he was close to panic. Old values had changed. Honored Matres were not the
only source of turmoil. Scytale did not even know the extent of changes that
had infected his own Scattered Ones!
"Times are changing," Odrade said.
Change, what a disturbing word, he thought.
"I must have my own Face Dancer attendants! And my own tanks?" Almost begging.
"My Council and I will consider it."
"What is there to consider?" Throwing her own words at her.
"You need only your own approval. I require approval of others." She gave him
a grim smile. "So you do get time to think." Odrade nodded to Tamalane, who
summoned guards.
"Back to the no-ship?" He spoke from the doorway, such a diminutive figure
amidst burly guards.
"But tonight you ride all the way."
He gave a last lingering stare at the worm as he left.
When Scytale and guards were gone, Sheeana said: "You were right not to press
him. He was ready to panic."
Bellonda entered. "Perhaps it would be best just to kill him."
"Bell! Get the holo and go through our meeting again. This time as a Mentat!"
That stopped her.
Tamalane chuckled.
"You take too much joy in your Sister's discomfiture, Tam," Sheeana said.
Tamalane shrugged but Odrade was delighted. No more teasing of Bell?
"When you spoke of Chapterhouse becoming another Dune, that was when he began to
panic," Bellonda said, her voice Mentat distant.
Odrade had seen the reaction but had not yet made the association. This was a
Mentat's value: patterns and systems, building blocks. Bell sensed a pattern
to Scytale's behavior.
"I ask myself: Is it the thing become real once more?" Bellonda said.
Odrade saw it at once. An odd thing about lost places. As long as Dune had
been a known and living planet, there existed a historical firmness about its
presence in the Galactic Register. You could point to a projection and say:
"That is Dune. Once called Arrakis and, latterly, Rakis. Dune for its total
desert character in Muad'Dib's day."
Destroy the place, though, and a mythological patina inveighed against projected
reality. In time, such places became totally mythic. Arthur and his Round
Table. Camelot where it only rains at night. Pretty good Weather Control for
those days!
But now, a new Dune had appeared.
"Myth power," Tamalane said.
Ahhhh, yes. Tam, close to her final departure from flesh, would be more
sensitive to workings of myths. Mystery and secrecy, tools of the Missionaria,
had been used also on Dune by Muad'Dib and the Tyrant. The seeds were planted.
Even with priests of the Divided God gone to their own perdition, myths of Dune
proliferated.
"Melange," Tamalane said.
The other Sisters in the workroom knew immediately what she meant. New hope
could be injected into the Bene Gesserit Scattering.
Bellonda said: "Why do they want us dead and not captives? That has always
puzzled me."
Honored Matres might not want any Bene Gesserit alive . . . only the spice
knowledge, perhaps. But they destroyed Dune. They destroyed the Tleilaxu. It
was a cautioning thought to take into any confrontation with the Spider Queen --
should Dortujla succeed.
"No useful hostages?" Bellonda asked.
Odrade saw the looks on the faces of her Sisters. They were following a single
track as though all of them thought with one mind. Object lessons by Honored
Matres, leaving few survivors, only made potential opposition more cautious. It
invoked a rule of silence within which bitter memories became bitter myths.
Honored Matres were like barbarians in any age: blood instead of hostages.
Strike with random viciousness.
"Dar's right," Tamalane said. "We've been seeking allies too close to home."
"Futars did not create themselves," Sheeana said.
"The ones who created them hope to control us," Bellonda said. There was the
clear sound of Prime Projection in her voice. "That's the hesitation Dortujla
heard in the Handlers."
There it was and they faced it with all of its perils. It came down to people
(as it always did). People -- contemporaries. You learned valuable things from
people living in your own time and from knowledge they carried out of their
pasts. Other Memory was not the only conveyance of history.
Odrade felt that she had come home after a long absence. There was a
familiarity about the way all four of them were thinking now. It was a
familiarity that transcended place. The Sisterhood itself was Home. Not where
they lodged in transient housing but the association.
Bellonda voiced it for them. "I fear we have been working at cross purposes."
"Fear does that," Sheeana said.
Odrade dared not smile. It could be misinterpreted and she did not want to
explain. Give us Murbella as a Sister and a restored Bashar! Then we might
have our fighting chance!
Right there with that good feeling in her, the message signal clicked. She
glanced at the projection surface, a pure reflex, and recognized crisis. Such a
small thing (relatively) to precipitate crisis. Clairby mortally injured in a
'thopter crash. Mortal unless . . . The unless was spelled out for her and it
added up to cyborg. Her companions saw the message in reverse but you got good
at reading mirrored information in here. They knew.
Where do we draw the line?
Bellonda, with her antique spectacles when she could have had artificial eyes or
any of numerous other prosthetics, voted with her body. This is what it means
to be human. Try to hold on to youth and it mocks you while it sprints away.
Melange is enough . . . and perhaps too much.
Odrade recognized what her own emotions were telling her. But what of Bene
Gesserit necessity? Bell could lodge her individual vote and everyone
recognized it, even respected it. But Mother Superior's vote carried the
Sisterhood with her.
First the axlotl tanks and now this.
Necessity said they could not afford to lose specialists of Clairby's caliber.
They had few enough as it was. "Spread thin" did not describe it. Gaps were
appearing. Cyborg Clairby, though, and that was the opening wedge.
The Suks were prepared. "A precautionary arrangement" should it be required for
someone irreplaceable. Such as Mother Superior? Odrade knew she had approved
that with her usual cautious reservations. Where were those reservations now?
Cyborg was one of those potpourri words, too. Where did mechanical additions to
human flesh become dominant? When was the Cyborg no longer human? Temptations
intensified -- "Just this one little adjustment." And so easy to adjust until
the potpourri-human became unquestioningly obedient.
But . . . Clairby?
Conditions of extremis said, "Cyborg him!" Was the Sisterhood that desperate?
She was forced to answer in the affirmative.
There it was then -- decision not entirely out of her hands, but the ready
excuse at hand. Necessity dictates it.
The Butlerian Jihad had left its indelible mark on humans. Fought and won . . .
for then. And here was another battle in that long-ago conflict.
But now, survival of the Sisterhood was in the balance. How many technical
specialists remained on Chapterhouse? She knew the answer without looking. Not
enough.
Odrade leaned forward and keyed for transmit. "Cyborg him," she said.
Bellonda grunted. Approval or disapproval? She would never say. This was
Mother Superior's arena and welcome to it!
Who won this battle? Odrade wondered.
We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our population
because that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz Haderach in that
bag! Willfulness created Muad'Dib. Prophets make predictions come true! Will
we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a culture that hates chance
and begs for prophecy?
-Archival Summary (adixto)
It was just after dawn when Odrade arrived at the no-ship but Murbella was up
and working with a training mek when Mother Superior strode onto the practice
floor.
Odrade had walked the last klick through ring orchards around the spacefield.
Night's limited clouds had thinned at the approach of dawn, then dissipated to
reveal a sky thick with stars.
She recognized a delicate weather shift to wrench another crop from this region
but decreasing rainfall was barely enough to keep orchards and pastures alive.
As she walked, Odrade was overcome by dreariness. Winter just past had been a
hard-bought silence between storms. Life was holocaust. Dusting of pollen by
eager insects, fruiting and seeding that followed the flower. These orchards
were a secret storm whose power lay hidden in torrential flows of life. But
ohhh! the destruction. New life carried change. The Changer was coming, always
different. Sandworms would bring the desert purity of ancient Dune.
The desolation of that transforming power invaded her imagination. She could
picture this landscape reduced to windswept dunes, habitat for Leto II's
descendants.
And the arts of Chapterhouse would undergo mutation -- one civilization's myths
replaced by another's.
The aura of these thoughts went with Odrade onto the practice floor and colored
her mood as she watched Murbella complete a round of flashing exertion, then
step back, panting.
A thin scratch reddened the back of Murbella's left hand where she had missed a
move by the big mek. The automated trainer stood there in the center of the
room like a golden pillar, its weapons flicking in and out -- probing mandibles
of an angry insect.
Murbella wore tight green leotards and her exposed skin glistened with
perspiration. Even with the prominent mounding of her pregnancy, she appeared
graceful. Her skin glowed with health. It came from within, Odrade decided,
partly the pregnancy but something more fundamental as well. This had impressed
itself on Odrade at their first encounter, a thing Lucilla had remarked after
capturing Murbella and rescuing Idaho from Gammu. Health lived below the
surface in her, there like a lens to focus attention on a deep freshet of
vitality.
We must have her!
Murbella saw the visitor but refused to be interrupted.
Not yet, Mother Superior. My baby is due soon but this body's needs will
continue.
Odrade saw then that the mek was simulating anger, a programmed response brought
on by frustration of its circuitry. An extremely dangerous mode!
"Good morning, Mother Superior."
Murbella's voice came out modulated by her exertions as she dodged and twisted
with that almost blinding speed she commanded.
The mek slashed and probed for her, its sensors darting and whirring in attempts
to follow her movements.
Odrade sniffed. To speak at such a time amplified the peril of the mek. Risk
no distractions when you played this dangerous game. Enough!
The mek's controls were in a large green wall panel to the right of the doorway.
Murbella's changes could be seen in the circuits dangling wires, beamfields with
memory crystals dislocated. Odrade reached up and stilled the mechanism.
Murbella turned to face her.
"Why did you change the circuitry?" Odrade demanded.
"For the anger."
"Is that what Honored Matres do?"
"As the twig is bent?" Murbella massaged her wounded hand. "But what if the
twig knows how it is bent and approves?"
Odrade felt sudden excitement. "Approves? Why?"
"Because there's something . . . grand about it."
"You follow your adrenaline high?"
"You know it's not that!" Murbella's breathing returned to normal. She stood
glaring at Odrade.
"Then what is it?"
"It's . . . being challenged to do more than you ever thought possible. You
never suspected you could be this . . . this good, this expert and accomplished
at anything."
Odrade concealed elation.
Mens sana in corpore sano. We have her at last!
Odrade said: "But what a price you pay!"
"Price?" Murbella sounded astonished. "As long as I have the capacity, I'm
delighted to pay."
"Take what you want and pay for it?"
"It's your Bene Gesserit magic cornucopia: As I become increasingly
accomplished, my ability to pay increases."
"Beware, Murbella. That cornucopia, as you call it, can become Pandora's box."
Murbella knew the allusion. She stood quite still, her attention fixed on
Mother Superior. "Oh?" The sound barely escaped.
"Pandora's box releases powerful distractions that waste energies of your life.
You speak glibly of being 'in the chute' and becoming a Reverend Mother but you
still don't know what that means nor what we want from you."
"Then it was never our sexual abilities you wanted."
Odrade moved eight paces forward, majestically deliberate. Once Murbella got on
that subject there would be no stopping her short of the usual resolution --
argument cut short by Mother Superior's peremptory command.
"Sheeana easily mastered your abilities," Odrade said.
"So you will use her on that child!"
Odrade heard displeasure. It was a cultural residue. When did human sexuality
begin? Sheeana, waiting now in the no-ship guard chambers, had been forced to
deal with it. "I hope you recognize the source of my reluctance and why I was
so secretive, Mother Superior."
"I recognize that a Fremen society filled your mind with inhibitions before we
took you in hand!"
That had cleared the air between them. But how was this exchange with Murbella
to be redirected? I must let it run while I seek a way out.
There would be repetition. Unresolved issues would emerge. The fact that
almost every word Murbella uttered could be anticipated, that would be a trial.
