Dune

Looked at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at the elemental level. Muad’Dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber where movement occurred.

—STORIES FROM GAMMU

Murbella entered a time of incongruent experiences. It bothered her at first, seeing her own life with multiple vision. Chaotic events at Junction had ignited this, creating a jumble of immediate necessities that would not leave her, not even when she returned to Chapterhouse.

I warned you, Dar. You can’t deny it. I said they could turn victory into defeat. And look at the mess you dumped in my lap! I was lucky to save as many as I did.

This inner protest always immersed her in the events that had elevated her to this awful prominence.

What else could I have done?

Memory displayed Streggi slumping to the floor in bloodless death. The scene had played on the no-ship’s relays like a fictional drama. The projection framework in the ship’s command bay added to the illusion that this was not really happening. The actors would arise and take their bows. Teg’s comeyes, humming away automatically, missed none of it until someone silenced them.

She was left with images, an eerie afterglow: Teg sprawled on the floor of that Honored Matre aerie. Odrade staring in shock.

Loud protests greeted Murbella’s declaration that she must rush groundside. The Proctors were adamant until she laid out the details of Odrade’s gamble and demanded: “Do you want total disaster?”

Odrade Within won that argument. But you were prepared for it from the first, weren’t you, Dar? Your plan!

The Proctors said: “There’s still Sheeana.” They gave Murbella a one-man lighter and sent her to Junction alone.

Even though she transmitted her Honored Matre identity ahead of her, there were touchy moments at the Landing Flat.

A squad of armed Honored Matres confronted her as she emerged from the lighter beside a smoking pit. The smoke smelled of exotic explosives.

Where Mother Superior’s lighter was destroyed.

An ancient Honored Matre led the squad, her red robe stained, some of its decorations gone and a rip down the left shoulder. She was like some dried-up lizard, still poisonous, still with a bite but running on well-used angers, most of her energy gone. Disarrayed hair like the outer skin of a fresh-dug ginger root. There was a demon in her. Murbella saw it peering from orange-flecked eyes.

For all the fact that a full squad backed up the old one, the two of them faced each other as though isolated at the foot of the lighter’s drop, wild animals cautiously sniffing, trying to judge the extent of danger.

Murbella watched the old one carefully. This lizard would dart her tongue a bit, testing the air, giving vent to her emotions, but she was sufficiently shocked to listen.

“Murbella is my name. I was taken captive by the Bene Gesserit on Gammu. I am an adept of the Hormu.”

“Why are you wearing a witch’s robes?” The old one and her squad stood ready to kill.

“I have learned everything they had to teach and have brought that treasure to my Sisters.”

The old one studied her a moment. “Yes, I recognize your type. You’re a Roc, one we chose for the Gammu project.”

The squad behind her relaxed slightly.

“You did not come all the way in that lighter,” the old one accused.

“I escaped from one of their no-ships.”

“Do you know where their nest is?”

“I do.”

A wide smile spread on the old one’s lips. “Well! You are a prize! How did you escape?”

“Do you have to ask?”

The old one considered this. Murbella could read the thoughts on her face as though they were spoken: These ones we brought from Roc—deadly, all of them. They can kill with hands, feet, or any other movable part of their bodies. They all should carry a sign: “Dangerous in any position.”

Murbella moved away from the lighter, displaying the sinewy grace that was a mark of her identity.

Speed and muscle, Sisters. Beware.

Some of the squad pressed forward, curious. Their words were full of Honored Matre comparisons, eager questions Murbella was forced to parry.

“Did you kill many of them? Where is their planet? Is it rich? Have you bonded many males there? You were trained on Gammu?”

“I was on Gammu for the third stage. Under Hakka.”

“Hakka! I’ve met her. Did she have that injured left foot when you knew her?”

Still testing.

“It was the right foot and I was with her when she took the injury!”

“Oh, yes, the right foot. I remember now. How was she injured?”

“Kicking a lout in the rear. He had a sharp knife in his hip pocket. Hakka was so angry she killed him.”

Laughter swept through the squad.

“We will go to Great Honored Matre,” the old one said.

So I’ve passed first inspection.

Murbella sensed reservations, though.

Why is this Hormu adept wearing those enemy robes? And she has a strange look to her.

Best face that one at once.

