threatened. Dama did not court danger. She had done so once but that was long
ago, shut off behind her somewhere. Now, she wanted only to sit here in a safe
and well-organized cocoon where she could manipulate others.
Odrade found these observations a welcome affirmation of Bene Gesserit
deductions. The Sisterhood knew how to exploit this leverage.
"Have you nothing more to say?" Dama asked.
Stall for time.
Odrade ventured a question. " I am extremely curious why you agreed to this
meeting?"
"Why are you curious?"
"It seems so . . . so out of character for you."
"We determine what is in character for us!" Quite testy there.
"But what is it about us interests you?"
"You think we find you interesting?"
"Perhaps you even find us remarkable, because that is certainly how we look at
you."
A pleased expression made its fleeting appearance on Dama's face. "I knew you
would be fascinated by us."
"The exotic interests the exotic," Odrade said.
This brought a knowing smile to Dama's lips, the smile of someone whose pet has
been clever. She stood and went to the one window. Summoning Odrade to her
side, Dama gestured to a stand of trees beyond the first flowering bushes and
spoke in that soft accent so difficult to follow.
Something ticked off an inner alarm. Odrade fell into simulflow, seeking the
source. Something in the room or in Spider Queen? There was a lack of
spontaneity about the setting matched by much that Dama did. So all of this was
designed to create an effect. Carefully schemed.
Is this one really my Spider Queen? Or is there a more powerful one watching
us?
Odrade explored this thought, sorting swiftly. It was a process that provided
more questions than answers, a mental shorthand akin to that of Mentats. Sort
for relevance and bring up the latent (but orderly) backgrounds. Order
generally was a product of human activity. Chaos existed as raw material from
which to create order. That was the Mentat approach, giving no unalterable
truths but a remarkable lever for decision-making: orderly assemblage of data
in a non-discrete system.
She arrived at a Projective.
They revel in chaos! Prefer it! Adrenaline addicts!
So Dama was Dama, Great Honored Matre. Forever the patroness, forever the
superior.
There is no greater one watching us. But Dama believes this is bargaining. One
would think she had never done it before. Precisely!
Dama touched an unmarked place below the window and the wall folded back,
revealing that the window was but an artful projection. The way was opened onto
a high balcony paved with dark green tiles. It overlooked plantations much
different from those in the window projection. Here was chaos preserved,
wilderness left to its own devices and made more remarkable by ordered gardens
in the distance. Brambles, fallen trees, thick bushes. And beyond: evenly
spaced rows of what appeared to be vegetables with automated harvesters passing
back and forth, leaving bare ground behind them.
Love of chaos, indeed!
Spider Queen smiled and led the way onto the balcony.
As she emerged, Odrade once more was stopped by what she saw. A decoration on
the parapet to her left. A life-size figure shaped from an almost ethereal
substance, all feathery planes and curved surfaces.
When she squinted at the figure, Odrade saw it was intended to represent a
human. Male or female? In some positions male, and in some female. Planes and
curves responded to vagrant breezes. Thin, almost invisible wires (looked to be
shigawire) suspended it from a delicately curving tube anchored in a translucent
mound. The lower extremities of the figure almost touched the pebbled surface
of the supporting base.
Odrade stared, captivated.
Why does it remind me of Sheeana's "The Void"?
When the wind moved it, the whole creation appeared to dance, relapsing
sometimes into a graceful walk, then a slow pirouette and sweeping turns with
outstretched leg.
"It is called 'Ballet Master,' " Dama said. "In some winds it will kick its
feet high. I have seen it running as gracefully as a marathoner. Sometimes it
is just ugly little motions, arms jerking as though they held weapons.
Beautiful and ugly -- it is all the same. I think the artist misnamed it.
'Being Unknown' would have been better."
Beautiful and ugly -- all the same. Being Unknown.
That was a terrible thing about Sheeana's creation. Odrade felt a cold wash of
fear. "Who was the artist?"
"I've no idea. One of my predecessors took it from a planet we were destroying.
Why does it interest you?"
It's the wild thing no one can govern. But she said: "I presume we're both
seeking a basis for understanding, trying to find similarities between us."
This brought the orange glare. "You may try to understand us but we have no
need to understand you."
"Both of us come from societies of women."
"It is dangerous to think of us as your offshoots!"
But Murbella's evidence says you are. Formed in the Scattering by Fish Speakers
and Reverend Mothers in extremis.
All ingenuous and fooling nobody, Odrade asked: "Why is that dangerous?"
Dama's laugh conveyed no amusement. Vindictive.
Odrade experienced an abrupt new assessment of danger. More than a Bene
Gesserit probe-and-review was demanded here. These women were accustomed to
killing when angered. A reflex. Dama had said as much when speaking to her
aide, and Dama had just signaled there were limits to her tolerance.
Yet, in her own way, she is trying to bargain. She displays her mechanical
marvels, her powers, her wealth. No offer of alliance. Be willing servants,
witches, our slaves, and we will forgive much . To gain the last of the Million
Planets? More than that, certainly, but an interesting number.
With a new caution, Odrade reformed her approach. Reverend Mothers too easily
fell into an adaptive pattern. I am, of course, quite different from you but I
will unbend for the sake of accord. That would not do with Honored Matres.
They would accept nothing to suggest they were not in absolute control. It was
a statement of Dama's superiority over her Sisters that she allowed Odrade so
much latitude.
Once more, Dama spoke in her imperious manner.
Odrade listened. How odd that Spider Queen thought one of the most attractive
things the Bene Gesserit could provide was immunity from new diseases.
Was that the form of attack that drove them here?
Her sincerity was naive. None of this tiresome periodic checking to see if you
had acquired secret inhabitants in your flesh. Sometimes not so secret.
Sometimes disgustingly perilous. But the Bene Gesserit could end all that and
would be suitably rewarded.
How pleasant.
Still that vindictive tone in every word. Odrade caught herself in this
thought: Vindictive? That did not catch the proper flavor. Something carried
at a deeper level.
Unconsciously jealous of what you lost when you broke away from us!
This was another pattern and it had been stylized!
Honored Matres fell back on repetitious mannerisms.
Mannerisms we abandoned long ago.
This was more than refusal to recognize Bene Gesserit origins. This was garbage
disposal.
Drop your discards wherever they lose your interest. Underlings take out the
garbage. She is more concerned with the next thing she wants to consume than
she is with fouling her own nest.
The Honored Matre flaw was larger than suspected. Much more deadly to
themselves and all they controlled. And they could not face it because, to
them, it was not there.
Never existed.
Dama remained an untouchable paradox. No question of alliance entered her mind.
She would seem to dance up to it but only to test her enemy.
I was right after all to unleash Teg.
Logno came out of the workroom with a tray on which stood two spindly glasses
almost filled with golden liquid. Dama took one, sniffed it, and sipped with a
pleased expression.
What is that vicious glitter in Logno's eyes?
"Try some of this wine," Dama said, gesturing to Odrade. "It's from a planet
I'm sure you've never heard of but where we have concentrated the required
elements to produce the perfect golden grape for the perfect golden wine."
Odrade was caught by this long association of humans with their precious ancient
drink. The god Bacchus. Berries fermented on the bush or in tribal containers.
"It is not poisoned," Dama said as Odrade hesitated. "I assure you. We kill
where it suits our needs but we are not crass. We reserve our more blatant
deadliness for the masses. I do not mistake you for one of the masses."
Dama chuckled at her own witticism. The labored friendliness was almost gross.
Odrade took the proffered glass and sipped.
"It's a thing someone devised to please us," Dama said, her attention fixed on
Odrade.
The one sip was enough. Odrade's senses detected a foreign substance and she
was several heartbeats identifying its purpose.
To nullify the shere protecting me from their probes.
She adjusted her metabolism to render the substance harmless, then announced
what she had done.
Dama glared at Logno. "So that is why none of these things work with the
witches! And you never suspected!" The rage was an almost physical force
directed at the hapless aide.
"It is one of the immune systems with which we combat disease," Odrade said.
Dama hurled her glass to the tiles. She was some time regaining composure.
Logno retreated slowly, holding the tray almost as a shield.
So Dama did more than sneak into power. Her Sisters consider her deadly. And
so must I consider her.
"Someone will pay for this wasted effort," Dama said. Her smile was not
pleasant.
Someone.
Someone made the wine. Someone made the dancing figure. Someone will pay. The
identity was never important, only the pleasure or the need for retribution.
Subservience.
"Do not interrupt my thoughts," Dama said. She went to the parapet and gazed at
her Being Unknown, obviously recomposing her bargaining stance.
Odrade turned her attention to Logno. What was that continued watchfulness,
rapt attention fixed on Dama? No longer simple fear. Logno suddenly appeared
supremely dangerous.
Poison!
Odrade knew it as certainly as though the aide had shouted the word.
I am not Logno's target. Not yet. She has taken this opportunity to make her
bid for power.
There was no need to look at Dama. The moment of Spider Queen's death was
visible on Logno's face. Turning, Odrade confirmed it. Dama lay in a heap
under Being Unknown.
"You will call me Great Honored Matre," Logno said. "And you will learn to
thank me for it. She (pointing at the red heap in the balcony corner) intended
to betray you and exterminate your people. I have other plans. I am not one to
destroy a useful weapon at the moment of our greatest need."
Battle? There's always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere.
-The Bashar Teg
Murbella watched the struggle for Junction with a detachment that did not
reflect her feelings. She stood with a coterie of Proctors in her no-ship's
command center, attention fixed on relay projections from groundside comeyes.
There were battles all around Junction -- bursts of light on darkside, gray
eruptions on dayside. A major engagement directed by Teg centered on "the
Citadel" -- a giant mound of Guild design with a new tower near its rim.
Although Odrade's vital-signs transmissions had stopped abruptly, her early
reports confirmed that Great Honored Matre was in there.
The need to observe from a distance helped Murbella's sense of detachment but
she felt the excitement.
Interesting times!
This ship contained precious cargo. The millions from Lampadas were being
Shared and prepared for Scattering in a suite ordinarily reserved for Mother
Superior. The wild Sister with her cargo of Memory dominated their priorities
here.
Golden Egg for sure!
Murbella thought of the lives being risked in that suite. Preparing for the
worst. No lack of volunteers and the threat in the Junction conflict minimized
need for spice poison to ignite Sharings, reducing danger. Anyone on this ship
could sense all-or-nothing in Odrade's gamble. Imminent threat of death was
recognized. Sharing necessary!
Transformation of a Reverend Mother into sets of memories passed around at
perilous cost among the Sisters no longer carried a mysterious aura for her, but
Murbella still was awed by the responsibility. The courage of Rebecca . . . and
Lucilla! . . . demanded admiration.
Millions of Memory Lives! All concentrated in what the Sisterhood called
Extremis Progressiva, two by two then four by four and sixteen by sixteen, until
each held all of them and any survivor could preserve the precious accumulation.
What they were doing in Mother Superior's suite had some of that flavor. The
concept no longer terrified Murbella but it was not yet ordinary. Odrade's
words comforted.
