ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  "Yes?" Profoundly wary.

  "Incomplete suppression of trade in any commodity always increases the profits of the tradesmen, especially the profits of the senior distributors." His voice was warningly hesitant. "That is the fallacy of thinking you can control unwanted narcotics by stopping them at your borders."

  What was he trying to tell her? His words described elementary facts known even to acolytes. Increased profits were always used to buy safe paths past border guards, often by buying the guards themselves.

  Has he bought servants of the Honored Matres? Surely, he doesn't believe he can do that safely.

  She waited while he composed his thoughts, obviously forming a presentation he believed most likely to gain her acceptance.

  Why did he point her attention toward border guards? That certainly was what he had done. Guards always had a ready rationalization for betraying their superiors, of course. "If I don't, someone else will."

  She dared to hope.

  The Rabbi cleared his throat. It was apparent he had found the words he wanted and had placed them in order.

  " I do not believe there is any way to get you off Gammu alive."

  She had not expected such a blunt condemnation. "But the..."

  "The information you carry, that is a different matter," he said.

  So that was behind all of the focusing on borders and guards!

  "You don't understand, Rabbi. My information is not just a few words and some warnings." She tapped a finger against her forehead. "In here are many precious lives, all of those irreplaceable experiences, learning so vital that -"

  "Ahhh, but I do understand, dear lady. Our problem is that you do not understand."

  Always these references to understanding!

  "It is your honor upon which I depend at this moment," he said.

  Ahhhh, the legendary honesty and trustworthiness of the Bene Gesserit when we have given our word!

  "You know I will die rather than betray you," she said.

  He spread his hands wide in a rather helpless gesture. "I am fully confident of that, dear lady. The question is not one of betrayal but of something we have never before revealed to your Sisterhood."

  "What are you trying to tell me?" Quite peremptory, almost with Voice (which she had been warned not to try on these Jews).

  "I must exact a promise from you. I must have your word that you will not turn against us because of what I am about to reveal. You must promise to accept my solution to our dilemma."

  "Sight unseen?"

  "Only because I ask it of you and assure you that we honor our commitment to your Sisterhood."

  She glared at him, trying to see through this barrier he had erected between them. His surface reactions could be read but not the mysterious thing beneath his unexpected behavior.

  The Rabbi waited for this fearsome woman to reach her decision. Reverend Mothers always made him uneasy. He knew what her decision must be and pitied her. He saw that she could read the pity in his expression. They knew so much and so little. Their powers were manifest. And their knowledge of Secret Israel so perilous!

  We owe them this debt, though. She is not of the Chosen, but a debt is a debt. Honor is honor: Truth is truth.

  The Bene Gesserit had preserved Secret Israel in many hours of need. And a pogrom was something his people knew without lengthy explanations. Pogrom was embedded in the psyche of Secret Israel. And thanks to the Unspeakable, the chosen people would never forget. No more than they could forgive.

  Memory kept fresh in daily ritual (with periodic emphasis in communal sharings) cast a glowing halo on what the Rabbi knew he must do. And this poor woman! She, too, was trapped by memories and circumstances.

  Into the cauldron! Both of us!

  "You have my word," Lucilla said.

  The Rabbi returned to the room's only door and opened it. An older woman in a long brown gown stood there. She stepped in at the Rabbi's beckoning gesture. Hair the color of old driftwood neatly bound in a bun at the back of her head. Face pinched in and wrinkled, dark as a dried almond. The eyes, though! Total blue! And that steely hardness within them...

  "This is Rebecca, one of our people," the Rabbi said. "As I am sure you can see, she has done a dangerous thing."

  "The Agony," Lucilla whispered.

  "She did it long ago and she serves us well. Now, she will serve you. "

  Lucilla had to be certain. "Can you Share?"

  "I have never done it, lady, but I know it." As Rebecca spoke, she approached Lucilla and stopped when they were almost touching.

  They leaned toward each other until their foreheads made contact. Their hands went out and gripped the offered shoulders.

  As their minds locked, Lucilla forced a projective thought: "This must get to my Sisters!"

  "I promise, dear lady."

  There could be no deception in this total mixing of minds, this ultimate candor powered by imminent and certain death or the poisonous melange essence that ancient Fremen had rightly called "the little death." Lucilla accepted Rebecca's promise. This wild Reverend Mother of the Jews committed her life to the assurance. Something else! Lucilla gasped as she saw it. The Rabbi intended to sell her to the Honored Matres. The driver of the produce carrier had been one of their agents come to confirm that there was indeed a woman of Lucilla's description at the farmhouse.

  Rebecca's candor gave Lucilla no escape: "It is the only way we can save ourselves and maintain our credibility."

  So that was why the Rabbi had made her think of guards and power brokers! Clever, clever. And I accept it as he knew I would.

  ***

  You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string.

