ruins, finding desert-embalmed bodies
of spice pirates left where killers had dropped them.
What is Sieteh Tabr now? A molten flow solidified and without anything to mark
its proud history. Honored Matres: killers of history.
"If you won't eliminate Idaho, then I must protest your using him as a Mentat."
Bell was such a fussy woman! Odrade noted that she was showing her age more
than ever. Reading lenses on her nose even now. They magnified her eyes until
she had the look of a great-orbed fish. Use of lenses and not one of the more
subtle prostheses said something about her. She flaunted a reverse vanity that
announced: "I am greater than the devices my failing senses require. "
Bellonda was definitely irritated by Mother Superior. "Why are you staring at
me that way?"
Odrade, caught by abrupt awareness of a weakness in her Council, shifted her
attention to Tamalane. Cartilage never stopped growing and this had enlarged
Tam's ears, nose and chin. Some Reverend Mothers adjusted this by metabolism
control or sought regular surgical correction. Tam would not bow to such
vanity. "Here's what I am. Take it or leave it."
My advisors are too old. And I . . . I should be younger and stronger to have
these problems on my shoulders. Oh, damn this for a lapse into self-pity!
Only one supreme danger: action against survival of the Sisterhood.
"Duncan is a superb Mentat!" Odrade spoke with all the force of her position.
"But I use none of you beyond your capabilities."
Bellonda remained silent. She knew a Mentat's weaknesses.
Mentats! Odrade thought. They were like walking Archives but when you most
needed answers they relapsed into questions.
"I don't need another Mentat," Odrade said. "I need an inventor!"
When Bellonda still did not speak, Odrade said: "I am freeing his mind, not his
body."
"I insist on an analysis before you open all data sources to him!"
Considering Bellonda's usual stance, that was mild. But Odrade did not trust
it. She detested those sessions -- endless rehashing of Archival reports.
Bellonda doted on them. Bellonda of Archival minutiae and boring excursions
into irrelevant details! Who cared if Reverend Mother X preferred skimmed milk
on her porridge?
Odrade turned her back on Bellonda and looked at the southern sky. Dust! We
would sift more dust! Bellonda would be flanked by assistants. Odrade felt
boredom just imagining it.
"No more analysis." Odrade spoke more sharply than she had intended.
"I do have a point of view." Bellonda sounded hurt.
Point of view? Are we no more than sensory windows on our universe, each with
only a point of view?
Instincts and memories of all types . . . even Archives -- none of these things
spoke for themselves except by compelling intrusions. None carried weight until
formulated in a living consciousness. But whoever produced the formulation
tipped the scales. All order is arbitrary! Why this datum rather than some
other? Any Reverend Mother knew events occurred in their own flux, their own
relative environment. Why couldn't a Mentat Reverend Mother act from that
knowledge?
"Do you refuse counsel?" That was Tamalane. Was she siding with Bell?
"When have I ever refused counsel?" Odrade let her outrage show. "I am
refusing another of Bell's Archival merry-go-rounds."
Bellonda intruded. "Then, in reality --"
"Bell! Don't talk to me about reality!" Let her simmer in that! Reverend
Mother and Mentat! There is no reality. Only our own order imposed on
everything. A basic Bene Gesserit dictum.
There were times (and this was one of them) when Odrade wished she had been born
in an earlier era -- a Roman matron in the long pax of the aristocrats, or a
much-pampered Victorian. But she was trapped by time and circumstances.
Trapped forever?
Must face that possibility. The Sisterhood might have only a future confined to
secret hideaways, always fearing discovery. The future of the hunted. And here
at Central we may be allowed no more than one mistake.
"I've had enough of this inspection!" Odrade called for private transport and
hurried them back to her workroom.
What will we do if the hunters come upon us here?
Each of them had her own scenario, a little playlet full of planned reactions.
But every Reverend Mother was sufficiently a realist to know her playlet might
be more hindrance than help.
In the workroom, morning light harshly revealing on everything around them,
Odrade sank into her chair and waited for Tamalane and Bellonda to take their
seats.
No more of those damned analysis sessions. She really needed access to
something better than Archives, better than anything they had ever used before.
Inspiration. Odrade rubbed her legs, feeling muscles tremble. She had not
slept well for days. This inspection left her feeling frustrated.
One mistake could end us and I am about to commit us to a no-return decision.
Am I being too tricky?
Her advisors argued against tricky solutions. They said the Sisterhood must
move with steady assurance, the ground ahead known in advance. Everything they
did lay counterpoised by the disaster awaiting them at the slightest misstep.
And I am on the tightrope over the chasm.
Did they have room to experiment, to test possible solutions? They all played
that game. Bell and Tam screened a constant flow of suggestions but nothing
more effective than their atomic Scattering.
We must be prepared to kill Idaho at the slightest sign he is a Kwisatz
Haderach," Bellonda said.
"Don't you have work to do? Get out of here, both of you!"
As they stood, the workroom around Odrade took on an alien feeling. What was
wrong? Bellonda stared down at her with that awful look of censure. Tamalane
appeared more wise than she could possibly be.
What is it about this room?
The workroom would have been recognized for its function by humans from prespace
history. What felt so alien? A worktable was a worktable and the chairs
were in convenient positions. Bell and Tam preferred chairdogs. Those would
have seemed odd to the early human in Other Memory she suspected was coloring
her view. The ridulian crystals might glisten strangely, the light pulsing in
them and blinking. Messages dancing above the table might be surprising.
Instruments of her labors could appear strange to an early human sharing her
awareness.
But it felt alien to me.
"Are you all right, Dar?" Tam spoke with concern.
Odrade waved her away but neither woman moved.
Things were happening in her mind that could not be blamed on the long hours and
insufficient rest. This was not the first time she had felt she worked in alien
surroundings. The previous night while eating a snack at this table, the
surface littered with assignment orders as it was now, she had found herself
just sitting and staring at uncompleted work.
Which Sisters could be spared from what posts for this terrible Scattering? How
could they improve survival chances of the few sandtrout the Scattered Sisters
took? What was a proper allotment of melange? Should they wait before sending
more Sisters into the unknown? Wait for the possibility that Scytale could be
induced to tell them how axlotl tanks produced the spice?
Odrade recalled that the alien feeling had occurred to her as she chewed on a
sandwich. She had looked at it, opening it slightly. What is this thing I'm
eating? Chicken liver and onions on some of the best Chapterhouse bread.
Questioning her own routines, that was part of this alien sensation.
"You look ill," Bellonda said.
"Just fatigue," Odrade lied. They knew she was lying but would they challenge
her? "You both must be equally tired." Affection in her tone.
Bell was not satisfied. "You set a bad example!"
"What? Me?" The jesting was not lost on Bell.
"You know damned well you do!"
"It's your displays of affection," Tamalane said.
"Even for Bell."
"I don't want your damned affection! It's wrong."
"Only if I let it rule my decisions, Bell. Only then."
Bellonda's voice fell to a husky whisper. "Some think you're a dangerous
romantic, Dar. You know what that could do."
"Ally Sisters with me for other than our survival. Is that what you mean?"
"Sometimes you give me a headache, Dar!"
"It's my duty and right to give you a headache. When your head fails to ache,
you become careless. Affections bother you but hates don't."
"I know my flaw."
You couldn't be a Reverend Mother and not know it.
The workroom once more had become a familiar place but now Odrade knew a source
of her alien feelings. She was thinking of this place as part of ancient
history, viewing it as she might when it was long gone. As it certainly would
be if her plan succeeded. She knew what she had to do now. Time to reveal the
first step.
Careful.
Yes, Tar, I'm as cautious as you were.
Tam and Bell might be old but their minds were sharp when necessity required it.
Odrade fixed her gaze on Bell. "Patterns, Bell. It is our pattern not to offer
violence for violence." Raising a hand to stop Bell's response. "Yes, violence
builds more violence and the pendulum swings until the violent ones are
shattered."
"What are you thinking?" Tam demanded.
"Perhaps we should consider baiting the bull more strongly."
"We dare not. Not yet."
"But we also dare not sit here witlessly waiting for them to find us. Lampadas
and our other disasters tell us what will happen when they come. When, not if"
As she spoke, Odrade sensed the chasm beneath her, the nightmare hunter with the
axe ever nearer. She wanted to sink into the nightmare, turning there to
identify the one who stalked them, but dared not. That had been the mistake of
the Kwisatz Haderach.
You do not see that future, you create it.
Tamalane wanted to know why Odrade raised this issue. "Have you changed your
mind, Dar?"
"Our ghola-Teg is ten years old."
"Much too young for us to attempt restoring his original memories," Bellonda
said.
"Why have we recreated Teg if not for violent uses?" Odrade asked. "Oh, yes!"
As Tam started to object. "Teg did not always solve our problems with violence.
The peaceful Bashar could deflect enemies with reasonable words."
Tam spoke musingly. "But Honored Matres may never negotiate."
"Unless we can drive them to extremis."
"I think you are proposing to move too fast," Bellonda said. Trust Bell to
reach a Mentat summation.