"Why do you evade this tested way of dominating others now that you say you need
it with Teg?" Murbella asked.
"Slaves, is that what you want?" Odrade countered.
Eyes almost closed, Murbella considered this. Did I consider the men our
slaves? Perhaps. I produced in them periods of wildly unthinking abandon, a
giving up to heights of ecstasy they had never dreamed possible. I was trained
to give them that and, thereby, make them subject to our control.
Until Duncan did the same to me.
Odrade saw the hooding of Murbella's eyes and recognized there were things in
this woman's psyche twisted in a way difficult to uncover. Wildness running
where we have not followed. It was as though Murbella's original clarity had
been stained indelibly and then that mark covered over and even this cover
masked. There was a harshness in her that distorted thoughts and actions.
Layer upon layer upon layer . . .
"You're afraid of what I can do," Murbella said.
"There's truth in what you say," Odrade agreed.
Honesty and candor -- limited tools now to be used with care.
"Duncan." Murbella's voice came out flat with new Bene Gesserit abilities.
"I fear what you share with him. You find it odd, Mother Superior admitting
fear?"
" I know about candor and honesty!" She made candor and honesty sound
repellent.
"Reverend Mothers are taught never to abandon self. We are trained not to
encumber ourselves that way with concerns of others. "
"Is that all of it?"
"It goes deeper and has other threads. Being Bene Gesserit marks you in its own
ways."
"I know what you're asking: Choose Duncan or the Sisterhood. I know your
tricks."
"I think not."
"There are things I won't do!"
"Each of us is constrained by a past. I make my choices, do what I must because
my past is different from yours."
"You'll continue to train me despite what I've just said?"
Odrade heard this in the total receptivity these encounters with Murbella
demanded, every sense alerted to things not spoken, messages that hovered on
edges of words as though they were cilia wavering there, reaching for contact
with a dangerous universe.
The Bene Gesserit must change its ways. And here is one who could guide us into
change.
Bellonda would be horrified at the prospect. Many Sisters would reject it. But
there it was.
When Odrade remained silent, Murbella said: "Trained. Is that the proper
word?"
"Conditioned. That's probably more familiar to you."
"What you really want is to conjoin our experiences, make me sufficiently like
you that we can create trust between us. That's what all education does."
Don't play erudite games with me, girl!
"We would flow in the same stream, eh, Murbella?"
Any Third-Stage acolyte would have become watchfully cautious hearing that tone
from Mother Superior. Murbella appeared unmoved. "Except that I will not give
him up."
"That is for you to decide."
"Did you let the Lady Jessica decide?"
The way out of this cul-de-sac at last.
Duncan had prompted Murbella to study Jessica's life. Hoping to thwart us!
Holos of his performance had ignited severe analysis of records.
"An interesting person," Odrade said.
"Love! After all of your teaching, your conditioning!"
"You did not think her behavior treasonous?"
"Never!"
Delicately now. "But look at consequences: a Kwisatz Haderach . . . and that
grandchild, the Tyrant!" Argument dear to Bellonda's heart.
"Golden Path," Murbella said. "Survival of humankind."
"Famine Times and the Scattering."
Are you watching this, Bell? No matter. You will watch it.
"Honored Matres!" Murbella said.
"All because of Jessica?" Odrade asked. "But Jessica returned to the fold and
lived out her years on Caladan."
"Teacher of acolytes!"
"Example to them, as well. See what happens when you defy us?" Defy us,
Murbella! Do it more adroitly than Jessica.
"Sometimes you repel me!" Natural honesty forced her to add: "But you know I
want what you have."
What we have.
Odrade recalled her own first encounters with Bene Gesserit attractions.
Everything of the body done with exquisite precision, senses honed to detect
smallest details, muscles trained to perform in marvelous exactitude. These
abilities in an Honored Matre could only add a new dimension amplified by bodily
speed.
"You're throwing it back on me," Murbella said. "Trying to force my choice when
you already know it."
Odrade remained silent. This was a form of argument ancient Jesuits had almost
perfected. Simulflow superimposed disputational patterns: Let Murbella do her
own convincing. Supply only the most subtle of nudges. Give her small excuses
upon which to enlarge.
But hold fast, Murbella, to love for Duncan!
"You're very clever at parading your Sisterhood's advantages past me," Murbella
said.
"We are not a cafeteria line!"
An insoucient grin flicked Murbella's mouth. "I'll take one of those and one of
these and I think I'd like one of those creamy things over there."
Odrade enjoyed the metaphor but omnipresent watchers had their own appetites.
"A diet that might kill you."
"But I see your offerings displayed so attractively. Voice! What a marvelous
thing you've cooked up there. I have this wonderful instrument in my throat and
you can teach me to play it in that ultimate way."
"Now, you're a concert master."
"I want your ability to influence those around me!"
"To what end, Murbella? For whose goals?"
"If I eat what you eat, will I grow into your kind of toughness: plasteel on
the outside and even harder inside?"
"Is that how you see me?"
"The chef at my banquet! And I must eat whatever you bring -- for my good and
for yours."
She sounded almost manic. An odd person. Sometimes she appeared to be the most
wretched of women, pacing her quarters like a caged beast. That mad look in her
eyes, orange flecks in the corneas . . . as there were now.
"Do you still refuse to work on Scytale?"
"Let Sheeana do it."
"Will you coach her?"
"And she will use my coaching on the child!"
They stared at each other, realizing they shared a similar thought. This is not
confrontation because each of us wants the other.
"I am committed to you for what you can give me," Murbella said, her voice low.
"But you want to know if I may ever act against that commitment?"
"Could you?"
"No more than you could if circumstances demanded it."
"Do you think you will ever regret your decision?"
"Of course I will!" What kind of damnfool question was that? People always had
regrets. Murbella said this.
"Just confirming your self-honesty. We like it that you don't fly under false
colors."
"You get false ones?"
"Indeed. "
"You must have ways of weeding them out."
"The Agony does that for us. Falsehoods don't come through the Spice."
Odrade sensed Murbella's drumbeat flickering faster.
"And you're not going to demand I give up Duncan?" Very spiny.
"That attachment presents difficulties, but they are your difficulties."
"Another way of asking me to give him up?"
"Accept the possibility, that is all."
"I can't."
"You won't?"
"I mean what I say. I'm incapable."
"And if someone showed you how?"
Murbella stared into Odrade's eyes for a long beat, then: "I almost said that
would set me free . . . but . . ."
"Yes?"
"I could not be free while he was bound to me."
"Is that renunciation of Honored Matre ways?"
"Renunciation? Wrong word. I've merely grown beyond my former Sisters."
"Former Sisters?"
"Still my Sisters, but they're Sisters of childhood. Some I remember fondly,
some I dislike intensely. Playmates in a game that no longer interests me."
"That decision satisfies you?"
"Are you satisfied, Mother Superior?"
Odrade clapped her hands with unrestrained elation. How swiftly Murbella
acquired Bene Gesserit riposte!
"Satisfied? What a hellishly deadly word!"
As Odrade spoke, Murbella felt herself move as in a dream to the edge of an
abyss, unable to awaken and prevent the plunge. Her stomach ached with secret
emptiness and Odrade's next words came from echoing distance.
"The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. You will never be able to
forget that."
As quickly as it had come, the dream sensation passed. Mother Superior's next
words were cold and immediate.
"Prepare for more advanced training."
Until you meet the Agony -- live or die.
Odrade lifted her gaze to the ceiling comeyes. "Send Sheeana in here. She
begins at once with her new teacher."
"So you're going to do it! You're going to work on that child."
"Think of him as Bashar Teg," Odrade said. "That helps." And we're not giving
you time to reconsider.
"I didn't resist Duncan and I can't argue with you."
"Don't even argue with yourself, Murbella. Pointless. Teg was my father and
still I must do this."
Until that moment, Murbella had not realized the force behind Odrade's earlier
statement. The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. Great Dur protect
me! Will I be like that?
We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people
never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You
depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports?
History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and
excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make
history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special
pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff.
-Darwi Odrade
Scytale noticed the excitement of guards and others when he reached the barrier
at the end of his corridor. Rapid movement of people, especially this early in
the day, had attracted him first and sent him to the barrier. There went that
Suk doctor, Jalanto. He recognized her from the time Odrade had sent her
"because you are looking ill." Another Reverend Mother to spy on me!
Ahhhh, Murbella's baby. That was why this rushing around and the Suk.
But who were all those others? Bene Gesserit robes in an abundance he had never
before seen here. Not just acolytes. Reverend Mothers outnumbered the others
he saw rushing about down there. They reminded him of great carrion birds.
There went an acolyte at last, carrying a child on her shoulders. Very
mysterious. If only I had a link to Shipsystems!
He leaned against a wall and waited but the people vanished into various hatches
and doorways. Some destinations he could place with fair certainty, others
remained a mystery.
By the Holy Prophet! There went Mother Superior herself. She went through a
wider doorway where most of the others had gone.
Useless to ask Odrade when next he saw her. She had him in her trap now.
The Prophet is here and in powindah hands!
When no more people appeared in the corridor, Scytale returned to his quarters.
The Identification monitor at his doorway flickered at his passage but he forced
himself not to look at it. ID is the key. With his knowledge, this flaw in the
Ixian ship's control system beckoned like a siren.
When I move, they will not give me much time.
It would be an act of desperation with ship and contents hostage. Seconds in
which to succeed. Who knew what false panels might have been built, what secret
hatches where those awful women could leap out at him. He dared not gamble
before exhausting all other avenues. Especially now . . . with the Prophet
restored.
Tricky witches. What else did they change in this ship? A disquieting thought.
Does my knowledge still apply?
The presence of Scytale beyond the barrier had not escaped Odrade's notice but
she had other matters to concern her. Murbella's accouchement (she liked the
ancient term) had come at an opportune moment. Odrade wanted a distracted Idaho
with her for Sheeana's attempt at restoring the Bashar's memories. Idaho was
often distracted by thoughts of Murbella. And Murbella obviously could not be
with him here, not just now.
Odrade maintained prudent watchfulness in his presence. He was, after all, a
Mentat.
She had found him at his console again. As she emerged from the dropchute into
the access corridor to his quarters, she heard the clicking of relays and that
characteristic buzzing of the comfield and knew immediately where to find him.
He revealed an odd mood when she took him into the observation room where they
would monitor Sheeana and the child.
Worry about Murbella? Or about what they would presently see?
The observation room was long and narrow. Three rows of chairs faced the
seewall common with the secret room where the experiment would occur. The
observation area had been left in gray gloom with only two tiny glowglobes at
upper corners behind the chairs.
Two Suks were present . . . although Odrade worried that they might be
ineffective. Jalanto, the Suk Idaho considered their best, was with Murbella.
Demonstrate our concern. It's real enough.
Slingchairs had been set up along the seewall. An emergency access hatch into
the other room was near at hand.
Streggi brought the child down the outer passage where he would not see the
watchers and took him into the room. It had been prepared under Murbella's
directions: a bedroom, some of his own things brought from his quarters and
some things from the rooms shared by Idaho and Murbella.
An animal's cave, Odrade thought. There was a shabbiness about the place that
came from the deliberate disarray often found in Idaho's chambers: discarded
clothing on a slingchair, sandals in a corner. The sleeping mat was one Idaho
and Murbella had used. Inspecting it earlier, Odrade had noted that smell akin
to saliva, an intimate sexual odor. That, too, would work unconsciously on Teg.