"Once you have fully accommodated to the bundles of Other Memory, all else falls
into a perspective that is utterly familiar, as though you had known it always."
Murbella recognized that Teg was prepared to die in defense of this multiple
awareness that was the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit.
Can I do less?
Teg, no longer completely an enigma, remained an object of respect. Odrade
Within amplified this with reminders of his exploits, then: "I wonder how I'm
doing down there? Ask."
Comcommand said, "No word. But her transmissions may have been blocked by
energy shielding."
They knew who really asked the question. It was on their faces.
She has Odrade!
Murbella again focused on the battle at the Citadel.
Her own reactions surprised Murbella. Everything colored by historical disgust
at repetition of war's nonsense, but still this exuberant spirit reveling in
newly acquired Bene Gesserit abilities.
Honored Matre forces had good weapons down there, she noted, and Teg's heatabsorption
pads were taking punishment but even as she watched, the defensive
perimeter collapsed. She could hear howling as a large Idaho-designed disrupter
went bouncing down a passage between tall trees, knocking out defenders right
and left.
Other Memory gave her a peculiar comparison. It was like a circus. Ships
landing, disgorging their human cargoes.
"In the center ring! The Spider Queen! Acts never before seen by the human
eye!"
Odrade's persona produced a sense of amusement. How's this for closeness of
sisterhood?
Are you dead down there, Dar? You must be. Spider Queen will blame you and be
enraged.
Trees placed long afternoon shadows across Teg's lane of attack, she saw.
Inviting cover. He ordered his people to go around. Ignore inviting avenues.
Look for hard ways to approach and use them.
The Citadel lay in a gigantic botanical garden, strange trees and even stranger
bushes mingled with prosaic plantings, all scattered around as though thrown
there by a dancing child.
Murbella found the circus metaphor attractive. It gave perspective to what she
witnessed.
Announcements in her mind.
Over there, dancing animals, defenders of Spider Queen, all bound to obey! And
in the first ring, the main event, supervised by our Ringmaster, Miles Teg! His
people do mysterious things. Here is the talent!
It had aspects of a staged battle in the Roman Circus. Murbella appreciated the
allusion. It made observation richer.
Battle towers filled with armored soldiers approach. They engage. Flames cut
the sky. Bodies fall.
But these were real bodies, real pains, real deaths. Bene Gesserit
sensitivities forced her to regret the waste.
Is this how it was for my parents caught in the sweep?
Metaphors from Other Memory vanished. She saw Junction then as she knew Teg
must see it. Bloody violence, familiar in memory and yet new. She saw
attackers advancing, heard them.
Woman's voice, distinct with shock: "That bush screamed at me!"
Another voice, male: "No telling where some of this originated. That sticky
stuff burns your skin."
Murbella heard action on the far side of the Citadel but it grew eerily quiet
around Teg's position. She saw his troops flitting through shadows, closing in
on the tower. There was Teg on Streggi's shoulders. He took a moment to stare
up at the facade confronting them about half a klick away. She chose a
projection that looked where he looked. Motion behind windows there.
Where were the mysterious last-ditch weapons Honored Matres were supposed to
possess?
What will he do now?
Teg had lost his Command Pod to a laser hit outside the main engagement area.
The pod lay on its side behind him and he sat astride Streggi's shoulders in a
patch of screening bushes, some still smoldering. He had lost his comboard with
the pod but retained the silvery horseshoe of his comlink, although it was
crippled without the pod's amplifiers. Communications specialist crouched
nearby, jittering because they had lost close contact with the action.
The battle beyond the buildings grew louder. He heard hoarse shouts, the high
hissing of burners and the lower buzz of large lasguns mingled with tinny zipzips
of hand weapons. Somewhere off there to his left was a thrum-thrum he
recognized as heavy armor in trouble. A scraping sound with it, metal agony.
Energy system damaged in that one. It was dragging itself over the ground,
probably making a mess of the gardens.
Haker, Teg's personal aide, came dodging down the lane behind the Bashar.
Streggi noticed him first and turned without warning, forcing Teg to look at the
man. Haker, dark and muscular, with heavy eyebrows (sweat-dampened now) stopped
directly in front of Teg and spoke before fully regaining his breath.
"We have the last pockets bottled up, Bashar."
Haker raised his voice to override the battle sounds and a buzzing squawker over
his left shoulder producing low conversations, battle urgency in clipped tones.
"The far perimeter?" Teg demanded.
"Mop up in half an hour, no more. You should get out of here, Bashar. Mother
Superior warned us to keep you out of needless danger."
Teg gestured at his useless pod. "Why don't I have a Communications backup?"
"A big laze got both backups in the same burn as they were coming in.
"They were together?"
Haker heard the anger. "Sir, they were . . ."
"No important equipment is sent in together. I'll want to know who disobeyed
orders." The quiet voice from immature vocal cords carried more menace than a
shout.
"Yes, Bashar." Strictly obedient and no sign from Haker that the mistake was
his own.
Damn! "How soon will replacements arrive?"
"Five minutes."
"Get my reserve pod in here as fast as you can." Teg touched Streggi's neck
with a knee.
Haker spoke before she could turn. "Bashar, they got the reserve, too. I've
ordered another."
Teg repressed a sigh. These things happened in battle but he didn't like
depending on primitive coms. "We'll set up here. Get more squawkers." They,
at least, had the range.
Haker glanced at the greenery around them. "Here?"
"I don't like the look of those buildings up ahead. That tower commands this
area. And they must have underground access. I would."
"There's nothing on the . . ."
"My memory layout doesn't include that tower. Get sonics in here to check the
ground. I want our plan brought up to the minute with secure information."
Haker's squawker came alive with an override voice: "Bashar! Is the Bashar
available?"
Streggi moved him next to Haker without being told. Teg took the squawker,
whistling his code as he grabbed it.
"Bashar, it's a mess at the Flat. About a hundred of them tried to lift and ran
into our screen. No survivors."
"Any sign of Mother Superior or her Spider Queen?"
"Negative. We can't tell. I mean it's a real mess. Shall I screen a view?"
"Get me a dispatch. And keep looking for Odrade!"
"I tell you nothing survived here, Bashar." There was a click and a low hum,
then another voice: "Dispatch."
Teg brought his voice-print coder from beneath his chin and barked quick orders.
"Scramble a hammership over the Citadel. Put the scene at the Landing Flat and
their other disasters on open relay. All bands. Make sure they can see it.
Announce no survivors at the Flat. "
The double click of received-confirmed broke the link. Haker said: "Do you
really think you can terrify them?"
"Educate them." He repeated Odrade's parting words: "Their education has been
sadly neglected."
What had happened to Odrade? He felt sure she must be dead, perhaps the first
casualty here. She had expected that. Dead but not lost if Murbella could
restrain her impetuosity.
Odrade, at that moment, had Teg in direct sight from the tower. Logno had
silenced her vital-signs transmissions with a countersignal shield and had
brought her to the tower shortly after the arrival of the first refugees from
Gammu. No one questioned Logno's supremacy. A dead Great Honored Matre and a
live one could only be something familiar.
Expecting to be killed at any moment, Odrade still gathered data as she went up
in a nulltube with guards. The tube was an artifact from the Scattering, a
transparent piston in a transparent cylinder. Few obstructing walls at the
floors they passed. Mostly views of living areas and esoteric hardware Odrade
surmised had military purposes. Lush evidence of comfort and quiet increased
the higher they went.
Power climbs physically as well as psychologically.
Here they were at the top. A section of the tube cylinder swung outward and a
guard pushed her roughly onto a thickly carpeted floor.
The workroom Dana showed me down there was another set piece.
Odrade recognized secrecy. Equipment and furnishings here would have been
almost unrecognizable were it not for Murbella's knowledge. So other action
centers were for show. Potemkin villages built for Reverend Mother.
Logno lied about Dama's intentions. I was expected to leave unharmed . . .
carrying no useful information.
What other lies had they paraded in front of her?
Logno and all but one guard went to a console on Odrade's right. Pivoting on
one foot, Odrade looked around. This was the real center. She studied it with
care. Odd place. An aura of the sanitary. Treated with chemicals to make it
clean. No bacterial or viral contaminants. No strangers in the blood.
Everything debugged like a showcase for rare viands. And Dama showed interest
in Bene Gesserit immunity to diseases. There was bacterial warfare in the
Scattering.
They want one thing from us!
And just one surviving Reverend Mother would satisfy them if they could wrest
information from her.
A full Bene Gesserit cadre would have to examine the strands of this web and see
where they led.
If we win.
The operations console where Logno concentrated her attention was smaller than
the showcase ones. Fingerfield manipulation. The hood on a low table beside
Logno was smaller and transparent, revealing the medusa tangle of probes.
Shigawire for sure.
The hood showed a close affinity to T-probes from the Scattering Teg and others
had described. Did these women possess more technological marvels? They must.
A glittering wall behind Logno, windows on her left opening onto a balcony, a
far vista of Junction visible out there with movement of troops and armor. She
recognized Teg in the distance, a figure on the shoulders of an adult, but gave
no sign she saw anything extraordinary. She continued her slow study. Door to
a passage with another nulltube partly visible in a separate area to her
immediate left. More green tile on the floor there. Different functions in
that space.
A sudden burst of noises erupted beyond the wall. Odrade identified some of
them. Boots of soldiers made a distinctive sound on tiles. Swish of exotic
fabrics. Voices. She distinguished accents of Honored Matres responding to
each other in tones of shock.
We're winning!
Shock was to be expected when the invincible were brought low. She studied
Logno. Would it be a plunge into despair?
If so, I may survive.
Murbella's role might be changed. Well, that could wait. Sisters had been
briefed on what to do in the event of victory. Neither they nor anyone else in
the attack force would lay rough hands on an Honored Matre -- erotic or
otherwise. Duncan had prepared the men, making the perils of sexual entrapment
thoroughly known.
Risk no bondage. Raise no new antagonisms.
The new Spider Queen was revealed now as someone even stranger than Odrade had
suspected. Logno left her console and came to within a pace of Odrade. "You
have won this battle. We are your prisoners."
No orange in her eyes. Odrade swept her gaze around at the women who had been
her guards. Blank expressions, clear eyes. Was this how they showed despair?
It did not feel right. Logno and the others revealed no expected emotional
responses.
Everything under wraps?
Events of the past hours should create emotional crisis. Logno gave no sign of
it. Not a twitch of revealing nerve or muscle. Perhaps a casual concern and
that was all.
A Bene Gesserit mask!
It had to be unconscious, something automatic ignited by defeat. So they did
not really accept defeat.
We are still in there with them. Latent . . . but there! No wonder Murbella
almost died. She was confronting her own genetic past as a supreme prohibition.
"My companions," Odrade said. "The three women who came with me. Where are
they?"
"Dead." Logno's voice was as dead as the word.
Odrade suppressed a pang for Suipol. Tam and Dortujla had lived long and useful
lives, but Suipol . . . dead and never Shared.
Another good one lost. And isn't that a bitter lesson!
