ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  She recoiled from this lapse with disgust at herself. The unclouded eye was better, no matter what it saw.

  "I've studied the latest Idaho records," she said, looking across the table at the patient Bellonda.

  "He has interesting instincts," Bellonda said.

  Odrade thought about that. Comeyes throughout the no-ship missed little. The Council's theory about ghola-Idaho became daily less a theory and more a conviction. How many memories from the serial Idaho lifetimes did this ghola contain?

  "Tam is raising doubts about their children," Bellonda said. "Do they have dangerous talents?"

  That was to be expected. The three children Murbella had borne Idaho in the no-ship had been removed at birth. All were being observed with care as they developed. Did they have that uncanny reactive speed Honored Matres displayed? Too early to say. It was a thing that developed in puberty, according to Murbella.

  Their captive Honored Matre accepted the removal of her children with angry resignation. Idaho, however, showed little reaction. Odd. Did something give him a broader view of procreation? Almost a Bene Gesserit view?

  "Another Bene Gesserit breeding program," he sneered.

  Odrade let her thoughts flow. Was it really the Bene Gesserit attitude they saw in Idaho? The Sisterhood said emotional attachments were ancient detritus - important for human survival in their day but no longer required in the Bene Gesserit plan.

  Instincts.

  Things that came with egg and sperm. Often vital and loud: "This is the species talking to you, dolt!"

  Loves... offspring... hungers... All of those unconscious motives to compel specific behavior. It was dangerous to meddle in such matters. The Breeding Mistresses knew this even while they did it. The Council debated it periodically and ordered a careful watch on consequences.

  "You've studied the records. Is that all the answer I get?" Quite plaintive for Bellonda.

  The comeye record of such interest to Bell was of Idaho questioning Murbella about Honored Matre sexual-addiction techniques. Why? His parallel abilities came from Tleilaxu conditioning impressed on his cells in the axlotl tank. Idaho's abilities originated as an unconscious pattern akin to instincts but the result was indistinguishable from the Honored Matre effect: ecstasy amplified until it drove out all reason and bound its victims to the source of such rewards.

  Murbella went only so far in a verbal exploration of her abilities. Obvious residual fury that Idaho had addicted her with the same techniques she had been taught to use.

  "Murbella blocks up when Idaho questions motives," Bellonda said.

  Yes, I've seen that.

  "I could kill you and you know it!" Murbella had said.

  The comeye record showed them in bed in Murbella's no-ship quarters, having just satiated their mutual addiction. Sweat glistened on bare flesh. Murbella lay with a blue towel across her forehead, green eyes staring up at the comeyes. She appeared to be looking directly at the observers. Little orange flecks in her eyes. Anger flecks from her body's residual store of the spice substitute Honored Matres employed. She was on melange now - and no adverse symptoms.

  Idaho lay beside her, black hair in disarray around his face, a sharp contrast to the white pillow beneath his head. His eyes were closed but the lids flickered. Thin. He wasn't eating enough despite tempting dishes sent by Odrade's own chef. His high cheekbones were strongly defined. The face had become craggy in the years of his confinement.

  Murbella's threat was backed by physical ability, Odrade knew, but it was psychologically false. Kill her lover? Not likely!

  Bellonda was thinking along these same lines. "What was she doing when she demonstrated her physical speed? We've seen that before."

  "She knows we watch."

  The comeyes showed Murbella defying post-coital fatigue to leap from bed. Moving with blurred speed (much faster than anything the Bene Gesserit had ever achieved), she kicked out with her right foot, stopping the blow only a hair's breadth from Idaho's head.

  At her first movement, Idaho opened his eyes. He watched without fear, without flinching.

  That blow! Fatal if it struck. You had only to see such a thing once to fear it. Murbella moved with no resort to her central cortex. Insect-like, an attack triggered by nerves at the point of muscle ignition.

  "You see!" Murbella lowered her foot and glared down at him.

  Idaho smiled.