Here is where the wild things originate, the things we cannot suppress. What
daring, to think we can control this. But we must.
As Streggi undressed the boy and left him naked on the mat, Odrade found her
pulse quickening. She shifted her chair forward, noticing her Bene Gesserit
companions imitate the same hitching motion.
Dear me, she thought. Are we nothing but voyeurs?
Such thoughts were necessary at this moment but she felt them demean her. She
lost something in that intrusion. Extremely non-Bene Gesserit thinking. But
very human!
Duncan had lapsed into a studied air of indifference, an easily recognized
pretense. Too much subjectivity in his thoughts for him to function well as a
Mentat. And that was precisely how she wanted him now. Participation Mystique.
Orgasm as energizer. Bell had recognized it correctly.
To one of three nearby Proctors, all chosen for strength and here ostensibly as
observers, Odrade said: "The ghola wants his original memories restored and
fears that utterly. That's the major barrier to be sundered."
"Bullcrap!" Idaho said. "You know what we have working for us right now? His
mother was one of you and she gave him the deep training. How likely is it she
failed to protect him against your Imprinters?"
Odrade turned sharply toward him. Mentat? No, he was back in his immediate
past, reliving and making comparisons. That reference to Imprinters, though . .
. Was that how the first "sexual collision" with Murbella restored memories of
other ghola-lifetimes? Deep resistance against imprinting?
The Proctor Odrade had addressed chose to ignore this impertinent interruption.
She had read the Archives material when Bellonda briefed her. All three of them
knew they might be called on to kill the ghola-child. Did he have powers
dangerous to them? The watchers would not know until (or unless) Sheeana
succeeded.
To Idaho, Odrade said: "Streggi told him why he is here."
"What did she tell him?" Very peremptory with Mother Superior. The Proctors
glared at him.
Odrade held her voice to deliberate mildness. "Streggi told him Sheeana would
restore his memories."
"What did he say?"
"Why isn't Duncan Idaho doing it?"
"She answered him honestly?" Getting some of his own back.
"Honestly but revealing nothing. Streggi told him Sheeana had a better way.
And that you approved."
"Look at him! He isn't even moving. You haven't drugged him, have you?"
Idaho glared back at the Proctors.
"We wouldn't dare. But he is focused inward. You do recall the necessity for
that, don't you?"
Idaho sank back into his chair, shoulders slumping. "Murbella keeps saying:
'He's just a child. He's just a child.' You know we had a fight over it."
"I thought your argument pertinent. The Bashar was not a child. It's the
Bashar we're awakening."
He raised crossed fingers. "I hope."
She drew back, looking at the crossed fingers. " I didn't know you were
superstitious, Duncan."
"I'd pray to Dur if I thought it would help."
He remembers his own re-awakening pains.
"Don't reveal compassion," he muttered. "Turn it back on him. Keep him focused
inward. You want his anger."
Those were words from his own practique.
Abruptly, he said: "This may be the stupidest thing I ever suggested. I should
go and be with Murbella."
"You're in good company, Duncan. And there's nothing you can do for Murbella
right now. Look!" As Teg leaped off the mat and stared up at the ceiling
comeyes.
"Isn't someone coming to help me?" Teg demanded. More desperation in his voice
than predicted for this stage. "Where's Duncan Idaho?"
Odrade put a hand on Idaho's arm as he hitched forward. "Stay where you are,
Duncan. You can't help him, either. Not yet."
"Isn't someone going to tell me what to do?" The young voice had a lonely,
piping sound. "What're you going to do?"
Sheeana's cue and she entered the room through a hidden hatch behind Teg. "Here
I am." She wore only a gossamer robe of pale blue, almost transparent. It
clung to her as she strode around to face the boy.
He gawked. This was a Reverend Mother? He had never seen one robed that way.
"You're going to give me back my memories?" Doubt and desperation.
"I will help you give them back to yourself." As she spoke, she slipped out of
the robe and tossed it aside. It floated to the floor like a great blue
butterfly.
Teg stared at her. "What're you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" She sat down beside him and put a hand on his
penis.
His head tipped forward as though pushed from behind and he stared at her hand
as an erection formed in it.
"Why're you doing that?"
"Don't you know?"
"No!"
"The Bashar would know."
He looked up at her face so close to his. "You know! Why won't you tell me?"
"I'm not your memory!"
"Why're you humming like that?"
She put her lips against his neck. The humming was clear to the watchers.
Murbella called it an intensifier, feedback keyed to the sexual response. It
grew louder.
"What're you doing?" Almost a shriek as she sat him astraddle of her. She
swayed, massaging the small of his back.
"Answer me, damn you!" A definite shriek.
Where did that "damn you!" come from? Odrade wondered.
Sheeana slipped him into her. "Here's your answer!"
His mouth formed a soundless "Ohhhhhhhhh."
The watchers saw her concentration on Teg's eyes but Sheeana watched him with
other senses as well.
"Feel the tensing of his thighs, the telltale vagus pulse and especially note
the darkening of his nipples. When you have him at that point, sustain it until
his pupils dilate."
"Imprinter!" Teg's scream made the watchers jump.
He beat his fists against Sheeana's shoulders. All of them at the seewall
observed an inner flickering of his eyes as he twisted back and forth, something
new peering out of him.
Odrade was on her feet. "Has something gone wrong?"
Idaho remained in his chair. "What I predicted."
Sheeana thrust Teg away to escape his clawing fingers.
He sprawled to the floor and whirled with a speed that shocked the watchers.
Sheeana and Teg confronted each other for several long heartbeats. Slowly, he
straightened and only then did he look down at himself. Presently, he lifted
his attention to his left arm held in front of him. His gaze went to the
ceiling, to each wall in turn. Again, he looked at his body.
"What in the nether hell . . ." Still childish piping but oddly matured.
"Welcome, ghola-Bashar," Sheeana said.
"You were trying to imprint me!" Angry accusation. "You think my mother didn't
teach me how to prevent that?" A distant expression came over his face.
"Ghola?"
"Some prefer to think of you as a clone."
"Who're . . . Sheeana!" He whirled, looking all around the room. It had been
selected for its concealed access, no visible hatches. "Where are we?"
"In the no-ship you took to Dune just before you were killed there." Still
according to the rules.
"Killed . . ." Again, he looked at his hands. Watchers could almost see gholaimposed
filters drop from his memories. "I was killed . . . on Dune?" Almost
plaintive.
"Heroic to the end," Sheeana said.
"My . . . the men I took from Gammu . . . were they . . ."
"Honored Matres made an example of Dune. It's a lifeless ball, charred to
cinders."
Anger touched his features. He sat and crossed his legs, placing a clenched
fist on each knee. "Yes . . . I learned that in the history of the . . . of
me." Again, he glanced at Sheeana. She remained seated on the mat, quite
still. This was such a plunge into memories as only one who had been through
the Agony could appreciate. Utter stillness was required now.
Odrade whispered: "Don't interfere, Sheeana. Let it happen. Let him work it
out." She made a hand-signal to the three Proctors. They went to the access
hatch, watching her instead of the secret room.
"I find it odd to consider myself a subject of history," Teg said. The child's
voice but that recurring sense of maturity in it. He closed his eyes and
breathed deeply.
In the observation room, Odrade sank back into her chair and asked: "What did
you see, Duncan?"
"When Sheeana pushed him away from her, he turned with a swiftness I have never
seen except in Murbella."
"Faster even than that."
"Perhaps . . . it's because his body is young and we have given him prana-bindu
training."
"Something else. You alerted us, Duncan. An unknown in Atreides marker cells."
She glanced at the watchful Proctors and shook her head. No. Not yet. "Damn
that mother of his! Hypnoinduction to block an Imprinter and she hid it from
us."
"But look what she gave us," Idaho said. "A more effective way to restore
memories."
"We should have seen that on our own!" Odrade felt anger at herself. "Scytale
claims Tleilaxu used pain and confrontation. I wonder."
"Ask him. "
"It's not that simple. Our Truthsayers are not certain of him."
"He is opaque."
"When have you studied him?"
"Dar! I have access to comeye records."
" I know, but . . ."
"Dammit! Will you keep your eyes on Teg? Look at him! What's happening?"
Odrade snapped her attention to the seated child.
Teg looked at the comeyes, an expression of terrible intensity on his face.
It had been for him like awakening from sleep in the stress of conflict, an
aide's hand shaking him. Something needed his attention! He recalled sitting
in the no-ship's command center, Dar standing beside him with a hand on his
neck. Scratching him? Something urgent to do. What? His body felt wrong.
Gammu . . . and now they were on Dune and . . . He remembered different things:
childhood on Chapterhouse? Dar as . . . as . . . More memories meshed. They
tried to imprint me!
Awareness flowed around this thought like a river spreading itself for a rock.
"Dar! Are you there? You're there!"
Odrade sat back and put a hand to her chin. What now?
"Mother!" What an accusatory tone!
Odrade touched a transplate beside her chair. "Hello, Miles. Shall we go for a
walk in the orchards?"
"No more games, Dar. I know why you need me. I warn you, though: Violence
projects the wrong kinds of people into power. As if you didn't know!"
"Still loyal to the Sisterhood, Miles, in spite of what we just tried?"
He glanced at the watchful Sheeana. "Still your obedient dog."
Odrade shot an accusatory look at the smiling Idaho. "You and your damned
stories!"
"All right, Miles -- no more games but I have to know about Gammu. They say you
moved faster than the eye could follow."
"True." Flat, what-the-hell tone.
"And just now . . ."
"This body's too small to carry the load."
"But you . . ."
"I used it up in just one burst and I'm starving."
Odrade glanced at Idaho. He nodded. Truth.
She motioned the Proctors back from the hatch. They hesitated before obeying.
What had Bell told them?
Teg was not through. "Do I have it right, daughter? Since every individual is
accountable ultimately to the self, formation of that self demands the utmost
care and attention?"
That damned mother of his taught him everything!
"I apologize, Miles. We did not know how your mother prepared you."
"Whose idea was it?" He looked at Sheeana as he spoke.
"My idea, Miles," Idaho said.
"Oh, you're there, too?" More memory trickled back.
"And I recall the pain you caused me when you restored my memories," Idaho said.
That sobered him. "Point taken, Duncan. No apology needed." He looked at the
speakers relaying their voices. "How's the air at the top, Dar? Rarefied
enough for you?"
Damned silly idea! she thought. And he knows it. Not rarefied at all. The air
was thick with the breathing of those around her, including ones wanting to
share her dramatic presence, ones with ideas (sometimes the idea they would be
better at her job), ones with offering hands and demanding hands. Rarefied,
indeed! She sensed that Teg was trying to tell her something. What?
"Sometimes I must be the autocrat!"
She heard herself saying this to him during one of their orchard walks,
explaining "autocrat" to him and adding: "I have the power and must use it.
That drags on me terribly."
You have the power, so use it! That was what this Mentat Bashar was telling
her. Kill me or release me, Dar.
Still, she stalled for time and knew he would sense it. "Miles, Burzmali's
dead, but he kept a reserve force here he trained himself. The best of --"
"Don't bother me with petty details!" What a voice of command! Thin and reedy
but all other essentials there.
Without being told, the Proctors returned to the hatch. Odrade waved them away
with an angry gesture. Only then did she realize that she had reached a
decision.
"Give him back his clothes and bring him out," she said. "Get Streggi in here."