“I took their training and they accepted me.”

“The fools! Did they really?”

“You question my word?” How easy it was to revert, adopting touchy Honored Matre ways.

The old one bristled. She did not lose hauteur but she sent a warning look to her squad. All of them took a moment to digest what Murbella had said.

“You became one of them?” someone behind her asked.

“How else could I steal their knowledge? Know this! I was the personal student of their Mother Superior.”

“Did she teach you well?” That same challenging voice from behind.

Murbella identified the questioner: middle echelon and ambitious. Anxious for notice and advancement.

This is the end of you, anxious one. And little loss to the universe.

A Bene Gesserit feint drifted the feather that was her foe into range. One Hormu-style kick for them to recognize. The questioner lay dead on the ground.

Marriage of Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre abilities creates a danger you should all recognize and envy.

“She taught me admirably,” Murbella said. “Any other questions?”

“Ehhhhh!” the old one said.

“How are you called?” Murbella demanded.

“I am a Senior Dame, Honored Matre of the Hormu. I am called Elpek.”

“Thank you, Elpek. You may call me Murbella.”

“I am honored, Murbella. It is indeed a treasure you have brought us.”

Murbella studied her a moment with Bene Gesserit watchfulness before smiling without humor.

The exchange of names! You in your red robe that marks you as one of the powerful surrounding Great Honored Matre, do you know what you have just accepted into your circle?

The squad remained shocked and looked at Murbella with wariness. She saw this with her new sensitivity. The Old Girl network had never gained a foothold in the Bene Gesserit but it performed for Honored Matres. Simulflow amused her with a parade of confirmation. How subtle the power transfers: right school, right friends, graduation and transfer onto the first rungs of the ladder—all guided by relatives and their connections, mutual back-scratching that managed alliances, including marriages. Simulflow told her it led into the pit but ones on the ladder, the ones in controlling niches, never let that worry them.

Today is sufficient unto today, and that is how Elpek sees me. But she does not see what I have become, only that I am dangerous but potentially useful.

Turning slowly on one foot, Murbella studied Elpek’s squad. No bonded males here. This was too sensitive a duty for any but trusted women. Good.

“Now, you will listen to me, all of you. If you have any loyalty to our Sisterhood, which I will judge on future performance, you will honor what I have brought. I intend it as a gift for those who deserve it.”

“Great Honored Matre will be pleased,” Elpek said.

But Great Honored Matre did not appear pleased when Murbella was presented.

Murbella recognized the tower setting. Almost sunset now but Streggi’s body still lay where it had fallen. Some of Teg’s specialists had been killed, mostly the comeye crew who doubled as his guard.

No, we Honored Matres do not like others spying on us.

Teg still lived, she saw, but he was swathed in shigawire and shoved disdainfully into a corner. Most surprising of all: Odrade stood unfettered near Great Honored Matre. It was a gesture of contempt.

Murbella felt she had lived through such a scene many times—aftermath of Honored Matre Victory: swaths of their enemies’ bodies left where they had been brought down. Honored Matre attack with the bloodless weapon had been swift and deadly, a typical viciousness that killed when killing no longer was required. She suppressed a shudder at the memory of this deadly reversal. There had been no warning, only the troops dropping in wide lines—a domino effect that left the survivors in shock. And Great Honored Matre obviously enjoyed the shock.

Looking at Murbella, Great Honored Matre said, “So this is the bag of insolence you say you trained in your ways.”

Odrade almost smiled at the description.

Bag of insolence?

A Bene Gesserit would accept it without rancor. This rheumy-eyed Great Honored Matre faced a quandary and could not call on her weapon that killed without blood. Very delicate balance of power. Agitated conversations among Honored Matres had revealed their problem.

All of their secret weapons had been exhausted and could not be reloaded, something they had lost when driven back here.

“Our weapon of last resort and we wasted it!”

Logno, who thought herself supreme, stood in a different arena now. And she had just learned of the fearful ease with which Murbella could kill one of the elect.

Murbella cast a measuring gaze over Great Honored Matre’s entourage, gauging their potentials. They recognized this situation, of course. Familiar. How did they vote?

Neutral?

Some were wary and all were waiting.

Anticipating a diversion. No concern over who triumphed as long as power continued to flow in their direction.

