Dune

We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized relationship between consciousness and matter, which provides a more penetrating insight into the workings of prescience. The oracle shapes a projected inner universe to produce new external probabilities out of forces that are not understood. There is no need to understand these forces before using them to shape the physical universe. Ancient metal workers had no need to understand the molecular and submolecular complexities of their steel, bronze, copper, gold, and tin. They invented mystical powers to describe the unknown while they continued to operate their forges and wield their hammers.

—MOTHER SUPERIOR TARAZA, ARGUMENT IN COUNCIL

The ancient structure in which the Sisterhood secreted its Chapter House, its Archives, and the offices of its most sacrosanct leadership did not just make sounds in the night. The noises were more like signals. Odrade had learned to read those signals over her many years here. That particular sound there, that strained creaking, was a wooden beam in the floor not replaced in some eight hundred years. It contracted in the night to produce those sounds.

She had Taraza’s memories to expand on such signals. The memories were not fully integrated; there had been very little time. Here at night in Taraza’s old working room, Odrade used a few available moments to continue the integration.

Dar and Tar, one at last.

That was a quite identifiable Taraza comment.

To haunt the Other Memories was to exist on several planes simultaneously, some of them very deep, but Taraza remained near the surface. Odrade allowed herself to sink farther into the multiple existences. Presently, she recognized a self who was currently breathing but remote while others demanded that she plunge into the all-enfolding visions, everything complete with smells, touches, emotions—all of the originals held intact within her own awareness.

It is unsettling to dream another’s dreams.

Taraza again.

Taraza who had played such a dangerous game with the future of the entire Sisterhood hanging in the balance! How carefully she had timed the leaking of word to the whores that the Tleilaxu had built dangerous abilities into the ghola. And the attack on the Gammu Keep confirmed that the information had reached its source. The brutal nature of that attack, though, had warned Taraza that she had little time. The whores would be sure to assemble forces for the total destruction of Gammu—just to kill that one ghola.

So much had depended on Teg.

She saw the Bashar there in her own assemblage of Other Memories: the father she had never really known.

I didn’t know him at the end, either.

It could be weakening to dig into those memories, but she could not escape the demands of that luring reservoir.

Odrade thought of the Tyrant’s words: “The terrible field of my past! Answers leap up like a frightened flock blackening the sky of my inescapable memories.”

Odrade held herself like a swimmer balanced just below the water’s surface.

I most likely will be replaced, Odrade thought. I may even be reviled. Bellonda certainly was not giving easy agreement to the new state of command. No matter. Survival of the Sisterhood was all that should concern any of them.

Odrade floated up out of the Other Memories and lifted her gaze to look across the room into the shadowy niche where the bust of a woman could be discerned in the low light of the room’s glowglobes. The bust remained a vague shape in its shadows but Odrade knew that face well: Chenoeh, guardian symbol of Chapter House.

“There but for the grace of God . . .”

Every sister who came through the spice agony (as Chenoeh had not) said or thought that same thing, but what did it really mean? Careful breeding and careful training produced the successful ones in sufficient numbers. Where was the hand of God in that? God certainly was not the worm they had brought from Rakis. Was the presence of God felt only in the successes of the Sisterhood?

I fall prey to the pretensions of my own Missionaria Protectiva!

She knew that these were similar to thoughts and questions that had been heard in this room on countless occasions. Bootless! Still, she could not bring herself to remove that guardian bust from the niche where it had reposed for so long.

I am not superstitious, she told herself. I am not a compulsive person. This is a matter of tradition. Such things have a value well known to us.

Certainly, no bust of me will ever be so honored.

She thought of Waff and his Face Dancers dead with Miles Teg in the terrible destruction of Rakis. It did not do to dwell on the bloody attrition being suffered in the Old Empire. Better to think about the muscles of retribution being created by the blundering violence of the Honored Matres.

Teg knew!

The recently concluded Council session had subsided in fatigue without firm conclusions. Odrade counted herself lucky to have diverted attention into a few immediate concerns dear to them all.

The punishments: Those had occupied them for a time. Historical precedents fleshed out the Archival analyses to a satisfying form. Those assemblages of humans who allied themselves with the Honored Matres were in for some shocks.

Ix would certainly overextend itself. They had not the slightest appreciation of how competition from the Scattering would crush them.

The Guild would be shunted aside and made to pay dearly for its melange and its machinery. Guild and Ix, thrown together, would fall together.

