Chapterhouse: Dune

by Frank Herbert

  At such moments, Odrade often produced a manner of almost religious serenity. It soothed nervous ones. Acolytes were ... well, acolytes, but Mother Superior was the supreme witch of them all. Nervousness was natural.

  Someone behind Odrade whispered: "She has Streggi on the coals tonight."

  On the coals. Odrade knew the expression. It had been used in her acolyte days. So this one was named Streggi. Let it be unspoken for now. Names carry magic.

  "Do you enjoy tonight's dinner?" Odrade asked.

  "It's acceptable, Mother Superior." One tried not to give false opinions, but Streggi was confused by the shift in conversation.

  "They've overcooked it," Odrade said.

  "Serving so many, how can they please everyone, Mother Superior?"

  She speaks her mind and speaks it well.

  "Your left hand is trembling," Odrade said.

  "I'm nervous with you, Mother Superior. And I've just come from the practice floor. Very tiring today."

  Odrade analyzed the tremors. "They have you doing the long-arm lift."

  "Was it painful in your day, Mother Superior?" (In those ancient times?)

  "Just as painful as today. Pain teaches, they told me."

  That softened things. Shared experiences, the patter of the Proctors.

  "I don't understand about horses, Mother Superior." Streggi looked at her plate. "This cannot be horse meat. I'm sure I..."

  Odrade laughed loudly, attracting startled looks. She put a hand on Streggi's arm and subsided to a gentle smile. "Thank you, my dear. No one has made me laugh that much in years. I hope this is the beginning of a long and joyous association."

  "Thank you, Mother Superior, but I--"

  "I will explain about the horse, my own little joke and no intent to demean you. I want you to carry a young child on your shoulders, to move him more rapidly than his short legs will carry him."

  "As you wish, Mother Superior." No objections, no more questions. Questions were there, but the answers would come in their own time and Streggi knew it.

  Magic time.

  Withdrawing her hand, Odrade said: "Your name?"

  "Streggi, Mother Superior. Aloana Streggi."

  "Rest easy, Streggi. I will see to the orchards. We need them for morale as much as for food. You report to Reassignment tonight. Tell them I want you in my workroom at six tomorrow morning."

  "I will be there, Mother Superior. Will I continue to mark your map?" As Odrade was rising to leave.

  "For now, Streggi. But ask Reassignment for a new acolyte and begin training her. Soon, you will be much too busy for the map."

  "Thank you, Mother Superior. The desert is growing very fast."

  Streggi's words gave Odrade a certain satisfaction, dispelling gloom that had hampered her most of the day.

  The cycle was getting another chance, turning once more as it was impelled to do by those subterranean forces called "life" and "love" and other unnecessary labels.

  Thus it turns. Thus it renews. Magic. What witchery could take your attention from this miracle?

  In her workroom, she issued an order to Weather, then silenced the tools of her office and went to the bow window. Chapterhouse glowed pale red in the night from reflections of groundlights against low clouds. It gave a romantic appearance to rooftops and walls that Odrade quickly rejected.

  Romance? There was nothing romantic about what she had done in the Acolyte Dining Hall.

  I have finally done it. I have committed myself. Now, Duncan must restore our Bashar's memories. A delicate assignment.

  She continued to stare into the night, suppressing knots in her stomach.

  I not only commit myself but I commit what remains of my Sisterhood. So this is how it feels, Tar.

  This is how it feels and your plan is tricky.

  It was going to rain. Odrade sensed it in the air coming through the ventilators around the window. No need to read a Weather Dispatch. She seldom did that these days, anyway. Why bother? But Streggi's report carried a potent warning.

  Rains were becoming rarer here and rather to be welcomed. Sisters would emerge to walk in it despite the cold. There was a touch of sadness in the thought. Each rain she saw brought the same question: Is this the last one?

  The people of Weather did heroic things to keep an expanding desert dry and the growing areas irrigated. Odrade did not know how they had managed this rain to comply with her order. Before long, they would not be able to obey such commands, even from Mother Superior. The desert will triumph because that is what we have set in motion.

  She opened the central panes of her window. The wind at this level had stopped. Just the clouds moving overhead. Wind at higher elevations harrying things along. A sense of urgency in the weather. The air was chilly. So they had made temperature adjustments to bring this bit of rain. She closed the window, feeling no desire to go outside. Mother Superior had no time to play the game of last rain. One rain at a time. And always out there the desert moving inexorably toward them.

  That, we can map and watch. But what of the hunter behind me--the nightmare figure with the axe? What map tells me where she is tonight?

  Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses, hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that commandment daily in the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest creativity.

