Dune

The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength.

—THE BENE GESSERIT CODA

“How is it that you can order the priests around?” Sheeana asked. “This is their place.”

Odrade answered casually but picked her words to fit the knowledge she knew Sheeana already possessed: “The priests have Fremen roots. They’ve always had Reverend Mothers somewhere near. Besides, child, you order them around, too.”

“That’s different.”

Odrade suppressed a smile.

Little more than three hours had passed since her assault force had broken the attack on the temple complex. In that time, Odrade had set up a command center in Sheeana’s quarters, carried on the necessary business of assessment and preliminary retaliation, all the while prompting and observing Sheeana.

Simulflow.

Odrade glanced around the room she had chosen as command center. A scrap of Stiros’ ripped garments still lay near the wall in front of her. Casualties. The room was an oddly shaped place. No two walls parallel. She sniffed. Still a residual smell of ozone from the snoopers with which her people had assured the privacy of these quarters.

Why the odd shape? The building was ancient, remodeled and added to many times, but that did not explain this room. A pleasantly rough texture of creamy stucco on walls and ceiling. Elaborate spice-fiber hangings flanked the two doors. It was early evening and sunlight filtered by lattice shades stippled the wall opposite the windows. Silver-yellow glowglobes hovered near the ceiling, all tuned to match the sunlight. Muted street sounds came through the ventilators beneath the windows. The soft pattern of orange rugs and gray tiles on the floor spoke of wealth and security but Odrade suddenly did not feel secure.

A tall Reverend Mother came from the adjoining communications room. “Mother Commander,” she said, “the messages have been sent to Guild, Ix, and Tleilaxu.”

Odrade spoke absently. “Acknowledged.”

The messenger returned to her duties.

“What are you doing?” Sheeana asked.

“Studying something.”

Odrade pursed her lips in thought. Their guides through the temple complex had brought them along a maze of hallways and stairs, glimpses of courtyards through arches, then into a splendid Ixian suspensor-tube system, which carried them silently to another hallway, more stairs, another curved hallway . . . finally, into this room.

Once more, Odrade swept her gaze around the room.

“Why are you studying this room?” Sheeana asked.

“Hush, child!”

The room was an irregular polyhedron with the smaller side to the left. About thirty-five meters long, half that at the widest. Many low divans and chairs in various degrees of comfort. Sheeana sat in queenly splendor on a bright yellow chair with wide soft arms. Not a chairdog in the place. Much brown and blue and yellow fabric. Odrade stared at the white lattice of a ventilator above a painting of mountains on the wider end wall. A cool breeze came through the ventilators below the windows and wafted toward the ventilator above the painting.

“This was Hedley’s room,” Sheeana said.

“Why do you annoy him by using his first name, child?”

“Does that annoy him?”

“Don’t play word games with me, child! You know it annoys him and that’s why you do it.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Odrade ignored this while continuing her careful study of the room. The wall opposite the painting stood at an oblique angle to the outer wall. She had it now. Clever! This room had been constructed so that even a whisper here could be heard by someone beyond the high ventilator. No doubt the painting concealed another airway to carry sounds from this room. No snooper, sniffer, or other instrument would detect such an arrangement. Nothing would “beep” at a spying eye or ear. Only the wary senses of someone trained in deception had winkled it out.

A hand signal summoned a waiting acolyte. Odrade’s fingers flickered in silent communication: “Find out who is listening beyond that ventilator.” She nodded toward the ventilator above the painting. “Let them continue. We must know to whom they report.”

“How did you know to come and save me?” Sheeana asked.

The child had a lovely voice but it needed training, Odrade thought. There was a steadiness to it, though, that could be shaped into a powerful instrument.

“Answer me!” Sheeana ordered.

The imperious tone startled Odrade, arousing quick anger, which she was forced to suppress. Corrections would have to be made immediately!

“Calm yourself, child,” Odrade said. She pitched the command in a precise tenor and saw it take effect.

Again, Sheeana startled her: “That’s another kind of Voice. You’re trying to calm me. Kipuna told me all about Voice.”

Odrade turned squarely facing Sheeana and looked down at her. Sheeana’s first grief had passed but there was still anger when she spoke of Kipuna.

“I am busy shaping our response to that attack,” Odrade said. “Why do you distract me? I should think you would want them punished.”

“What will you do to them? Tell me! What will you do?”

A surprisingly vindictive child, Odrade thought. That would have to be curbed. Hatred was as dangerous an emotion as love. The capacity for hatred was the capacity for its opposite.

Odrade said: “I have sent Guild, Ix, and Tleilaxu the message we always dispatch when we have been annoyed. Three words: ‘You will pay.’”

“How will they pay?”

“A proper Bene Gesserit punishment is being fashioned. They will feel the consequences of their behavior.”

“But what will you do?”

“In time, you may learn. You may even learn how we design our punishment. For now, there is no need that you know.”

A sullen look came over Sheeana’s face. She said: “You’re not even angry. Annoyed. That’s what you said.”

“Curb your impatience, child! There are things you do not understand.”

The Reverend Mother from the communications room returned, glanced once at Sheeana and spoke to Odrade. “Chapter House acknowledges receipt of your report. They approve your response.”

When the Reverend Mother from communications remained standing there, Odrade said: “There is more?”