"I will identify the ones responsible if you desire revenge," Logno said.
Lesson two.
"Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded."
A small return of orange in Logno's eyes.
Human self-delusion took many forms, Odrade reminded herself. Aware that the
Scattering would produce the unexpected, she had armed herself accordingly with
a protective remoteness that would allow her a space to assess new places, new
things and new people. She had known she would be forced to put many things in
different categories to serve her or deflect threats. She took Logno's attitude
as a threat.
"You do not seem disturbed, Great Honored Matre."
"Others will avenge me." Flat, very self-composed.
The words were even stranger than her composure. She held everything under that
close cover, bits and pieces revealed now in flickering movements aroused by
Odrade's observation. Deep and intense things, but buried. It was all inside
there, masked the way a Reverend Mother would mask it. Logno appeared to have
no power at all and yet she spoke as though nothing essential had changed.
"I am your captive but that makes no difference."
Was she truly powerless? No! But that was the impression she wished to convey
and all of the other Honored Matres around her mirrored this response.
"See us? Powerless except for the loyalty of our Sisters and the followers they
have bonded to us."
Were Honored Matres that confident of their vengeful legions? Possible only if
they had never before suffered a defeat of this kind. Yet someone had driven
them back into the Old Empire. Into the Million Planets.
Teg found Odrade and her captives while seeking a place to assess victory.
Battle always required its analytical aftermath, especially from a Mentat
commander. It was a comparison test this battle demanded of him more than any
other in his experience. This conflict would not be lodged in memory until
assessed and shared as far as possible among those who depended on him. It was
his invariable pattern and he did not care what it revealed about him. Break
that link of interlocking interests and you prepared yourself for defeat.
I need a quiet place to assemble the threads of this battle and make a
preliminary summary.
In his estimation, a most difficult problem of battle was to conduct it in a way
that did not release human wildness. A Bene Gesserit dictum. Battle must be
conducted to bring out the best in those who survived. Most difficult and
sometimes all but impossible. The more remote the soldier from carnage, the
more difficult. It was one reason Teg always tried to move to the battle scene
and examine it personally. If you did not see the pain, you could easily cause
greater pain without second thoughts. That was the Honored Matre pattern. But
their pains had been brought home. What would they make of this?
That question was in his mind as he and aides emerged from the tube to see
Odrade confronting a party of Honored Matres.
"Here is our commander, the Bashar Miles Teg," Odrade said, gesturing.
Honored Matres stared at Teg.
A child riding on the shoulders of an adult? This is their commander?
"Ghola," Logno muttered.
Odrade spoke to Haker. "Take these prisoners somewhere nearby where they can be
comfortable."
Haker did not move until Teg nodded, then politely indicated that captives
should precede him into the tiled area on their left. Teg's dominance was not
lost on Honored Matres. They glowered at him as they obeyed Haker's invitation.
Men ordering women about!
With Odrade beside him, Teg touched a knee to Streggi's neck and they went onto
the balcony. There was an oddity to the scene that he was a moment identifying.
He had viewed many battle scenes from high vantages, most often from a scout
'thopter. This balcony was fixed in space, giving him a sense of immediacy.
They stood about one hundred meters above the botanical gardens where much of
the fiercest conflict had taken place. Many bodies lay sprawled in final
dislodgment -- dolls thrown aside by departing children. He recognized uniforms
of some of his troops and felt a pang.
Could I have done something to prevent this?
He had known this feeling many times and called it "Command Guilt." But this
scene was different, not just in that uniqueness found in any battle but in a
way that nagged at him. He decided it was partly the landscaped setting, a
place better suited to garden parties, now torn by an ancient pattern of
violence.
Small animals and birds were returning, nervously furtive after the upset of all
that noisy human intrusion. Little furry creatures with long tails sniffed at
casualties and scampered up neighboring trees for no apparent reason. Colorful
birds peered from screening foliage or flitted across the scene -- lines of
blurred pigmentation that became camouflage when they ducked abruptly under
leaves. Feathered accents to the scene, trying to restore that non-tranquility
human observers mistook for peace in such settings. Teg knew better. In his
pre-ghola life, he had grown up surrounded by wilderness: farm life close by
but wild animals just beyond cultivation. It was not tranquil out there.
With that observation he recognized what had tugged at his awareness.
Considering the fact they had stormed a well-manned defensive emplacement
occupied by heavily armed defenders, the number of casualties down there was
extremely small. He had seen nothing to explain this since entering the
Citadel. Were they caught off-balance? Their losses in space were one thing --
his ability to see defender ships produced a devastating advantage. But this
complex held prepared positions where defenders could have fallen back and made
the assault more costly. Collapse of Honored Matre resistance had been abrupt
and now it remained unexplained.
I was wrong to assume they responded to display of their disasters.
He glanced at Odrade. "That Great Honored Matre in there, did she give the
command for defense to stop?"
"That's my assumption."
Cautious and a typical Bene Gesserit answer. She, too, was subjecting the scene
to careful observation.
Was her assumption a reasonable explanation for the abruptness with which
defenders threw down their arms?
Why would they do it? To prevent more bloodshed?
Given the callousness Honored Matres usually demonstrated, that was unlikely.
The decision had been made for reasons that plagued him.
A trap?
Now that he thought about it, there were other strange things about the battle
scene. None of the usual calls from wounded, no scurrying about with cries for
stretchers and medics. He could see Suks moving among the bodies. That, at
least, was familiar, but every figure they examined was left where it had
fallen.
All dead? No wounded?
He experienced gripping fear. Not an unusual fear in battle but he had learned
to read it. Something profoundly wrong. Noises, things within his view, the
smells took on a new intensity. He felt himself acutely attuned, a predatory
animal in the jungle, knowing his terrain but aware of something intrusive that
must be identified lest he become hunted instead of hunter. He registered his
surroundings at a different level of consciousness, reading himself as well,
searching out arousal patterns that had achieved this response. Streggi
trembled beneath him. So she felt his distress.
"Something's very wrong here," Odrade said.
He pushed a hand at her, demanding silence. Even in this tower surrounded by
victorious troops, he felt exposed to a threat his clamoring senses failed to
reveal.
Danger!
He was sure of it. The unknown frustrated him. It required every bit of his
training to keep from falling into a nervous fugue.
Nudging Streggi to turn, Teg barked an order to an aide standing in the balcony
doorway. The aide listened quietly and ran to obey. They must get casualty
figures. How many wounded compared to deaths? Reports on captured weapons.
Urgent!
When he returned to his examination of the scene, he saw another disturbing
thing, a basic oddity his eyes had tried to report. Very little blood on those
fallen figures in Bene Gesserit uniforms. You expected battle casualties to
show that ultimate evidence of common humanity -- flowing red that darkened on
exposure but always left its indelible mark in the memories of those who saw it.
Lack of bloody carnage was an unknown and, in warfare, unknowns had a history of
bringing extreme peril.
He spoke softly to Odrade. "They have a weapon we have not discovered."
Do not be quick to reveal judgment. Hidden judgment often is more potent. It
can guide reactions whose effects are felt only when too late to divert them.
-Bene Gesserit Advice to Postulants
Sheeana smelled worms at a distance: cinnamon undertones of melange mingled
with bitter flint and brimstone, the crystal-banked inferno of the great Rakian
sand-eaters. But she sensed these tiny descendents only because they existed
out there in such numbers.
They are so small.
It had been hot here at Desert Watch today and now in late afternoon she
welcomed the artificially cooled interior. There was a tolerable temperature
adjustment in her old quarters although the window on the west had been left
open. Sheeana went to that window and stared out at glaring sand.
Memory told her what this vantage would be tonight: starlight bright in dry
air, thin illumination on sand waves that reached to a darkly curved horizon.
She remembered Rakian moons and missed them. Stars alone did not satisfy her
Fremen heritage.
She had thought of this as retreat, a place and time to think about what was
happening to her Sisterhood.
Axlotl tanks, Cyborgs, and now this.
Odrade's plan held no mysteries since their Sharing. A gamble? And if it
succeeded?
We will know perhaps tomorrow and then what will we become?
She admitted to a magnet in Desert Watch, more than a place to consider
consequences. She had walked in sun-scorched heat today, proving to herself she
could still call worms with her dance, emotion expressed as action.
Dance of Propitiation. My language of the worms.
She had gone dervish-whirling on a dune until hunger shattered her memorytrance.
And little worms were spread all around in gaping watchfulness,
remembered flames within the frames of crystal teeth.
But why so small?
The words of investigators explained but did not satisfy. "It is the dampness."
Sheeana recalled giant Shai-hulud of Dune, "the Old Man of the Desert," large
enough to swallow spice factories, ring surfaces hard as plascrete. Masters in
their own domain. God and devil in the sands. She sensed the potential from
her window vantage.
Why did the Tyrant choose symbiotic existence in a worm?
Did those tiny worms carry his endless dream?
Sandtrout inhabited this desert. Accept them as a new skin and she might follow
the Tyrant's path.
Metamorphosis. The Divided God.
She knew the lure.
Do I dare?
Memories of her last moments of ignorance came over her -- barely eight then,
the month of Igat on Dune.
Not Rakis. Dune, as my ancestors named it.
Not difficult to recall herself as she had been: a slender, dark-skinned child,
streaked brown hair. Melange hunter (because that was a task for children)
running into open desert with childhood companions. How dear it felt in memory.
But memory had its darker side. Focusing attention into the nostrils, a girl
detected intense odors -- a pre-spice mass!
The Blow!
Melange explosion brought Shaitan. No sandworm could resist a spice blow in its
territory.
You ate it all, Tyrant, that miserable collection of shacks and hovels we called
"home" and all of my friends and family. Why did you spare me?
What a rage had shaken that slender child. Everything she loved taken by a
giant worm that refused her attempts to sacrifice herself in its flames and
carried her into the hands of Rakian priests, thence to the Bene Gesserit.
"She talks to the worms and they spare her."
"They who spared me are not spared by me." That was what she had told Odrade.
And now Odrade knows what I must do. You cannot suppress the wild thing, Dar.
I dare call you Dar now that you are within me.
No response.
Was there a pearl of Leto II's awareness in each of the new sandworms? Her
Fremen ancestors insisted on it.
Someone handed her a sandwich. Walli, the senior acolyte assistant who had
assumed command of Desert Watch.
At my insistence when Odrade elevated me to the Council. But not just because
Walli learned my immunity to Honored Matre sexual bonding. And not because she
is sensitive to my needs. We speak a secret language, Walli and I.
Walli's large eyes no longer were entrances to her soul. They were filmed
barriers giving evidence she already knew how to block probing stares; a light
blue pigmentation that soon would be all blue if she survived the Agony. Almost
albino and a questionable genetic line for breeding. Walli's skin reinforced
this judgment: pale and freckled. A skin you saw as a surface transparency.
You did not focus on the skin itself but on what lay beneath: pink, bloodsuffused
flesh unprotected from a desert sun. Only here in the shade could
Walli expose that sensitive surface to questioning eyes.
Why this one in command over us?
