Navigators of Dune

21

Mother Superior Valya meant to build the Sisterhood into something far more powerful than it had been in the past, but first she needed to be absolutely confident she could rely on her people. At Valya’s feet, an unconscious woman lay on the floor of the windowless cell, bleeding from her ears.

For weeks, Sister Esther-Cano had undergone rigorous reeducation, but had resisted every step. Valya and her subordinates had isolated the defiant Sister with barely enough food and water to stay alive. Esther-Cano had been commanded repeatedly to admit that Dorotea’s misguided Orthodox beliefs had caused the devastating schism in the Sisterhood, and to admit that there had never been any hidden computers. Though Valya knew the last part wasn’t true, since she herself had stored them in ultra-secure underground chambers, she wanted to force Sister Esther-Cano to utter the words.

Yet the beaten woman remained pathologically stubborn.

Valya had interrogated Esther-Cano for two hours that afternoon, improvising original methods when the traditional ones had failed. There would be no crude and clumsy torture implements such as the Scalpel interrogators used. No, this prisoner was an accomplished Truthsayer and a Reverend Mother, but Esther-Cano had no defense against the manipulative power of Voice that Valya had mastered.

Testing her abilities, Valya showed that she could overcome Esther-Cano with mere words. Sharpening her verbal weapons, the Mother Superior attacked her subject with vocal jabs that subdued her and turned her into a bleeding wreck on the floor. Valya had not laid a finger on the other woman, but her soft hypnotic Voice had convinced Esther-Cano that the sound was tremendously loud, rather than the whisper that it really was, and the mere suggestion of noise had actually destroyed the inside of her ears. Amazing and unexpected! When Esther-Cano returned to consciousness she would realize that she was completely deaf.

After the rough session, Sister Olivia would come in to help handle the unconscious prisoner, although even faithful Olivia was not allowed to learn about the use of Voice. Not yet. Valya had used the technique on Olivia, too, making her forget that she had ever received the eerie, irresistible command. Now Olivia returned, looking confused as to why she had gone. “Would you like me to take over now, Mother Superior?” She knelt beside the unconscious woman. “Oh, she’s bleeding! What happened to her ears?”

“Perhaps they could not stand to hear any more of her own lies.”

Olivia rose to her feet. “Shall I summon the medics?”

“Not just yet.”

Valya was learning her own abilities, experimenting with the effects. She wondered just how much physical damage a person could psychosomatically inflict on her own body. Could the victim’s mind cause subconscious constrictions to stop her own heart, burst her liver? Maybe the intractable traitor Esther-Cano could be useful to the Sisterhood as an experimental object.

On the cold floor, the woman began to stir, clutching at her ears and whimpering in pain. Seeing the blood smeared on her hands, she struggled to a sitting position, glared at the Mother Superior. “What have you done to me? I can’t hear my own voice!”

Valya leaned over and spoke softly, knowing the woman could not hear her. “I was trying to toughen you. I must teach you the proper way of thinking, of seeing the world.”

Esther-Cano seemed to be having trouble even sitting up, perhaps from dizziness. She shouted her reply. “I don’t understand what you’re saying or doing to me, but your actions are corrupting the Sisterhood. Mother Superior Raquella would never have condoned this! I can’t believe Dorotea ever agreed to rejoin your faction of heretics.”

Valya smiled and continued to whisper, “Dorotea did what she was told.” Then she rose to her feet and turned her face away from the victim, addressing Olivia, “Kill her.”

Olivia recoiled. “But why? She needs to be retrained, rehabilitated—”

“No, I will spend more time training you, developing your expertise. And killing is a skill we need in our repertoire now. This woman — she is no longer worthy even to be called a Sister — is too tainted to be useful, except in one way. She can serve the Sisterhood as a lesson to you — one that you will pass on to others.”

“What do you mean?”

Valya’s voice became throaty, otherworldly. “Kill her.”

Olivia obeyed reflexively. She delivered a kick to Esther-Cano’s larynx that snapped her neck, followed by a quick finishing blow to the center of her face, crushing her skull. Olivia blinked in astonishment at what she had done.

Satisfied, Valya returned to her living quarters, where she would enjoy dinner alone in celebration. She had just made another step in the progress of the new Sisterhood. Her new Sisterhood.