Teg's first words on emerging alarmed Odrade and made her wonder if she had made
a mistake.
"What if I will not do battle the way you want?"
"But you said . . ."
"I've said many things in my . . . lives. Battle doesn't reinforce moral sense,
Dar."
She (and Taraza) had heard the Bashar on that subject more than once. "Warfare
leaves a residue of 'eat drink and be merry' that often leads inexorably to
moral breakdown."
Correct but she did not know what he had in mind with his reminder. "For every
veteran who returns with a new sense of destiny ('I survived; that must be God's
purpose') more come home with barely submerged bitterness, ready to take 'the
easy way' because they saw so much of it in the stresses of war."
They were Teg's words but her belief.
Streggi hurried into the room but before she could speak, Odrade motioned her to
stand aside and wait silently.
For once, the acolyte had the courage to disobey Mother Superior.
"Duncan should know he has another daughter. Mother and child live and are
healthy." She looked at Teg. "Hello, Miles." Only then did Streggi remove
herself to the rear wall and stand quietly.
She is better than I hoped, Odrade thought.
Idaho relaxed into his chair, feeling now the tensions of worry that had
interfered with his appreciation of what he had observed here.
Teg nodded to Streggi but spoke to Odrade: "Any more words to whisper in God's
ear?" It was essential to control their attention and count on Odrade
recognizing it. "If not, I'm really famished."
Odrade raised a finger to signal Streggi and heard the acolyte leave.
She sensed where Teg was directing her attention and, sure enough, he said:
"Perhaps you've really created a scar this time."
A barb directed at the Sisterhood's boast that "We don't let scars accumulate on
our pasts. Scars often conceal more than they reveal. "
"Some scars reveal more than they conceal," he said. He looked at Idaho.
"Right, Duncan?" One Mentat to another.
"I believe I've come in on an old argument," Idaho said.
Teg looked at Odrade. "See, daughter? A Mentat knows old argument when he
hears it. You pride yourselves on knowing what's required of you at every turn,
but the monster at this turning is of your own making!"
"Mother Superior!" That was a Proctor who did not want her addressed thus.
Odrade ignored her. She felt chagrin, harsh and compelling. Taraza Within
remembered the dispute: "We are shaped by Bene Gesserit associations. In
peculiar ways, they blunt us. Oh, we cut swift and deep when we must, but
that's another kind of blunting."
"I'll not take part in blunting you," Teg said. So he remembered.
Streggi returned with a bowl of stew, brown broth with meat floating in it. Teg
sat on the floor and spooned it into his mouth with urgent motions.
Odrade remained silent, her thoughts moving where Teg had sent them. There was
a hard shell Reverend Mothers put around themselves against which all things
from outside (including emotions) played like projections. Murbella was right
and the Sisterhood had to relearn emotions. If they were only observers, they
were doomed.
She addressed Teg. "You won't be asked to blunt us."
Both Teg and Idaho heard something else in her voice. Teg put aside his empty
bowl but Idaho was first to speak. "Cultivated," he said.
Teg agreed. Sisters were seldom impulsive. You got ordered reactions from them
even in times of peril. They went beyond what most people thought of as
cultivated. They were driven not so much by dreams of power as by their own
long view, a thing compounded of immediacy and almost unlimited memory. So
Odrade was following a carefully thought out plan. Teg glanced at the watchful
Proctors.
"You were prepared to kill me," he said.
No one answered. There was no need. They all recognized Mentat Projection.
Teg turned and looked back into the room where he had regained his memories.
Sheeana was gone. More memories whispered at the edge of awareness. They would
speak in their own time. This diminutive body. That was difficult. And
Streggi . . . He focused on Odrade. "You were more clever than you thought.
But my mother . . ."
"I don't think she anticipated this," Odrade said.
"No . . . she was not that much Atreides."
An electrifying word in these circumstances, it charged a special silence in the
room. The Proctors moved closer.
That mother of his!
Teg ignored the hovering Proctors. "In answer to the questions you have not
asked, I cannot explain what happened to me on Gammu. My physical and mental
speed defies explanation. Given the size and energy, in one of your heartbeats
I could be clear of this room and well on my way out of the ship. Ohhh . . ."
hand upraised. "I'm still your obedient dog. I'll do what you require, but
perhaps not in the way you imagine."
Odrade saw consternation in the faces of her Sisters. What have I loosed upon
us?
"We can prevent any living thing from leaving this ship," she said. "You may be
fast but I doubt you are faster than the fire that would engulf you should you
try to leave without our permission."
"I will leave in my own good time and with your permission. How many of
Burzmali's special troops do you have?"
"Almost two million." Startled out of her.
"So many!"
"He had more than twice that number with him at Lampadas when Honored Matres
obliterated them."
"We shall have to be more clever than poor Burzmali. Would you leave me to
discuss this with Duncan? That is why you keep us around, isn't it? Our
specialty?" He aimed a smiling look at the overhead comeyes. "I'm sure you'll
review our discussion thoroughly before approving."
Odrade and her Sisters exchanged glances. They shared an unspoken question:
What else can we do?
As she stood, Odrade looked at Idaho. "Here's a real job for a Truthsayer-
Mentat!"
When the women were gone, Teg pulled himself up onto one of the chairs and
looked into the empty room visible beyond the seewall. It had been close there
and he still felt his heart pumping hard from the effort. "Quite a show," he
said.
"I've seen better." Extremely dry.
"What I'd like right now is a large glass of Marinete, but I doubt this body
could take it."
"Bell will be waiting for Dar when she gets back to Central," Idaho said.
"To the nethermost hell with Bell! We have to defuse those Honored Matres
before they find us."
"And our Bashar has just the plan."
"Damn that title!"
Idaho inhaled a sharp breath restricted by shock.
"Tell you something, Duncan!" Intense. "Once when I was arriving for an
important meeting with potential enemies, I heard an aide announce me. 'The
Bashar is here.' I damned near stumbled, caught by the abstraction."
"Mentat blur."
"Of course it was. But I knew the title removed me from something I did not
dare lose. Bashar? I was more than that! I was Miles Teg, the name given me
by my parents."
"You were on the name-chain!"
"Certainly, and I realized my name stood at a distance from something more
primal. Miles Teg? No, I was more basic than that. I could hear my mother
saying, 'Oh, what a beautiful baby.' So there I was with another name:
'Beautiful Baby.' "
"Did you go deeper?" Idaho found himself fascinated.
"I was caught. Name leads to name leads to name leads to nameless. When I
walked into that important room, I was nameless. Did you ever risk that?"
"Once." A reluctant admission.
"We all do it at least once. But there I was. I'd been briefed. I had a
reference for everyone at that table -- face, name, title, plus all of the
backgrounding."
"But you weren't really there."
"Oh, I could see the expectant faces measuring me, wondering, worrying. But
they did not know me!"
"That gave you a feeling of great power?"
"Exactly as we were warned in Mentat school. I asked myself: 'Is this Mind at
its beginning?' Don't laugh. It's a tantalizing question."
"So you went deeper?" Caught by Teg's words, Idaho ignored tugs of warning at
the edge of his awareness.
"Oh, yes. And I found myself in the famous 'Hall of Mirrors' they described and
warned us to flee."
"So you remembered how to get out and . . ."
"Remembered? You've obviously been there. Did memory get you out?"
"It helped."
"Despite the warnings, I lingered, seeing my 'self of selves' and infinite
permutations. Reflections of reflections ad infinitum."
"Fascination of the 'ego core.' Damn few ever escape from that depth. You were
lucky."
"I'm not sure it should be called luck. I knew there must be a First Awareness,
an awakening . . ."
"Which discovers it is not the first."
"But I wanted a self at the root of the self!"
"Didn't the people at this meeting notice anything odd about you?"
"I found out later I sat down with a wooden expression that concealed these
mental gymnastics."
"You didn't speak?"
"I was struck dumb. This was interpreted as 'the Bashar's expected reticence.'
So much for reputation."
Idaho started to smile and remembered the comeyes. He saw at once how the
watchdogs would interpret such revelations. Wild talent in a dangerous
descendant of the Atreides! Sisters knew about the mirrors. Anyone who escaped
must be suspect. What did the mirrors show him?
As though he heard the dangerous question, Teg said: " I was caught and knew
it. I could visualize myself as a bedridden vegetable but I didn't care. The
mirrors were everything until, like something floating up out of water, I saw my
mother. She looked more or less the way she had just before she died."
Idaho inhaled a trembling breath. Didn't Teg know what he had just said for the
comeyes to record?
"The Sisters will now imagine I'm at least a potential Kwisatz Haderach," Teg
said. "Another Muad'Dib. Bullcrap! As you're so fond of saying, Duncan.
Neither of us would risk that. We know what he created and we're not stupid!"
Idaho could not swallow. Would they accept Teg's words? He spoke the truth but
still . . .
"She took my hand," Teg said. "I could feel it! And she led me right out of
the Hall. I expected her to be with me when I felt myself seated at the table.
My hand still tingled from her touch but she was gone. I knew that. I just
brought myself to attention and took over. The Sisterhood had important
advantages to gain there and I gained them."
"Something your mother planted in --"
"No! I saw her the same way Reverend Mothers see Other Memory. It was her way
of saying: 'Why the hell are you wasting time here when there's work to do?'
She has never left me, Duncan. The past never leaves any of us."
Idaho abruptly saw the purpose behind Teg's recital. Honesty and candor,
indeed!
"You have Other Memory!"
"No! Except what anyone has in emergencies. The Hall of Mirrors was an
emergency and it also let me see and feel the source of help. But I'm not going
back there!"
Idaho accepted this. Most Mentats risked one dip into Infinity and learned the
transient nature of names and titles but Teg's account was much more than a
statement about Time as flow and tableau.
"I figured it was time we introduced ourselves fully to the Bene Gesserit," Teg
said. "They should know how far they can trust us. There's work to do and
we've wasted enough time on stupidities."
Spend energies on those who make you strong. Energy spent on weaklings drags
you to doom. (HM rule) Bene Gesserit Commentary: Who judges?
-The Dortujla Record
The day of Dortujla's return did not go well for Odrade. A weapons conference
with Teg and Idaho ended without decision. She had sensed the hunter's axe all
during the meeting and knew this colored her reactions.
Then the afternoon session with Murbella -- words, words, words. Murbella was
tangled in questions of philosophy. A dead end if Odrade had ever encountered
one.
Now she stood in the early evening at the westernmost edge of' Central's
perimeter paving. It was one of her favorite places, but Bellonda beside her
deprived Odrade of the anticipated quiet enjoyment.
Sheeana found them there and asked: "Is it true you have given Murbella the
freedom of the ship?"
"There!" This was one of Bellonda's deepest fears.
"Bell," Odrade cut her off and pointed at the ring orchards. "That little rise
over there where we've planted no trees. I want you to order a Folly in that
place, built to my requirements. A gazebo with lattice framing for the views."
No stopping Bellonda now. Odrade had seldom seen her this incensed. And the
more Bellonda ranted, the more adamant Odrade became.
"You want a . . . a Folly? In that orchard? What else will you waste our
substance on? Folly! A most appropriate label for another of your . . ."
It was a silly argument. Both of them knew it twenty words into the thing.
Mother Superior could not unbend first and Bell seldom unbent for anything.
Even when Odrade fell silent, Bellonda charged onward into empty ramparts. At
the end, when Bellonda ran out of energy, Odrade said: "You owe me a fine
dinner, Bell. See that it's the best you can arrange."