  Watching it, Odrade reminded herself that the Sisterhood had three of Murbella's children, all female. The Breeding Mistresses were excited. In time, Reverend Mothers born of this line might match that Honored Matre ability.

  In time we probably don't have.

  But Odrade shared the excitement of the Breeding Mistresses. That speed! Add that to the nerve-muscle training, the great prana-bindu resources of the Sisterhood! What that might create lay wordlessly within her.

  "She did that for us, not for him," Bellonda said.

  Odrade was not sure. Murbella resented the constant watch over her but she had come to an accommodation with it. Many of her actions obviously ignored the people behind the comeyes. This record showed her returning to her place in the bed beside Idaho.

  "I have restricted access to that record," Bellonda said. "Some acolytes are becoming troubled."

  Odrade nodded. Sexual addiction. That aspect of Honored Matre abilities created disturbing ripples in the Bene Gesserit, especially among acolytes. Very suggestive. And most of the Sisters on Chapterhouse knew the Reverend Mother Sheeana, alone among them, practiced some of these techniques in defiance of a general fear this could weaken them.

  "We must not become Honored Matres!" Bell was always saying that. But Sheeana represents a significant control factor. She teaches us something about Murbella.

  One afternoon, catching Murbella alone in her no-ship quarters and obviously relaxed, Odrade had tried a direct question. "Before Idaho, were none of you ever tempted to, let us say, 'join in the fun'?"

  Murbella had recoiled with angry pride. "He caught me by accident!"

  The same kind of anger she showed to Idaho's questions. Remembering this, Odrade leaned over her worktable and called up the original record.

  "Look at how angry she gets," Bellonda said. "A hypnotrance injunction against answering such questions. I'd stake my reputation on it."

  "That'll come out in the Spice Agony," Odrade said.

  "If she ever gets to it!"

  "Hypnotrance is supposed to be our secret."

  Bellonda chewed on the obvious inference: No Sister we sent out in the original Scattering ever returned.

  It was written large in their minds: "Did renegade Bene Gesserit create the Honored Matres?" Much suggested it. Then why did they resort to sexual enslavement of males? Murbella's historical prattlings did not satisfy. Everything about this went against Bene Gesserit teaching.

  "We have to learn," Bellonda insisted. "What little we know is very disturbing."

  Odrade recognized the concern. How much of a lure was this ability? Very big, she thought. Acolytes complained that they dreamed about becoming Honored Matres. Bellonda was rightly worried.

  Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections.

  There was the terrible power the Honored Matres dared use. Let it be known that they had the key to blinding ecstasy and they had won half the battle. The simple clue that such a thing existed, that was the beginning of surrender. People at Murbella's level in that other Sisterhood might not understand this but the ones at the top... Was it possible they merely used this power without caring or even suspecting its deeper force? If that were the case, how were our first Scattered Ones lured into this dead end?

  Earlier, Bellonda had offered her hypothesis:

  Honored Matre with captive Reverend Mother taken prisoner in that first Scattering. "Welcome, Reverend Mother. We would like you to witness a small demonstration of our p
owers." Interlude of sexual demonstration followed by a display of Honored Matre physical speed. Then - withdrawal of melange and injection of the adrenaline-based substitute laced with a hypnodrug. In that hypothetical trance, the Reverend Mother was sexually imprinted.

  That coupled to the selective agony of melange withdrawal (Bell suggested) might make the victim deny her origins.

  Fates help us! Were the original Honored Matres all Reverend Mothers? Do we dare test this hypothesis on ourselves? What can we learn of this from that pair in the no-ship?

  Two sources of information lay there under the Sisterhood's watchful eyes but the key had yet to be found.

  Woman and man no longer just breeding partners, no longer a comfort and support to each other. Something new has been added. The stakes have been escalated.

  In the comeye record playing at the worktable, Murbella said something that caught the Mother Superior's full attention.

  "We Honored Matres did this to ourselves! Can't blame anyone else."

