Dune

We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our population because that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz Haderach in that bag! Willfulness created Muad’Dib. Prophets make predictions come true! Will we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a culture that hates chance and begs for prophecy?

—ARCHIVAL SUMMARY (ADIXTO)

It was just after dawn when Odrade arrived at the no-ship but Murbella was up and working with a training mek when Mother Superior strode onto the practice floor.

Odrade had walked the last klick through ring orchards around the spacefield. Night’s limited clouds had thinned at the approach of dawn, then dissipated to reveal a sky thick with stars.

She recognized a delicate weather shift to wrench another crop from this region but decreasing rainfall was barely enough to keep orchards and pastures alive.

As she walked, Odrade was overcome by dreariness. Winter just past had been a hard-bought silence between storms. Life was holocaust. Dusting of pollen by eager insects, fruiting and seeding that followed the flower. These orchards were a secret storm whose power lay hidden in torrential flows of life. But ohhh! the destruction. New life carried change. The Changer was coming, always different. Sandworms would bring the desert purity of ancient Dune.

The desolation of that transforming power invaded her imagination. She could picture this landscape reduced to windswept dunes, habitat for Leto II’s descendants.

And the arts of Chapterhouse would undergo mutation—one civilization’s myths replaced by another’s.

The aura of these thoughts went with Odrade onto the practice floor and colored her mood as she watched Murbella complete a round of flashing exertion, then step back, panting.

A thin scratch reddened the back of Murbella’s left hand where she had missed a move by the big mek. The automated trainer stood there in the center of the room like a golden pillar, its weapons flicking in and out—probing mandibles of an angry insect.

Murbella wore tight green leotards and her exposed skin glistened with perspiration. Even with the prominent mounding of her pregnancy, she appeared graceful. Her skin glowed with health. It came from within, Odrade decided, partly the pregnancy but something more fundamental as well. This had impressed itself on Odrade at their first encounter, a thing Lucilla had remarked after capturing Murbella and rescuing Idaho from Gammu. Health lived below the surface in her, there like a lens to focus attention on a deep freshet of vitality.

We must have her!

Murbella saw the visitor but refused to be interrupted.

Not yet, Mother Superior. My baby is due soon but this body’s needs will continue.

Odrade saw then that the mek was simulating anger, a programed response brought on by frustration of its circuitry. An extremely dangerous mode!

“Good morning, Mother Superior.”

Murbella’s voice came out modulated by her exertions as she dodged and twisted with that almost blinding speed she commanded.

The mek slashed and probed for her, its sensors darting and whirring in attempts to follow her movements.

Odrade sniffed. To speak at such a time amplified the peril of the mek. Risk no distractions when you played this dangerous game. Enough!

The mek’s controls were in a large green wall panel to the right of the doorway. Murbella’s changes could be seen in the circuits—dangling wires, beamfields with memory crystals dislocated. Odrade reached up and stilled the mechanism.

Murbella turned to face her.

“Why did you change the circuitry?” Odrade demanded.

“For the anger.”

“Is that what Honored Matres do?”

“As the twig is bent?” Murbella massaged her wounded hand. “But what if the twig knows how it is bent and approves?”

Odrade felt sudden excitement. “Approves? Why?”

“Because there’s something . . . grand about it.”

“You follow your adrenaline high?”

“You know it’s not that!” Murbella’s breathing returned to normal. She stood glaring at Odrade.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s . . . being challenged to do more than you ever thought possible. You never suspected you could be this . . . this good, this expert and accomplished at anything.”

Odrade concealed elation.

Mens sana in corpore sano. We have her at last!

Odrade said: “But what a price you pay!”

“Price?” Murbella sounded astonished. “As long as I have the capacity, I’m delighted to pay.”

“Take what you want and pay for it?”

“It’s your Bene Gesserit magic cornucopia: As I become increasingly accomplished, my ability to pay increases.”

“Beware, Murbella. That cornucopia, as you call it, can become Pandora’s box.”

Murbella knew the allusion. She stood quite still, her attention fixed on Mother Superior. “Oh?” The sound barely escaped.

“Pandora’s box releases powerful distractions that waste energies of your life. You speak glibly of being ‘in the chute’ and becoming a Reverend Mother but you still don’t know what that means nor what we want from you.”

“Then it was never our sexual abilities you wanted.”

Odrade moved eight paces forward, majestically deliberate. Once Murbella got on that subject there would be no stopping her short of the usual resolution—argument cut short by Mother Superior’s peremptory command.