"Owe you . . ." Bellonda started to splutter.
"A peace offering," Odrade said. "I want it served in my gazebo . . . my Fancy
Folly."
When Sheeana laughed, Bellonda was forced to join but with an icy edge. She
knew when she had been out-faced.
"Everyone will see it and say: 'See how confident Mother Superior is,' "
Sheeana said.
"So you want it for morale!" At this point, Bellonda would have accepted almost
any justification.
Odrade beamed at Sheeana. My clever little darling! Not only had Sheeana
ceased teasing Bellonda, she had taken to reinforcing the older woman's selfesteem
wherever possible. Bell knew it, of course, and there remained an
inevitable Bene Gesserit question: Why?
Recognizing the suspicion, Sheeana said: "We're really arguing about Miles and
Duncan. And I, for one, am sick of it."
"If I just knew what you were really doing, Dar!" Bellonda said.
"Energy has its own patterns, Bell!"
"What do you mean?" Quite startled.
"They are going to find us, Bell. And I know how."
Bellonda actually gaped.
"We are slaves of our habits," Odrade said. "Slaves of energies we create. Can
slaves break free? Bell, you know the problem as well as I do."
For once, Bellonda was nonplussed.
Odrade stared at her.
Pride, that was what Odrade saw when she looked at her Sisters and their places.
Dignity was only a mask. No real humility. Instead, there was this visible
conformity, a true Bene Gesserit pattern that, in a society aware of the peril
in patterns, sounded a warning klaxon.
Sheeana was confused. "Habits?"
"Your habits always come hunting after you. The self you construct will haunt
you. A ghost wandering around in search of your body, eager to possess you. We
are addicted to the self we construct. Slaves to what we have done. We are
addicted to Honored Matres and they to us!"
"More of your damned romanticism!" Bellonda said.
"Yes, I'm a romantic . . . in the same way the Tyrant was. He sensitized
himself to the fixed shape of his creation. I am sensitive to his prescient
trap."
But oh how close the hunter and oh how deep the pit.
Bellonda was not placated. "You said you know how they will find us."
"They have only to recognize their own habits and they . . .
Yes?" This was to an acolyte messenger emerging from a covered passage behind
Bellonda.
"Mother Superior, it's Reverend Mother Dortujla. Mother Fintil has brought her
to the Landing Flat and they will be here within the hour."
"Bring her to my workroom!" Odrade looked at Bellonda with a stare that was
almost wild. "Has she said anything?"
"Mother Dortujla is ill," the acolyte said.
Ill? What an extraordinary thing to say about a Reverend Mother.
"Reserve judgment." It was Bellonda-Mentat speaking, Bellonda foe of
romanticism and wild imagination.
"Get Tam up there as an observer," Odrade said.
Dortujla hobbled in on a cane with Fintil and Streggi helping her. There was a
firmness to Dortujla's eyes, though, and a sense of measuring behind every look
she focused on her surroundings. She had her hood thrown back revealing hair
the dark mottled brown of antique ivory and when she spoke her voice conveyed a
sense of fatigue.
"I have done as you ordered, Mother Superior." As Fintil and Streggi left the
room, Dortujla sat without being invited, a slingchair beside Bellonda. Brief
glances at Sheeana and Tamalane on her left, then a hard stare at Odrade. "They
will meet with you on Junction. They think the place is their own idea and your
Spider Queen is there!"
"How soon?" Sheeana asked.
"They want one hundred Standard days counting from just about now. I can be
more precise if you want."
"Why so long?" Odrade asked.
"My opinion? They will use the time to reinforce their defenses on Junction."
"What guarantees?" That was Tam, terse as usual.
"Dortujla, what has happened to you?" Odrade was shocked by the trembling
weakness apparent in the woman.
"They conducted experiments on me. But that is not important. The arrangements
are. For what it's worth, they promise you safe passage in and out of Junction.
Don't believe it. You are allowed a small entourage of servants, no more than
five. Assume they will kill everyone who accompanies you, although . . . I may
have taught them the error in that."
"They expect me to bring submission of the Bene Gesserit?" Odrade's voice had
never been colder. Dortujla's words raised a specter of tragedy.
"That was the inducement."
"The Sisters who went with you?" Sheeana asked.
Dortujla tapped her forehead, a common Sisterhood gesture. "I have them. We
agree the Honored Matres should be punished."
"Dead?" Odrade forced the word between tight lips.
"Attempting to force me into their ranks. 'You see? We will kill another one
if you don't agree.' I told them to kill us all and have done with it and to
forget about meeting Mother Superior. They did not accept this until they ran
out of hostages."
"You Shared them all?" Tamalane asked. Yes, that would be Tam's concern as she
neared her own death.
"While pretending to assure myself they were dead. You may as well know the
whole thing. These women are grotesque! They possess caged Futars. The bodies
of my Sisters were thrown into the cages where the Futars ate them. The Spider
Queen -- an appropriate name -- made me watch this."
"Disgusting!" Bellonda said.
Dortujla sighed. "They did not know, naturally, that I have worse visions in
Other Memory."
"They sought to overwhelm your sensibilities," Odrade said. "Foolish. Were
they surprised when you didn't react as they wished?"
"Chagrined, I would say. I think they had seen others react as I did. I told
them it was as good a way as any to get fertilizer. I believe that angered
them."
"Cannibalism," Tamalane muttered.
"Only in appearance," Dortujla said. "Futars definitely are not human. Barely
tamed wild animals."
"No Handlers?" Odrade asked.
"I saw none. The Futars did speak. They said, 'Eat!' before they ate and they
jibed at Honored Matres around them. 'You hungry?' That sort of thing. More
important was what happened after they ate."
Dortujla lapsed into a fit of coughing. "They tried poisons," she said.
"Stupid women!"
When she regained her breath, Dortujla said, "A Futar came to the bars of its
cage after their . . . banquet? It looked at the Spider Queen and it screamed.
I have never heard such a sound. Chilling! Every Honored Matre in that room
froze and I swear to you they were terrified."
Sheeana touched Dortujla's arm. "A predator immobilizing its prey?"
"Undoubtedly. It had qualities of Voice. The Futars appeared surprised that it
did not freeze me."
"The Honored Matres' reaction?" Bellonda asked. Yes, a Mentat would require
that datum.
"A general clamor when they found their voices. Many shouted for Great Honored
Matre to destroy the Futars. She, however, took a calmer view. 'Too valuable
alive,' she said."
"A hopeful sign," Tamalane said.
Odrade looked at Bellonda. "I will order Streggi to bring the Bashar here.
Objections?"
Bellonda gave a curt nod. They knew the gamble must be taken despite questions
about Teg's intentions.
To Dortujla, Odrade said: "I want you in my own guest quarters. We'll bring in
Suks. Order what you need and prepare for a full Council meeting. You are a
special advisor."
Dortujla spoke while struggling to her feet. "I've not slept in almost fifteen
days and I will need a special meal."
"Sheeana, see to that and get the Suks up here. Tam, stay with the Bashar and
Streggi. Regular reports. He'll want to go to the cantonment and take personal
charge. Get him a comlink with Duncan. Nothing must impede them."
"You want me here with him?" Tamalane asked.
"You are his leech. Streggi takes him nowhere without your knowledge. He wants
Duncan as Weapons Master. Make sure he accepts Duncan's confinement in the
ship. Bell, any weapons data Duncan requires -- priority. Comments?"
There were no comments. Thoughts about consequences, yes, but the decisiveness
of Odrade's behavior infected them.
Sitting back, Odrade closed her eyes and waited until silence told her she was
alone. The comeyes were still watching, of course.
They know I'm tired. Who wouldn't be under these circumstances? Three more
Sisters killed by those monsters! Bashar! They must feel our lash and know the
lesson!
When she heard Streggi arrive with Teg, Odrade opened her eyes. Streggi led him
in by the hand but there was something about them saying this was not an adult
guiding a child. Teg's movements said he gave Streggi permission to treat him
this way. She would have to be warned.
Tam followed and went to a chair near the windows directly beneath the bust of
Chenoeh. Significant positioning? Tam did strange things lately.
"Do you wish me to stay, Mother Superior?" Streggi released Teg's hand and
stood near the door.
"Sit over there beside Tam. Listen and do not interrupt. You must know what
will be required of you."
Teg hitched himself onto the chair recently occupied by Dortujla. "I suppose
this is a council of war."
That's an adult behind the childish voice.
"I won't ask your plan yet," Odrade said.
"Good. The unexpected takes more time and I may not be able to tell you what I
intend until the moment of action."
"We've been observing you with Duncan. Why are you interested in ships from the
Scattering?"
"Long-haul ships have a distinctive appearance. I saw them on the flat at
Gammu."
Teg sat back and let this sink in, glad of the briskness he sensed in Odrade's
manner. Decisions! No long deliberations. That suited his needs. They must
not learn the full extent of my abilities. Not yet.
"You would disguise an attack force?"
Bellonda came through the door as Odrade was speaking and growled an objection
while sitting: "Impossible! They'll have recognition codes and secret signals
for --"
"Let me decide that, Bell, or remove me from command."
"This is the Council!" Bellonda said. "You don't --"
"Mentat?" He looked fully at her, the Bashar apparent in his gaze.
When she fell silent, he said: "Don't question my loyalty! If you would weaken
me, replace me!"
"Let him have his say." That was Tam. "This isn't the first Council where the
Bashar has appeared as our equal."
Bellonda lowered her chin a fractional millimeter.
To Odrade, Teg said, "Avoiding warfare is a matter of intelligence -- the
gathered variety and intellectual power."
Throwing our own cant at us! She heard Mentat in his voice and Bellonda
obviously heard this as well. Intelligence and intelligence: the doubled view.
Without it, warfare often occurred as an accident.
The Bashar sat silently, letting them stew in their own historical observations.
The urge to conflict went far deeper than consciousness. The Tyrant had been
right. Humankind acted as "one beast." The forces impelling that great
collective animal went back to tribal days and beyond, as did so many forces to
which humans responded without thinking.
Mix the genes.
Expand Lebensraum for your own breeders.
Gather the energies of others: collect slaves, peons, servants, serfs, markets,
workers . . . The terms often were interchangeable.
Odrade saw what he was doing. Knowledge absorbed from the Sisterhood helped
make him the incomparable Mentat Bashar. He held these things as instincts.
Energy-eating drove war's violence. This was described as "greed, fear (that
others will take your hoard), power hunger" and on and on into futile analyses.
Odrade had heard these even from Bellonda who obviously was not taking it well
that a subordinate should remind them of what they already knew.
"The Tyrant knew," Teg said. "Duncan quotes him: 'War is behavior with roots
in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat
you.' "
"What do you propose?" Bellonda at her most snappish.
"A feint at Gammu, then strike their base on Junction. For that we need firsthand
observations." He stared steadily at Odrade.
He knows! The thought flared in Odrade's mind.
"You think your studies of Junction when it was a Guild base are still
accurate?" Bellonda demanded.
"They haven't had time to change the place much from what I stored here." He
tapped his forehead in an odd parody of the Sisterhood's gesture.
"Englobement," Odrade said.
Bellonda looked at her sharply. "The cost!"
"Losing everything is more costly," Teg said.
"Foldspace sensors don't have to be large," Odrade said. "Duncan would set them
to create a Holzmann explosion on contact?"