  "You hear that?" Bellonda demanded.

  Odrade shook her head sharply, wanting all of her attention on this exchange.

  "You can't say the same about me," Idaho objected.

  "That's an empty excuse," Murbella accused. "So you were conditioned by the Tleilaxu to snare the first Imprinter you encountered!"

  "And to kill her," Idaho corrected. "That's what they intended."

  "But you didn't even try to kill me. Not that you could have."

  "That's when..." Idaho broke off with an involuntary glance at the recording comeyes.

  "What was he about to say there?" Bellonda pounced. "We must find out!"

  But Odrade continued her silent observation of the captive pair. Murbella demonstrated a surprising insight. "You think you caught me through some accident in which you were not involved?"

  "Exactly."

  "But I see something in you that accepted all of it! You didn't just go along with your conditioning. You performed to your limits."

  An inward look filmed Idaho's eyes. He tipped his head back, stretching his chest muscles.

  "That's a Mentat expression!" Bellonda accused.

  All of Odrade's analysts suggested this but they had yet to wrest an admission from Idaho. If he was a Mentat, why withhold that information?

  Because of the other things implied by such abilities. He fears us and rightly so.

  Murbella spoke with a sneer. "You improvised and improved on what the Tleilaxu did to you. There was something in you that made no complaint whatsoever!"

  "That's how she deals with her own guilt feelings," Bellonda said. "She has to believe it's true or Idaho would not have been able to trap her."

  Odrade pursed her lips. The projection showed Idaho amused. "Perhaps it was the same for both of us."

  "You can't blame the Tleilaxu and I can't blame the Honored Matres."

  Tamalane entered the workroom and sank into her chairdog beside Bellonda. " I see it has your interest, too." She gestured at the projected figures.

  Odrade shut down the projector.

  "I've been inspecting our axlotl tanks," Tamalane said. "That damned Scytale has withheld vital information."

  "There's no flaw in our first ghola, is there?" Bellonda demanded.

  "Nothing our Suks can find."

  Odrade spoke in a mild tone: "Scytale has to keep some bargaining chips."

  Both sides shared a fantasy: Scytale was paying the Bene Gesserit for rescue from the Honored Matres and sanctuary on Chapterhouse. But every Reverend Mother who studied him knew something else drove the last Tleilaxu Master.

  Clever, clever, the Bene Tleilax. Far more clever than we suspected. And they have dirtied us with their axlotl tanks. The very word "tank" - another of their deceptions. We pictured containers of warmed amniotic fluid, each tank the focus of complex machinery to duplicate (in a subtle, discrete and controllable way) the workings of the womb. The tank is there all right! But look at what it contains.

  The Tleilaxu solution was direct: Use the original. Nature already had worked it out over the eons. All the Bene Tleilax need do was add their own control system, their own way of replicating information stored in the cell.

  "The Language of God," Scytale called it. Language of Shaitan was more appropriate.

  Feedback. The cell directed its own womb. That was more or less what a fertilized ovum did anyway. The Tleilaxu merely refined it.

  A sigh escaped Odrade, bringing sharp glances from her companions. Does Mother Superior have new troubles?

  Scytale's revelations trouble me. And what those revelations have done to us. Oh, how we recoiled from the "debasement." Then, rationalizations. And we knew they were rationalizations! "If there is no other way. If this produces the gholas we need so desperately. Volunteers probably can be found." Were found! Volunteers!

  "You're woolgathering!" Tamalane grumbled. She glanced at Bellonda, started to say something and thought better of it.

  Bellonda's face went soft-bland, a frequent accompaniment to her darker moods. Her voice came out little more than a guttural whisper. "I strongly urge that we eliminate Idaho. And as for that Tleilaxu monster..."

  "Why do you make such a suggestion with a euphemism?" Tamalane demanded.

  "Kill him then! And the Tleilaxu should be subjected to every persuasion we -"

  "Stop it, both of you!" Odrade ordered.