Odrade drew in a deep breath and looked down at her worktable. It had come at
last. On that morning when she had removed the baby ghola from his obscene
"tank," she had sensed this moment waiting for her. Even then she had known she
would put this ghola into the crucible before his time. Ties of blood
notwithstanding.
Reaching beneath her table, Odrade touched a call field. Her two councillors
stood silently waiting. They knew she was about to say something important.
One thing a Mother Superior could be sure of -- her Sisters listened to her with
great care, with an intensity that would have gratified someone more ego-bound
than a Reverend Mother.
"Politics," Odrade said.
That snapped them to attention! A loaded word. When you entered Bene Gesserit
politics, marshaling your powers for the rise to eminence, you became a prisoner
of responsibility. You saddled yourself with duties and decisions that bound
you to the lives of those who depended on you. This was what really tied the
Sisterhood to their Mother Superior. That one word told councillors and the
watchdogs the First-Among-Equals had reached a decision.
They all heard the small scuffling sound of someone arriving outside the
workroom door. Odrade touched the white plate in the near right corner of her
table. The door behind her opened and Streggi stood there awaiting the Mother
Superior's orders.
"Bring him," Odrade said.
"Yes, Mother Superior." Almost emotionless. A very promising acolyte, that
Streggi.
She stepped out of sight and returned leading Miles Teg by the hand. The boy's
hair was quite blond but streaked with darker lines that said the light
coloration would go dark when he matured. His face was narrow, nose just
beginning to show that hawkish angularity so characteristic of Atreides males.
His blue eyes moved alertly taking in room and occupants with expectant
curiosity.
"Wait outside, please, Streggi."
Odrade waited for the door to close.
The boy stood looking at Odrade with no sign of impatience.
"Miles Teg, ghola," Odrade said. "You remember Tamalane and Bellonda, of
course."
He favored the two women with a short glance but remained silent, apparently
unmoved by the intensity of their inspection.
Tamalane frowned. She had disagreed from the first with calling this child a
ghola. Gholas were grown from cells of a cadaver. This was a clone, just as
Scytale was a clone.
"I am going to send him into the no-ship with Duncan and Murbella," Odrade said.
"Who better than Duncan to restore Miles to his original memories?"
"Poetic justice," Bellonda agreed. She did not speak her objections although
Odrade knew they would come out when the boy had gone. Too young!
"What does she mean, poetic justice?" Teg asked. His voice had a piping
quality.
"When the Bashar was on Gammu, he restored Duncan's original memories."
"Is it really painful?"
"Duncan found it so."
Some decisions must be ruthless.
Odrade thought that a great barrier to accepting the fact that you could make
your own decisions. Something she would not be required to explain to Murbella.
How do I soften the blow?
There were times when you could not soften it; in fact when it was kinder to rip
off the bandages in one swift shot of agony.
"Can this . . . this Duncan Idaho really give me back my memories from . . .
before?"
"He can and he will."
"Are we not being too precipitous?" Tamalane asked.
"I've been studying accounts of the Bashar," Teg said. "He was a famous
military man and a Mentat."
"And you're proud of that, I suppose?" Bell was taking out her objections on
the boy.
"Not especially." He returned her gaze without flinching. "I think of him as
someone else. Interesting, though."
"Someone else," Bellonda muttered. She looked at Odrade with ill-concealed
disagreement. "You're giving him the deep teaching!"
"As his birth-mother did."
"Will I remember her?" Teg asked.
Odrade gave him a conspiratorial smile, one they had shared often in their
orchard walks. "You will."
"Everything?"
"You'll remember all of it -- your wife, your children, the battles.
Everything. "
"Send him away!" Bellonda said.
The boy smiled but looked to Odrade, awaiting her command.
"Very well, Miles," Odrade said. "Tell Streggi to take you to your new quarters
in the no-ship. I'll come along later and introduce you to Duncan."
"May I ride on Streggi's shoulders?"
"Ask her."
Impulsively, Teg dashed up to Odrade, lifted himself onto his toes and kissed
her cheek. "I hope my real mother was like you."
Odrade patted his shoulder. "Very much like me. Run along now. "
When the door closed behind him, Tamalane said: "You haven't told him you're
one of his daughters!"
"Not yet."
"Will Idaho tell him?"
"If it's indicated."
Bellonda was not interested in petty details. "What are you planning, Dar?"
Tamalane answered for her. "A punishment force commanded by our Mentat Bashar.
It's obvious."
She took the bait!
"Is that it?" Bellonda demanded.
Odrade favored them both with a hard stare. "Teg was the best we ever had. If
anyone can punish our enemies . . ."
"We'd better start growing another one," Tamalane said.
"I don't like the influence Murbella may have on him," Bellonda said.
"Will Idaho cooperate?" Tamalane asked.
"He will do what an Atreides asks of him."
Odrade spoke with more confidence than she felt but the words opened her mind to
another source of the alien feelings.
I'm seeing us as Murbella sees us! I can think like at least one Honored Matre!
We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of
consequences -- the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words
and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever
touched.
-Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus
Scytale whistled while he walked down the corridor fronting his quarters, taking
his afternoon exercise. Down and back. Whistling.
Get them accustomed to me whistling.
As he whistled, he composed a ditty to go with the sound: "Tleilaxu sperm does
not talk." Over and over, the words rolled in his mind. They could not use his
cells to bridge the genetic gap and learn his secrets.
They must come to me with gifts.
Odrade had stopped by to see him earlier "on my way to confer with Murbella."
She mentioned the captive Honored Matre to him frequently. There was a purpose
but he had no idea what it might be. Threat? Always possible. It would be
revealed eventually.
"I hope you are not fearful," Odrade had said.
They had been standing at his food slot while he waited for lunch to appear.
The menu was never quite to his liking but acceptable. Today, he had asked for
seafood. No telling what form it would take.
"Fearful? Of you? Ahhh, dear Mother Superior, I am priceless to you alive.
Why should I fear?"
"My Council reserves judgment on your latest requests."
I expected that.
"It's a mistake to hobble me," he said. "Limits your choices. Weakens you."
Those words had taken several days of planning for him to compose. He waited
for their effect.
"It depends on how one intends to employ the tool, Master Scytale. Some tools
break when you don't use them properly."
Damn you, witch!
He smiled, showing his sharp canines. "Testing to extinction, Mother Superior?"
She made one of her rare sallies into humor. "Do you really expect me to
strengthen you? For what do you bargain now, Scytale?"
So I'm no longer Master Scytale. Strike her with the flat of the blade!
"You Scatter your Sisters, hoping some will escape destruction. What are the
economic consequences of your hysterical reaction?"
Consequences! They always talk about consequences.
"We trade for time, Scytale." Very solemn.
He gave this a silent moment of reflection. The comeyes were watching them.
Never forget it! Economics, witch! Who and what do we buy and sell? This
alcove by the food slot was a strange place for bargaining, he thought. Bad
management of the economy. The management hustle, the planning and strategy
session, should occur behind closed doors, in high rooms with views that did not
distract the occupants from the business at hand.
The serial memories of his many lives would not accept that.
Necessity. Humans conduct their merchant affairs wherever they can -- on the
decks of sailing ships, in tawdry streets full of bustling clerks, in the
spacious halls of a traditional bourse with information flowing above their
heads for all to see.
Planning and strategy might come from those high rooms but the evidence of it
was like the common information of the bourse -- there for all to see.
So let the comeyes watch.
"What are your intentions toward me, Mother Superior?"
"To keep you alive and strong."
Careful, careful.
"But not give me a free hand."
"Scytale! You speak of economics and then want something free?"
"But my strength is important to you?"
"Believe it!"
"I do not trust you."
The food slot took that moment to disgorge his lunch: a white fish sauteed in a
delicate sauce. He smelled herbs. Water in a tall glass, faint aroma of
melange. A green salad. One of their better efforts. He felt himself
salivating.
"Enjoy your lunch, Master Scytale. There is nothing in it to harm you. Is that
not a measure of trust?"
When he did not respond, she said: "What does trust have to do with our
bargaining?"
What game is she playing now?
"You tell me what you intend for Honored Matres but you do not say what you
intend for me." He knew he sounded plaintive. Unavoidable.
"I intend to make the Honored Matres aware of their mortality."
"As you do with me!"
Was that satisfaction in her eyes?
"Scytale." How soft her voice. "People thus made aware truly listen. They hear
you." She glanced at his tray. "Would you like something special?"
He drew himself up as best he could. "A small stimulant drink. It helps when I
must think."
"Of course. I'll see that it's sent down at once." She turned her attention
out of the alcove toward the main room of his quarters. He watched where she
paused, her gaze shifting from place to place, item to item.
Everything in its place, witch. I am not an animal in its cave. Things must be
convenient, where I can find them without thinking. Yes, those are stimpens
beside my chair. So I use 'pens. But I avoid alcohol. You notice?
The stimulant, when it came, tasted of a bitter herb he was a moment
identifying. Casmine. A genetically modified blood strengthener from the Gammu
pharmacopoeia.
Did she intend to remind him of Gammu? They were so devious, these witches!