“Sheeana easily mastered your abilities,” Odrade said.

“So you will use her on that child!”

Odrade heard displeasure. It was a cultural residue. When did human sexuality begin? Sheeana, waiting now in the no-ship guard chambers, had been forced to deal with it. “I hope you recognize the source of my reluctance and why I was so secretive, Mother Superior.”

“I recognize that a Fremen society filled your mind with inhibitions before we took you in hand!”

That had cleared the air between them. But how was this exchange with Murbella to be redirected? I must let it run while I seek a way out.

There would be repetition. Unresolved issues would emerge. The fact that almost every word Murbella uttered could be anticipated, that would be a trial.

“Why do you evade this tested way of dominating others now that you say you need it with Teg?” Murbella asked.

“Slaves, is that what you want?” Odrade countered.

Eyes almost closed, Murbella considered this. Did I consider the men our slaves? Perhaps. I produced in them periods of wildly unthinking abandon, a giving up to heights of ecstasy they had never dreamed possible. I was trained to give them that and, thereby, make them subject to our control.

Until Duncan did the same to me.

Odrade saw the hooding of Murbella’s eyes and recognized there were things in this woman’s psyche twisted in a way difficult to uncover. Wildness running where we have not followed. It was as though Murbella’s original clarity had been stained indelibly and then that mark covered over and even this cover masked. There was a harshness in her that distorted thoughts and actions. Layer upon layer upon layer . . .

“You’re afraid of what I can do,” Murbella said.

“There’s truth in what you say,” Odrade agreed.

Honesty and candor—limited tools now to be used with care.

“Duncan.” Murbella’s voice came out flat with new Bene Gesserit abilities.

“I fear what you share with him. You find it odd, Mother Superior admitting fear?”

“I know about candor and honesty!” She made candor and honesty sound repellent.

“Reverend Mothers are taught never to abandon self. We are trained not to encumber ourselves that way with concerns of others.”

“Is that all of it?”

“It goes deeper and has other threads. Being Bene Gesserit marks you in its own ways.”

“I know what you’re asking: Choose Duncan or the Sisterhood. I know your tricks.”

“I think not.”

“There are things I won’t do!”

“Each of us is constrained by a past. I make my choices, do what I must because my past is different from yours.”

“You’ll continue to train me despite what I’ve just said?”

Odrade heard this in the total receptivity these encounters with Murbella demanded, every sense alerted to things not spoken, messages that hovered on edges of words as though they were cilia wavering there, reaching for contact with a dangerous universe.

The Bene Gesserit must change its ways. And here is one who could guide us into change.

Bellonda would be horrified at the prospect. Many Sisters would reject it. But there it was.

When Odrade remained silent, Murbella said: “Trained. Is that the proper word?”

“Conditioned. That’s probably more familiar to you.”

“What you really want is to conjoin our experiences, make me sufficiently like you that we can create trust between us. That’s what all education does.”

Don’t play erudite games with me, girl!

“We would flow in the same stream, eh, Murbella?”

Any Third-Stage acolyte would have become watchfully cautious hearing that tone from Mother Superior. Murbella appeared unmoved. “Except that I will not give him up.”

“That is for you to decide.”

“Did you let the Lady Jessica decide?”

The way out of this cul-de-sac at last.

Duncan had prompted Murbella to study Jessica’s life. Hoping to thwart us! Holos of his performance had ignited severe analysis of records.

“An interesting person,” Odrade said.

“Love! After all of your teaching, your conditioning!”

“You did not think her behavior treasonous?”

“Never!”

Delicately now. “But look at consequences: a Kwisatz Haderach . . . and that grandchild, the Tyrant!” Argument dear to Bellonda’s heart.

“Golden Path,” Murbella said. “Survival of humankind.”

“Famine Times and the Scattering.”

Are you watching this, Bell? No matter. You will watch it.

“Honored Matres!” Murbella said.

“All because of Jessica?” Odrade asked. “But Jessica returned to the fold and lived out her years on Caladan.”

“Teacher of acolytes!”

“Example to them, as well. See what happens when you defy us?” Defy us, Murbella! Do it more adroitly than Jessica.

“Sometimes you repel me!” Natural honesty forced her to add: “But you know I want what you have.”

What we have.

