Dune

Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch.—Folk Saying.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being.

—THE BASHAR TEG

It was a weakness in the Bene Gesserit that Odrade knew the entire Sisterhood soon must recognize. She gained no consolation from having seen it first. Denying our deepest resource when we need it most! The Scatterings had gone beyond the ability of humans to assemble the experiences in manageable form. We can only extract essentials, and that is a matter of judgment. Vital data would remain dormant in great and small events, accumulations called instinct. So that was it finally—they must fall back on unspoken knowledge.

In this age, the word “refugees” took on the color of its pre-space meaning. Small bands of Reverend Mothers sent out by the Sisterhood held something in common with old scenes of displaced stragglers trudging down forgotten roads, pitiful belongings bound in bits of cloth, wheeled on decrepit prams and toy wagons, or piled atop lopsided vehicles, remnant humanity clinging to the outsides and densely packed within, every face blank with despair or heated by desperation.

So we repeat history and repeat it and repeat it.

As she entered a tubeslot shortly before lunch, Odrade’s thoughts clung to her Scattered Sisters: political refugees, economic refugees, pre-battle refugees.

Is this your Golden Path, Tyrant?

Visions of her Scattered ones haunted Odrade as she entered Central’s Reserved Dining Room, a place only Reverend Mothers might enter. They served themselves here at cafeteria lines.

It had been twenty days since she had released Teg to the cantonment. Rumors were flying in Central, especially among Proctors, although there still was no sign of another vote. New decisions must be announced today and they would have to be more than naming the ones who would accompany her to Junction.

She glanced around the dining room, an austere place of yellow walls, low ceiling, small square tables that could be latched in rows for larger groups. Windows along one side revealed a garden court under a translucent cover. Dwarf apricots in green fruit, lawn, benches, small tables. Sisters ate outside when sunlight poured into the enclosed yard. No sunlight today.

She ignored a cafeteria line where a place was being made for her. Later, Sisters.

At the corner table near the windows reserved for her, she deliberately moved the chairs. Bell’s brown chairdog pulsed faintly at this unaccustomed disturbance. Odrade sat with her back to the room, knowing this would be interpreted correctly: Leave me to my own thoughts.

While she waited, she stared out at the courtyard. An enclosing hedge of exotic purple-leaved shrubs was in red flower—giant blossoms with delicate stamens of deep yellow.

Bellonda arrived first, dropping into her chairdog with no comment on its new position. Bell frequently appeared untidy, belt loose, robe wrinkled, bits of food on the bosom. Today, she was neat and clean.

Now, why is that?

Bellonda said, “Tam and Sheeana will be late.”

Odrade accepted this without stopping her study of this different Bellonda. Was she a bit slimmer? There was no way to insulate a Mother Superior completely from what went on within her sensory area of concerns but sometimes pressures of work distracted her from small changes. These were a Reverend Mother’s natural habitat, though, and negative evidence was as illuminating as positive. On reflection, Odrade realized that this new Bellonda had been with them for several weeks.

Something had happened to Bellonda. Any Reverend Mother could exercise reasonable control over weight and figure. A matter of internal chemistry—banking fires or letting them burn high. For years now, rebellious Bellonda had flaunted a gross body.

“You’ve lost weight,” Odrade said.

“Fat was beginning to slow me too much.”

That had never been sufficient reason for Bell to change her ways. She had always compensated with speed of mind, with projections and faster transport.

“Duncan really got to you, didn’t he?”

“I’m not a hypocrite nor criminal!”

“Time to send you to a punishment Keep, I guess.”

This recurrent humorous thrust usually annoyed Bellonda. Today, it did not arouse her. But under pressure of Odrade’s stare, she said: “If you must know, it’s Sheeana. She has been after me to improve my appearance and broaden my circle of associates. Annoying! I’m doing it to shut her up.”

“Why are Tam and Sheeana late?”

“Reviewing your latest meeting with Duncan. I have severely limited who has access to it. No telling what will happen when it becomes general knowledge.”

“As it will.”