Poking fun at him over the question of economics. He felt the sting of this as
he turned at the end of his corridor and continued his exercise in a brisk walk
back to his quarters. What glue had actually held the Old Empire together?
Many things, some small and some large, but mostly economic. Lines of
connection thought of often as conveniences. And what kept them from blasting
one another out of existence? The Great Convention. "You blast anyone and we
unite to blast you."
He stopped outside his door, brought up short by a thought.
Was that it? How could punishment be enough to stop the greedy powindah? Did
it come down to a glue composed of intangibles? The censure of your peers? But
what if your peers balked at no obscenity? You could do anything. And that
said something about Honored Matres. It certainly did.
He longed for a sagra chamber in which to bare his soul.
The Yaghist is gone! Am I the last Masheikh?
His chest felt empty. It was an effort to breathe. Perhaps it would be best to
bargain more openly with the women of Shaitan.
No! That is Shaitan himself tempting me!
He entered his chambers in a chastened mood.
I must make them pay. Make them pay dearly. Dearly, dearly, dearly. Each
dearly accompanied a step toward his chair. When he sat, his right hand reached
out automatically for a 'pen. Soon, he felt his mind driving at speed, thoughts
pouring through in marvelous array.
They do not guess how well I know the Ixian ship. It's here in my head.
He spent the next hour deciding how he would record these moments when it came
time to tell his fellows how he had triumphed over the powindah. With God's
help!
They would be glittering words, filled with drama and the tensions of his
testing. History, after all, was always written by the victors.
They say Mother Superior can disregard nothing -- a meaningless aphorism until
you grasp its other significance: I am the servant of all my Sisters. They
watch their servant with critical eyes. I cannot spend too much time on
generalities nor on trivia. Mother Superior must display insightful action else
a sense of disquiet penetrates to the farthest corners of our order.
-Darwi Odrade
Something of what Odrade called "my servant-self" went with her as she walked
the halls of Central this morning, making this her exercise rather than take
time on a practice floor. A disgruntled servant! She did not like what she
saw.
We are too tightly bound up in our difficulties, almost incapable of separating
petty problems from great ones.
What had happened to their conscience?
Although some denied it, Odrade knew there was a Bene Gesserit conscience. But
they had twisted and reshaped it into a form not easily recognized.
She felt loath to meddle with it. Decisions taken in the name of survival, the
Missionaria (their interminable Jesuitical arguments!) -- all diverged from
something far more demanding of human judgment. The Tyrant had known this.
To be human, that was the issue. But before you could be human, you had to feel
it in your guts.
No clinical answers! It came down to a deceptive simplicity whose complex
nature appeared when you applied it.
Like me.
You looked inward and found who and what you believed you were. Nothing else
would serve.
So what am I?
"Who asks that question?" It was a skewering thrust from Other Memory.
Odrade laughed aloud and a passing Proctor named Praska stared at her in
astonishment. Odrade waved to Praska and said: "It's good to be alive.
Remember that."
Praska produced a faint smile before going on about her business.
So who asks: What am I?
Dangerous question. Asking it put her in a universe where nothing was quite
human. Nothing matched the undefined thing she sought. All around her, clowns,
wild animals and puppets reacted to the pull of hidden strings. She sensed the
strings that jerked her into movement.
Odrade continued along the corridor toward the tube that would take her up to
her quarters.
Strings. What came with the egg? We speak glibly of "the mind at its
beginning." But what was I before the pressures of living shaped me?
It wasn't enough to seek something "natural." No "Noble Savage." She had seen
plenty of those in her lifetime. The strings jerking them were quite visible to
a Bene Gesserit.
She felt the taskmaster within her. Strong today. It was a force she sometimes
disobeyed or avoided. Taskmaster said: "Strengthen your talents. Do not flow
gently in the current. Swim! Use it or lose it."
With a gasping sensation of near panic, she realized she had barely retained her
humanity, that she had been on the point of losing it.
I've been trying too hard to think like an Honored Matre! Manipulating and
maneuvering anyone I could. And all in the name of Bene Gesserit survival!
Bell said there were no limits beyond which the Sisterhood would refuse to go in
preserving the Bene Gesserit. A modicum of truth in this boast but it was the
truth of all boasting. There were indeed things a Reverend Mother would not do
to save the Sisterhood.
We would not block the Tyrant's Golden Path.
Survival of humankind took precedence over survival of the Sisterhood. Else our
grail of human maturity is meaningless.
But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do.
How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made
mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without
questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.
Lemming behavior.
It was right that her Sisters watched her carefully. All governments needed to
remain under suspicion during their time of power including that of the
Sisterhood itself. Trust no government! Not even mine!
They are watching me this very instant. Very little escapes my Sisters. They
will know my plan in time.
It required constant mental cleansing to face up to the fact of her great power
over the Sisterhood. I did not seek this power. It was thrust upon me. And
she thought: Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it. She
knew the chances were great that such people were susceptible to corruption or
already lost.
Odrade made a mental note to scribe and transmit a Coda memo to Archives. (Let
Bell sweat this one!) "We should grant power over our affairs only to those who
are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase the
reluctance."
Perfect description of the Bene Gesserit!
"Are you well, Dar?" It was Bellonda's voice from the tube door beside Odrade.
"You look . . . strange."
"I just thought of something to do. You getting off?"
Bellonda stared at her as they exchanged places. The tubefield caught Odrade
and whisked her away from that questioning gaze.
Odrade entered the workroom and saw her table piled with things her aides
thought only she could resolve.
Politics, she recalled as she sat at her table and prepared to deal with
responsibilities. Tam and Bell had heard her clearly the other day but they had
only the vaguest idea of what they would be asked to support. They were worried
and increasingly watchful. As they should be.
Almost any subject had political elements, she thought. As emotions were
whipped up, political forces came more and more into the foreground. This put
lie! to that old nonsense about "separation of church and state." Nothing more
susceptible to emotional heat than religion.
No wonder we distrust emotions.
Not all emotions, of course. Only the ones you could not escape in moments of
necessity: love, hate. Let in a little anger sometimes but keep it on a short
leash. That was the Sisterhood's belief. Utter nonsense!
The Tyrant's Golden Path made their mistake no longer tolerable. The Golden
Path left the Bene Gesserit in a perpetual backwater. You could not minister to
Infinity!
Bell's recurrent question had no answer. "What did he really want us to do?"
Into what actions was he manipulating us? (As we manipulate others!)
Why look for meaning where there is none? Would you follow a path you knew led
nowhere?
Golden Path! A track laid down in one imagination. Infinity is nowhere! And
the finite mind balked. Here was where Mentats found mutable projections,
always producing more questions than answers. It was the empty grail of those
who, noses close to an endless circle, looked for "the one answer to all
things."
Looking for their own kind of gad.
She found it hard to censure them. The mind recoiled in the face of infinity.
The Void! Alchemists of any age were like rag pickers bent over their bundles,
saying: "There must be order in here somewhere. If I keep on, I'm sure to find
it."
And all the time, the only order was the order they themselves created.
Ahhh, Tyrant! You droll fellow. You saw it. You said: "I will create order
for you to follow. Here is the path. See it? No! Don't look over there.
That is the way of the Emperor-Without-Clothes (a nakedness apparent only to
children and the insane). Keep your attention where I direct it. This is my
Golden Path. Isn't that a pretty name? It's all there is and all there ever
will be."
Tyrant, you were another clown. Pointing us into endless recycling of cells
from that lost and lonely ball of dirt in our common past.
You knew the human universe could never be more than communities and weak glue
binding us when we Scattered. A common birth tradition so far away in our past
that pictures of it carried by descendants are mostly distorted. Reverend
Mothers carry the original, but we cannot force it onto unwilling people. You
see, Tyrant? We heard you: "Let them come asking for it! Then, and only then
. . ."
And that was why you preserved us, you Atreides bastard! That's why I must get
to work.
Despite the peril to her sense of humanity, she knew she would continue to
insinuate herself into the ways of Honored Matres. I must think as they think.
The hunters' problem: predator and prey shared it. Not quite needle-in-thehaystack.
More a question of tracking across a terrain littered with the
familiar and the unfamiliar. Bene Gesserit deceptions insured that the familiar
would cause Honored Matres at least as much difficulty as the unfamiliar.
But what have they done for us?
Interplanetary communication worked for the hunted. Limited by economics for
millennia. Not much of it except among Important People and Traders. Important
meant what it had always meant: rich, powerful; bankers, officials, couriers.
Military. "Important" labeled many categories -- negotiators, entertainers,
medical personnel, skilled technicians, spies, and other specialists. It was
not much different in kind from the days of the Master Masons on Old Terra.
Mainly a difference in numbers, quality and sophistication. Boundaries were
transparent to some as they had always been.
She felt it important to review this occasionally, looking for flaws.
The great mass of planet-bound humanity spoke of "the silence of space," meaning
they could not afford the cost of such travel or communication. Most people
knew the news they received across this barrier was managed for special
interests. It had always been that way.