"The explosions would be visible and would give us a trajectory." He sat back
and looked at an indefinite area on Odrade's rear wall. Would they accept it?
He dared not frighten them with another display of wild talent. If Bell knew he
could see the no-ships!
"Do it!" Odrade said. "You have the command. Use it."
There was a distinct sense of chuckling from Taraza in Other Memories. Give him
his head! That's how I got such a great reputation!
"One thing," Bellonda said. She looked at Odrade. "You're going to be his
spy?"
"Who else can get in there and transmit observations?"
"They'll be monitoring every means of transmission!"
"Even the one that tells our waiting no-ship we have not been betrayed?" Odrade
asked.
"An encrypted message hidden in the transmission," Teg said. "Duncan has
devised an encryption that would take months to break but we doubt they'll
detect its presence."
"Madness," Bellonda muttered.
"I met an Honored Matre military commander on Gammu," Teg said. "Slack when it
came to necessary details. I think they're overconfident."
Bellonda stared at him and there was the Bashar staring back at her out of a
child's innocent eyes. "Abandon all sanity ye who enter here," he said.
"Get out of here, all of you!" Odrade ordered. "You have work to do. And Miles
. . ."
He already had slid off the chair but he stood there looking much as he always
had when waiting for Mother to tell him something important.
"Did you refer to the lunacy of dramatic events that warfare always amplifies?"
"What else? Surely you didn't think I referred to your Sisterhood!"
"Duncan plays this game sometimes."
"I don't want us catching the Honored Matre madness," Teg said. "It is
contagious, you know."
"They've tried to control the sex drive," Odrade said. "That always gets away
from you."
"Runaway lunacy," he agreed. He leaned against the table, his chin barely above
the surface. "Something drove those women back here. Duncan's right. They're
looking for something and running away at the same time."
"You have ninety Standard days to get ready," she said. "Not one day more."
Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch. -- Folk
Saying.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of
mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being.
-The Bashar Teg
It was a weakness in the Bene Gesserit that Odrade knew the entire Sisterhood
soon must recognize. She gained no consolation from having seen it first.
Denying our deepest resource when we need it most! The Scatterings had gone
beyond the ability of humans to assemble the experiences in manageable form. We
can only extract essentials, and that is a matter of judgment. Vital data would
remain dormant in great and small events, accumulations called instinct. So
that was it finally -- they must fall back on unspoken knowledge.
In this age, the word "refugees" took on the color of its pre-space meaning.
Small bands of Reverend Mothers sent out by the Sisterhood held something in
common with old scenes of displaced stragglers trudging down forgotten roads,
pitiful belongings bound in bits of cloth, wheeled on decrepit prams and toy
wagons, or piled atop lopsided vehicles, remnant humanity clinging to the
outsides and densely packed within, every face blank with despair or heated by
desperation.
So we repeat history and repeat it and repeat it.
As she entered a tubeslot shortly before lunch, Odrade's thoughts clung to her
Scattered Sisters: political refugees, economic refugees, pre-battle refugees.
Is this your Golden Path, Tyrant?
Visions of her Scattered ones haunted Odrade as she entered Central's Reserved
Dining Room, a place only Reverend Mothers might enter. They served themselves
here at cafeteria lines.
It had been twenty days since she had released Teg to the cantonment. Rumors
were flying in Central, especially among Proctors, although there still was no
sign of another vote. New decisions must be announced today and they would have
to be more than naming the ones who would accompany her to Junction.
She glanced around the dining room, an austere place of yellow walls, low
ceiling, small square tables that could be latched in rows for larger groups.
Windows along one side revealed a garden court under a translucent cover. Dwarf
apricots in green fruit, lawn, benches, small tables. Sisters ate outside when
sunlight poured into the enclosed yard. No sunlight today.
She ignored a cafeteria line where a place was being made for her. Later,
Sisters.
At the corner table near the windows reserved for her, she deliberately moved
the chairs. Bell's brown chairdog pulsed faintly at this unaccustomed
disturbance. Odrade sat with her back to the room, knowing this would be
interpreted correctly: Leave me to my own thoughts.
While she waited, she stared out at the courtyard. An enclosing hedge of exotic
purple-leaved shrubs was in red flower -- giant blossoms with delicate stamens
of deep yellow.
Bellonda arrived first, dropping into her chairdog with no comment on its new
position. Bell frequently appeared untidy, belt loose, robe wrinkled, bits of
food on the bosom. Today, she was neat and clean.
Now, why is that?
Bellonda said, "Tam and Sheeana will be late."
Odrade accepted this without stopping her study of this different Bellonda. Was
she a bit slimmer? There was no way to insulate a Mother Superior completely
from what went on within her sensory area of concerns but sometimes pressures of
work distracted her from small changes. These were a Reverend Mother's natural
habitat, though, and negative evidence was as illuminating as positive. On
reflection, Odrade realized that this new Bellonda had been with them for
several weeks.
Something had happened to Bellonda. Any Reverend Mother could exercise
reasonable control over weight and figure. A matter of internal chemistry --
banking fires or letting them burn high. For years now, rebellious Bellonda had
flaunted a gross body.
"You've lost weight," Odrade said.
"Fat was beginning to slow me too much."
That had never been sufficient reason for Bell to change her ways. She had
always compensated with speed of mind, with projections and faster transport.
"Duncan really got to you, didn't he?"
"I'm not a hypocrite nor criminal!"
"Time to send you to a punishment Keep, I guess."
This recurrent humorous thrust usually annoyed Bellonda. Today, it did not
arouse her. But under pressure of Odrade's stare, she said: "If you must know,
it's Sheeana. She has been after me to improve my appearance and broaden my
circle of associates. Annoying! I'm doing it to shut her up."
"Why are Tam and Sheeana late?"
"Reviewing your latest meeting with Duncan. I have severely limited who has
access to it. No telling what will happen when it becomes general knowledge."
"As it will."
"Inevitable. I only buy us time to prepare."
"I did not want it suppressed, Bell."
"Dar, what are you doing?"
"I will announce that at a Convocation."
No words but Bellonda glared her surprise.
"A Convocation is my right," Odrade said.
Bellonda leaned back and stared at Odrade, assessing, questioning . . . all
without words. The last Convocation of the Bene Gesserit had been at the
Tyrant's death. And before that, at the Tyrant's seizure of power. A
Convocation had not been thought possible since Honored Matres attacked. Too
much time taken from desperate labors.
Presently, Bellonda asked: "Will you risk bringing Sisters from our surviving
Keeps?"
"No. Dortujla will represent them. There is precedent, as you know."
"First, you free Murbella; now it's a Convocation."
"Free? Murbella is tied by chains of gold. Where would she go without her
Duncan?"
"But you've given Duncan freedom to leave the ship!"
"Has he?"
Bellonda said, "You think that information from the ship's armory is all he'll
take?"
"I know it."
"I am reminded of Jessica turning her back on the Mentat who would have killed
her."
"The Mentat was immobilized by his own beliefs."
"Sometimes the bull gores the matador, Dar."
"More often he does not."
"Our survival should not depend on statistics!"
"Agreed. That is why I call Convocation."
"Acolytes included?"
"Everyone."
"Even Murbella? Does she get an acolyte's vote?"
"I think she may be a Reverend Mother by then."
Bellonda gasped, then: "You move too fast, Dar!"
"These times require it."
Bellonda glanced toward the dining room door. "Here's Tam. Later than I
expected. I wonder if they took time to consult Murbella?"
Tamalane arrived, breathing hard from hurrying. She dropped into her blue
chairdog, noted the new positions and said: "Sheeana will be along presently.
She is showing records to Murbella."
Bellonda addressed Tamalane. "She's going to put Murbella through the Agony and
call a Convocation."
"I'm not surprised." Tamalane spoke with her old precision. "The position of
that Honored Matre must be resolved as soon as possible."
Sheeana joined them then and took the slingchair at Odrade's left, speaking as
she sat. "Have you watched Murbella walk?"
Odrade was caught by the way this abrupt question, uttered without preamble,
fixed the attention. Murbella walking in the ship. Observed just that morning.
Beauty in Murbella and the eye could not avoid it. To other Bene Gesserit,
Reverend Mothers and acolytes alike, she was something of an exotic. She had
arrived full-grown from the dangerous Outside. One of them. It was her
movements, though, that compelled the eye. Homeostasis in her that went beyond
the norms.
Sheeana's question redirected the observer's mind. Something about Murbella's
quite acceptable passage required new examination. What was it?
Murbella's motions were always carefully chosen. She excluded anything not
required to go from here to there. Path of least resistance? It was a view of
Murbella that sent a pang through Odrade. Sheeana had seen it, of course. Was
Murbella one of those who would choose an easy way every time? Odrade could see
that question on the faces of her companions.
"The Agony will sort it out," Tamalane said.
Odrade looked squarely at Sheeana. "Well?" She had asked the question, after
all.
"Perhaps it's only that she does not waste energy. But I agree with Tam: the
Agony."
"Are we making a terrible mistake?" Bellonda asked.
Something in the way this question was asked told Odrade that Bell had made a
Mentat summation. She has seen what I intend!
"If you know a better course reveal it now," Odrade said. Or hold your peace.
Silence gripped them. Odrade looked at her companions in succession, lingering
on Bell.
Help us, whatever gods there may be! And I, being Bene Gesserit, am too much
agnostic to make that plea with anything more than a hope of covering all
possibilities. Don't reveal it, Bell. If you know what I will do, you know it
must be seen in its own time.
Bellonda brought Odrade out of reverie with a cough. "Are we going to eat or
talk? People are staring."
"Should we have another go at Scytale?" Sheeana asked.
Was that an attempt to divert my attention?
Bellonda said: "Give him nothing! He's in reserve. Let him sweat."
Odrade looked carefully at Bellonda. She was fuming over the silence imposed on
her by Odrade's secret decision. Avoiding a meeting of eyes with Sheeana.
Jealous! Bell is jealous of Sheeana!
Tamalane said, "I am only an advisor now but --"
"Stop that, Tam!" Odrade snapped.
"Tam and I have been discussing that ghola," Bellonda said. (Idaho was "that
ghola" when Bellonda had something disparaging to say.) "Why did he think he
needed to talk secretly to Sheeana?" A hard stare at Sheeana.
Odrade saw shared suspicion. She does not accept the explanation. Does she
reject Duncan's emotional bias?
Sheeana spoke quickly. "Mother Superior explained that!"
"Emotion," Bellonda sneered.
Odrade raised her voice and was surprised at this reaction. "Suppressing
emotions is a weakness!"
Tamalane's shaggy eyebrows lifted.
Sheeana intruded: "If we won't bend, we can break."
Before Bellonda could respond, Odrade said: "Ice can be chipped apart or
melted. Ice maidens are vulnerable to a single form of attack."
"I'm hungry," Sheeana said.
Peace-making? Not a role expected of The Mouse.
Tamalane stood. "Bouillabaisse. We must eat the fish before our sea is gone.
Not enough nullentropy storage."
In the softest of simulflows, Odrade noted the departure of her companions to
the cafeteria line. Tamalane's accusatory words recalled that second day with
Sheeana after the decision to phase out the Great Sea. Standing at Sheeana's
window in the early morning, Odrade had watched a seabird move against the
desert background. It winged its way northward, a creature completely out of
place in that setting but beautiful in a profoundly nostalgic way because of it.