The Fish Speakers could be mostly ignored. Satellites of Ix, they were already fading into a past that humans would abandon.

And the Bene Tleilax. Ah, yes, the Tleilaxu. Waff had succumbed to the Honored Matres. He had never admitted it but the truth was plain. “Just once and with one of my own Face Dancers.”

Odrade smiled grimly, remembering her father’s bitter kiss.

I will have another niche made, she thought. I will commission another bust: Miles Teg, the Great Heretic!

Lucilla’s suspicions about Teg were disquieting, though. Had he been prescient at last and able to see the no-ships? Well, the Breeding Mistresses could explore those suspicions.

“We have laagered up!” Bellonda accused.

They all knew the meaning of that word: they had retreated into a fortress position for the long night of the whores.

Odrade realized she did not much care for Bellonda, the way she laughed occasionally to expose those wide, blunt teeth.

They had discussed the cell samples from Sheeana for a long time. The “proof of Siona” was there. She had the ancestry that shielded her from prescience and could leave the no-ship.

Duncan was an unknown.

Odrade turned her thoughts to the ghola out there in the grounded no-ship. Lifting herself from the chair, she crossed to the dark window and looked in the direction of the distant landing field.

Did they dare risk releasing Duncan from the shielding of that ship? The cell studies said he was a mixture of many Idaho gholas—some descendant of Siona. But what of the taint from the original?

No. He must remain confined.

And what of Murbella?—pregnant Murbella? An Honored Matre dishonored.

“The Tleilaxu intended for me to kill the Imprinter,” Duncan said.

“Will you try to kill the whore?” That was Lucilla’s question.

“She is not an Imprinter,” Duncan said.

The Council had discussed at length the possible nature of the bonding between Duncan and Murbella. Lucilla maintained there was no bonding at all, that the two remained wary opponents.

“Best not to risk putting them together.”

The sexual prowess of the whores would have to be studied at length, though. Perhaps a meeting between Duncan and Murbella in the no-ship could be risked. With careful protective measures, of course.

Lastly, she thought about the worm in the no-ship’s hold—a worm nearing the moment of its metamorphosis. A small earth-dammed basin filled with melange awaited that worm. When the moment came, it would be lured out by Sheeana into the bath of melange and water. The resulting sandtrout could then begin their long transformation.

You were right, father. It was so simple when you looked at it clearly.

No need to seek a desert planet for the worms. The sandtrout would create their own habitat for Shai-hulud. It was not pleasant to think of Chapter House Planet transformed into vast areas of wasteland but it had to be done.

The “Last Will and Testament of Miles Teg,” which he had planted in the no-ship’s submolecular storage systems, could not be discredited. Even Bellonda agreed to that.

Chapter House required a complete revision of all its historical records. A new look had been demanded of them by what Teg had seen of the Lost Ones—the whores from the Scattering.

“You seldom learn the names of the truly wealthy and powerful. You see only their spokesmen. The political arena makes a few exceptions to this but does not reveal the full power structure.”

The Mentat philosopher had chewed deep into everything they accepted and what he disgorged did not agree with Archival dependence upon “our inviolate summations.”

We knew it, Miles, we just never faced up to it. We’re all going to be digging in our Other Memories for the next few generations.

Fixed data storage systems could not be trusted.

“If you destroy most copies, time will take care of the rest.”

How Archives had raged at that telling pronouncement by the Bashar!

“The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts divert attention from the secret influences around the recorded events.”

That was the one that had brought down Bellonda. She had taken it up on her own, admitting: “The few histories that escape this restrictive process vanish into obscurity through obvious processes.”

Teg had listed some of the processes: “Destruction of as many copies as possible, burying the too revealing accounts in ridicule, ignoring them in the centers of education, insuring that they are not quoted elsewhere and, in some cases, elimination of the authors.”

Not to mention the scapegoat process that brought death to more than one messenger bearing unwelcome news, Odrade thought. She recalled an ancient ruler who kept a pikestaff handy with which to kill messengers who brought bad news.

“We have a good base of information upon which to build a better understanding of our past,” Odrade had argued. “We’ve always known that what was at stake in conflicts was the determination of who would control the wealth or its equivalent.”

Maybe it was not a real “noble purpose” but it would do for the time being.

I am avoiding the central issue, she thought.

Something would have to be done about Duncan Idaho and they all knew it.

With a sigh, Odrade summoned a ’thopter and prepared herself for the short trip to the no-ship.