On a planet, terrain and avoiding telltale radiation dictated the communications
systems used: tubes, messengers, lightlines, nerve riders and many
permutations. Secrecy and encryption were important, not only between planets
but on them.
Odrade saw it as a system Honored Matres could tap if they found an entry point.
Hunters had to begin by deciphering the system, but then: Where did a trail to
Chapterhouse originate?
Untrackable no-ships, Ixian machines, and Guild Navigators -- all contributed to
the blanket of silence between planets except for the privileged few. Give
hunters no starting points!
It came as a surprise then when an aging Reverend Mother from a Bene Gesserit
punishment planet appeared at Mother Superior's workroom shortly before the
lunch break. Archives identified her: Name: Dortujla. Sent to special
perdition years ago for an unforgivable infraction. Memory said it had been a
love affair of some kind. Odrade did not ask for details. Some of them were
displayed anyway. (Bellonda interfering again!) Emotional upheaval at the time
of Dortujla's banishment, Odrade noted. Futile attempts by the lover to prevent
separation.
Odrade recalled gossip about Dortujla's disgrace. "The Jessica crime!" Much
valuable information arrived via gossip. Where the devil had Dortujla been
posted? Never mind. Not important at the moment. More important: Why is she
here? Why did she dare a trip that might lead the hunters to us?
Odrade asked Streggi when she announced the arrival. Streggi did not know.
"She says what she must reveal is for your ears alone, Mother Superior."
"Alone?" Odrade almost chuckled, considering the constant monitoring
(surveillance was a better term) of her every action. "This Dortujla has not
said why she is here?"
"The ones who told me to interrupt you, Mother Superior, said they thought you
should see her."
Odrade pursed her lips. The fact that the banished Reverend Mother had
penetrated this far aroused Odrade's curiosity. A persistent Reverend Mother
could cross ordinary barriers but these barriers were not ordinary. Dortujla's
reason for coming already had been told. Others had heard and passed her. It
was apparent that Dortujla had not relied on Bene Gesserit wiles to persuade her
Sisters. That would have brought immediate rejection. No time for such
nonsense! So she had observed the chain of command. Her action spoke of
careful assessment, a message within whatever message she brought.
"Bring her."
Dortujla had aged smoothly on her backwater planet. She revealed her years
mostly in shallow wrinkles around her mouth. The hood of her robe concealed her
hair but the eyes peering from beneath it were bright and alert.
"Why are you here?" Odrade's tone said: "This had damned well better be
important."
Dortujla's story was straightforward enough. She and three Reverend Mother
associates had spoken to a band of Futars from the Scattering. Dortujla's post
had been searched out and asked to get a message to Chapterhouse. Dortujla had
filtered the request through Truthsense, she said, reminding Mother Superior
that even in backwaters there could be some talent. Judging the message
truthful, her Sisters concurring, Dortujla had acted with speed, not unmindful
of caution.
"All due dispatch in our own no-ship," was the way she put it. The ship, she
said, was small, a smuggler type.
"One person can operate it."
The heart of the message was fascinating. Futars wished to ally themselves with
Reverend Mothers in opposition to Honored Matres. How much of a force these
Futars commanded was difficult to assess, Dortujla said.
"They refused to say when I asked."
Odrade had assessed many stories about Futars. Killers of Honored Matres?
There were reasons to believe it but Futar performance was confusing, especially
in accounts from Gammu.
"How many in this party?"
"Sixteen Futars and four Handlers. That's what they called themselves:
Handlers. And they say Honored Matres have a dangerous weapon they can use only
once."
"You only mentioned Futars. Who are these Handlers? And what is this about a
secret weapon?"
"I reserved mention of them. They appear to be human within variables noted
from the Scattering: three men and a woman. As to the weapon, they would not
say more."
"Appear to be human?"
"There you have it, Mother Superior. I had the odd first impression they were
Face Dancers. None of the criteria applied. Pheromones negative. Gestures,
expressions -- everything negative."
"Just that first impression?"
"I cannot explain it."
"What of the Futars?"
"They matched the descriptions. Human in outward appearance but with
unmistakable ferocity. Cat family origins, I would judge."
"So others have said."
"They speak but it's an abbreviated Galach. Word bursts, I thought them. 'When
eat?' 'You nice lady.' 'Want head scratch.' 'Sit here?' They appeared
immediately responsive to the Handlers but not fearful. Between Futars and
Handlers I had the impression there was mutual respect and liking."
"Knowing the risks, why did you think this important enough to bring
immediately?"
"These are people from the Scattering. Their offer of alliance is an opening
into places where Honored Matres originate."
"You asked about them, of course. And about conditions in the Scattering. "
"No answers."
The fact, simply stated. One could not sneer at the banished Sister no matter
how much of a cloud she carried over her past. More questions were indicated.
Odrade asked them, observing closely as answers came, watching the old mouth
like a withered fruit opening purple and closing pink.
Something in Dortujla's service, the long years of penitence perhaps, had
gentled her but left the core of Bene Gesserit toughness untouched. She spoke
with natural hesitancy. Her gestures were softly fluid. She looked at Odrade
with kindness. (There was the flaw her Sisters condemned: Bene Gesserit
cynicism held at bay.)
Dortujla interested Odrade. Sister to Sister, she spoke, a strong and wellcomposed
mind behind her words. A mind toughened by adversity in the years at a
punishment post. Doing what she could now to make up for that lapse of her
youth. No attempt to appear some time-server not up on current affairs. An
account pared to essentials. Let it be known that she had as full as possible
an awareness of necessities. Bowed to Mother Superior's decisions and caution
about the dangerous visit but still felt that "you should have this
information."
"I'm convinced it's not a trap."
Dortujla's demeanor was above reproach. Direct gaze, eyes and face held in
proper composure but no attempts at concealment. A Sister could read through
this mask for a proper assessment. Dortujla acted from a sense of urgency. She
had been a fool once but she no longer was a fool.
What was the name of her punishment planet?
The worktable's projector produced it: Buzzell.
That name brought an alertness to Odrade. Buzzell! Her fingers danced in the
console, confirming memories. Buzzell: mostly ocean. Cold. Very cold.
Hardscrabble islands, none bigger than a large no-ship. The Bene Gesserit once
had considered Buzzell a punishment. Object lesson: "Careful, girl, or you'll
be sent to Buzzell." Odrade recalled the other key then: soostones. Buzzell
was a place where they had naturalized the monoped sea creature, Cholister,
whose abraded carapace produced marvelous tumors, one of the most valued jewels
in the universe.
Soostones.
Dortujla was wearing one of the things just visible above the tuck of her
neckline. The workroom light turned it an elegant blend of deeply glowing seagreen
and mauve. It was larger than a human eyeball, flaunted there like a
declaration of wealth. They probably thought little of such decorations on
Buzzell. Pick them up on the beaches.
Soostones. That was significant. By Bene Gesserit design, Dortujla had
frequent dealings with smugglers. (Witness her possession of that no-ship.)
This must be addressed with care. No matter the Sister-to-Sister discussion, it
was still Mother Superior and Reverend Mother from a punishment planet.
Smuggling. A major crime to Honored Matres and others who had not faced the
fact of unenforceable laws. Foldspace had not changed it for smuggling, just
made small intrusions easier if anything. Tiny no-ships. How small could you
make one of them? A gap in Odrade's knowledge. Archives corrected it:
"Diameter, meters 140."
Small enough, then. Soostones were a cargo with natural attraction. Foldspace
was a critical economic barrier: How valuable a cargo compared to size and
mass? You could spend many Solaris moving massive stuff. Soostones -- magnetic
to smugglers. They had special interest to Honored Matres as well. Simple
economics? Always a big market. As attractive to smugglers as melange now that
the Guild was being so free with it. The Guild had always stockpiled with
generations of spice in scattered storage and (doubtless) many hidden backups.
They think they can buy immunity from Honored Matres! But that offered
something she sensed might be turned to advantage. In their wild anger, Honored
Matres had destroyed Dune, only known natural source of melange. Still
unthinking of consequences (odd, that), they had eliminated the Tleilaxu, whose
axlotl tanks had flooded the Old Empire with spice.
And we have creatures capable of recreating Dune. We also may have the only
living Tleilaxu Master. Locked in Scytale's mind -- the way to turn axlotl
tanks into a melange cornucopia. If we can get him to reveal it.
The immediate problem was Dortujla. The woman conveyed her ideas with a
conciseness that did her credit. Handlers and their Futars, she said, were
disturbed by something they would not reveal. Dortujla had been wise not to
attempt Bene Gesserit persuasives. No telling how people from the Scattering
might react. But what disturbed them?
"Some threat other than Honored Matres," Dortujla suggested. She would not
venture more but the possibility was there and had to be considered.
"The essential thing is that they say they want an alliance," Odrade said.
"Common cause for a common problem," was the way they had put it. Despite
Truthsense, Dortujla advised only a cautious exploration of the offer.
Why go to Buzzell at all? Because Honored Matres had missed Buzzell or judged
it insignificant in their angry sweeps?
"Not likely," Dortujla said.