White wings glistened in early sunlight. A touch of black beneath and in front
of its eyes. Abruptly, it hovered, wings motionless. Then, lifting on an air
current, it tucked its wings like a hawk and plummeted out of view behind the
farther buildings. Reappearing, it carried something in its beak, a morsel it
swallowed on the wing.
A seabird alone and adapting.
We adapt. We do indeed adapt.
It was not a quiet thought. Nothing to induce repose. Shocking rather. Odrade
had felt jarred out of a dangerously drifting course. Not only her beloved
Chapterhouse but their entire human universe was breaking out of its old shapes
and taking on new forms. Perhaps it was right in this new universe that Sheeana
continued to conceal things from Mother Superior. And she is concealing
something.
Once more, Bellonda's acidic tones brought Odrade to full awareness of her
surroundings. "If you won't serve yourself, I suppose we must take care of
you." Bellonda placed a bowl of aromatic fish stew in front of Odrade, a great
chunk of garlic bread beside it.
When each had sampled the bouillabaisse, Bellonda put down her spoon and stared
hard at Odrade. "You're not going to suggest we 'love one another' or some such
debilitating nonsense?"
"Thank you for bringing my food," Odrade said.
Sheeana swallowed and a wide grin came over her features. "It's delicious."
Bellonda returned to eating. "It's all right." But she had heard the unspoken
comment.
Tamalane ate steadily, shifting attention from Sheeana to Bellonda and then to
Odrade. Tam appeared to agree with a proposed softening of emotional
strictures. At least, she voiced no objections and older Sisters were most
likely to object.
The love the Bene Gesserit tried to deny was everywhere, Odrade thought. In
small things and big. How many ways there were to prepare delectable, lifesustaining
foods, recipes that really were embodiments of loves old and new.
This bouillabaisse so smoothly restorative on her tongue; its origins were
planted deeply in love: the wife at home using that part of the day's catch her
husband could not sell.
The very essence of the Bene Gesserit was concealed in loves. Why else minister
to those unspoken needs humanity always carried? Why else work for the
perfectibility of humankind?
Bowl empty, Bellonda put down her spoon and wiped up the dregs with the last of
her bread. She swallowed, looking pensive. "Love weakens us," she said. No
force in her voice.
An acolyte could have said it no differently. Right out of the Coda. Odrade
concealed amusement and countered with another Coda stepping-stone. "Beware
jargon. It usually hides ignorance and carries little knowledge."
Respectful wariness entered Bellonda's eyes.
Sheeana pushed herself back from the table and wiped her mouth with her napkin.
Tamalane did the same. Her chairdog adjusted as she leaned back, eyes bright
and amused.
Tam knows! The wily old witch is still wise in my ways. But Sheeana . . . what
game is Sheeana playing? I would almost say she hopes to distract me, to keep
my attention away from her. She is very good at it, learned it at my knee.
Well . . . two can play that game. I press Bellonda, but watch my little Dune
waif.
"What price respectability, Bell?" Odrade asked.
Bellonda accepted this thrust in silence. Hidden in Bene Gesserit jargon was a
definition of respectability and they all knew it.
"Should we honor the memory of the Lady Jessica for her humanity?" Odrade asked.
Sheeana is surprised!
"Jessica put the Sisterhood in jeopardy!" Bellonda accuses.
"To thine own Sisters be true," Tamalane murmured.
"Our antique definition of respectability helps keep us human," Odrade said.
Hear me well, Sheeana.
Her voice little more than a whisper, Sheeana said, "If we lose that we lose it
all."
Odrade suppressed a sigh. So that's it!
Sheeana met her gaze. "You are instructing us, of course."
"Twilight thoughts," Bellonda muttered. "Best we avoid them."
"Taraza called us 'Latter-day Bene Gesserit,' " Sheeana said.
Odrade's mood went self-accusatory.
The bane of our present existence. Sinister imaginings can destroy us.
How easy it was to conjure a future that looked at them from blazing orange eyes
of berserk Honored Matres. Fears out of many pasts crouched within Odrade,
breathless moments focused on fangs that went with such eyes.
Odrade forced her attention back to the immediate problem. "Who will accompany
me to Junction?"
They knew Dortujla's harrowing experience and word of it had spread throughout
Chapterhouse.
"Whoever goes with Mother Superior could well be fed to Futars."
"Tam," Odrade said. "You and Dortujla." And that may be a death sentence. The
next step is obvious. "Sheeana," Odrade said, "you will Share with Tam.
Dortujla and I will Share with Bell. And I also will share with you before I
go."
Bellonda was aghast. "Mother Superior! I am not suited to take your place."
Odrade held her attention on Sheeana. "That is not being suggested. I will
merely make you the repository of my lives." Definite fear on Sheeana's face
but she dared not refuse a direct order. Odrade nodded to Tamalane. "I will
Share later. You and Sheeana will do it now."
Tamalane leaned toward Sheeana. The strictures of great age and imminent death
made this a welcome thing for her but Sheeana involuntarily pulled away.
"Now!" Odrade said. Let Tam judge whatever it is you hide.
There was no escape. Sheeana bent her head to Tamalane's until they touched.
The flash of the exchange was electric and the entire dining room felt it.
Conversation stopped, every gaze turned toward the table by the window.
There were tears in Sheeana's eyes when she withdrew.
Tamalane smiled and made a gentle caressing motion with both hands along
Sheeana's cheeks. "It's all right, dear. We all have these fears and sometimes
do foolish things because of them. But I am pleased to call you Sister."
Tell us, Tam! Now!
Tamalane did not choose to do that. She faced Odrade and said, "We must cling
to our humanity at any cost. Your lesson is well received and you have taught
Sheeana well."
"When Sheeana Shares with you, Dar," Bellonda began, "could you not reduce the
influence she has on Idaho?"
"I will not weaken a possible Mother Superior," Odrade said. "Thank you, Tam.
I think we will make our venture to Junction without excess baggage. Now! I
want a report by tonight on Teg's progress. His leech has been too long away
from him."
"Will he learn that he has two leeches now?" Sheeana asked.
Such joy in her!
Odrade stood.
If Tam accepts her then I must. Tam would never betray our Sisterhood. And
Sheeana -- of us all, Sheeana most reveals the natural traits from our human
roots. Still . . . I wish she had never created that statue she calls "The
Void."
Religion must be accepted as a source of energy. It can be directed for our
purposes, but only within limits that experience reveals. Here is the secret
meaning of Free Will.
-Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching
A thick cloud cover had moved over Central this morning and Odrade's workroom
took on a gray silence to which she felt herself responding with inner
stillness, as though she dared not move because that disturbed dangerous forces.
Murbella's day of Agony, she thought. I must not think of omens.
Weather had issued a peremptory warning about clouds. They were an accidental
displacement. Corrective measures were being taken but would require time.
Meanwhile, expect high winds, and there could be precipitation.
Sheeana and Tamalane stood at the window looking at this poorly controlled
weather. Their shoulders touched.
Odrade watched them from her chair behind the table. Those two had become like
a single person since yesterday's Sharing, not an unexpected occurrence.
Precedents were known, although not many of them. Exchanges, occurring in the
presence of poisonous spice essence or at an actual moment of death, did not
often allow further living contact between participants. It was interesting to
observe. The two backs were oddly alike in their rigidity.
The force of extremis that made Sharing possible dictated powerful changes in
personality and Odrade knew this with an intimacy that compelled tolerance.
Whatever it was Sheeana concealed, Tam also concealed. Something tied to
Sheeana's basic humanity. And Tam could be trusted. Until another Sister
Shared with one of them, Tam's judgment must be accepted. Not that watchdogs
would cease probing and observing minutiae but they needed no new crisis just
now.
"This is Murbella's day," Odrade said.
"The odds are long she won't survive," Bellonda said, hunched forward in her
chairdog. "What happens to our precious plan then?"
Our plan!
"Extremis," Odrade said.
In that context, it was a word with several meanings. Bellonda interpreted it
as a possibility of acquiring Murbella's persona-memories at the moment of her
death. "Then we must not permit Idaho to observe!"
"My order stands," Odrade said. "It's Murbella's wish and I have given my
word."
"Mistake . . . mistake . . ." Bellonda muttered.
Odrade knew the source of Bellonda's doubts. Visible to all of them: Somewhere
in Murbella lay something extremely painful. It caused her to shy away from
certain questions like an animal confronted by a predator. Whatever it was, the
thing went deep. Hypnotrance induction might not explain it.
"All right!" Odrade spoke loudly to emphasize it was for all of her listeners.
"It's not the way we've ever done it before. But we cannot take Duncan from the
ship so we must go to him. He will be present."
Bellonda was still well and truly shocked. No man, barring the damned Kwisatz
Haderach himself and his Tyrant son, had ever known the particulars of this Bene
Gesserit secret. Both of those monsters had felt the Agony. Two disasters! No
matter that the Tyrant's Agony had worked its way inward a cell at a time to
transform him into a sandworm symbiote (no more original worm, no more original
human). And Muad'Dib! He dared the Agony and look what came of that!
Sheeana turned from the window and took one step toward the table, giving Odrade
the curious feeling that the two women standing there had become a Janus figure:
back to back but only one persona.
"Bell is confused by your promise," Sheeana said. How soft her voice.
"He could be the catalyst to pull Murbella through," Odrade said. "You tend to
underestimate the power of love."
"No!" Tamalane spoke to the window in front of her. "We fear its power."
"Could be!" Bell still was scornful but that came naturally to her. The
expression on her face said she remained implacably stubborn.
"Hubris," Sheeana murmured.
"What?" Bellonda whirled in her chairdog, causing it to squeak with
indignation.
"We share a common failing with Scytale," Sheeana said.
"Oh?" Bellonda was gnawing at Sheeana's secret.
"We think we make history," Sheeana said. She returned to her position beside
Tamalane, both of them staring out the window.
Bellonda returned her attention to Odrade. "Do you understand that?"
Odrade ignored her. Let the Mentat work it out for herself. The projector on
the worktable clicked and a message was displayed. Odrade reported it. "Still
not ready at the ship." She looked at those two rigid backs in front of the
window.
History?
On Chapterhouse, there had been little of what Odrade liked to think of as
history-making before the Honored Matres. Only the steady graduation of
Reverend Mothers passing through the Agony.
Like a river.
It flowed and it went somewhere. You could stand on the bank (as Odrade
sometimes thought they did here) and you could observe the flow. A map might
tell you where the river went but no map could reveal more essential things. A
map could never show intimate movements of the river's cargo. Where did they
go? Maps had limited value in this age. A printout or projection from
Archives; that was not the map they required. There had to be a better one
somewhere, one attached to all of those lives. You could carry that map in your
memory and have it out occasionally for a closer look.
Whatever happened to the Reverend Mother Perinte we sent out last year?
The map-in-the-mind would take over and create a "Perinte Scenario." It was
really yourself on the river, of course, but this made little difference. It
still was the map they needed.
We don't like it that we're caught in someone else's currents, that we don't
know what may be revealed at the river's next bend. We always prefer overflight
even though any commanding position must remain part of other currents. Every
flow contains unpredictable things.
Odrade looked up to see her three companions watching her. Tamalane and Sheeana
had turned their backs to the window.
"Honored Matres have forgotten that clinging to any form of conservatism can be
dangerous," Odrade said. "Have we forgotten it as well?"
They continued to stare at her but they had heard. Become too conservative and
you were unprepared for surprises. That was what Muad'Dib had taught them, and
his Tyrant son had made the lesson forever unforgettable.