Because I trust her best to do what must be done.
Sheeana ate the sandwich absently while she returned her attention to the
sandscape. The whole planet thus one day. Another Dune? No . . . similar but
different. How many such places are we creating in an infinite universe?
Senseless question.
Desert vagary placed a small black dot in the distance. Sheeana squinted.
Ornithopter. It grew slowly larger and then smaller. Quartering the sand.
Inspecting.
What are we really creating here?
When she looked at encroaching dunes, she sensed hubris.
Look upon my works, tiny human, and despair.
But we did this, my Sisters and I.
Did you?
"I can feel a new dryness in the heat," Walli said.
Sheeana agreed. No need to speak. She went to the large worktable while she
still had daylight to study the topomap spread out there: little flags sticking
in it, green thread on pushpins just as she had designed it.
Odrade had asked once: "Is this really preferable to a projection?"
"I need to touch it."
Odrade accepted that.
Projections palled. Too far removed from dirt. You could not draw a finger
down a projection and say, "We will go down here." A finger in a projection was
a finger in empty air.
Eyes are never enough. The body must feel its world.
Sheeana detected pungency of male perspiration, a musty smell of exertion. She
lifted her head and saw a dark young man standing in the doorway, arrogant pose,
arrogant look.
"Oh," he said. "I thought you would be alone, Walli. I'll come back later."
One piercing stare at Sheeana and he was gone.
There are many things the body must feel to know them.
"Sheeana, why are you here?" Walli asked.
You who are so busy on the Council, what do you seek? Don't you trust me?
"I came to consider what the Missionaria still thinks I may do. They see a
weapon -- the myths of Dune. Billions pray to me: 'The Holy One who spoke to
the Divided God.' "
"Billions is not an adequate number," Walli said.
"But it measures the force my Sisters see in me. Those worshipers believe I
died with Dune. I've become 'a powerful spirit in the pantheon of the
oppressed.' "
"More than a missionary?"
"What might happen, Walli, if I appeared in that waiting universe, a sandworm
beside me? The potential of such a thing fills some of my Sisters with hope and
misgivings."
"Misgivings I understand."
Indeed. The very kind of religious implant Muad'Dib and his Tyrant son set
loose on unsuspecting humankind.
"Why do they even consider it?" Walli insisted.
"With me as fulcrum, what a lever they would have to move the universe!"
"But how could they control such a force?"
"That is the problem. Something so inherently unstable. Religions are never
really controllable. But some Sisters think they could aim a religion built
around me."
"And if their aim is poor?"
"They say the religions of women always flow deeper."
"True?" Questioning a superior source.
Sheeana could only nod. Other Memory confirmed it.
"Why?"
"Because within us, life renews itself."
"That's all of it?" Openly doubting.
"Women often bear the aura of underdog. Humans reserve a special sympathy for
ones at the bottom. I am a woman and if Honored Matres want me dead then I must
be blessed."
"You sound as though you agree with the Missionaria."
"When you're one of the hunted, you consider any path of escape. I am revered.
I cannot ignore the potential."
Nor the danger. So my name has become a shining light in the darkness of
Honored Matre oppression. How easy for that light to become a consuming flame!
No . . . the plan she and Duncan had worked out was better. Escape from
Chapterhouse. It was a death trap not only for its inhabitants but for Bene
Gesserit dreams.
"I still don't understand why you're here. We may no longer be hunted."
"May?"
"But why just now?"
I cannot speak it openly because then the watchdogs would know.
"I have this fascination with worms. It's partly because one of my ancestors
led the original migration to Dune."
You remember this, Walli. We spoke of it once out there on the sand with only
the two of us to hear. And now you know why I have come visiting.
"I remember you saying she was a proper Fremen."
"And a Zensunni Master."
I will lead my own migration, Walli. But I will need worms only you can
provide. And it must be done quickly. The reports from Junction urge speed.
And the first ships will return soon. Tonight . . . tomorrow. I fear what they
bring.
"Are you still interested in taking a few worms back to Central where you can
study them closely?"
Oh, yes, Walli! You do remember.
"It might be interesting. I don't have much time for such things but any
knowledge we gain may help us."
"It will be too wet for them back there."
"The great Hold of the no-ship on the Flat could be reconverted into a desert
lab. Sand, controlled atmosphere. The essentials are there from when we
brought the first worm."
Sheeana glanced at the western window. "Sunset. I would like to go down again
and walk on the sand."
Will the first ships return tonight?
"Of course, Reverend Mother." Walli stood aside, opening the way to the door.
Sheeana spoke as she was leaving. "Desert Watch will have to be moved before
long."
"We are prepared."
The sun was dipping below the horizon when Sheeana emerged from the arched
street at the edge of the community. She strode into starlit desert, exploring
with her senses as she had done as a child. Ahhh, there was the cinnamon
essence. Worms near.
She paused and, turning northeast away from the last sunglow, placed her palms
flat above and below her eyes in the old Fremen way, confining view and light.
She stared out of a horizontal frame. Whatever fell from heaven must pass this
narrow slit.
Tonight? They will come just after dark to delay the moment of explanation. A
full night for reflection.
She waited with Bene Gesserit patience.
An arc of fire drew a thin line above the northern horizon. Another. Another.
They were positioned right for the Landing Flat.
Sheeana felt her heart beating fast.
They have come!
And what would be their message for the Sisterhood? Returning warriors
triumphant or refugees? There could be little difference, given the evolution
of Odrade's plan.
She would know by morning.
Sheeana lowered her hands and found she was trembling. Deep breath. The
Litany.
Presently, she walked the desert, sandwalking in the remembered stride of Dune.
She had almost forgotten how the feet dragged. As though they carried extra
weight. Seldom-used muscles were called into play but the random walk, once
learned, was never forgotten.
Once, I never dreamed I would ever again walk this way.
If watchdogs detected that thought they might wonder about their Sheeana.
It was a failure in herself, she thought. She had grown into the rhythms of
Chapterhouse. This planet talked to her at a subterranean level. She felt
earth, trees, and flowers, every growing thing as though all were part of her.
And now, here was disturbing movement, something in a language from a different
planet. She sensed the desert changing and that, too, was an alien tongue.
Desert. Not lifeless but living in a way profoundly different from once-verdant
Chapterhouse.
Less life but more intense.
She heard the desert: small slitherings, creaking chirps of insects, a dark
rustle of hunting wings overhead and the quickest of ploppings on the sand --
kangaroo mice brought here in anticipation of this day when worms would once
more begin their rule.
Walli will remember to send flora and fauna from Dune.
She stopped atop a tall barracan. In front of her, darkness blurring its edges,
was an ocean caught in stop motion, a shadow surf beating on a shadow beach of
this changing land. It was a limitless desert-sea. It had originated far away
and it would go to stranger places than this.
I will take you there if I am able.
A night breeze from drylands to moister places behind her deposited a film of
dust on her cheeks and nose, lifting the edges of her hair as it passed. She
felt saddened.
What might have been.
That no longer was important.
The things that are -- they matter.
She took a deep breath. Cinnamon stronger. Melange. Spice and worms near.
Worms aware of her presence. How soon would this air be dry enough for the
sandworms to grow great and work their crop as they had on Dune?
The planet and the desert.
She saw them as two halves of the same saga. Just as the Bene Gesserit and the
humankind they served. Matched halves. Either without the other was
diminished, an emptiness with lost purpose. Not better dead, perhaps, but
moving aimlessly. There lay the threat of Honored Matre victory. Aimed by
blind violence!
Blind in a hostile universe.
And there was why the Tyrant had preserved the Sisterhood.
He knew he only gave us the path without direction. A paper chase laid down by
a jokester and left empty at the end.
A poet in his own right, though.
She recalled his "Memory Poem" from Dar-es-Balat, a bit of jetsam the Bene
Gesserit preserved.
And for what reason do we preserve it? So I can fill my mind with it now?
Forgetting for the moment what I may confront tomorrow?
The fair night of the poet,
Fill it with innocent stars.
A pace apart Orion stands.
His glare sees everything,
Marking our genes forever.
Welcome darkness and stare,
Blinded in the afterglow.
There's barren eternity!
Sheeana felt abruptly that she had won a chance to become the ultimate artist,
filled to overflowing and presented with a blank surface where she might create
as she wished.
An unrestricted universe!
Odrade's words from those first childhood exposures to Bene Gesserit purpose
came back to her. "Why did we fasten onto you, Sheeana? It's really simple.
We recognized in you a thing we had long awaited. You arrived and we saw it
happen."
"It?" How naive I was!
"Something new lifting over the horizon."
My migration will seek the new. But . . . I must find a planet with moons.
Looked at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at the
elemental level. Muad'Dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber where
movement occurred.
-Stories from Gammu
Murbella entered a time of incongruent experiences. It bothered her at first,
seeing her own life with multiple vision. Chaotic events at Junction had
ignited this, creating a jumble of immediate necessities that would not leave
her, not even when she returned to Chapterhouse.
I warned you, Dar. You can't deny it. I said they could turn victory into
defeat. And look at the mess you dumped in my lap! I was lucky to save as many
as I did.
This inner protest always immersed her in the events that had elevated her to
this awful prominence.
What else could I have done?
Memory displayed Streggi slumping to the floor in bloodless death. The scene
had played on the no-ship's relays like a fictional drama. The projection
framework in the ship's command bay added to the illusion that this was not
really happening. The actors would arise and take their bows. Teg's comeyes,
humming away automatically, missed none of it until someone silenced them.
She was left with images, an eerie afterglow: Teg sprawled on the floor of that
Honored Matre aerie. Odrade staring in shock.
Loud protests greeted Murbella's declaration that she must rush groundside. The
Proctors were adamant until she laid out the details of Odrade's gamble and
demanded: "Do you want total disaster?"
Odrade Within won that argument. But you were prepared for it from the first,
weren't you, Dar? Your plan!
The Proctors said: "There's still Sheeana." They gave Murbella a one-man
lighter and sent her to Junction alone.
Even though she transmitted her Honored Matre identity ahead of her, there were
touchy moments at the Landing Flat.
A squad of armed Honored Matres confronted her as she emerged from the lighter
beside a smoking pit. The smoke smelled of exotic explosives.
Where Mother Superior's lighter was destroyed.
An ancient Honored Matre led the squad, her red robe stained, some of its
decorations gone and a rip down the left shoulder. She was like some dried-up
lizard, still poisonous, still with a bite but running on well-used angers, most
of her energy gone. Disarrayed hair like the outer skin of a fresh-dug ginger
root. There was a demon in her. Murbella saw it peering from orange-flecked
eyes.
For all the fact that a full squad backed up the old one, the two of them faced
each other as though isolated at the foot of the lighter's drop, wild animals
cautiously sniffing, trying to judge the extent of danger.
Murbella watched the old one carefully. This lizard would dart her tongue a
bit, testing the air, giving vent to her emotions, but she was sufficiently
shocked to listen.
"Murbella is my name. I was taken captive by the Bene Gesserit on Gammu. I am
an adept of the Hormu."