Duncan’s prison was at least comfortable, Odrade thought when she entered it. This had been the ship commander’s quarters lately occupied by Miles Teg. There were still signs of his presence here—a small holostat projector revealing a scene of his home on Lernaeus; the stately old house, the long lawn, the river. Teg had left a sewing kit behind on a bedside table.

The ghola sat in a sling chair staring at the projection. He looked up listlessly when Odrade entered.

“You just left him back there to die, didn’t you?” Duncan asked.

“We do what we must,” she said. “And I obeyed his orders.”

“I know why you’re here,” Duncan said. “And you’re not going to change my mind. I’m not a damned stud for the witches. You understand me?”

Odrade smoothed her robe and sat on the edge of the bed facing Duncan. “Have you examined the record my father left for us?” she asked.

“Your father?”

“Miles Teg was my father. I commend his last words to you. He was our eyes there at the end. He had to see the death on Rakis. The ‘mind at its beginning’ understood dependencies and key logs.”

When Duncan looked puzzled, she explained: “We were trapped too long in the Tyrant’s oracular maze.”

She saw how he sat up more alertly, the feline movements that spoke of muscles well conditioned to attack.

“There is no way you can escape alive from this ship,” she said. “You know why.”

“Siona.”

“You are a danger to us but we would prefer that you lived a useful life.”

“I’m still not going to breed for you, especially not with that little twit from Rakis.”

Odrade smiled, wondering how Sheeana would respond to that description.

“You think it’s funny?” Duncan demanded.

“Not really. But we’ll still have Murbella’s child, of course. I guess that will have to satisfy us.”

“I’ve been talking to Murbella on the com,” Duncan said. “She thinks she’s going to be a Reverend Mother, that you’re going to accept her into the Bene Gesserit.”

“Why not? Her cells pass the proof of Siona. I think she will make a superb Sister.”

“Has she really taken you in?”

“You mean, have we failed to observe that she thinks she will go along with us until she learns our secrets and then she will escape? Oh, we know that, Duncan.”

“You don’t think she can get away from you?”

“Once we get them, Duncan, we never really lose them.”

“You don’t think you lost the Lady Jessica?”

“She came back to us in the end.”

“Why did you really come out here to see me?”

“I thought you deserved an explanation of the Mother Superior’s design. It was aimed at the destruction of Rakis, you see. What she really wanted was the elimination of almost all of the worms.”

“Great Gods below! Why?”

“They were an oracular force holding us in bondage. Those pearls of the Tyrant’s awareness magnified that hold. He didn’t predict events, he created them.”

Duncan pointed toward the rear of the ship. “But what about . . .”

“That one? It’s just one now. By the time it reaches sufficient numbers to be an influence once more, humankind will have gone its own way beyond him. We’ll be too numerous by then, doing too many different things on our own. No single force will rule all of our futures completely, never again.”

She stood.

When he did not respond, she said: “Within the imposed limits, which I know you appreciate, please think about the kind of life you want to lead. I promise to help you in any way I can.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because my ancestors loved you. Because my father loved you.”

“Love? You witches can’t feel love!”

She stared down at him for almost a minute. The bleached hair was growing out dark at the roots and curling once more into ringlets, especially at his neck, she saw.

“I feel what I feel,” she said. “And your water is ours, Duncan Idaho.”

She saw the Fremen admonition have its effect on him and then turned away and was passed out of the room by the guards.

Before leaving the ship, she went back to the hold and stared down at the quiescent worm on its bed of Rakian sand. Her viewport looked down from some two hundred meters onto the captive. As she looked, she shared a silent laugh with the increasingly integrated Taraza.

We were right and Schwangyu and her people were wrong. We knew he wanted out. He had to want that after what he did.

She spoke aloud in a soft whisper, as much for herself as for the nearby observers stationed there to watch for the moment when metamorphosis began in that worm.

“We have your language now,” she said.

There were no words in the language, only a moving, dancing adaptation to a moving, dancing universe. You could only speak the language, not translate it. To know the meaning you had to go through the experience and even then the meaning changed before your eyes. “Noble purpose” was, after all, an untranslatable experience. But when she looked down at the rough, heat-immune hide of that worm from the Rakian desert, Odrade knew what she saw: the visible evidence of noble purpose.

Softly, she called down to him: “Hey! Old worm! Was this your design?”

There was no answer but then she had not really expected an answer.