  --Bene Gesserit Credo

  Murbella sat cross-legged on the practice floor, alone, shivering after her exertions. Mother Superior had been here less than an hour this afternoon. And, as often happened, Murbella felt she had been abandoned in a fever dream.

  Odrade's parting words reverberated in the dream: "The hardest lesson for an acolyte to learn is that she must always go the limit. Your abilities will take you farther than you imagine. Don't imagine, then. Extend yourself!"

  What is my response? That I was taught to cheat?

  Odrade had done something to call up the patterns of childhood and Honored Matre education. I learned cheating as an infant. How to simulate a need and gain attention. Many "how-to's" in the cheating pattern. The older she got, the easier the cheating. She had learned what the big people around her were demanding. I regurgitated on demand. That was called "education." Why were the Bene Gesserit so remarkably different in their teaching?

  "I don't ask you to be honest with me," Odrade had said. "Be honest with yourself."

  Murbella despaired of ever rooting out all of the cheating in her past. Why should I? More cheating!

  "Damn you, Odrade!"

  Only after the words were out did she realize she had spoken them aloud. She started to put a hand to her mouth and aborted the movement. Fever said: "What's the difference?"

  "Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity." Odrade explaining. "The young must be damped down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment."

  She was talking about Honored Matres.

  Conventional teachers?

  There it was: Behind that facade of wisdom, the Bene Gesserit were unconventional. They often did not think about teaching: they just did it.

  Gods! I want to be like them!

  The thought shocked her and she leaped to her feet, launching herself into a training routine for wrists and arms.

  Realization bit deeper than ever. She did not want to disappoint these teachers. Candor and honesty. Every acolyte heard that. "Basic tools of learning," Odrade said.

  Distracted by her thoughts, Murbella tumbled hard and stood up, rubbing a bruised shoulder.

  She had thought at first that the Bene Gesserit protestat
ion must be a lie. I am being so candid with you that I must tell you about my unswerving honesty.

  But actions confirmed their claim. Odrade's voice persisted in the fever dream: "That is how you judge."

  They had something in the mind, in memory and a balance of intellect no Honored Matre had ever possessed. This thought made her feel small. Enter corruption. It was like liver spots in her feverish thoughts.

  But I have talent! It required talent to become an Honored Matre.

  Do I still think of myself as an Honored Matre?

  The Bene Gesserit knew she had not fully committed herself to them. What skills do I have that they could possibly want? Not the skills of deception.

  "Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words. "

  Murbella put her hands over her ears. Shut up, Odrade!

  "How does a Truthsayer separate sincerity from a more fundamental judgment?"

  Murbella dropped her hands to her sides. Maybe I'm really sick. She swept her gaze around the long room. No one there to utter these words. Anyway, it was Odrade's voice.

  "If you convince yourself, sincerely, you can speak utter balderdash (mervelous old word; look it up), absolute poppylarky in every word and you will be believed. But not by one of our Trusthsayers."

  Murbella's shoulders sagged. She began to wander aimlessly around the practice floor. Was there no place to escape?

  "Look for the consequences, Murbella. That's how you ferret out things that work. That's what our much-vaulted truths are all about."

  Pragmatism?

  Idaho found her then and responded to the wild look in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

  "I think I'm sick. Really sick. I thought it was something Odrade did to me but ..."

  He caught her as she fell.

  "Help us!"

  For once, he was glad of the comeyes. A Suk was with them in less than a minute. She bent over Murbella where Idaho cradled her on the floor.

  The examination was brief. The Suk, a graying older Reverend Mother with the traditional diamond brand on her forehead, straightened and said: "Overstressed. She's not trying to find her limits, she's going beyond them. We'll put her back into the sensitizing class before we let her continue. I'll send the Proctors."

  Odrade found Murbella in the Proctor's Ward that evening, propped up in a bed, two Proctors taking turns testing her muscle response. A small gesture and they left Odrade alone with Murbella.

  "I tried to avoid complicating things," Murbella said. Candor and honesty.

  "Trying to avoid complications often creates them." Odrade sank into a chair beside the bed and put a hand on Murbella's arm. Muscles quivered under the hand. "We say 'words are slow, feeling's faster.'" Odrade withdrew. "What decisions have you been making?"

  "You let me make decisions?"

  "Don't sneer." She lifted a hand to prevent interruption. "I didn't take your previous conditioning into sufficient account. The Honored Matres left you practically incapable of making decisions. Typical of power-hungry societies. Teach their people to diddle around forever. 'Decisions bring bad results!' You teach avoidance."

  "What's that have to do with me collapsing?" Resentful.

  "Murbella! The worst products of what I'm describing are almost basket cases--can't make decisions about anything, or leave them until the last possible second and then leap at them like desperate animals."