"Why are you wearing a witch's robes?" The old one and her squad stood ready to
kill.
"I have learned everything they had to teach and have brought that treasure to
my Sisters."
The old one studied her a moment. "Yes, I recognize your type. You're a Roc,
one we chose for the Gammu project."
The squad behind her relaxed slightly.
"You did not come all the way in that lighter," the old one accused.
"I escaped from one of their no-ships."
"Do you know where their nest is?"
"I do."
A wide smile spread on the old one's lips. "Well! You are a prize! How did
you escape?"
"Do you have to ask?"
The old one considered this. Murbella could read the thoughts on her face as
though they were spoken: These ones we brought from Roc -- deadly, all of them.
They can kill with hands, feet, or any other movable part of their bodies. They
all should carry a sign: "Dangerous in any position."
Murbella moved away from the lighter, displaying the sinewy grace that was a
mark of her identity.
Speed and muscle, Sisters. Beware.
Some of the squad pressed forward, curious. Their words were full of Honored
Matre comparisons, eager questions Murbella was forced to parry.
"Did you kill many of them? Where is their planet? Is it rich? Have you
bonded many males there? You were trained on Gammu?"
"I was on Gammu for the third stage. Under Hakka."
"Hakka! I've met her. Did she have that injured left foot when you knew her?"
Still testing.
"It was the right foot and I was with her when she took the injury!"
"Oh, yes, the right foot. I remember now. How was she injured?"
"Kicking a lout in the rear. He had a sharp knife in his hip pocket. Hakka was
so angry she killed him."
Laughter swept through the squad.
"We will go to Great Honored Matre," the old one said.
So I've passed first inspection.
Murbella sensed reservations, though.
Why is this Hormu adept wearing those enemy robes? And she has a strange look
to her.
Best face that one at once.
"I took their training and they accepted me."
"The fools! Did they really?"
"You question my word?" How easy it was to revert, adopting touchy Honored
Matre ways.
The old one bristled. She did not lose hauteur but she sent a warning look to
her squad. All of them took a moment to digest what Murbella had said.
"You became one of them?" someone behind her asked.
"How else could I steal their knowledge? Know this! I was the personal student
of their Mother Superior."
"Did she teach you well?" That same challenging voice from behind.
Murbella identified the questioner: middle echelon and ambitious. Anxious for
notice and advancement.
This is the end of you, anxious one. And little loss to the universe.
A Bene Gesserit feint drifted the feather that was her foe into range. One
Hormu-style kick for them to recognize. The questioner lay dead on the ground.
Marriage of Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre abilities creates a danger you
should all recognize and envy.
"She taught me admirably," Murbella said. "Any other questions?"
"Ehhhhh!" the old one said.
"How are you called?" Murbella demanded.
"I am a Senior Dame, Honored Matre of the Hormu. I am called Elpek."
"Thank you, Elpek. You may call me Murbella."
"I am honored, Murbella. It is indeed a treasure you have brought us."
Murbella studied her a moment with Bene Gesserit watchfulness before smiling
without humor.
The exchange of names! You in your red robe that marks you as one of the
powerful surrounding Great Honored Matre, do you know what you have just
accepted into your circle?
The squad remained shocked and looked at Murbella with wariness. She saw this
with her new sensitivity. The Old Girl network had never gained a foothold in
the Bene Gesserit but it performed for Honored Matres. Simulflow amused her
with a parade of confirmation. How subtle the power transfers: right school,
right friends, graduation and transfer onto the first rungs of the ladder -- all
guided by relatives and their connections, mutual back-scratching that managed
alliances, including marriages. Simulflow told her it led into the pit but ones
on the ladder, the ones in controlling niches, never let that worry them.
Today is sufficient unto today, and that is how Elpek sees me. But she does not
see what I have become, only that I am dangerous but potentially useful.
Turning slowly on one foot, Murbella studied Elpek's squad. No bonded males
here. This was too sensitive a duty for any but trusted women. Good.
"Now, you will listen to me, all of you. If you have any loyalty to our
Sisterhood, which I will judge on future performance, you will honor what I have
brought. I intend it as a gift for those who deserve it."
"Great Honored Matre will be pleased," Elpek said.
But Great Honored Matre did not appear pleased when Murbella was presented.
Murbella recognized the tower setting. Almost sunset now but Streggi's body
still lay where it had fallen. Some of Teg's specialists had been killed,
mostly the comeye crew who doubled as his guard.
No, we Honored Matres do not like others spying on us.
Teg still lived, she saw, but he was swathed in shigawire and shoved
disdainfully into a corner. Most surprising of all: Odrade stood unfettered
near Great Honored Matre. It was a gesture of contempt.
Murbella felt she had lived through such a scene many times -- aftermath of
Honored Matre Victory: swaths of their enemies' bodies left where they had been
brought down. Honored Matre attack with the bloodless weapon had been swift and
deadly, a typical viciousness that killed when killing no longer was required.
She suppressed a shudder at the memory of this deadly reversal. There had been
no warning, only the troops dropping in wide lines -- a domino effect that left
the survivors in shock. And Great Honored Matre obviously enjoyed the shock.
Looking at Murbella, Great Honored Matre said, "So this is the bag of insolence
you say you trained in your ways."
Odrade almost smiled at the description.
Bag of insolence?
A Bene Gesserit would accept it without rancor. This rheumy-eyed Great Honored
Matre faced a quandary and could not call on her weapon that killed without
blood. Very delicate balance of power. Agitated conversations among Honored
Matres had revealed their problem.
All of their secret weapons had been exhausted and could not be reloaded,
something they had lost when driven back here.
"Our weapon of last resort and we wasted it!"
Logno, who thought herself supreme, stood in a different arena now. And she had
just learned of the fearful ease with which Murbella could kill one of the
elect.
Murbella cast a measuring gaze over Great Honored Matre's entourage, gauging
their potentials. They recognized this situation, of course. Familiar. How
did they vote?
Neutral?
Some were wary and all were waiting.
Anticipating a diversion. No concern over who triumphed as long as power
continued to flow in their direction.
Murbella let her muscles flow into the waiting stance of combat she had learned
from Duncan and the Proctors. She felt as cool as though standing on the
practice floor, running through responses. Even as she reacted, she knew she
moved in ways for which Odrade had prepared her -- mentally, physically, and
emotionally.
Voice first. Give them a taste of inner chill.
"I see you have assessed the Bene Gesserit quite poorly. The arguments of which
you are so proud, these women have heard them so many times your words go beyond
boredom."
This was delivered with scathing vocal control, a tone that brought orange to
Logno's eyes but held her motionless.
Murbella was not through with her. "You consider yourself powerful and clever.
One begets the other, eh? What idiocy! You're a consummate liar and you lie to
yourself."
As Logno remained motionless in the face of this attack, those around her began
moving away, opening space that said, "She is all yours.
"Your fluency in these lies does not hide them," Murbella said. She swept a
scornful gaze across the ones behind Logno. "Like the ones I know in Other
Memory, you are headed for extinction. The problem is that you take so
infernally long dying. Inevitable but oh, the boredom meanwhile. You dare call
yourself Great Honored Matre!" Returning her attention to Logno. "Everything
about you is a cesspool. You have no style."
It was too much. Logno attacked, left foot slashing outward with blinding
speed. Murbella grasped the foot as she would catch a wind-blown leaf and,
continuing the flow of it, levered Logno into a threshing club that ended with
her head pulped on the floor. Without pausing, Murbella pirouetted, left foot
almost decapitating the Honored Matre who had stood at Logno's right, the right
hand crushing the throat of the one who had stood at Logno's left. It was over
in two heartbeats.
Examining the scene without breathing hard (to show how easy it was, Sisters),
Murbella experienced a sense of shock and recognition of the inevitable. Odrade
lay on the floor in front of Elpek, who obviously had chosen sides without
hesitation. The twisted position of Odrade's neck and flaccid appearance of her
body said she was dead.
"She tried to interfere," Elpek said.
Having killed a Reverend Mother, Elpek expected Murbella (a Sister, after all!)
to applaud. But Murbella did not react as expected. She knelt beside Odrade
and put her head against that of the corpse, staying there an interminable time.
The surviving Honored Matres exchanged questioning looks but dared not move.
What is this?
But they were immobilized by Murbella's terrifying abilities.
When she had Odrade's recent past, all of the new added to previous Sharing,
Murbella stood.
Elpek saw death in Murbella's eyes and took one backward step before trying to
defend herself. Elpek was dangerous but no match for this demon in the black
robe. It was over with the same shocking abruptness that had taken Logno and
her aides: a kick to the larynx. Elpek sprawled across Odrade.
Once more, Murbella studied the survivors, then stood a moment looking down at
Odrade's body.
In a way, that was my doing, Dar. And yours!
She shook her head from side to side, absorbing consequences.
Odrade is dead. Long live Mother Superior! Long live Great Honored Matre! And
may the heavens protect us all.
She gave her attention then to what must be done. These deaths had created an
enormous debt. Murbella took a deep breath. This was another Gordian knot.
"Release Teg," she said. "Clean up in here as quickly as possible. And
somebody get me a proper robe!"
It was Great Honored Matre giving orders but those who leaped to obey sensed the
Other in her.
The one who brought her a red robe elaborate with soostone dragons held it
deferentially from a distance. Large woman with heavy bones and square face.
Cruel eyes.
"Hold it for me," Murbella said and when the woman tried to take advantage of
proximity to attack her, Murbella dumped the woman hard. "Try again?"
This time there were no tricks.
"You are the first member of my Council," Murbella said. "Name?"
"Angelika, Great Honored Matre." See! I was first to call you by your proper
title. Reward me.
"Your reward is that I promote you and let you live."
Proper Honored Matre response. Accepted as such.
When Teg came to her rubbing his arms where the shigawire had bitten deep, some
Honored Matres tried to caution Murbella. "Do you know what this one can --"
"He serves me now," Murbella interrupted. Then in Odrade's mocking tones:
"Isn't that right, Miles?"
He gave her a rueful smile, an old man on a child's face. "Interesting times,
Murbella."
"Dar liked apples," Murbella said. "See to that."
He nodded. Return her to a cemetery orchard. Not that prized Bene Gesserit
orchards would endure long in a desert. Still, some traditions were worth
perpetuating while you could.
What do Holy Accidents teach? Be resilient. Be strong. Be ready for change,
for the new. Gather many experiences and judge them by the steadfast nature of
our faith.
-Tleilaxu Doctrine
Well within Teg's original timetable, Murbella picked her Honored Matre
entourage and returned to Chapterhouse. She expected certain problems and the
messages she sent ahead paved the way for solutions.
"I bring Futars to attract Handlers. Honored Matres fear a biological weapon
from the Scattering that made vegetables of them. Handlers may be the source."
"Prepare to keep Rabbi and party in no-ship. Honor their secrecy. And remove
the protective mines from the ship!" (That went in keeping of a Proctor
messenger.)
She was tempted to ask for her children but that was non-Bene Gesserit. Someday
. . . maybe.
