Dune

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?”