“Inevitable. I only buy us time to prepare.”

“I did not want it suppressed, Bell.”

“Dar, what are you doing?”

“I will announce that at a Convocation.”

No words but Bellonda glared her surprise.

“A Convocation is my right,” Odrade said.

Bellonda leaned back and stared at Odrade, assessing, questioning . . . all without words. The last Convocation of the Bene Gesserit had been at the Tyrant’s death. And before that, at the Tyrant’s seizure of power. A Convocation had not been thought possible since Honored Matres attacked. Too much time taken from desperate labors.

Presently, Bellonda asked: “Will you risk bringing Sisters from our surviving Keeps?”

“No. Dortujla will represent them. There is precedent, as you know.”

“First, you free Murbella; now it’s a Convocation.”

“Free? Murbella is tied by chains of gold. Where would she go without her Duncan?”

“But you’ve given Duncan freedom to leave the ship!”

“Has he?”

Bellonda said, “You think that information from the ship’s armory is all he’ll take?”

“I know it.”

“I am reminded of Jessica turning her back on the Mentat who would have killed her.”

“The Mentat was immobilized by his own beliefs.”

“Sometimes the bull gores the matador, Dar.”

“More often he does not.”

“Our survival should not depend on statistics!”

“Agreed. That is why I call Convocation.”

“Acolytes included?”

“Everyone.”

“Even Murbella? Does she get an acolyte’s vote?”

“I think she may be a Reverend Mother by then.”

Bellonda gasped, then: “You move too fast, Dar!”

“These times require it.”

Bellonda glanced toward the dining room door. “Here’s Tam. Later than I expected. I wonder if they took time to consult Murbella?”

Tamalane arrived, breathing hard from hurrying. She dropped into her blue chairdog, noted the new positions and said: “Sheeana will be along presently. She is showing records to Murbella.”

Bellonda addressed Tamalane. “She’s going to put Murbella through the Agony and call a Convocation.”

“I’m not surprised.” Tamalane spoke with her old precision. “The position of that Honored Matre must be resolved as soon as possible.”

Sheeana joined them then and took the slingchair at Odrade’s left, speaking as she sat. “Have you watched Murbella walk?”

Odrade was caught by the way this abrupt question, uttered without preamble, fixed the attention. Murbella walking in the ship. Observed just that morning. Beauty in Murbella and the eye could not avoid it. To other Bene Gesserit, Reverend Mothers and acolytes alike, she was something of an exotic. She had arrived full-grown from the dangerous Outside. One of them. It was her movements, though, that compelled the eye. Homeostasis in her that went beyond the norms.

Sheeana’s question redirected the observer’s mind. Something about Murbella’s quite acceptable passage required new examination. What was it?

Murbella’s motions were always carefully chosen. She excluded anything not required to go from here to there. Path of least resistance? It was a view of Murbella that sent a pang through Odrade. Sheeana had seen it, of course. Was Murbella one of those who would choose an easy way every time? Odrade could see that question on the faces of her companions.

“The Agony will sort it out,” Tamalane said.

Oldrade looked squarely at Sheeana. “Well?” She had asked the question, after all.

“Perhaps it’s only that she does not waste energy. But I agree with Tam: the Agony.”

“Are we making a terrible mistake?” Bellonda asked.

Something in the way this question was asked told Odrade that Bell had made a Mentat summation. She has seen what I intend!

“If you know a better course reveal it now,” Odrade said. Or hold your peace.

Silence gripped them. Odrade looked at her companions in succession, lingering on Bell.

Help us, whatever gods there may be! And I, being Bene Gesserit, am too much agnostic to make that plea with anything more than a hope of covering all possibilities. Don’t reveal it, Bell. If you know what I will do, you know it must be seen in its own time.

Bellonda brought Odrade out of reverie with a cough. “Are we going to eat or talk? People are staring.”

“Should we have another go at Scytale?” Sheeana asked.

Was that an attempt to divert my attention?

Bellonda said: “Give him nothing! He’s in reserve. Let him sweat.”