Murbella let her muscles flow into the waiting stance of combat she had learned from Duncan and the Proctors. She felt as cool as though standing on the practice floor, running through responses. Even as she reacted, she knew she moved in ways for which Odrade had prepared her—mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Voice first. Give them a taste of inner chill.

“I see you have assessed the Bene Gesserit quite poorly. The arguments of which you are so proud, these women have heard them so many times your words go beyond boredom.”

This was delivered with scathing vocal control, a tone that brought orange to Logno’s eyes but held her motionless.

Murbella was not through with her. “You consider yourself powerful and clever. One begets the other, eh? What idiocy! You’re a consummate liar and you lie to yourself.”

As Logno remained motionless in the face of this attack, those around her began moving away, opening space that said, “She is all yours.”

“Your fluency in these lies does not hide them,” Murbella said. She swept a scornful gaze across the ones behind Logno. “Like the ones I know in Other Memory, you are headed for extinction. The problem is that you take so infernally long dying. Inevitable but oh, the boredom meanwhile. You dare call yourself Great Honored Matre!” Returning her attention to Logno. “Everything about you is a cesspool. You have no style.”

It was too much. Logno attacked, left foot slashing outward with blinding speed. Murbella grasped the foot as she would catch a wind-blown leaf and, continuing the flow of it, levered Logno into a threshing club that ended with her head pulped on the floor. Without pausing, Murbella pirouetted, left foot almost decapitating the Honored Matre who had stood at Logno’s right, the right hand crushing the throat of the one who had stood at Logno’s left. It was over in two heartbeats.

Examining the scene without breathing hard (to show how easy it was, Sisters), Murbella experienced a sense of shock and recognition of the inevitable. Odrade lay on the floor in front of Elpek, who obviously had chosen sides without hesitation. The twisted position of Odrade’s neck and flaccid appearance of her body said she was dead.

“She tried to interfere,” Elpek said.

Having killed a Reverend Mother, Elpek expected Murbella (a Sister, after all!) to applaud. But Murbella did not react as expected. She knelt beside Odrade and put her head against that of the corpse, staying there an interminable time.

The surviving Honored Matres exchanged questioning looks but dared not move.

What is this?

But they were immobilized by Murbella’s terrifying abilities.

When she had Odrade’s recent past, all of the new added to previous Sharing, Murbella stood.

Elpek saw death in Murbella’s eyes and took one backward step before trying to defend herself. Elpek was dangerous but no match for this demon in the black robe. It was over with the same shocking abruptness that had taken Logno and her aides: a kick to the larynx. Elpek sprawled across Odrade.

Once more, Murbella studied the survivors, then stood a moment looking down at Odrade’s body.

In a way, that was my doing, Dar. And yours!

She shook her head from side to side, absorbing consequences.

Odrade is dead. Long live Mother Superior! Long live Great Honored Matre! And may the heavens protect us all.

She gave her attention then to what must be done. These deaths had created an enormous debt. Murbella took a deep breath. This was another Gordian knot.

“Release Teg,” she said. “Clean up in here as quickly as possible. And somebody get me a proper robe!”

It was Great Honored Matre giving orders but those who leaped to obey sensed the Other in her.

The one who brought her a red robe elaborate with soostone dragons held it deferentially from a distance. Large woman with heavy bones and square face. Cruel eyes.

“Hold it for me,” Murbella said and when the woman tried to take advantage of proximity to attack her, Murbella dumped the woman hard. “Try again?”

This time there were no tricks.

“You are the first member of my Council,” Murbella said. “Name?”

“Angelika, Great Honored Matre.” See! I was first to call you by your proper title. Reward me.

“Your reward is that I promote you and let you live.”

Proper Honored Matre response. Accepted as such.

When Teg came to her rubbing his arms where the shigawire had bitten deep, some Honored Matres tried to caution Murbella. “Do you know what this one can—”

“He serves me now,” Murbella interrupted. Then in Odrade’s mocking tones: “Isn’t that right, Miles?”

He gave her a rueful smile, an old man on a child’s face. “Interesting times, Murbella.”

“Dar liked apples,” Murbella said. “See to that.”

He nodded. Return her to a cemetery orchard. Not that prized Bene Gesserit orchards would endure long in a desert. Still, some traditions were worth perpetuating while you could.