Bellonda's glum expression did not change.
In the deep recesses of Odrade's consciousness, Taraza whispered: "Careful,
Dar. I was lucky. Quick to grab advantage. Just as you are. But you cannot
depend on luck and that is what bothers them. Don't even expect luck. Much
better to trust your water images. Let Bell have her say."
"Bell," Odrade said, "I thought you accepted Duncan."
"Within limits." Definitely accusatory.
"I think we should go out to the ship." Sheeana spoke with demanding emphasis.
"This is not the place to wait. Do we fear what she may become?"
Tam and Sheeana turned toward the door simultaneously as though the same puppet
master controlled their strings.
Odrade found the interruption welcome. Sheeana's question alarmed them. What
could Murbella become? A catalyst, my Sisters. A catalyst.
The wind shook them when they emerged from Central and for once Odrade was
thankful for tube transport. Walking could await warmer temperatures without
this blustering minitempest tugging at their robes.
When they were seated in a private car, Bellonda once more took up her
accusatory refrain. "Everything he does could be camouflage."
Once more, Odrade voiced the oft-repeated Bene Gesserit warning to limit their
reliance on Mentats. "Logic is blind and often knows only its own past."
Tamalane chimed in with unexpected support. "You are getting paranoid, Bell!"
Sheeana spoke more softly. "I've heard you say, Bell, that logic is good for
playing pyramid chess but often too slow for needs of survival. "
Bellonda sat in glowering silence, only a faint hissing rumble of their tube
passage intruding on the quiet.
Wounds must not be taken into the ship.
Odrade matched her tone to Sheeana's: "Bell, dear Bell. We do not have time to
consider all ramifications of our plight. We no longer can say, 'If this
happens, then that must surely follow, and in such a case, our moves must be so
and so and so . . .' "
Bellonda actually chuckled. "Oh, my! The ordinary mind is such a clutter. And
I must not demand what we all need and cannot have -- sufficient time for every
plan."
It was Bellonda-Mentat speaking, telling them she knew she was flawed by pride
in her ordinary mind. What a badly organized, untidy place that was. Imagine
what the non-Mentat puts up with, imposing so little order. She reached across
the aisle and patted Odrade's shoulder.
"It's all right, Dar. I'll behave."
What would an outsider think, seeing that exchange? Odrade wondered. All four
of them acting in concert for the needs of one Sister.
For the needs of Murbella's Agony, as well.
People saw only the outside of this Reverend Mother mask they wore.
When we must (which is most of the time these days) we function at astonishing
levels of competence. No pride in that; a simple fact. But let us relax and we
hear gibberish at the edges as ordinary folk do. Ours merely has more volume.
We live our lives in little congeries like anyone else. Rooms of the mind,
rooms of the body.
Bellonda had composed herself, hands clasped in her lap. She knew what Odrade
planned and kept it to herself. It was a trust that went beyond Mentat
Projection into something more basically human. Projection was a marvelously
adaptable tool but a tool nonetheless. Ultimately, all tools depended on the
ones who used them. Odrade was at a loss how to show her thanks without
reducing trust.
I must walk my tightrope in silence.
She sensed the chasm beneath her, the nightmare image conjured by these
reflections. The unseen hunter with an axe was closer. Odrade wanted to turn
and identify the stalker but resisted. I will not make Muad'Dib's mistake! The
prescient warning she had first sensed on Dune in the ruins of Sietch Tabr would
not be exorcised until she ended or the Sisterhood ended. Did I create this
terrible threat by my fears? Surely not! Still, she felt she had stared at
Time in that ancient Fremen stronghold as though all past and all future were
frozen into a tableau that could not be changed. I must break free of you
utterly, Muad'Dib!
Their arrival at the Landing Flat pulled her from these fearful musings.
Murbella waited in rooms Proctors had prepared. At the center was a small
amphitheater about seven meters along its enclosing back wall. Padded benches
were stepped upward in a steep arc, seating for no more than twenty observers.
Proctors had left her without explanation on the lowest bench staring at a
suspensor-buoyed table. Straps hung over the sides to confine whoever lay on
it.
Me.
An astonishing series of rooms, she thought. She had never before been
permitted into this part of the ship. She felt exposed here, even more so than
she had under open sky. The smaller rooms through which they had brought her to
this amphitheater were clearly designed for medical emergencies: resuscitation
equipment, sanitary odors, antiseptics.
Her removal to this room had been peremptory, none of her questions answered.
Proctors had taken her from an advanced acolyte class in prana-bindu exercises.
They said only: "Mother Superior's orders."
The quality of her guardian Proctors told her much. Gentle but firm. They were
here to prevent flight and to make sure she went where ordered. I won't try to
escape!
Where was Duncan?
Odrade had promised he would be with her for the Agony. Did his absence mean
this was not to be her ultimate trial? Or had they concealed him behind some
secret wall through which he could see and not be seen?
I want him at my side!
Didn't they know how to rule her? Certainly they did!
Threaten to deprive me of this man. That's all it takes to hold me and satisfy
me. Satisfy! What a useless word. Complete me. That's better. I am less
when we're apart. He knows it, too, damn him.
Murbella smiled. How does he know it? Because he is completed in the same way.
How could this be love? She felt no weakening from the tugs of desire. Bene
Gesserit and Honored Matres alike said love weakened. She felt strengthened by
Duncan. Even his small attentions were strengthening. When he brought her a
steaming cup of stimtea in the morning, it was better coming from his hands.
Perhaps we have something more than love.
Odrade and companions entered the amphitheater at the uppermost tier and stood a
moment looking down at the figure seated below them. Murbella wore the whitetrimmed
long robe of a senior acolyte. She sat with elbow on knee, chin resting
on fist, her attention concentrated on the table.
She knows.
"Where is Duncan?" Odrade asked.
At her words, Murbella stood and turned. The question confirmed what she had
suspected.
"I'll find out," Sheeana said and left them.
Murbella waited in silence, matching Odrade stare for stare.
We must have her, Odrade thought. Never had the Bene Gesserit need been
greater. What an insignificant figure Murbella was down there to carry so much
in her person. The almost oval face with its widening at the brows revealed new
Bene Gesserit composure. Widely set green eyes, arched brows -- no squinting --
no more orange. Small mouth -- no more pouting.
She is ready.
Sheeana returned with Duncan at her side.
Odrade spared him a brief glance. Nervous. So Sheeana had told him. Good.
That was an act of friendship. He might need friends here.
"You will sit up here and remain here unless I call you," Odrade said. "Stay
with him, Sheeana."
Without being told, Tamalane flanked Duncan, one of them on each side. At a
gentle gesture from Sheeana, they sat.
Bellonda beside her, Odrade descended to Murbella's level and went to the table.
Oral syringes on the far side were ready to lift into position but remained
empty. Odrade gestured at the syringes and nodded to Bellonda, who went out a
side door in search of the Suk Reverend Mother in charge of spice essence.
Moving the table away from the back wall, Odrade began laying out straps and
adjusting pads. She moved methodically, checking that everything had been
provided on the small ledge beneath the table. Mouth pad to keep the Agonized
One from biting her tongue. Odrade felt it to be sure it was strong. Murbella
had a muscular jaw.
Murbella watched Odrade work, keeping silent, trying to make no disturbing
noises.
Bellonda returned with spice essence and proceeded to fill the syringes. The
poisonous essence had a pungent odor -- bitter cinnamon.
Catching Odrade's attention, Murbella said, "I'm grateful that you're
supervising this yourself."
"She's grateful!" Bellonda sneered, not looking up from her work.
"Leave this to me, Bell." Odrade kept her attention on Murbella.
Bellonda did not pause but something withdrawn took over her movements.
Bellonda effacing herself? It never ceased to astonish Murbella how acolytes
effaced themselves when they entered Mother Superior's presence. There but not
there. Murbella had never quite achieved this even when she left probation and
entered advanced status. Bellonda, too?
Staring hard at Murbella, Odrade said: "I know what reservations you hold in
your breast, limits you place on your commitment to us. Well and good. I make
no argument about that because, by and large, your reservations are very little
different from those held by any of us."
Candor.
"The difference, if you would know it, is in the sense of responsibility. I am
responsible for my Sisterhood . . . as much of it as still survives. They are a
deep responsibility and one I sometimes look at with a jaundiced eye."
Bellonda sniffed.
Odrade appeared not to notice this as she continued. "The Bene Gesserit
Sisterhood has gone somewhat sour since the Tyrant. Our contact with your
Honored Matres has not improved matters. Honored Matres have the stench of
death and decadence about them, going downhill into the great silence."
"Why do you tell me these things now?" Fear in Murbella's voice.
"Because, somehow, the worst of Honored Matre decadence did not touch you. Your
spontaneous nature, perhaps. Although that has been dampened somewhat since
Gammu."
"Your doing!"
"We've just taken a little wildness out of you, given you a better balance. You
can live longer and healthier because of it."
"If I survive this!" Jerk of her head toward the table behind her.
"Balance is what I want you to remember, Murbella. Homeostasis. Any group
choosing suicide when it has other options does so out of insanity. Homeostasis
gone haywire."
When Murbella looked at the floor, Bellonda snapped: "Listen to her, fool!
She's doing her best to help you."
"All right, Bell. This is between us."
When Murbella continued to stare at the floor, Odrade said: "This is Mother
Superior giving you an order. Look at me!"
Murbella's head snapped up and she stared into Odrade's eyes.
It was a tactic Odrade had used infrequently but with excellent results.
Acolytes could be reduced to hysteria by it and then taught how to deal with
their excessive response to emotions. Murbella appeared to be more angered than
fearful. Excellent! But now was a time for caution.
"You have complained about the slow pacing of your education," Odrade said. "It
was done with your needs foremost in our minds. Your key teachers all were
chosen for steadiness, none of them impulsive. My instructions were explicit:
'Don't give you too many abilities too rapidly. Don't open a floodgate of
powers that might be more than she can handle.' "
"How do you know what I can handle?" Still angry.
Odrade only smiled.
When Odrade continued silent, Murbella appeared flustered. Had she made a fool
of herself before Mother Superior, before Duncan and these others? How
humiliating.
Odrade reminded herself it was not good to make Murbella too conscious of her
vulnerability. A bad tactic just now. No need to provoke her. She had a sharp
sense of the germane, fitting herself into needs of the moment. That was the
thing they feared might have its source in a motivation always to choose the
path of least resistance. Let it not be that. Complete honesty now! The
ultimate tool of Bene Gesserit education. The classical technique that bound
acolyte to teacher.
"I will be at your side throughout your Agony. If you fail, I will grieve."
"Duncan?" Tears in her eyes.
"Any help he can give, he will be permitted to give."
Murbella looked up the rows of seats and, for a brief moment, her gaze locked
with Idaho's. He lifted slightly but Tamalane's hand on his shoulder restrained
him.
They may kill my beloved! Idaho thought. Must I sit here and just watch it
happen? But Odrade had said he would be permitted to help. There is no
stopping this now. I must trust Dar. But, gods below! She does not know the
depth of my grief, if . . . if . . . He closed his eyes.
"Bell." Odrade's voice carried a sense of casting off, a knife edge in its
brittleness.
Bellonda took Murbella's arm and helped her onto the table. It bounced slightly
adjusting to the weight.
This is the real chute, Murbella thought.
She had only the remotest sense of straps being fastened around her, of
purposeful movement beside her.
"This is the usual routine," Odrade said.