  "You told me to go the limit!" Almost wailing.

  "Your limits, Murbella. Not mine. Not Bell's or those of anyone else. Yours."

  "I've decided I want to be like you." Very faint.

  "Marvelous! I don't believe I've ever tried to kill myself. Especially when I was pregnant."

  In spite of herself, Murbella grinned.

  Odrade stood. "Sleep. You're going into a special class tomorrow where we'll work on your ability to mesh your decisions with sensitivity to your limits. Remember what I told you. We take care of our own."

  "Am I yours?" Almost whispered.

  "Since you repeated the oath before the Proctors." Odrade turned out the lights as she left. Murbella heard her speak to someone before the door closed. "Stop fussing with her. She needs rest."

  Murbella closed her eyes. The fever dream was gone but in its place was her own memory. "I am a Bene Gesserit. I exist only to serve."

  She heard herself saying those words to the Proctors but memory gave them an emphasis not in the original.

  They knew I was being cynical.

  What could you hide from such women?

  She felt the remembered hand of the Proctor on her forehead and heard the words that had possessed no meaning until this moment.

  "I stand in the sacred human presence. As I do now, so should you stand some day. I pray to your presence that this be so. Let the future remain uncertain for that is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces its perpetual tabula rasa. We possess no more than this moment where we dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence we share and create. "

  Conventional but unconventional. She realized that she had not been physically or emotionally prepared for this moment. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security.

  --Bene Gesserit Coda

  On her restless prowlings through Central (infrequent these days but more intense because of that), Odrade looked for signs of slackness and especially for areas of responsibility that were running too smoothly.

  The Senior Watchdog had her own watchwords: "Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock."

  She said this often and it became an identifying phrase the Sisters (and even some acolytes) employed to comment on Mother Superior.

  "Real boats rock." Soft chuckles.

  Bellonda accompanied Odrade on today's early morning inspection, not mentioning that "once a month" had been stretched to "once every two months"--if that. This inspection was a week past the mark. Bell wanted to use this time for warnings about Idaho. And she had dragged Tamalane along although Tam was supposed to be reviewing Proctor performance at this hour.

  Two against one? Odrade wondered. She did not think Bell or Tam suspected what Mother Superior intended. Well, it would come out, as had Taraza's plan. In its own time, eh, Tar?

  Down the corridors they stalked, black robes swishing with urgency, eyes missing little. It was all familiar and yet they looked for things that were new. Odrade carried her Ear-C over her left shoulder like a misplaced diving weight. Never be out of communication range these days.

  Behind the scenes in any Bene Gesserit center were the support facilities: clinic-hospital, kitchen, morgue, garbage control, reclamation systems (attached to sewage and garbage), transport and communications, kitchen provisioning, training and physical maintenance halls, schools for acolytes and postulants, quarters for all of the denominations, meeting centers, testing facilities and much more. Personnel often changed because of the Scattering and movement of people into new responsibilities, all according to subtle Bene Gesserit awareness. But tasks and places for them remained.

  As they strode swiftly from one area to another, Odrade spoke of the Sisterhood Scattering, not trying to hide her dismay at "the atomic family" they had become.

  "I find it difficult to contemplate humankind spreading into an unlimited universe," Tam said. "The possibilities ..."

  "Infinite numbers game." Odrade stepped across a broken curb. "That should be repaired. We've been playing the infinity game since we learned to jump Foldspace."

  There was no joy in Bellonda. "It's not a game!"

  Odrade could appreciate Bellonda's feelings. We have never seen empty space. Always more galaxies. Tam's right. It's daunting when you focus on that Golden Path.

  Memories of explorations gave the Sisterhood a statistical handl
e on it but little else. So many habitable planets in a given assemblage and, among those, an expected additional number that could be terraformed.

  "What's evolving out there?" Tamalane demanded.

  A question they could not answer. Ask what Infinity might produce and the only answer possible was, "Anything."

  Any good, any evil; any god, any devil.

  "What if Honored Matres are fleeing something?" Odrade asked. "Interesting possibility?"

  "These speculations are useless," Bellonda muttered. "We don't even know if Foldspace introduces us to one universe or many ... or even an infinite number of expanding and collapsing bubbles."

  "Did the Tyrant understand this any better than we do?" Tamalane asked.

  They paused while Odrade looked into a room where five Advanced acolytes and a Proctor studied a projection of regional melange stores. The crystal holding the information performed an intricate dance in the projector, bouncing on its beam like a ball on a fountain. Odrade saw the summation and turned away before scowling. Tam and Bell did not see Odrade's expression. We will have to start limiting access to melange data. Too depressing to morale.