Odrade looked carefully at Bellonda. She was fuming over the silence imposed on her by Odrade’s secret decision. Avoiding a meeting of eyes with Sheeana. Jealous! Bell is jealous of Sheeana!

Tamalane said, “I am only an advisor now but—”

“Stop that, Tam!” Odrade snapped.

“Tam and I have been discussing that ghola,” Bellonda said. (Idaho was “that ghola” when Bellonda had something disparaging to say.) “Why did he think he needed to talk secretly to Sheeana?” A hard stare at Sheeana.

Odrade saw shared suspicion. She does not accept the explanation. Does she reject Duncan’s emotional bias?

Sheeana spoke quickly. “Mother Superior explained that!”

“Emotion,” Bellonda sneered.

Odrade raised her voice and was surprised at this reaction. “Suppressing emotions is a weakness!”

Tamalane’s shaggy eyebrows lifted.

Sheeana intruded: “If we won’t bend, we can break.”

Before Bellonda could respond, Odrade said: “Ice can be chipped apart or melted. Ice maidens are vulnerable to a single form of attack.”

“I’m hungry,” Sheeana said.

Peace-making? Not a role expected of The Mouse.

Tamalane stood. “Bouillabaisse. We must eat the fish before our sea is gone. Not enough nullentropy storage.”

In the softest of simulflows, Odrade noted the departure of her companions to the cafeteria line. Tamalane’s accusatory words recalled that second day with Sheeana after the decision to phase out the Great Sea. Standing at Sheeana’s window in the early morning, Odrade had watched a seabird move against the desert background. It winged its way northward, a creature completely out of place in that setting but beautiful in a profoundly nostalgic way because of it.

White wings glistened in early sunlight. A touch of black beneath and in front of its eyes. Abruptly, it hovered, wings motionless. Then, lifting on an air current, it tucked its wings like a hawk and plummeted out of view behind the farther buildings. Reappearing, it carried something in its beak, a morsel it swallowed on the wing.

A seabird alone and adapting.

We adapt. We do indeed adapt.

It was not a quiet thought. Nothing to induce repose. Shocking rather. Odrade had felt jarred out of a dangerously drifting course. Not only her beloved Chapterhouse but their entire human universe was breaking out of its old shapes and taking on new forms. Perhaps it was right in this new universe that Sheeana continued to conceal things from Mother Superior. And she is concealing something.

Once more, Bellonda’s acidic tones brought Odrade to full awareness of her surroundings. “If you won’t serve yourself, I suppose we must take care of you.” Bellonda placed a bowl of aromatic fish stew in front of Odrade, a great chunk of garlic bread beside it.

When each had sampled the bouillabaisse, Bellonda put down her spoon and stared hard at Odrade. “You’re not going to suggest we ‘love one another’ or some such debilitating nonsense?”

“Thank you for bringing my food,” Odrade said.

Sheeana swallowed and a wide grin came over her features. “It’s delicious.”

Bellonda returned to eating. “It’s all right.” But she had heard the unspoken comment.

Tamalane ate steadily, shifting attention from Sheeana to Bellonda and then to Odrade. Tam appeared to agree with a proposed softening of emotional strictures. At least, she voiced no objections and older Sisters were most likely to object.

The love the Bene Gesserit tried to deny was everywhere, Odrade thought. In small things and big. How many ways there were to prepare delectable, life-sustaining foods, recipes that really were embodiments of loves old and new. This bouillabaisse so smoothly restorative on her tongue; its origins were planted deeply in love: the wife at home using that part of the day’s catch her husband could not sell.

The very essence of the Bene Gesserit was concealed in loves. Why else minister to those unspoken needs humanity always carried? Why else work for the perfectibility of humankind?

Bowl empty, Bellonda put down her spoon and wiped up the dregs with the last of her bread. She swallowed, looking pensive. “Love weakens us,” she said. No force in her voice.

An acolyte could have said it no differently. Right out of the Coda. Odrade concealed amusement and countered with another Coda stepping-stone. “Beware jargon. It usually hides ignorance and carries little knowledge.”