Immediately on returning, she had Duncan to accommodate and this confused
Honored Matres. They were as bad as the Bene Gesserit. "What's so special
about one man?"
No longer a reason for him to remain in the ship but he refused to leave. "I've
a mental mosaic to assemble: a piece that cannot be moved, extraordinary
behavior, and willing participation in their dream. I must find limits to test.
That's missing. I know how to find it. Get in tune. Don't think; do it."
It made no sense. She humored him although he was changed. A stability to this
new Duncan that she accepted as a challenge. By what right did he assume a
self-satisfied air? No . . . not self-satisfied. It was more being at peace
with a decision. He refused to share it!
"I've accepted things. You must do the same."
She had to admit this described what she was doing.
On her first morning back, she arose at dawn and entered the workroom. Wearing
the red robe, she sat in Mother Superior's chair and summoned Bellonda.
Bell stood at one end of the worktable. She knew. The design became clear in
execution. Odrade had imposed a debt on her as well. Thus, the silence:
assessing how she must pay.
Service to this Mother Superior, Bell! That is how you pay. No Archival
declension of these events will put them into proper perspective. Action is
required.
Bellonda spoke finally. "The only crisis I'd care to compare with this one is
the advent of the Tyrant."
Murbella reacted sharply. "Hold your tongue, Bell, unless you've something
useful to say!"
Bellonda took the reprimand calmly (uncharacteristic response). "Dar had
changes in mind. This what she expected?"
Murbella softened her tone. "We'll rehash ancient history later. This is an
opening chapter."
"Bad news." That was the old Bellonda.
Murbella said: "Admit the first group. Be cautious. They are Great Honored
Matre's High Council."
Bell left to obey.
She knows I have every right to this position. They all know it. No need for a
vote. No room for a vote!
Now was the time for the historical art of politics she had learned from Odrade.
"In all things you must appear important. No minor decisions pass through your
hands unless they are quiet acts called 'favors' done for people whose loyalty
can be earned."
Every reward came from on high. Not a good policy with the Bene Gesserit but
this group entering the workroom, they were familiar with a Patroness Great
Honored Matre; they would accept "new political necessities." Temporarily. It
was always temporary, especially with Honored Matres.
Bell and watchdogs knew she would be a long time sorting this out. Even with
amplified Bene Gesserit abilities.
It would require extremely demanding attention from all of them. And the first
thing was the sharply discerning gaze of innocence.
That is what Honored Matres lost, and we must restore it before they can fade
into the background where "we" belong.
Bellonda ushered in the Council and retired silently.
Murbella waited until they were seated. A mixed lot: some aspirants to supreme
power. Angelika there smiling so prettily. Some waiting (not even daring to
hope yet) but gathering what they could.
"Our Sisterhood was acting with stupidity," Murbella accused. She noted the
ones who took this angrily. "You would have killed the goose!"
They did not understand. She dredged up the parable. They listened with proper
attention, even when she added: "Don't you realize how desperately we need
every one of these witches? We outnumber them so greatly that each of them will
carry an enormous teaching burden!"
They considered this and, bitter though it was, they were forced to a qualified
acceptance because she said it.
Murbella hammered it home. "Not only am I your Great Honored Matre . . . Does
anyone question that?"
No one questioned.
". . . but I am Bene Gesserit Mother Superior. They can do little else but
confirm me in office."
Two of them started to protest but Murbella cut them short. "No! You would be
powerless to enforce your will on them. You would have to kill them all. But
they will obey me."
The two continued to babble and she shouted them down: "Compared to me with
what I acquired from them, the lot of you are miserable weaklings! Do any of
you challenge that?"
No one challenged but orange flecks were there.
"You are children with no knowledge of what you might become," she said. "Would
you return defenseless to face the ones of many faces? Would you become
vegetables?"
That caught their interest. They were accustomed to this tone from older
commanders. The content held them now. It was difficult to accept from one so
young . . . still . . . the things she had done. And to Logno and her aides!
Murbella saw them admire the bait.
Fertilization. This group will carry it away with them. Hybrid vigor. We are
fertilized to grow stronger. And flower. And go to seed? Best not dwell on
that. Honored Matres will not see it until they are almost Reverend Mothers.
Then they will look back angrily as I did. How could we have been that stupid?
She saw submission take shape in councillor's eyes. There would be a honeymoon.
Honored Matres would be children in a candy store. Only gradually would the
inevitable grow plain to them. Then they would be trapped.
As I was trapped. Don't ask the oracle what you can gain. That's the trap.
Beware the real fortune teller! Would you like thirty-five hundred years of
boredom?
Odrade Within objected.
Give the Tyrant some credit. It couldn't all have been boredom. More like a
Guild Navigator picking his passage through foldspace. Golden Path. An
Atreides paid for your survival, Murbella.
Murbella felt burdened. The Tyrant's payment dumped on her shoulders. I didn't
ask him to do it for me.
Odrade could not let that pass. He did it nonetheless.
Sorry, Dar. He paid. Now, I must pay.
So you are a Reverend Mother at last!
The councillors had grown restive under her stare.
Angelika elected to speak for them. After all, I am first chosen.
Watch that one! A blaze of ambition in her eyes.
"What response are you asking us to take with these witches?" Alarmed by her
own boldness. Was not Great Honored Matre also a witch now?
Murbella spoke softly. "You will tolerate them and offer them no violence
whatsoever."
Angelika was emboldened by Murbella's mild tone. "Is that Great Honored Matre's
decision or the --"
"Enough! I could bloody the floor of this room with the lot of you! Do you
wish to test it?"
They did not wish to test it.
"And what if I say to you that it is Mother Superior speaking? You will ask do
I have a policy to meet our problem? I will say: Policy? Ahh, yes. I have a
policy for unimportant things such as insect infestations. Unimportant things
call for policies. For such of you as do not see the wisdom in my decision, I
need no policy. Your kind I dispose of quickly. Dead before you know you've
been injured! That is my response to the presence of filth. Is there any filth
in this room?"
It was language they recognized: the lash of the Great Honored Matre backed by
ability to kill.
"You are my Council," Murbella said. "I expect wisdom from you. The least you
can do is pretend you are wise."
Humorous sympathy from Odrade: If that's the way Honored Matres give and take
orders, it won't require much deep analysis by Bell.
Murbella's thoughts went elsewhere. I am no longer Honored Matre.
The step from one to another was so recent she found her Honored Matre
performance uncomfortable. Her adjustments were a metaphor of what would happen
to her former Sisters. A new role and she did not wear it well. Other Memory
simulated long association with herself as this new person. This was no
mystical transubstantiation, merely new abilities.
Merely?
The change was profound. Did Duncan realize this? It pained her that he might
never see through to this new person.
Is that the residue of my love for him?
Murbella drew back from her questions, not wanting an answer. She felt repelled
by something that went deeper than she cared to burrow.
There will be decisions I must make that love would prevent. Decisions for the
Sisterhood and not for myself. That is where my fear is pointing.
Immediate necessities restored her. She sent her councillors away, promising
pain and death if they failed to learn this new restraint.
Next, Reverend Mothers must be taught a new diplomacy: getting along with no
one -- not even with each other. It would grow easier in time. Honored Matres
slipping into Bene Gesserit ways. One day, there would be no Honored Matres;
only Reverend Mothers with improved reflexes and augmented knowledge of
sexuality.
Murbella felt haunted by words she had heard but not accepted until this moment.
"The things we will do for Bene Gesserit survival have no limits."
Duncan will see this. I cannot keep it from him. The Mentat will not hold to a
fixed idea of what I was before the Agony. He opens his mind as I open a door.
He will examine his net. "What have I caught this time?"
Was this what happened to Lady Jessica? Other Memory carried Jessica threaded
into the warp and woof of Sharings. Murbella unraveled a bit and paraded elder
knowledge.
Heretic Lady Jessica? Malfeasance in office?
Jessica had plunged into love as Odrade had plunged into the sea and the
resultant waves had all but engulfed the Sisterhood.
Murbella sensed this taking her where she did not want to go. Pain clutched her
chest.
Duncan! Ohhhh, Duncan! She dropped her face into her hands. Dar, help me.
What am I to do?
Never ask why you're a Reverend Mother.
I must! The progression is clear in my memory and . . .
That's a sequence. Thinking of it as cause and effect beguiles you away from
totality.
Tao?
Simpler: You are here.
But Other Memory goes back and back and . . .
Imagine it's pyramids -- interlocked.
Those are just words!
Is your body still functioning?
I hurt, Dar. You don't have a body any more and it's useless to . . .
We occupy different niches. The pains I felt are not your pains. My joys are
not yours.
I don't want your sympathy! Ohh, Dar! Why was I born?
Were you born to lose Duncan?
Dar, please!
So you were born and now you know that's never enough. So you became an Honored
Matre. What else could you do? Still not enough? Now you're a Reverend
Mother. You think that's enough? It's never enough as long as you're alive.
You're telling me I must always reach beyond myself.
Pah! You don't make decisions on that basis. Didn't you hear him? Don't
think; do it! Will you chose the easy way? Why should you feel sad because
you've encountered the inevitable? If that's all you can see, confine yourself
to improving the breed!
Damn you! Why did you do this to me?
Do what?
Make me see myself and my former Sisters this way!
What way?
Damn you! You know what I mean!
Former Sisters, you say?
Oh, you are insidious.
All Reverend Mothers are insidious.
You never stop teaching!
Is that what I do?
How innocent I was! Asking you what you really do.
You know as well as I do. We wait for humankind to mature. The Tyrant only
provided them time to grow but now they need care.
What's the Tyrant have to do with my pain?
You foolish woman! Did you fail the Agony?
You know I didn't!
Stop stumbling over the obvious.
Oh, you bitch!
I prefer witch. Either is preferable to whore.
The only difference between Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre is the marketplace.
You married our Sisterhood.
Our Sisterhood?
You bred for power! How is that different from . . .
Don't twist it, Murbella! Keep your eyes on survival.
Don't tell me you had no power.
Temporary authority over people intent on survival.
Survival again!
In a Sisterhood that promotes the survival of others. Like the married woman
who bears children.
So it comes down to procreation.
That's a decision you make for yourself: family and what binds it. What
tickles life and happiness?
Murbella began to laugh. She dropped her hands and opened her eyes to find
Bellonda standing there watching.
"That's always a temptation for a new Reverend Mother," Bellonda said. "Chat a
bit with Other Memory. Who was it this time? Dar?"
Murbella nodded.
"Don't trust anything they give you. It's lore and you judge it for yourself "
Odrade's words exactly. Look through the eyes of the dead at scenes long gone.
What a peep show!
"You can get lost in there for hours," Bellonda said. "Exercise restraint. Be
sure of your ground. One hand for yourself and one for the ship."
There it was again! The past applied to the present. How rich Other Memory
made everyday life.
"It'll pass," Bellonda said. "It gets to be old hat after a time." She laid a
report in front of Murbella.
Old hat! One hand for yourself and one for the ship. So much just in idioms.