  - The Zensunni Whip

  The Reverend Mother Sheeana stood at her sculpting stand, a gray-clawed shaper covering each hand like exotic gloves. The black sensiplaz on the stand had been taking form under her hands for almost an hour. She felt herself close to the creation that sought realization, surging from a wild place within her. The intensity of the creative force made her skin tremble and she wondered that passersby in the hall to her right did not sense it. The north window of her workroom admitted gray light behind her and the western window glowed orange with a desert sunset.

  Prester, Sheeana's senior assistant here at the Desert Watch Station, had paused in the doorway a few minutes ago but the entire station complement knew better than to interrupt Sheeana at this work.

  Stepping back, Sheeana brushed a strand of sun-streaked brown hair from her forehead with the back of a hand. The black plaz stood in front of her like a challenge, its curves and planes almost fitted to the form she sensed within her.

  I come here to create when my fears are greatest, she thought.

  This thought dampened the creative surge and she redoubled her efforts to complete the sculpture. Her shaper-clad hands dipped and swooped over the plaz and the black shape followed each intrusion like a wave driven by an insane wind.

  The light from the north window faded and the automatics compensated with a yellow-gray glow from the ceiling edges but it was not the same. It was not the same!

  Sheeana stepped back from her work. Close... but not close enough. She could almost touch the form within her and feel it striving for birth. But the plaz was not right. One sweeping stroke of her right hand reduced it to a black blob on the stand.

  Damn!

  She stripped off the shapers and dropped them to the shelf beside the sculpting stand. The horizon out the western window still carried a strip of orange. Fading fast the way she felt the fading of her creative urge.

  Striding to the sunset window, she was in time to see the last of the day's search teams return. Their landing lights were firefly darts off to the south where a temporary flat had been established in the path of the advancing dunes. She could see from the slow way the 'thopters came down that they had found no spiceblows or other signs that sandworms were at last developing from the sandtrout planted here.

  I am s
hepherd to worms that may never come.

  The window gave back to her a dark reflection of her features. She could see where the Spice Agony had left its marks. The slender, brown-skinned waif of Dune had become a tall, rather austere woman. But her brown hair still insisted on escaping the tight coif at the nape of her neck. And she could see the wildness in her all-blue eyes. Others could see it, too. And that was the problem, source of some of her fears.

  There appeared to be no stopping the Missionaria in its preparations for our Sheeana.

  If the giant sandworms developed - Shai-hulud returned! And the Missionaria Protectiva of the Bene Gesserit was ready to launch her onto an unsuspecting humanity prepared for religious adoration. The myth become real... just the way she tried to make that sculpture back there a reality.

  Holy Sheeana! The God Emperor is her thrall! See how the sacred sandworms obey her! Leto is returned!

  Would it influence the Honored Matres? Probably. They gave at least lip service to the God Emperor in his name of Guldur.

  Not likely they would follow "Holy Sheeana's" lead except in the matter of sexual exploits. Sheeana knew her own sexual behavior, outrageous even by Bene Gesserit standards, was a form of protest against this role the Missionaria tried to impose on her. The excuse that she only polished the males trained in sexual bondage by Duncan Idaho was just that... an excuse.

  Bellonda suspects.

  Mentat Bell was a constant danger to Sisters who got out of line. And that was a major reason Bell held her powerful position in the high Council of the Sisterhood.

  Sheeana turned away from the window and flung herself onto the orange and umber spread covering her cot. Directly in front of her, a large black and white drawing of a giant worm poised above a tiny human figure.

  That's the way they were and may never be again. What was I trying to say with that drawing? If I knew I might be able to complete the plaz sculpture.

  It had been perilous to develop a secret hand-talk with Duncan. But there were things the Sisterhood could not know - not yet.

  There might be a way of escape for both of us.

  But where could they go? It was a universe beset by Honored Matres and other forces. It was a universe of scattered planets peopled mostly by humans who wanted only to live out their lives in peace - accepting Bene Gesserit guidance in some places, squirming under Honored Matre suppression in many regions, mostly hoping to govern themselves as best they could, the perennial dream of democracy, and then there were always the unknowns. And always the lesson of the Honored Matres! Murbella's clues said Fish Speakers and Reverend Mothers in extremis formed the Honored Matres. Fish Speaker democracy become Honored Matre autocracy! The clues were too numerous to ignore. But why had they emphasized unconscious compulsions with their T-probes, cellular induction, and sexual prowess?

  Where is the market to accept our fugitive talents?

  This universe no longer possessed a single bourse. A species of subterranean webworks could be defined. It was extremely loose, based on old compromises and temporary agreements.

  Odrade had once said: "It resembles an old garment with frayed edges and patched holes."

  CHOAM's tightly bound trading network of the Old Empire was no more. Now, it was fearful bits and pieces held together by the loosest of ties. People treated this patched thing with contempt, longing always for the good old days.

  What kind of a universe would accept us merely as fugitives and not as the Sacred Sheeana with her consort?

  Not that Duncan was a consort. That had been the Bene Gesserit's original plan: "Bond Sheeana to Duncan. We control him and he can control her."

