Mentats of Dune

Chapter 26 (There can be only one result on a critical mission)

For bringing the vital computers back to the Sisterhood, Valya deserved great fanfare, but there would be no public applause. Most of the Sisters would never know what she and her recovery team had done, but she had proved her worth to Mother Superior Raquella, and that counted more than any accolades.

These forbidden computers were the Sisterhood’s most closely held secret, known only to Raquella’s elite inner circle, and now they were back where they belonged. After such a cost in blood, Valya knew the old Mother Superior would put the breeding database to extensive use. And the secret must be guarded more ruthlessly than ever.

When her team returned to Wallach IX, Valya sent coded word to Raquella that she had succeeded. Preparing to receive the disguised components, the Mother Superior sent all acolytes into isolated studies, diverted any remaining prying eyes from the landing field, and cleared the way so that Valya’s weary, grimy team could move the computers. Only Raquella’s most trusted allies could know what was happening.

The old woman offered her a proud smile, and Valya accepted a congratulatory hug. She felt a sudden and disheartening weakness in the Mother Superior’s wicker-thin body. How much longer could she last?

Valya had been functioning on very little sleep herself for days, and she had been unable to relax on the return journey from Rossak. Too many ideas ignited her imagination. Now, thanks to her, the computers could be restored, and someday Valya might even be in a position to bring the full resources of the Sisterhood against Vorian Atreides. The thought of erasing his entire bloodline made her breathless.…

Wallach IX had once been a Synchronized World, home to an enslaved human population. When the Sisterhood reestablished their school here, they discovered a network of deep bunkers left behind before the fall of the thinking machines. Now, those underground shelters were a perfect place to install — and hide — the retrieved computers and breeding records.

The Mother Superior brought in Fielle and other trusted Sisters to help install the components in underground chambers. Valya wondered how much planning the new Sister Mentat had done with Raquella while the commando team was on its mission. Valya needed to know this young woman better, to ensure that they were on the same side.

Fielle gave a cool assessment. “We Sister Mentats can use our own knowledge, but these computers will be a tremendous tool to help us plan the future breeding map.”

Sister Olivia emerged from the shuttle and hurried to her dark-haired friend. Both young women were heavy, yet seemed comfortable with their weight. The other returning team members engaged in excited chatter. Valya watched them all, knowing that these women, having completed a successful mission under her leadership, would form the core of her allies here, as well as the growing group of Sisters she trained in her new fighting methods. Valya thought of how the ancient Karee Marques had been a loyal adviser to Raquella for many years; she hoped Fielle could fulfill a similar role for Mother Superior Valya. She nodded to herself at the thought.

“After the components are unloaded and secured, why don’t you two join me for a meal?” Valya suggested to Fielle and Olivia. They looked at her in surprise, and she added, “I’d like you to meet my sister, Tula.”

Mother Superior Raquella seemed relieved to hear the invitation. “You should all get to know each other as friends. The Sisterhood suffered terrible damage when Dorotea thought of herself rather than the good of us all. Our new school on Wallach IX must be strong and unified.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Valya said.

IN A MATTER of days, the forbidden machines were reassembled, checked, and activated. Valya found herself with similar duties to those she had carried out in the isolated caves on Rossak — but this time, her eager sister was by her side. Valya had requested special permission from the Mother Superior, and she trusted no one more than Tula … in certain matters.

Valya had spent the past year making sure her sister knew exactly how Vorian Atreides had wronged House Harkonnen, and Tula was equally determined to punish the aloof, long-lived war hero. The young woman’s determination pleased Valya very much.

Valya was strong enough to balance the two driving goals in her life: She could not rest until she had destroyed her brother’s murderer, the man who had brought ruin upon her entire family. That was her personal obsession. But in the larger picture, Valya could change the course of human history, and evolution, if she were to guide the Sisterhood. She had never been one to settle for small ambitions.

Now, she and Tula worked in the main bunker, combing through the breeding records. Sitting at a dual-control terminal with linked screens, they scrolled through billions of DNA samples to examine their own lineage and chromosomal linkages to other bloodlines. Raquella’s trusted Sisters worked at other screens nearby. Several Sister Mentats pored over the genetic analyses and compared them with their own projections made from the more cumbersome printed documentation.

Tula brushed a hand through her curly blond hair and leaned closer to the screen. “Are we really so closely related to the Corrinos?”

“They erased our names and pretend that history doesn’t exist, but our bloodline is separated from historical greatness by only a few generations. The Emperor can write his own version, but we know that Harkonnens and Butlers fought side by side against the thinking machines in the Jihad. But we lost everything after the Battle of Corrin, thanks to that accursed Vorian Atreides. To hide the shame, the Butlers changed their name to Corrino and deleted Harkonnens from their family tree.”

“Vorian Atreides,” Tula said. Whenever Valya heard the name, it burned like poison in her ears.

The two young women followed family connections, drawing an intricate lattice of bloodlines from the database. As they searched, they brushed their trails electronically behind them, which blocked any other Sister from seeing what they had been doing. Tracing back through centuries of detailed records, they ran deep searches on the Atreides bloodline, tracking unique markers dispersed across the League of Nobles and the Unallied Planets, all the way back to the infamous cymek General Agamemnon.

But Valya was not interested in ancient history. Rather, she wanted recent blood descendants that Vorian Atreides might actually still care about.

Since murdering Griffin on Arrakis, the man had vanished — which was not surprising for a coward and a criminal. Vorian seemed dead to history, but Valya hoped he wasn’t truly dead — not yet, because she wanted to see him hurt, and hurt deeply. He had to feel the pain he had caused House Harkonnen for generations. She wanted to twist the knife and make him watch the slow death of his family, his legacy. Only then would she kill him.

The records indicated that during his travels with the Army of the Jihad, Vorian had lovers on various planets. One of his discarded partners had been a young woman named Karida Julan from Hagal, who was said to have given birth to a child by him. But the record was sketchy, the data damaged … maybe even intentionally deleted?

While staring at the screen in front of her, Valya heard a clamoring of internal voices from her Other Memories, as if those ghostly presences remembered such ancient times. The cacophony made her head ache, but she blocked the noises away — she could make up her own mind!

According to new information Vorian Atreides had revealed when he resurfaced and presented himself at the Imperial Court, he’d married a woman named Mariella on the planet Kepler and had two sons and three daughters by her, and an unspecified number of grandchildren. That revelation had sent Griffin off in pursuit, hunting down the Atreides enemy on Kepler and then on Arrakis, where Griffin had died.

Valya already knew about the Kepler branch of the Atreides line, but Tula uncovered records that were more complete, and more relevant. In the latter days of the Jihad, Vorian Atreides and his longtime companion Leronica Tergiet had two sons on the planet Caladan, Estes and Kagin — and by now they had many grandchildren. The Atreides bloodline had been spreading like a disease.

Valya’s gaze settled on the names of two of Kagin’s descendants — Willem and Orry Atreides, brothers living on Caladan now, both of marriageable age … and similar to her beloved Griffin.

Sharp, clear images of the two young men appeared on the screens: patrician features, unmistakable Atreides noses and eyes. Valya looked at her beautiful younger sister, and they exchanged smiles. Both seemed to be considering the same interesting possibilities.

If the Atreides could only feel the same pain as her family had suffered!

“Maybe you should go to Caladan,” Valya suggested.