Murbella leaned back in the slingchair to scan Bellonda's report, fancying
herself suddenly in Odrade's idiom: Spider Queen in the center of my web. The
web might be a bit frayed just now but it was still there catching things to be
digested. Twitch a trigger strand and Bell came running, mandibles flexing in
anticipation. The twitch-words were "Archives" and "Analysis."
Seeing Bellonda in this light, Murbella saw the wisdom in the ways Odrade had
employed her, flaws as valuable as the strengths. When Murbella finished the
report, Bellonda still stood there in characteristic attitude.
Murbella recognized that Bellonda looked on all who summoned her as ones who had
not measured up, people who called on Archives for frivolous reasons and had to
be set straight. Frivolity: Bellonda's bete noire. Murbella found this
amusing.
Murbella kept amusement masked while enjoying Bellonda. The way to deal with
her was to be scrupulous. Nothing to subtract from strengths. This report was
a model of concise and pertinent argument. She made her points with few
embellishments, just enough to reveal her own conclusions.
"Does it amuse you to summon me?" Bellonda asked.
She's sharper than she was! Did I summon her? Not in so many words but she
knows when she's needed. She says here our Sisters must be models of meekness.
Mother Superior may be anything she needs to be but not so the rest of the
Sisterhood.
Murbella touched the report. "A starting point."
"Then we should start before your friends find the comeye center." Bellonda
sank into her chairdog with familiar confidence. "Tam's gone but I could send
for Sheeana."
"Where is she?"
"At the ship. Studying a collection of worms in the Great Hold, says any of us
can be taught to control them."
"Valuable if true. Leave her. What of Scytale?"
"Still in the ship. Your friends haven't found him yet. We're keeping him
under wraps."
"Let's continue that. He's a good reserve bargaining chip. And they're not my
friends, Bell. How are the Rabbi and his party?"
"Comfortable but worried. They know Honored Matres are here."
"Keep them under wraps."
"It's uncanny. A different voice but I hear Dar."
"An echo in your head."
Bellonda actually laughed.
"Now here's what you must spread among the Sisters. We act with extreme
delicacy while showing ourselves as people to admire and emulate. 'You Honored
Matres may not choose to live as we live but you can learn our strengths.' "
"Ahhhhhh."
"It comes down to ownership. Honored Matres are owned by things. 'I want that
place, that bauble, that person.' Take what you want. Use it until you tire of
it."
"While we go along our path admiring what we see."
"And there's our flaw. We don't give ourselves easily. Fear of love and
affection! To be self-possessed has its own greed. 'See what I have? You
can't have it unless you follow my ways!' Never take that attitude with Honored
Matres."
"Are you telling me we have to love them?"
"How else can we make them admire us? That was Jessica's victory. When she
gave, she gave it all. So much bottled up by our ways and then that
overwhelming wash: everything given. It's irresistible."
"We don't compromise that easily."
"No more do Honored Matres."
"That's the way of their bureaucratic origins!"
"Yet, theirs is a training ground for following the path of least resistance."
"You're confusing me, Da . . . Murbella."
"Have I said we should compromise? Compromise weakens us, and we know there are
problems compromise cannot solve, decisions we must make no matter how bitter."
"Pretend to love them?"
"That's a beginning."
"It'll be a bloody union, this joining of Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre."
"I suggest we Share as widely as possible. We may lose people while Honored
Matres are learning."
"A marriage made on the battlefield."
Murbella stood, thinking of Duncan in the no-ship, remembering the ship as she
had seen it last. There it was finally, not hidden to any sense. A lump of
strange machinery, oddly grotesque. A wild conglomeration of protrusions and
juttings with no apparent purpose. Hard to imagine the thing lifting on its own
power, enormous as that was, and vanishing into space.
Vanishing into space!
She saw the shape of Duncan's mental mosaic.
A piece that cannot be moved! Get in tune . . . Don't think; do it!
With an abruptness that chilled her, she knew his decision.
When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is
the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we
create, there are always other forces at work.
-Darwi Odrade
"Move with extreme care," Sheeana had warned him.
Idaho did not think he needed warning but appreciated it nonetheless.
Presence of Honored Matres on Chapterhouse eased his task. They made the ship's
Proctors and other guards nervous. Murbella's orders kept her former Sisters
out of the ship but everyone knew the enemy was here. Scanner relays showed a
seemingly endless stream of lighters disgorging Honored Matres on the Flat.
Most of the new arrivals appeared curious about that monstrous no-ship sitting
there but no one disobeyed Great Honored Matre.
"Not while she's alive," Idaho muttered where Proctors could hear him. "They
have a tradition of assassinating their leaders to replace them. How long can
Murbella hold out?"
Comeyes did his work for him. He knew his muttering would spread through the
ship.
Sheeana came to him in his workroom shortly afterward and made a show of
disapproval. "What are you trying to do, Duncan? You're upsetting people."
"Go back to your worms!"
"Duncan!"
"Murbella's playing a dangerous game! She's all that stands between us and
disaster."
He already had voiced this worry to Murbella. It was not new to the watchers
but reinforcement made everyone who heard him edgy -- comeye monitors in
Archives, ship guards, everyone.
Except Honored Matres. Murbella was keeping them out of Bellonda's Archives.
"Time for that later," she said.
Sheeana had her cue. "Duncan, either stop feeding our worries or tell us what
we should do. You're a Mentat. Function for us."
Ahhh, the Great Mentat performs for all to see.
"What you should do is obvious but it's not up to me. I can't leave Murbella."
But I can be taken away.
Now it was up to Sheeana. She left him and went to spread her own brand of
change.
"We have the Scattering for our example."
By evening, she had the Reverend Mothers in the ship neutralized and gave him a
hand-signal that they could take the next step.
"They will follow my lead."
Without intending it, the Missionaria had set the stage for Sheeana's
ascendancy. Most Sisters knew the power latent in her. Dangerous. But it was
there.
Unused power was like a marionette with visible strings, nobody holding them. A
compelling attraction: I could make it dance.
Feeding the deception, he called Murbella.
"When will I see you?"
"Duncan, please." Even in projection, she looked harried. "I'm busy. You know
the pressures. I'll be out in a few days."
Projection showed Honored Matres in the background scowling at this odd behavior
in their leader. Any Reverend Mother could read their faces.
"Has Great Honored Matre gone soft? That's nothing but a man out there!"
When he broke off; Idaho emphasized what every monitor on the ship had seen.
"She's in danger! Doesn't she know it?"
And now, Sheeana, it's up to you.
Sheeana had the key to reinstate the ship's flight controls. The mines were
gone. No one could destroy the ship at the last instant with a signal to hidden
explosives. There was only the human cargo to consider, Teg especially.
Teg will see my choices. The others -- the Rabbi's party and Scytale -- will
have to take their chances with us.
The Futars in their security cells did not worry him. Interesting animals but
not significant at the moment. For that matter, he gave only a passing thought
to Scytale. The little Tleilaxu remained under the eyes of guards, who were not
relaxing their watch on him no matter their other worries.
He went to bed with a nervousness that had ready explanation for any watchdog in
Archives.
His precious Murbella is in peril.
And she was in peril but he could not protect her.
My very presence is a danger to her now.
He was up at dawn, back to the armory dismantling a weapons factory. Sheeana
found him there and asked him to join her in the guard section.
A handful of Proctors greeted them. The leader they had chosen did not surprise
him. Garimi. He had heard about her performance at the Convocation.
Suspicious. Worried. Ready to make her own gamble. She was a sober-faced
woman. Some said she seldom smiled.
"We have diverted the comeyes in this room," Garimi said. "They show us having
a snack and questioning you about weapons."
Idaho felt a knot in his stomach. Bell's people would spot a simulation
quickly. Especially a projected mock-up of himself.
Garimi responded to his frown. "We have allies in Archives."
Sheeana said: "We are here to ask if you wish to leave before we escape in this
ship."
His surprise was genuine.
Stay behind?
He had not considered it. Murbella was no longer his. The bond had been broken
in her. She did not accept it. Not yet. But she would the first time she was
asked to make a decision putting him in danger for Bene Gesserit purposes. Now,
she merely stayed away from him more than was necessary.
"You're going to Scatter?" he asked, looking at Garimi.
"We'll save what we can. Voting with our feet, it was called once. Murbella is
subverting the Bene Gesserit."
There was the unspoken argument he had trusted to win them. Disagreement over
Odrade's gamble.
Idaho took a deep breath. "I will go with you."
"No regrets!" Garimi warned.
"That's stupid!" he said, venting his repressed grief.
Garimi would not have been surprised by that response from a Sister. Idaho
shocked her and she was several seconds recovering. Honesty compelled her.
"Of course it's stupid. I'm sorry. You're sure you won't stay? We owe you the
chance to make your own decision."
Bene Gesserit fastidiousness with those who served them loyally!
"I'll join you."
The grief they saw on his face was not simulated. He wore it openly when he
returned to his console.
My assigned position.
He did not try to hide his actions when he coded for the ship's ID circuits.
Allies in Archives.
The circuits came flashing up on his projections -- colored ribbons with a
broken link into flight systems. The way around that breakage was visible after
only a few moments' study. Mentat observations had been prepared for it.
Multiples through the core!
Idaho sat back and waited.
Lift-off was a skull-rattling moment of blankness that stopped abruptly when
they were far enough clear of the surface to engage nullfields and enter
foldspace.
Idaho watched his projection. There they were: the old couple in their garden
setting! He saw the net shimmering in front of them, the man gesturing at it,
smiling in round-faced satisfaction. They moved in a transparent overlay that
revealed ship circuits behind them. The net grew larger -- not lines but
ribbons thicker than the projected circuits.
The man's lips shaped words but there was no sound. "We expected you."
Idaho's hands went to his console, fingers splayed in the comfield to grasp
required elements of the circuit control. No time for niceties. Gross
disruption. He was into the core within a second. From there, it was a simple
matter to dump entire segments. Navigation went first. He saw the net begin to
thin, the look of surprise on the man's face. Nullfields were next. Idaho felt
the ship lurching in foldspace. The net tipped, becoming elongated with the two
watchers foreshortened and thinned. Idaho wiped out star-memory circuits,
taking his own data with them.
Net and watchers vanished.
How did I know they would be there?
He had no answer except a certainty rooted in the repeated visions.
Sheeana did not look up when he found her at the temporary flight-control board
in the guard quarters. She was bent over the board, staring at it in
consternation. The projection above her showed they had emerged from foldspace.
Idaho recognized none of the visible star patterns but he had expected that.
Sheeana swiveled and looked at Garimi standing over her. "We've lost all data
storage!"
Idaho tapped his temple with a forefinger. "No we haven't."
"But it'll take years to recover even the essentials!" Sheeana protested. "What
happened?"
"We're an unidentifiable ship in an unidentifiable universe," Idaho said.
"Isn't that what we wanted?"
There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.
-Darwi Odrade
Murbella felt that an age had passed since she recognized Duncan's decision.
Vanish into space! Leave me!