Odrade agreed. Dortujla, no matter how grubby her original posting, now
commanded a valuable property and, much more important, she was a Reverend
Mother with a no-ship to take her to Mother Superior. She knew the location of
Chapterhouse. Useless to the hunters, of course. They knew a Reverend Mother
would kill herself before betraying that secret.
Problems compounded problems. But first, some Sisterly sharing. Dortujla was
sure to make a correct interpretation of Mother Superior's motives. Odrade
shifted the conversation into personal matters.
It went well. Dortujla was clearly amused but willing to talk.
Reverend Mothers on lonely posts tended to have what Sisters called "other
interests." An earlier age had called them hobbies but attention devoted to
interests often was extreme. Odrade thought most interests boring but found it
significant that Dortujla called hers a hobby. She collected old coins, did
she?
"What kind?"
"I have two early Greek in silver and a perfect gold obol."
"Authentic?"
"They're real." Meaning she had done a self-scan of Other Memory to
authenticate them. Fascinating. She exercised her abilities in a strengthening
way, even with her hobby. Inner history and exterior coincided.
"This is all very interesting, Mother Superior," Dortujla said finally. "I
appreciate your reassurance that we are still Sisters and find your interest in
ancient paintings a parallel hobby. But we both know why I risked coming here."
"The smugglers."
"Of course. Honored Matres cannot have overlooked my presence on Buzzell.
Smugglers will sell to the high bidders. We must assume they have profited from
their valuable knowledge about Buzzell, the soostones, and a resident Reverend
Mother with attendants. And we must not forget that Handlers found me."
Damn! Odrade thought. Dortujla is the kind of advisor I like to have near me.
I wonder how many more such buried treasures are out there, tucked away for mean
motives? Why do we so often shunt our talented ones aside? It's an ancient
weakness the Sisterhood has not exorcised.
"I think we have learned something valuable about Honored Matres," Dortujla
said.
There was no need to nod agreement. This was the core of what had brought
Dortujla to Chapterhouse. The ravening hunters had come swarming into the Old
Empire, killing and burning wherever they suspected the presence of Bene
Gesserit establishments. But the hunters had not touched Buzzell even though
its location must be known.
"Why?" Odrade asked, voicing what was in their minds.
"Never damage your own nest," Dortujla said.
"You think they're already on Buzzell?"
"Not yet."
"But you believe Buzzell is a place they want."
"Prime projection."
Odrade merely stared at her. So Dortujla had another hobby! She burrowed into
Other Memory, revived and perfected talents stored there. Who could blame her?
Time must drag on Buzzell.
"A Mentat summation," Odrade accused.
"Yes, Mother Superior." Very meek. Reverend Mothers were supposed to dig into
Other Memory this way only with Chapterhouse permission and then only with
guidance and support from companion Sisters. So Dortujla remained a rebel. She
followed her own desires the way she had with her forbidden lover. Good! The
Bene Gesserit needed such rebels.
"They want Buzzell undamaged," Dortujla said.
"A water world?"
"It would make a suitable home for amphibian servants. Not the Futars or
Handlers. I studied them carefully."
The evidence suggested a plan by Honored Matres to bring in enslaved servants,
amphibians perhaps, to harvest soostones. Honored Matres could have amphibian
slaves. Knowledge that produced Futars might create many forms of sentient
life.
"Slaves, dangerous imbalance," Odrade said.
Dortujla showed her first strong emotion, deep revulsion that drew her mouth
into a tight line.
It was a pattern the Sisterhood had long recognized: the inevitable failure of
slavery and peonage. You created a reservoir of hate. Implacable enemies. If
you had no hope of exterminating all of these enemies, you dared not try.
Temper your efforts by the sure awareness that oppression will make your enemies
strong. The oppressed will have their day and heaven help the oppressor when
that day comes. It was a two-edged blade. The oppressed always learned from
and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for
another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and
reversed ad nauseam.
"Will they never mature?" Odrade asked.
Dortujla had no answer but she did have an immediate suggestion. "I must return
to Buzzell."
Odrade considered this. Once more, the banished Reverend Mother was ahead of
Mother Superior. As disagreeable as the decision was, they both knew it as
their best move. Futars and Handlers would return. More important, with a
planet Honored Matres desired, odds were high that visitors from the Scattering
had been observed. Honored Matres would have to make a move and that move could
reveal much about them.
"Of course, they think Buzzell is bait for a trap," Odrade said. " I could let
it be known that I was banished by my Sisters," Dortujla said. "It can be
verified."
"Use yourself as bait?"
"Mother Superior, what if they could be tempted into a parley?"
"With us?" What a startling idea!
"I know their history is not one of reasonable negotiations but still . . . "
"It's brilliant! But let us make it even more enticing. Say I am convinced I
must come to them with a proposal for submission of the Bene Gesserit."
"Mother Superior!"
"I have no intention of surrendering. But what better way to get them to talk?"
"Buzzell is not a good place for a meeting. Our facilities are very poor."
"They are on junction in force. If they suggested junction as a meeting place,
could you let yourself be persuaded?"
"It would take careful planning, Mother Superior."
"Oh, very careful." Odrade's fingers flickered in her console. "Yes, tonight,"
she said answering a visible question, and then, speaking to Dortujla across the
cluttered worktable: "I want you to meet with my Council and others before you
return. We will brief you thoroughly but I give you my personal assurance you
will have an open assignment. The important thing is to get them to a meeting
on junction . . . and I hope you know how much I dislike using you as bait. "
When Dortujla remained deep in thought and not responding, Odrade said: "They
may ignore our overtures and wipe you out. Still, you're the best bait we
have."
Dortujla showed she still had her sense of humor. "I don't much like the idea
of dangling on a hook myself, Mother Superior. Please keep a firm grip on the
line." She stood and with a worried look at the work on Odrade's table, said:
"You have so much to do and I fear I have kept you far past lunch."
"We will dine here together, Sister. For the moment, you are more important
than anything else."
All states are abstractions.
-Octun Politicus, BG Archives
Lucilla cautioned herself not to assume too familiar a feeling about this acidgreen
room and the recurring presence of Great Honored Matre. This was
junction, stronghold of the ones who sought extermination of the Rene Gesserit.
This was the enemy. Day seventeen.
The infallible mental clock that had been set ticking during the Spice Agony
told her she had adapted to the planet's circadian rhythms. Awake at dawn. No
telling when she would be fed. Honored Matre confined her to one meal a day.
And always that Futar in its cage. A reminder: Both of you in cages. This is
how we treat dangerous animals. We may let them out occasionally to stretch
their legs and give us pleasure but back to the cage afterward.
Minimal amounts of melange in the food. Not being parsimonious. Not with their
wealth. A small show of "what could be yours if you would only be reasonable."
When will she come today?
Great Honored Matre arrivals had no set time. Random appearances to confuse the
captive? Probably. There would be other demands on a commander's time. Fit
the dangerous pet into the regular schedule wherever you could.
I may be dangerous, Spider Lady, but I am not your pet.
Lucilla felt the presence of scanning devices, things that did more than provide
stimulus for eyes. These looked into flesh, probing for concealed weapons, for
the functioning of organs. Does she have strange implants? What about
additional organs surgically added to her body?
None of those, Madame Spider. We rely on things that come with birth.
Lucilla knew her greatest immediate danger -- that she would feel inadequate in
such a setting. Her captors had her at a terrible disadvantage but they had not
destroyed her Bene Gesserit capabilities. She could will herself to die before
the shere in her body was depleted to the point of betrayal. She still had her
mind . . . and the horde from Lampadas.
The Futar panel opened and it came sliding out in its cage. So Spider Queen was
on her way. Displaying threat ahead of her as usual. Early today. Earlier
than ever.
"Good morning, Futar." Lucilla spoke with a merry lilt.
The Futar looked at her but did not speak.
"You must hate it in that cage," Lucilla said.
"Not like cage."
She had already determined that these creatures possessed a degree of language
facility but the extent of it still eluded her.
"I suppose she keeps you hungry, too. Would you like to eat me?"
"Eat." Definite show of interest.
"I wish I were your Handler."
"You Handler?"
"Would you obey me if I were?"
Spider Queen's heavy chair lifted from its concealment under the floor. No sign
of her yet but it had to be assumed she listened to these conversations.
The Futar stared at Lucilla with peculiar intensity.
"Do Handlers keep you caged and hungry?"
"Handler?" Clear inflections of a question.
"I want you to kill Great Honored Matre." That would be no surprise to them.
"Kill Dama!"
"And eat her."
"Dama poison." Dejected.
Ooooh. Isn't that an interesting bit of information!
"She's not poison. Her meat is the same as mine."
The Futar approached her to the cage's limits. The left hand peeled down its
lower lip. Angry redness of a scar there, appearance of a burn.
"See poison," it said, dropping its hand.
I wonder how she did that? No smell of poison about her. Human flesh plus
adrenaline-based drug to produce orange eyes in response to anger . . . and
those other responses Murbella revealed. A sense of absolute superiority.
How far did Futar comprehension go? "Was it a bitter poison?" The Futar
grimaced and spat.