A flickering glance to Sheeana spoke of the woman’s reservations. Odrade held up her right palm, the signal for silent communication.

The Reverend Mother responded, her fingers dancing with unleashed excitement: “Taraza’s message—The Tleilaxu are the pivotal element. Guild must be made to pay dearly for its melange. Shut down Rakian supply to them. Throw Guild and Ix together. They will overextend selves in face of crushing competition from the Scattering. Ignore Fish Speakers for now. They fall with Ix. Master of Masters responds to us from Tleilaxu. He goes to Rakis. Trap him.”

Odrade smiled softly to acknowledge that she understood. She watched the other woman leave the room. Not only did Chapter House agree with actions taken on Rakis, a suitable Bene Gesserit punishment had been fashioned with fascinating speed. Obviously Taraza and her advisors had anticipated this moment.

Odrade allowed herself a sigh of relief. The message to Chapter House had been terse: an outline account of the attack, the list of the Sisterhood’s casualties, identification of the attackers and a confirming note to Taraza that Odrade already had transmitted the required warning to the guilty: “You will pay.”

Yes, those fool attackers now knew the hornet’s nest had been aroused. That would create fear—an essential part of the punishment.

Sheeana squirmed in her chair. Her attitude said she would now try a new approach. “One of your people said there were Face Dancers.” She gestured with her chin toward the roof.

What a vast reservoir of ignorance this child was, Odrade thought. That emptiness would have to be filled. Face Dancers! Odrade thought about the bodies they had examined. The Tleilaxu had finally sent their Face Dancers into action. It was a test of the Bene Gesserit, of course. These new ones were extremely difficult to detect. They still gave off the characteristic smell of their unique pheromones, though. Odrade had sent that datum in her message to Chapter House.

The problem now was to keep the Bene Gesserit knowledge secret. Odrade summoned an acolyte messenger. Indicating the ventilator with a flick of her eyes, Odrade spoke silently with her fingers: “Kill those who listen!”

“You are too interested in Voice, child,” Odrade said, speaking down to Sheeana in the chair. “Silence is a most valuable tool for learning.”

“But could I learn Voice? I want to learn it.”

“I am telling you to be silent and to learn by your silence.”

“I command you to teach me Voice!”

Odrade reflected on Kipuna’s reports. Sheeana had established effective Voice control over most of those around her. The child had learned it on her own. An intermediate level Voice for a limited audience. She was a natural. Tuek and Cania and the others were frightened by Sheeana. Religious fantasies contributed to that fear, of course, but Sheeana’s mastery of Voice pitch and tone displayed an admirable unconscious selectivity.

The indicated response to Sheeana was obvious, Odrade knew. Honesty. It was a most powerful lure and it served more than one purpose.

“I am here to teach you many things,” Odrade said, “but I do not do this at your command.”

“Everyone obeys me!” Sheeana said.

She’s barely into puberty and already at Aristocrat level, Odrade thought. Gods of our own making! What can she become?

Sheeana slipped out of her chair and stood looking up at Odrade with a questioning expression. The child’s eyes were on a level with Odrade’s shoulders. Sheeana was going to be tall, a commanding presence. If she survived.

“You answer some of my questions but you won’t answer others,” Sheeana said. “You said you’d been waiting for me but you won’t explain. Why won’t you obey me?”

“A foolish question, child.”

“Why do you keep calling me child?”

“Are you not a child?”

“I menstruate.”

“But you’re still a child.”

“The priests obey me.”

“They’re afraid of you.”

“You aren’t?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Good! It gets tiresome when people only fear you.”

“The priests think you come from God.”

“Don’t you think that?”

“Why should I? We—” Odrade broke off as an acolyte messenger entered. The acolyte’s fingers danced in silent communication: “Four priests listened. They have been killed. All were minions of Tuek.”

Odrade waved the messenger away.

“She talks with her fingers,” Sheeana said. “How does she do that?”

“You ask too many of the wrong questions, child. And you haven’t told me why I should consider you an instrument of God.”

“Shaitan spares me. I walk on the desert and when Shaitan comes, I talk to him.”

“Why do you call him Shaitan instead of Shai-hulud?”

“Everybody asks that same stupid question!”

“Then give me your stupid answer.”

The sullen expression returned to Sheeana’s face. “It’s because of how we met.”

“And how did you meet?”

Sheeana tipped her head to one side and looked up at Odrade for a moment, then: “That’s a secret.”

“And you know how to keep secrets?”

Sheeana straightened and nodded but Odrade saw uncertainty in the movement. The child knew when she was being led into an impossible position!

“Excellent!” Odrade said. “The keeping of secrets is one of a Reverend Mother’s most essential teachings. I’m glad we won’t have to bother with that one.”

“But I want to learn everything!”

Such petulance in her voice. Very poor emotional control.

“You must teach me everything!” Sheeana insisted.

Time for the whip, Odrade thought. Sheeana had spoken and postured sufficiently that even a fifth-grade acolyte could feel confident of controlling her now.

Using the full power of Voice, Odrade said: “Don’t take that tone with me, child! Not if you wish to learn anything!”

Sheeana went rigid. She was more than a minute absorbing what had happened to her and then relaxing. Presently, she smiled, a warm and open expression. “Oh, I’m so glad you came! It’s been so boring lately.”