Respectful wariness entered Bellonda’s eyes.

Sheeana pushed herself back from the table and wiped her mouth with her napkin. Tamalane did the same. Her chairdog adjusted as she leaned back, eyes bright and amused.

Tam knows! The wily old witch is still wise in my ways. But Sheeana . . . what game is Sheeana playing? I would almost say she hopes to distract me, to keep my attention away from her. She is very good at it, learned it at my knee. Well . . . two can play that game. I press Bellonda, but watch my little Dune waif.

“What price respectability, Bell?” Odrade asked.

Bellonda accepted this thrust in silence. Hidden in Bene Gesserit jargon was a definition of respectability and they all knew it.

“Should we honor the memory of the Lady Jessica for her humanity?” Odrade asked. Sheeana is surprised!

“Jessica put the Sisterhood in jeopardy!” Bellonda accuses.

“To thine own Sisters be true,” Tamalane murmured.

“Our antique definition of respectability helps keep us human,” Odrade said. Hear me well, Sheeana.

Her voice little more than a whisper, Sheeana said, “If we lose that we lose it all.”

Odrade suppressed a sigh. So that’s it!

Sheeana met her gaze. “You are instructing us, of course.”

“Twilight thoughts,” Bellonda muttered. “Best we avoid them.”

“Taraza called us ‘Latter-day Bene Gesserit,’” Sheeana said.

Odrade’s mood went self-accusatory.

The bane of our present existence. Sinister imaginings can destroy us.

How easy it was to conjure a future that looked at them from glazing orange eyes of berserk Honored Matres. Fears out of many pasts crouched within Odrade, breathless moments focused on fangs that went with such eyes.

Odrade forced her attention back to the immediate problem. “Who will accompany me to Junction?”

They knew Dortujla’s harrowing experience and word of it had spread throughout Chapterhouse.

“Whoever goes with Mother Superior could well be fed to Futars.”

“Tam,” Odrade said. “You and Dortujla.” And that may be a death sentence. The next step is obvious. “Sheeana,” Odrade said, “you will Share with Tam. Dortujla and I will Share with Bell. And I also will share with you before I go.”

Bellonda was aghast. “Mother Superior! I am not suited to take your place.”

Odrade held her attention on Sheeana. “That is not being suggested. I will merely make you the repository of my lives.” Definite fear on Sheeana’s face but she dared not refuse a direct order. Odrade nodded to Tamalane. “I will Share later. You and Sheeana will do it now.”

Tamalane leaned toward Sheeana. The strictures of great age and imminent death made this a welcome thing for her but Sheeana involuntarily pulled away.

“Now!” Odrade said. Let Tam judge whatever it is you hide.

There was no escape. Sheeana bent her head to Tamalane’s until they touched. The flash of the exchange was electric and the entire dining room felt it. Conversation stopped, every gaze turned toward the table by the window.

There were tears in Sheeana’s eyes when she withdrew.

Tamalane smiled and made a gentle caressing motion with both hands along Sheeana’s cheeks. “It’s all right, dear. We all have these fears and sometimes do foolish things because of them. But I am pleased to call you Sister.”

Tell us, Tam! Now!

Tamalane did not choose to do that. She faced Odrade and said, “We must cling to our humanity at any cost. Your lesson is well received and you have taught Sheeana well.”

“When Sheeana Shares with you, Dar,” Bellonda began, “could you not reduce the influence she has on Idaho?”

“I will not weaken a possible Mother Superior,” Odrade said. “Thank you, Tam. I think we will make our venture to Junction without excess baggage. Now! I want a report by tonight on Teg’s progress. His leech has been too long away from him.”

“Will he learn that he has two leeches now?” Sheeana asked. Such joy in her!

Odrade stood.

If Tam accepts her then I must. Tam would never betray our Sisterhood. And Sheeana—of us all, Sheeana most reveals the natural traits from our human roots. Still . . . I wish she had never created that statue she calls “The Void.”