Action faster and more powerful than words.
"Do you hate Dama?"
Bared canines.
"Do you fear her?"
Smile.
"Then why don't you kill her?"
"You not Handler."
It requires a kill command from a Handler!
Great Honored Matre entered and sank into her chair.
Lucilla pitched her voice in the merry lilt: "Good morning, Dama."
"I did not give you permission to call me that." Low and with beginning flecks
of orange in the eyes.
"Futar and I have been having a conversation."
"I know." More orange in the eyes. "And if you have spoiled him for me . . ."
"But Dama --"
"Don't call me that!" Out of her chair, eyes blazing orange.
"Do sit down," Lucilla said. "This is no way to conduct an interrogation."
Sarcasm, a dangerous weapon. "You said yesterday you wanted to continue our
discussion of politics."
"How do you know what time it is?" Sinking back in her chair but eyes still
flaming.
"All Bene Gesserit have this ability. We can feel the rhythms of any planet
after a short time on it."
"A strange talent."
"Anyone can do it. A matter of being sensitized."
"Could I learn this?" Orange fading.
" I said anyone. You're still human, aren't you?" A question not yet fully
answered.
"Why do you say you witches have no government?"
Wants to change the subject. Our abilities worry her. "That's not what I said.
We have no conventional government."
"Not even a social code?"
"There's no such thing as a social code to meet all necessities. A crime in one
society can be a moral requirement in another society."
"People always have government." Orange completely faded.
Why does this interest her so much?
"People have politics. I told you that yesterday. Politics: the art of
appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible."
"So you witches conceal."
"I did not say that. When we say 'politics,' that's a warning to our Sisters."
"I don't believe you. Humans always create some form of . . ."
"Accord?"
"As good a word as any!" It angers her.
When Lucilla made no further response, Great Honored Matre leaned forward.
"You're concealing!"
"Isn't it my right to hide from you things that might help you defeat us?"
There's a juicy morsel of bait!
"I thought so!" Leaning back with a look of satisfaction.
"However, why not reveal it? You think the niches of authority are always there
for the filling and you don't see what that says about my Sisterhood."
"Oh, please tell me." Heavy-handed with her sarcasm.
"You believe all of this conforms to instincts going back to tribal days and
beyond. Chiefs and Elders. Mystery Mother and Council. And before that, the
Strong Man (or Woman) who saw to it that everyone was fed, that all were guarded
by fire at the cave's mouth."
"It makes sense."
Does it really?
"Oh, I agree. Evolution of the forms is quite clearly laid out."
"Evolution, witch! One thing piled on another."
Evolution. See how she snaps at key words?
"It's a force that can be brought under control by turning it upon itself."
Control! Look at the interest you've aroused. She loves that word.
"So you make laws just like anyone else!"
"Regulations, perhaps, but isn't everything temporary?"
Intensely interested. "Of course."
"But your society is administered by bureaucrats who know they cannot apply the
slightest imagination to what they do."
"That's important?" Really puzzled. Look at her scowl.
"Only to you, Honored Matre."
"Great Honored Matre!" Isn't she touchy!
"Why don't you permit me to call you Dama?"
"We're not intimates."
"Is Futar an intimate?"
"Stop changing the subject!"
"Want tooth clean," the Futar said.
"You shut up!" Really blazing.
The Futar sank to its haunches but it was not cowed.
Great Honored Matre turned her orange gaze toward Lucilla. "What about
bureaucrats?"
"They have no room to maneuver because that's the way their superiors grow fat.
If you don't see the difference between regulation and law, both have the force
of law."
"I see no difference." She doesn't know what she reveals.
"Laws convey the myth of enforced change. A bright new future will come because
of this law or that one. Laws enforce the future. Regulations are believed to
enforce the past."
"Believed?" She doesn't like that word, either.
"In each instance, action is illusory. Like appointing a committee to study a
problem. The more people on the committee, the more preconceptions applied to
the problem."
Careful! She's really thinking about this, applying it to herself.
Lucilla pitched her voice in its most reasonable tones. "You live by a pastmagnified
and try to understand some unrecognized future."
"We don't believe in prescience." Yes, she does! At last. This is why she
keeps us alive.
"Dama, please. There's always something unbalanced about confining yourself to
a tight circle of laws."
Be careful! She didn't bridle at your calling her Dama.
Great Honored Matre's chair creaked as she shifted in it. "But laws are
necessary!"
"Necessary? That's dangerous."
"How so?"
Softly. She feels threatened.
"Necessary rules and laws keep you from adapting. Inevitably, everything comes
crashing down. It's like bankers thinking they buy the future. 'Power in my
time! To hell with my descendants!' "
"What are descendants doing for me?"
Don't say it! Look at her. She's reacting out of the common insanity. Give
her another small taste.
"Honored Matres originated as terrorists. Bureaucrats first and terror as your
chosen weapon."
"When it's in your hands, use it. But we were rebels. Terrorists? That's too
chaotic."
She likes that word "chaos." It defines everything on the outside. She doesn't
even ask how you know her origins. She accepts our mysterious abilities.
"Isn't it odd, Dama . . . " No reaction; continue. ". . . how rebels all too
soon fall into old patterns if they are victorious? It's not so much a pitfall
in the path of all governments as it is a delusion waiting for anyone who gains
power."
"Hah! And I thought you would tell me something new. We know that one: 'Power
corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.' "
"Wrong, Dama. Something more subtle but far more pervasive: Power attracts the
corruptible."
"You dare accuse me of being corrupt?"
Watch the eyes!
"I? Accuse you? The only one who can do that is yourself. I merely give you
the Bene Gesserit opinion."
"And tell me nothing!"
"Yet we believe there's a morality above any law, which must stand watchdog on
all attempts at unchanging regulation."
You used both words in one sentence and she didn't notice.
"Power always works, witch. That's the law."
"And governments that perpetuate themselves long enough under that belief always
become packed with corruption."
"Morality!"
She's not very good at sarcasm, especially when she's on the defensive.
"I've really tried to help you, Dama. Laws are dangerous to everyone --
innocent and guilty alike. No matter whether you believe yourself powerful or
helpless. They have no human understanding in and of themselves."
"There's no such thing as human understanding!"
Our question is answered. Not human. Talk to her unconscious side. She's wide
open.
"Laws must always be interpreted. The law-bound want no latitude for
compassion. No elbow room. 'The law is the law!"'
"It is!" Very defensive.
"That's a dangerous idea, especially for the innocent. People know this
instinctively and resent such laws. Little things are done, often
unconsciously, to hamstring 'the law' and those who deal in that nonsense."
"How dare you call it nonsense?" Half rising from her chair and sinking back.
"Oh, yes. And the law, personified by all whose livelihoods depend on it,
becomes resentful hearing words such as mine."
"Rightly so, witch!" But she doesn't tell you to be silent.
" 'More law!' you say. 'We need more law!' So you make new instruments of noncompassion
and, incidentally, new niches of employment for those who feed on the
system."
"That's the way it's always been and always will be."
"Wrong again. It's a rondo. It rolls and rolls until it injures the wrong
person or the wrong group. Then you get anarchy. Chaos." See her jump?
"Rebels, terrorists, increasing outbursts of raging violence. A jihad! And all
because you created something nonhuman."
Hand on her chin. Watch it!
"How did we wander so far away from politics, witch? Was this your intention?"
"We haven't wandered a fraction of a millimeter!"
"I suppose you're going to tell me you witches practice a form of democracy."
"With an alertness you cannot imagine."
"Try me." She thinks you'll tell her a secret. Tell her one.
"Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in
front of the electorate. Get the rich, the greedy, the criminals, the stupid
leader and so on ad nauseam."
"You believe as we do." My! How desperately she wants us to be like her.
"You said you were bureaucrats who rebelled. You know the flaw. A top-heavy
bureaucracy the electorate cannot touch always expands to the system's limits of
energy. Steal it from the aged, from the retired, from anyone. Especially from
those we once called middle class because that's where most of the energy
originates."
"You think of yourselves as . . . as middle class?"
"We don't think of ourselves in any fixed way. But Other Memory tells us the
flaws of bureaucracy. I presume you have some form of civil service for the
'lower orders.' "
"We take care of our own." That's a nasty echo.
"Then you know how that dilutes the vote. Chief symptom: People don't vote.
Instinct tells them it's useless."
"Democracy is a stupid idea anyway!"
"We agree. It's demagogue-prone. That's a disease to which electoral systems
are vulnerable. Yet demagogues are easy to identify. They gesture a lot and
speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervor and godfearing
sincerity."
She's chuckling!
"Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice, Dama. The practice
can always be detected."
"By Truthsayers?"
See how she leans forward? We have her again.
"By anyone who learns the signs: Repetition. Great attempts to keep your
attention on words. You must pay no attention to words. Watch what the person
does. That way you learn the motives."
"Then you don't have a democracy." Tell me more Bene Gesserit secrets.
"But we do."
"I thought you said . . ."
"We guard it well, watching for the things I've just described. The dangers are
great but so are the rewards."