The unvarying time sense of the Agony told her only seconds had elapsed since
awareness of his intentions but she felt she had known this from the first.
He must be stopped!
She was reaching for her comboard when Central began to shudder. The quaking
continued for an interminable time and subsided slowly.
Bellonda was on her feet. "What . . ."
"The no-ship at the Flat has just lifted," Murbella said.
Bellonda reached for the comboard but Murbella stopped her.
"It's gone."
She must not see my pain.
"But who . . ." Bellonda fell silent. She had her own assessments of
consequences and saw then what Murbella saw.
Murbella sighed. She had all of the curses of history at her disposal and
wanted none of them.
"At lunchtime, I will eat in my private dining room. with councillors and I
want you present," Murbella said. "Tell Duana oyster stew again."
Bellonda started to protest but all that came out was: "Again?" "You will
recall I ate alone downstairs last night?" Murbella resumed her seat.
Mother Superior has duties!
There were maps to change and rivers to follow and Honored Matres to
domesticate.
Some waves throw you, Murbella. But you get back up and go on with it. Seven
times down, eight times up. You can balance on strange surfaces.
I know, Dar. Willing participation in your dream.
Bellonda stared at her until Murbella said, "I made my councillors sit at a
distance from me at dinner last night. It was strange -- only the two tables in
the whole dining room."
Why do I continue this inane chatter? What excuses do I have for my
extraordinary behavior?
"We wondered why none of us were permitted in our own dining room," Bellonda
said.
"To save your lives! But you should have seen their interest. I read their
lips. Angelika said: 'She's eating some kind of stew. I heard her discussing
it with the chef. Isn't this a marvelous world we've acquired? We must sample
that stew she ordered.' "
"Samples," Bellonda said. " I see." Then: "You know, don't you, Sheeana took
the Van Gogh painting from . . . your sleeping chamber?"
Why does that hurt?
"I noticed it was missing."
"Said she was borrowing it for her room in the ship."
Murbella's lips went thin.
Damn them! Duncan and Sheeana! Teg, Scytale . . . all of them gone and no way
to follow. But we still have axlotl tanks and Idaho cells from our children.
Not the same . . . but close. He thinks he's escaped!
"Are you all right, Murbella?" Concern in Bell's voice.
You warned me about wild things, Dar, and I didn't listen.
"After we've eaten, I will take my councillors on an inspection tour of Central.
Tell my acolyte I'll want cider before retiring."
Bellonda left, muttering. That was more like her.
How do you guide me now, Dar?
You want guidance? A guided tour of your life? Is that why I died?
But they took the Van Gogh, too!
Is that what you'll miss?
Why did they take it, Dar?
Caustic laughter greeted this and Murbella was glad no one else heard.
Can't you see what she intends?
The Missionaria scheme!
Oh, more than that. It's the next phase: Muad'Dib to Tyrant to Honored Matres
to us to Sheeana . . . to what? Can't you see it? The thing is right there at
the lip of your thoughts. Accept it as you would swallow a bitter drink.
Murbella shuddered.
See it? The bitter medicine of a Sheeana future? We once thought all medicines
had to be bitter or they were not effective. No healing power in the sweet.
Must it happen, Dar?
Some will choke on that medicine. But the survivors may create interesting
patterns.
Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you.
-The Zensunni Whip
"You deliberately let them get away, Daniel!"
The old woman rubbed her hands down the stained front of her garden apron. It
was a summer morning around her, flowers blooming, birds calling from nearby
trees. There was a misty look to the sky, a yellow radiance near the horizon.
"Now, Marty, it was not deliberate," Daniel said. He took off his porkpie hat
and rubbed the bushy stubble of gray hair before replacing the hat. "He
surprised me. I knew he saw us but I didn't suspect he saw the net."
"And I had such a nice planet picked out for them," Marty said. "One of the
best. A real test of their abilities."
"No use moaning about it," Daniel said. "They're where we can't touch them now.
He was spread so thin, though, I expected to catch him easy."
"They had a Tleilaxu Master, too," Marty said. "I saw him when they went under
the net. I would have so liked to study another Master."
"Don't see why. Always whistling at us, always making it necessary to stomp
them down. I don't like treating Masters that way and you know it! If it
weren't for them . . ."
"They're not gods, Daniel."
"Neither are we."
"I still think you let them escape. You're so anxious to prune your roses!"
"What would you have said to the Master, anyway?" Daniel asked.
"I was going to joke when he asked who we were. They always ask that. I was
going to say: 'What did you expect, God Himself with a flowing beard?' "
Daniel chuckled. "That would've been funny. They have such a hard time
accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them."
"I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb
the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and . . ."
"It's personas we take, Marty."
"Whatever. The Masters should've known we would gather enough of them one day
to make our own decisions about our own future."
"And theirs?"
"Oh, I'd have apologized to him after putting him in his place. You can do just
so much managing of others, isn't that right, Daniel?"
"When you get that look on your face, Marty, I go prune my roses." He went back
to a line of bushes with verdant leaves and black blooms as large as his head.
Marty called after him: "Gather up enough people and you get a big ball of
knowledge, Daniel! That's what I'd have told him. And those Bene Gesserit in
that ship! I'd have told them how many of them I have. Ever notice how
alienated they feel when we peek at them?"
Daniel bent to his black roses.
She stared after him, hands on her hips.
"Not to mention Mentats," he said. "There were two of them on that ship-both
gholas. You want to play with them?"
"The Masters always try to control them, too," she said.
"That Master is going to have trouble if he tries to mess with that big one,"
Daniel said, snipping off a ground shoot from the root stock of his roses. "My,
this is a pretty one."
"Mentats, too!" Marty called. "I'd have told them. Dime a dozen, they are."
"Dimes? I don't think they'd have understood that, Marty. The Reverend
Mothers, yes, but not that big Mentat. He didn't thin out that far back."
"You know what you let get away, Daniel?" she demanded, coming up beside him.
"That Master had a nullentropy tube in his chest. Full of ghola cells, too!"
"I saw it."
"That's why you let them get away!"
"Didn't let them." His pruning shears went snick-snick. "Gholas. He's welcome
to them."
++++++++++
Here is another book dedicated to Bev, friend, wife, dependable helper and the
person who gave this one its title. The dedication is posthumous and the words
below, written the morning after she died, should tell you something of her
inspiration.
One of the best things I can say about Bev is there was nothing in our life
together I need forget, not even the graceful moment of her death. She gave me
then the ultimate gift of her love, a peaceful passing she had spoken of without
fear or tears, allaying thereby my own fears. What greater gift is there than
to demonstrate you need not fear death?
The formal obituary would read: Beverly Ann Stuart Forbes Herbert, born October
20, 1926, Seattle, Washington; died 5:05 P.M. February 7, 1984, at Kawaloa,
Maui. I know that is as much formality as she would tolerate. She made me
promise there would be no conventional funeral "with a preacher's sermon and my
body on display." As she said: "I will not be in that body then but it
deserves more dignity than such a display provides."
She insisted I go no further than to have her cremated and scatter her ashes at
her beloved Kawaloa "where I have felt so much peace and love." The only
ceremony -- friends and loved ones to watch the scattering of her ashes during
the singing of "A Bridge Over Troubled Waters."
She knew there would be tears then as there are tears while I write these words
but in her last days she often spoke of tears as futile. She recognized tears
as part of our animal origins. The dog howls at the loss of its master.
Another part of human awareness dominated her life: Spirit. Not in any mawkish
religious sense nor in anything most Spiritualists would associate with the
word. To Bev, it was the light shining from awareness onto everything she
encountered. Because of this, I can say despite my grief and even within grief
that joy fills my spirit because of the love she gave and continues to give me.
Nothing in the sadness at her death is too high a price to pay for the love we
shared.
Her choice of a song to sing at the scattering of her ashes went to what we
often said to each other -- that she was my bridge and I was hers. That
epitomizes our married life.
We began that sharing with a ceremony before a minister in Seattle on June 20,
1946. Our honeymoon was spent on a firewatch lookout atop Kelley Butte in
Snoqualmie National Forest. Our quarters were twelve feet square with a cupola
above only six feet square and most of that filled by the firefinder with which
we located any smoke we saw.
In cramped quarters with a spring-powered Victrola and two portable typewriters
taking up considerable space on the one table, we pretty well set the pattern of
our life together: work to support music, writing and the other joys living
provides.
None of this is to say we experienced constant euphoria. Far from it. We had
moments of boredom, fears, and pains. But there was always time for laughter.
Even at the end, Bev still could smile to tell me I had positioned her correctly
on her pillows, that I had eased the aching of her back with a gentle massage
and the other things necessary because she could no longer do them for herself.
In her final days, she did not want anyone but me to touch her. But our married
life had created such a bond of love and trust she often said the things I did
for her were as though she did them. Though I had to provide the most intimate
care, the care you would give an infant, she did not feel offended nor that her
dignity had been assaulted. When I picked her up in my arms to make her more
comfortable or bathe her, Bev's arms always went around my shoulders and her
face nestled as it often had in the hollow of my neck.
It is difficult to convey the joy of those moments but I assure you it was
there. Joy of the spirit. Joy of life even at death. Her hand was in mine
when she died and the attending doctor, tears in his eyes, said the thing I and
many others had said of her.
"She had grace."
Many of those who saw that grace did not understand. I remember when we entered
the hospital in the pre-dawn hours for the birth of our first son. We were
laughing. Attendants looked at us with disapproval. Birth is painful and
dangerous. Women die giving birth. Why are these people laughing?
We were laughing because the prospect of new life that was part of both of us
filled us with such happiness. We were laughing because the birth was about to
occur in a hospital built on the site of the hospital where Bev was born. What
a marvelous continuity!
Our laughter was infectious and soon others we met on the way to the delivery
room were smiling. Disapproval became approval. Laughter was her grace note in
moments of stress.
Hers was also the laughter of the constantly new. Everything she encountered
had something new in it to excite her senses. There was a naivete about Bev
that was, in its own way, a form of sophistication. She wanted to find what was
good in everything and everyone. As a result, she brought out that response in
others.
"Revenge is for children," she said. "Only people who are basically immature
want it."
She was known to call people who had offended her and plead with them to put
away destructive feelings. "Let us be friends." The source of none of the
condolences that poured in after her death surprised me.
It was typical of her that she wanted me to call the radiologist whose treatment
in 1974 was the proximate cause of her death and thank him "for giving me these
ten beautiful years. Make sure he understands I know he did his best for me
when I was dying of cancer. He took the state of the art to its limits and I
want him to know my appreciation."
Is it any wonder that I look back on our years together with a happiness
transcending anything words can describe? Is it any wonder I do not want or
need to forget one moment of it? Most others merely touched her life at the
periphery. I shared it in the most intimate ways and everything she did
strengthened me. It would not have been possible for me to do what necessity
demanded of me during the final ten years of her life, strengthening her in
return, had she not given of herself in the preceding years, holding back
nothing. I consider that to be my great good fortune and most miraculous
privilege.
FRANK HERBERT,
Port Townsend, WA
April 6, 1984