Odrade recalled her own first encounters with Bene Gesserit attractions. Everything of the body done with exquisite precision, senses honed to detect smallest details, muscles trained to perform in marvelous exactitude. These abilities in an Honored Matre could only add a new dimension amplified by bodily speed.

“You’re throwing it back on me,” Murbella said. “Trying to force my choice when you already know it.”

Odrade remained silent. This was a form of argument ancient Jesuits had almost perfected. Simulflow superimposed disputational patterns: Let Murbella do her own convincing. Supply only the most subtle of nudges. Give her small excuses upon which to enlarge.

But hold fast, Murbella, to love for Duncan!

“You’re very clever at parading your Sisterhood’s advantages past me,” Murbella said.

“We are not a cafeteria line!”

An insoucient grin flicked Murbella’s mouth. “I’ll take one of those and one of these and I think I’d like one of those creamy things over there.”

Odrade enjoyed the metaphor but omnipresent watchers had their own appetites. “A diet that might kill you.”

“But I see your offerings displayed so attractively. Voice! What a marvelous thing you’ve cooked up there. I have this wonderful instrument in my throat and you can teach me to play it in that ultimate way.”

“Now, you’re a concert master.”

“I want your ability to influence those around me!”

“To what end, Murbella? For whose goals?”

“If I eat what you eat, will I grow into your kind of toughness: plasteel on the outside and even harder inside?”

“Is that how you see me?”

“The chef at my banquet! And I must eat whatever you bring—for my good and for yours.”

She sounded almost manic. An odd person. Sometimes she appeared to be the most wretched of women, pacing her quarters like a caged beast. That mad look in her eyes, orange flecks in the corneas . . . as there were now.

“Do you still refuse to work on Scytale?”

“Let Sheeana do it.”

“Will you coach her?”

“And she will use my coaching on the child!”

They stared at each other, realizing they shared a similar thought. This is not confrontation because each of us wants the other.

“I am committed to you for what you can give me,” Murbella said, her voice low. “But you want to know if I may ever act against that commitment?”

“Could you?”

“No more than you could if circumstances demanded it.”

“Do you think you will ever regret your decision?”

“Of course I will!” What kind of damnfool question was that? People always had regrets. Murbella said this.

“Just confirming your self-honesty. We like it that you don’t fly under false colors.”

“You get false ones?”

“Indeed.”

“You must have ways of weeding them out.”

“The Agony does that for us. Falsehoods don’t come through the Spice.”

Odrade sensed Murbella’s drumbeat flickering faster.

“And you’re not going to demand I give up Duncan?” Very spiny.

“That attachment presents difficulties, but they are your difficulties.”

“Another way of asking me to give him up?”

“Accept the possibility, that is all.”

“I can’t”

“You won’t?”

“I mean what I say. I’m incapable.”

“And if someone showed you how?”

Murbella stared into Odrade’s eyes for a long beat, then: “I almost said that would set me free . . . but . . .”

“Yes?”

“I could not be free while he was bound to me.”

“Is that renunciation of Honored Matre ways?”

“Renunciation? Wrong word. I’ve merely grown beyond my former Sisters.”

“Former Sisters?”

“Still my Sisters, but they’re Sisters of childhood. Some I remember fondly, some I dislike intensely. Playmates in a game that no longer interests me.”

“That decision satisfies you?”

“Are you satisfied, Mother Superior?”

Odrade clapped her hands with unrestrained elation. How swiftly Murbella acquired Bene Gesserit riposte!

“Satisfied? What a hellishly deadly word!”

As Odrade spoke, Murbella felt herself move as in a dream to the edge of an abyss, unable to awaken and prevent the plunge. Her stomach ached with secret emptiness and Odrade’s next words came from echoing distance.

“The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. You will never be able to forget that.”

As quickly as it had come, the dream sensation passed. Mother Superior’s next words were cold and immediate.

“Prepare for more advanced training.”

Until you meet the Agony—live or die.

Odrade lifted her gaze to the ceiling comeyes. “Send Sheeana in here. She begins at once with her new teacher.”

“So you’re going to do it! You’re going to work on that child.”

“Think of him as Bashar Teg,” Odrade said. “That helps.” And we’re not giving you time to reconsider.

“I didn’t resist Duncan and I can’t argue with you.”

“Don’t even argue with yourself, Murbella. Pointless. Teg was my father and still I must do this.”

Until that moment, Murbella had not realized the force behind Odrade’s earlier statement. The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. Great Dur protect me! Will I be like that?