"Do you know what you've told me? That you're a pack of fools!"
"Nice lady!" the Futar said.
"Shut up or I'll send you back to the herd!"
"You not nice, Dama."
"See what you've done, witch? You've ruined him!"
"I suppose there are always others."
Ohhhhh. Look at that smile.
Lucilla matched the smile precisely, pacing her own breaths to those of the
Great Honored Matre. See how alike we are? Of course I tried to injure you.
Wouldn't you have done the same in my place?
"So you know how to make a democracy do whatever you want." A gloating
expression.
"The technique is quite subtle but easy. You create a system where most people
are dissatisfied, vaguely or deeply."
That's how she sees it. Look at her nod in time to your words.
Lucilla held herself to the rhythm of Great Honored Matre's nodding head. "This
builds up widespread feelings of vindictive anger. Then you supply targets for
that anger as you need them."
"A diversionary tactic."
" I prefer to think of it as distraction. Don't give them time to question.
Bury your mistakes in more laws. You traffic in illusion. Bullring tactics."
"Oh, yes! That's good!" She's almost gleeful. Give her more bullring.
"Wave the pretty cape. They'll charge it and be confused when there's no
matador behind the thing. That dulls the electorate just as it dulls the bull.
Fewer people use their vote intelligently next time."
"And that's why we do it!"
We do it! Does she listen to herself?
"Then you rail against the apathetic electorate. Make them feel guilty. Keep
them dull. Feed them. Amuse them. Don't overdo it!"
"Oh, no! Never overdo it."
"Let them know hunger awaits them if they don't fall into line. Give them a
look at the boredom imposed on boat rockers." Thank you, Mother Superior. It's
an appropriate image.
"Don't you let the bull get an occasional matador?"
"Of course. Thump! Got that one! Then you wait for the laughter to subside."
" I knew you didn't allow a democracy!"
"Why won't you believe me?" You're tempting fate!
"Because you'd have to permit open voting, juries and judges and . . ."
"We call them Proctors. A sort of jury of the Whole."
Now you've confused her.
"And no laws . . . regulations, whatever you want to call them?"
"Didn't I say we defined them separately? Regulation-past. Law-future."
"You limit these . . . these Proctors, somehow!"
"They can arrive at any decision they desire, the way a jury should function.
The law be damned!"
"That's a very disturbing idea." She's disturbed all right. Look at how dull
her eyes are.
"The first rule of our democracy: no laws restricting juries. Such laws are
stupid. It's astonishing how stupid humans can be when acting in small, selfserving
groups."
"You're calling me stupid, aren't you!"
Beware the orange.
"There appears to be a rule of nature that says it's almost impossible for selfserving
groups to act enlightened."
"Enlightened! I knew it!"
That's a dangerous smile. Be careful.
"It means flowing with the forces of life, adjusting your actions that life may
continue."
"With the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number, of course."
Quick! We've been too clever! Change the subject!
"That was an element the Tyrant left out of his Golden Path. He didn't consider
happiness, only survival of humankind."
We said change the subject! Look at her! She's in a rage!
Great Honored Matre dropped her hand away from her chin. "And I was going to
invite you into our order, make you one of us. Release you."
Get her off this! Quick!
"Don't speak," Great Honored Matre said. "Don't even open your mouth."
Now you've done it!
"You'd help Logno or one of the others and she'd be in my seat!!" She glanced
at the crouching Futar. "Eat, darling?"
"Not eat nice lady."
"Then I'll throw her carcass to the herd!"
"Great Honored Matre --"
"I told you not to speak! You dared call me Dama."
She was out of her chair in a blur. Lucilla's cage door slammed open with a
crash against the wall. Lucilla tried to dodge but the shigawire confined her.
She did not see the kick that crushed her temple.
As she died, Lucilla's awareness was filled with a scream of rage -- the horde
of Lampadas venting emotions it had confined for many generations.
Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than
dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift
them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.
-Alma Mavis Taraza
Back and forth, back and forth. All day long, back and forth. Odrade shifted
from one comeye record to another, searching, undecided, uneasy. First a look
at Scytale, then young Teg out there with Duncan and Murbella, then a long stare
out a window while she thought about Burzmali's last report from Lampadas.
How soon could they try to restore the Bashar's memories? Would a restored
ghola obey?
Why no more word from the Rabbi? Should we begin Extremis Progressiva, Sharing
among ourselves as far as possible? The effect on morale would be devastating.
Records were projected above her table while aides and advisors entered and
departed. Necessary interruptions. Sign this. Approve that. Decrease melange
for this group?
Bellonda was here, seated at the table. She had stopped asking what Odrade
sought and merely watched with that unwavering stare. Merciless.
They had argued about whether a new sandworm population in the Scattering might
restore the Tyrant's malign influence. That endless dream in each revenant of
the worm still worried Bell. But population numbers alone said the Tyrant's
hold on their destiny was ended.
Tamalane had come in earlier seeking some record from Bellonda. Fresh from a
new accumulation of Archives, Bellonda had launched herself into a diatribe
about Sisterhood population shifts, the drain on resources.
Odrade stared out the window now as dusk moved across the landscape. It became
darker in almost imperceptible shadings. As full dark fell, she became aware of
lights far out in the plantation houses. She knew those lights had been turned
on much earlier but she had the sensation that night created the lights. Some
blanked out occasionally as people moved about in their dwellings. No people --
no lights. Don't waste energy.
Winking lights held her attention for a moment. A variation on the old question
about a tree falling in the forest: Was there sound if no one heard? Odrade
voted on the side of those who said vibrations existed no matter whether a
sensor recorded them.
Do secret sensors follow our Scattering? What new talents and inventions do the
first Scattered Ones use?
Bellonda had allowed long enough silence. "Dar, you're sending worrisome
signals through Chapterhouse."
Odrade accepted this without comment.
"Whatever you're doing, it's being interpreted as indecision." How sad Bell
sounds. "Important groups are discussing whether to replace you. Proctors are
voting."
"Only the Proctors?"
"Dar, did you really wave at Praska the other day and tell her it was good to be
alive?"
"I did."
"What have you been doing?"
"Reassessing. No word yet from Dortujla?"
"You've asked that at least a dozen times today!" Bellonda gestured at the
worktable. "You keep going back to Burzmali's last report from Lampadas.
Something we've overlooked?"
"Why do our enemies hold fast on Gammu? Tell me, Mentat."
"I've insufficient data and you know it!"
"Burzmali was no Mentat but his picture of events has a persistent force, Bell.
I tell myself, well, after all, he was the Bashar's favorite student. It's
understandable that Burzmali would show characteristics of his teacher."
"Out with it, Dar. What do you see in Burzmali's report?"
"He fills in an empty picture. Not completely but . . . tantalizing the way he
keeps referring to Gammu. Many economic forces have powerful connections there.
Why are those threads not cut by our enemies?"
"They're in that same system, obviously."
"What if we mounted an all-out attack on Gammu?"
"No one wants to do business in violent surroundings. That what you're saying?"
"Partly. "
"Most parties to that economic system probably would want to move. Another
planet, another subservient population."
"Why?"
"They could predict with more reliability. They would increase defenses, of
course."
"This alliance we sense there, Bell, they would redouble their efforts to find
and obliterate us."
"Certainly."
Bellonda's terse comment forced Odrade's thoughts outward. She lifted her gaze
to the distant snow-tonsured mountains glimmering in starlight. Would attackers
come from that direction?
The thrust of that thought might have dulled a lesser intellect. But Odrade
needed no Litany Against Fear to remain clearheaded. She had a simpler formula.
Face your fears or they will climb over your back.
Her attitude was direct: The most terrifying things in the universe came from
human minds. The nightmare (the white horse of Bene Gesserit extinction)
possessed both mythic and reality forms. The hunter with the axe could strike
mind or flesh. But you could not flee the terrors of the mind.
Face them then!
What did she confront in this darkness? Not that faceless hunter with her axe,
not the drop into the unknown chasm (both visible to her bit of talent), but the
very tangible Honored Matres and whoever supported them.
And I dare not use even my small prescience to guide us. I could lock our
future into unchanging form. Muad'Dib and his Tyrant son did that and the
Tyrant spent thirty five hundred years extricating us.
Moving lights in the middle distance caught her attention. Gardeners working
late, still pruning the orchards as though those venerable trees would go on
forever. Ventilators gave her a faint odor of smoke from fires where orchard
trimmings were being burned. Very attentive to such details, the Bene Gesserit
gardeners. Never leave deadwood around to attract parasites that might then
take the next step into living trees. Clean and neat. Plan ahead. Maintain
your habitat. This moment is part of forever.
Never leave deadwood around?
Was Gammu deadwood?
"What is it about orchards that fascinates you so much?" Bellonda wanted to
know.
Odrade spoke without turning. "They restore me."
Only two nights ago she had gone walking out there, the weather cold and
bracing, a touch of mist close to the ground. Her feet stirred leaves. Faint
smell of compost where a sparse rain had settled in warmer low places. A rather
attractive, marshy smell. Life in its usual ferment even at that level. Empty
limbs above her stood out starkly against starlight. Depressing, really, when
compared with springtime or harvest season. But beautiful in its flow. Life
once more waiting for its call to action.