  Murbella cut that plan short. And a good thing for both of us. Who needs a sexual obsession? But Sheeana was forced to admit she harbored oddly confused feelings about Duncan Idaho. The hand-talks, the touching. And what could they say to Odrade when she came prying? Not if, but when.

  "We talk about ways for Duncan and Murbella to escape you, Mother Superior. We talk about other ways to restore Teg's memories. We talk about our own private rebellion against the Bene Gesserit. Yes, Darwi Odrade! Your former student has become a rebel against you."

  Sheeana admitted to mixed feelings about Murbella as well.

  She domesticated Duncan where I might have failed.

  The captive Honored Matre was a fascinating study... and amusing at times. There was her joking doggerel posted on the wall of the ship's Acolyte dining room.

  Hey, God! I hope you're there.

  I want you to hear my prayer.

  That graven image on my shelf:

  Is it really you or just myself?

  Well, anyway, here it goes:

  Please keep me on my toes.

  Help me past my worst mistakes,

  Doing it for both our sakes,

  For an example of perfection

  To the Proctors in my section;

  Or merely for the Heaven of it,

  Like bread, for the leaven of it.

  For whatever reason may incline,

  Please act for yours and mine.

  The subsequent confrontation with Odrade, caught by the comeyes, had been a beautiful thing to watch. Odrade's voice oddly strident: "Murbella? You?"

  "I'm afraid so." No contrition in her at all.

  "Afraid so?" Still strident.

  "Why not?" Quite defiant.

  "You joke about the Missionaria! Don't protest. That was your intent."

  "They're so damned pretentious!"

  Sheeana could only sympathize as she reflected on that confrontation. Rebellious Murbella was a symptom. What ferments until you are forced to notice it?

  I fought in just that way against the everlasting discipline, "which will make you strong, child."

  What was Murbella like as a child? What pressures shaped her? Life was always a reaction to pressures. Some gave in to easy distractions and were shaped by them: pores bloated and reddened by excesses. Bacchus leering at them. Lust fixing its shape on their features. A Reverend Mother knew it by millennial observation. We are shaped by pressures whether we resist them or not. Pressures and shapings - that was life. And I create new pressures by my secret defiance.

  Given the Sisterhood's present state of alertness to all threats, the hand-talk with Duncan probably was futile.

  Sheeana tipped her head and looked at the black blob on the sculpting stand.

  But I will persist. I will create my own statement of my life. I will create my own life! Damn the Bene Gesserit!

  And I will lose the respect of my Sisters.

  There was something antique about the way respectful conformity was forced upon them. They had preserved this thing from their most ancient past, taking it out regularly to polish and make the necessary repairs that time required of all human creations. And here it was today, held in unspoken reverence.

  Thus you are a Reverend Mother and by no other judgment shall that be true.

  Sheeana knew then she would be forced to test that antique thing to its limits, probably breaking it. And that black plaz form seeking outlet from the wild place within her was only one element of what she knew she had to do. Call it rebellion, call it by any other name, the force she felt in her breast could not be denied.

  ***

  Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.

  - Darwi Odrade

  "Have you studied the latest comeye record of Idaho?" Bellonda asked.

  "Later! Later!" Odrade knew she was feeling peckish and it had come out in this response to Bell's pertinent question.

  Pressures confined the Mother Superior more and more these days. She had always tried to face
her duties with an attitude of broad interest. The more things to interest her, the wider her scan and that was sure to bring more usable data. Using the senses improved them. Substance, that was what her questing interests desired. Substance. It was like hunting for food to assuage a deep hunger.

  But her days were becoming duplicates of this morning. Her liking for personal inspections was well known but these workroom walls held her. She must be where she could be reached. Not only reached, but able to dispatch communications and people on the instant.

  Damn! I will make the time. I must!

  It was time pressure as much as anything.

  Sheeana said: "We trundle along on borrowed days."

  Very poetic! Not much help in the face of pragmatic demands. They had to get as many Bene Gesserit cells as possible Scattered before the axe fell. Nothing else had that priority. The Bene Gesserit fabric was being torn apart, sent to destinations no one on Chapterhouse could know. Sometimes, Odrade saw this flow as rags and remnants. They went flapping away in their no-ships, a stock of sandtrout in their holds, Bene Gesserit traditions, learning, and memories as guide. But the Sisterhood had done this long ago in the first Scattering and none came back or sent a message. Not one. Not one. Only Honored Matres returned. If they had ever been Bene Gesserit, they now were a terrible distortion, blindly suicidal.

  Will we ever be whole again?

  Odrade looked down at the work on her table: more selection charts. Who shall go and who shall remain? There was little time to pause and take a deep breath. Other Memory from her late predecessor, Taraza, took on an "I told you so!" character. "See what I had to go through?"

  And I once wondered if there was room at the top.

  There might be room at the top (as she was fond of telling acolytes) but there was seldom enough time.

  When she thought of the largely passive non-Bene Gesserit populace "out there," Odrade sometimes envied them. They were permitted their illusions. What a comfort. You could pretend your life was forever, that tomorrow would be better, that the gods in their heavens watched you with care.