"Aren't you worried about the Proctors?" Bellonda asked.
"How will they vote, Bell?"
"It's very close."
"Will others follow them?"
"There's concern about your decisions. Consequences."
Bell was very good at that: a great deal of data in a few words. Most Bene
Gesserit decisions moved through a triple maze: Effectiveness, Consequences and
(most vital) Who Can Carry Out Orders? You matched deed and person with great
care, precise attention to details. This had a heavy influence on Effectiveness
and that, in turn, ruled Consequences. A good Mother Superior could wend her
way through decision mazes in seconds. Liveliness in Central then. Eyes
brightened. Word was passed that "She acted without hesitation." That created
confidence among acolytes and other students. Reverend Mothers (Proctors
especially) waited to assess Consequences.
Odrade spoke to her reflection in the window as much as to Bellonda. "Even
Mother Superior must take her own time."
"But what has you in such turmoil?"
"Are you urging speed, Bell?"
Bellonda drew back in her chairdog as though Odrade had pushed her.
"Patience is extremely difficult in these times," Odrade said. "But choosing
the right moment influences my choices."
"What do you intend with our new Teg? That's the question you must answer."
"If our enemies removed themselves from Gammu, where would they go, Bell?"
"You would attack them there?"
"Push them a bit."
Bellonda spoke softly. "That's a dangerous fire to feed."
"We need another bargaining chip."
"Honored Matres don't bargain!"
"But their associates do, I think. Would they remove themselves to . . . let us
say, junction?"
"What is so interesting about junction?"
"Honored Matres are based there in force. And our beloved Bashar kept a memorydossier
of the place in his lovely Mentat mind. "
"Ohhhhhhh." It was as much a sigh as a word.
Tamalane entered then and demanded attention by standing silently until Odrade
and Bellonda looked at her.
"The Proctors support Mother Superior." Tamalane held up a clawed finger. "By
one vote!"
Odrade sighed. "Tell us, Tam, the Proctor I greeted in the hallway, Praska, how
did she vote?"
"She voted for you."
Odrade aimed a tight smile at Bellonda. "Send out spies and agents, Bell. We
must goad the hunters into meeting us on junction. "
Bell will deduce my plan by morning.
When Bellonda and Tamalane had gone, muttering to each other, worry in the sound
of their voices, Odrade went out into the short corridor to her private
quarters. The corridor was patrolled by its usual acolytes and Reverend Mother
servitors. A few acolytes smiled at her. So word of the Proctors' vote had
reached them. Another crisis passed.
Odrade went through her sitting room to her sleeping cell, where she stretched
out on her cot fully clothed. One glowglobe bathed the room in pale yellow
light. Her gaze went past the desert map to the Van Gogh painting in its
protective frame and cover on the wall at the foot of her cot.
Cottages at Cordeville.
A better map than the one marking the growth of the desert, she thought. Remind
me, Vincent, of where I came from and what I yet may do.
This day had drained her. She had gone beyond fatigue into a place where the
mind caught itself in tight circles.
Responsibilities!
They hemmed her in and she knew she could be her most disagreeable self when
beset by duties. Forced to expend energy just maintaining a semblance of calm
demeanor. Bell saw this in me. It was maddening. The Sisterhood was cut off
at every passage, made almost ineffectual.
She closed her eyes and tried to construct an image of an Honored Matre
commander to address. Old . . . steeped in power. Sinewy. Strong and with
that blinding speed they have. No face on her but the visualized body stood
there in Odrade's mind.
Forming the words silently, Odrade spoke to the faceless Honored Matre.
"It is difficult for us to let you make your own mistakes. Teachers always find
this hard. Yes, we consider ourselves teachers. We do not so much teach
individuals as the species. We provide lessons for all. If you see the Tyrant
in us, you are right."
The image in her mind made no reply.
How could teachers teach when they could not emerge from hiding? Burzmali dead,
ghola Teg an unknown quantity. Odrade felt invisible pressures converging on
Chapterhouse. No wonder Proctors voted. A web enclosed the Sisterhood. The
strands held them tightly. And somewhere on that web, a faceless Honored Matre
commander crouched.
Spider Queen.
Her presence was known by actions of her minions. A trap strand of her web
trembled and attackers hurled themselves onto entangled victims, insanely
violent, uncaring how many of their own died or how many they butchered.
Someone commanded the search: Spider Queen.
Is she sane by our standards? Into what awful perils have I sent Dortujla?
Honored Matres went beyond megalomania. They made the Tyrant appear a
ridiculous pirate by comparison. Leto II, at least, had known what the Bene
Gesserit knew: how to balance on the point of the sword, aware that you would
be mortally cut when you slid from that position. The price you pay for seizing
such power. Honored Matres ignored this inevitable fate, hewing and slashing
around them like a giant in the throes of terrible hysteria.
Nothing ever before had opposed them successfully and they chose to respond now
with the killing rage of berserkers. Hysteria by choice. Deliberate.
Because we left our Bashar on Dune to spend his pitiful force in a suicidal
defense? No telling how many Honored Matres he killed. And Burzmali at the
death of Lampadas. Surely, the hunters felt his sting. Not to mention Idahotrained
males we send out to pass along Honored Matre techniques of sexual
enslavement. And to men!
Was that enough to bring such rage? Possibly. But what of the stories from
Gammu? Did Teg display a new talent that terrified Honored Matres?
If we restore our Bashar's memories, we must watch him carefully.
Would a no-ship contain him?
What really made Honored Matres so reactive? They wanted blood. Never bring
such people bad news. No wonder their minions behaved with frenzy. A powerful
person in fright might kill the bearer of bad tidings. Bring no bad tidings.
Better to die in battle.
Spider Queen's people went beyond arrogance. Far beyond. No censure possible.
You might just as well berate a cow for eating grass. The cow would be
justified in looking at you with its moon struck eyes, inquiring: "Isn't this
what I'm supposed to do?"
Knowing probable consequences, why did we ignite them? We aren't like the
person who hits out at a round gray object with a stick and finds that the
object was a hornet's nest. We knew what we struck. Taraza's plan and none of
us questioned.
The Sisterhood faced an enemy whose deliberate policy was hysterical violence.
"We will run amok!"
And what would happen if Honored Matres met painful defeat? What would their
hysteria become?
I fear it.
Did the Sisterhood dare feed this fire?
We must!
Spider Queen would redouble her efforts to find Chapterhouse. Violence would
escalate to an even more repulsive stage. What then? Would Honored Matres
suspect everyone and anyone of being sympathetic to the Bene Gesserit? Might
they not turn against their own supporters? Did they contemplate being alone in
a universe devoid of other sentient life? More likely this did not even enter
their minds.
What do you look like, Spider Queen? How do you think?
Murbella said she did not know her supreme commander or even sub-commanders of
her Hormu Order. But Murbella provided a suggestive description of a subcommander's
quarters. Informative. What does a person call home? Who does she
keep close to share life's little homilies?
Most of us choose our companions and surroundings to reflect ourselves.
Murbella said: "One of her personal servants took me into the private area.
Showing off, demonstrating that she had access to the sanctum. The public area
was neat and clean but the private rooms were messy -- clothing left where it
had been dropped, unguent jars open, bed unmade, food drying in dishes on the
floor. I asked why they had not cleaned up this mess. She said it was not her
job. The one who cleaned was allowed into the quarters just before nightfall.
"
Secret vulgarities.
Such a one would have a mind to match that private display.
Odrade's eyes snapped open. She focused on the Van Gogh painting. My choice.
It put tensions on the long span of human history that Other Memory could not.
You sent me a message, Vincent. And because of you, I will not cut off my ear .
. . or send useless love messages to ones who do not care. That's the least I
can do to honor you.
The sleeping cell had a familiar odor, peppery pungency of carnation. Odrade's
favorite floral perfume. Attendants kept it here as a nasal background.
Once more, she closed her eyes and her thoughts snapped back to Spider Queen.
Odrade felt this exercise creating another dimension to that faceless woman.
Murbella said an Honored Matre commander had but to give an order and anything
she wanted was brought.
"Anything?"
Murbella described known instances: grossly distorted sexual partners, cloying
sweetmeats, emotional orgies ignited by performances of extraordinary violence.
"They're always looking for extremes."
Reports of spies and agents fleshed out Murbella's semi-admiring accounts.
"Everyone says they have a right to rule."
Those women evolved from an autocratic bureaucracy.
Much evidence confirmed it. Murbella spoke of history lessons that said early
Honored Matres conducted research to gain sexual dominance over their
populations "when taxation became too threatening to those they governed."
A right to rule?
It did not appear to Odrade that these women insisted on such a right. No.
They assumed that their rightness must never be questioned. Never! No
decisions wrong. Disregard consequences. It never happened.
Odrade sat upright on her cot, knowing she had found the insight she sought.
Mistakes never happen.
That would require an extremely large bag of unconsciousness to contain it.