  She pressed both palms briefly against her forehead and, staring at the bow window, saw icy rain out there. Weather Control was making more mistakes. You couldn't blame them, but there was nothing humans hated more than the unpredictable. "We want it natural!" Whatever that means.

  When such thoughts came over her, Odrade longed for an existence confined to the order that pleased her: an occasional walk in the orchards. She enjoyed them in all seasons. A quiet evening with friends, the give and take of probing conversations with those for whom she felt warmth. Affection? Yes. The Mother Superior dared much - even love of companions. And good meals with drinks chosen for their enhancement of flavors. She wanted that, too. How fine it was to play upon the palate. And later... yes, later - a warm bed with a gentle companion sensitive to her needs as she was sensitive to his.

  Most of this could not be, of course. Responsibilities! What an enormous word. How it burned.

  "I'm getting hungry," Odrade said. "Shall I order lunch served here?"

  Bellonda and Tamalane stared at her. "It's only half past eleven," Tamalane complained.

  "Yes or no?" Odrade insisted.

  Bellonda and Tamalane exchanged a private look. "As you wish," Bellonda said.

  There was a saying in the Bene Gesserit (Odrade knew) that the Sisterhood ran smoother when Mother Superior's stomach was satisfied. That had just tipped the scales.

  Odrade keyed the intercom to her private kitchen. "Lunch for three, Duana. Something special. You choose."

  Lunch, when it came, featured a dish Odrade especially enjoyed, a veal casserole. Duana displayed a delicate touch with herbs, a bit of rosemary in the veal, the vegetables not overcooked. Superb.

  Odrade savored every bite. The other two plodded through the meal, spoon-to-mouth, spoon-to-mouth.

  Is this one of the reasons I am Mother Superior and they are not?

  While an acolyte cleared away the remains of lunch, Odrade turned to one of her favorite questions: "What is the gossip in the common rooms and among the acolytes?"

  She remembered in her own acolyte days how she had hung on the words of the older women, expecting great truths and getting mostly small talk about Sister So-and-so or the latest problems of Proctor X. Occasionally, though, the barriers came down and important data flowed.

  "Too many acolytes talk of wanting to go out in our Scattering," Tamalane rasped. "Sinking ships and rats, I say."

  "There's a great interest in Archives lately," Bellonda said. "Sisters who know better come looking for confirmation - whether such and so acolyte has a heavy Siona gene-mark."

  Od
rade found this interesting. Their common Atreides ancestor from the Tyrant's eons, Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa Atreides, had imparted to her descendants this ability that hid them from prescient searchers. Every person walking openly on Chapterhouse shared that ancestral protection.

  "A heavy mark?" Odrade asked. "Do they doubt that the ones in question are protected?"

  "They want reassurance," Bellonda growled. "And now may I return to Idaho? He has the genetic mark and he does not. It worries me. Why do some of his cells not have the Siona marker? What were the Tleilaxu doing?"

  "Duncan knows the danger and he's not suicidal," Odrade said.

  "We don't know what he is," Bellonda complained.

  "Probably a Mentat, and we all know what that could mean," Tamalane said.

  "I understand why we keep Murbella," Bellonda said. "Valuable information. But Idaho and Scytale..."

  "That's enough!" Odrade snapped. "Watchdogs can bark too long!"

  Bellonda accepted this grudgingly. Watchdogs. Their Bene Gesserit term for constant monitoring by Sisters to see that you did not fall into shallow ways. Very trying to acolytes but just another part of life to Reverend Mothers.

  Odrade had explained it one afternoon to Murbella, the two of them alone in a gray-walled interview chamber of the no-ship. Standing close together facing each other. Eyes at a level. Quite informal and intimate. Except for the knowledge of those comeyes all around them.

  "Watchdogs," Odrade said, responding to a question from Murbella. "It means we are mutual gadflies. Don't make that more than it is. We seldom nag. A simple word can be enough."

  Murbella, her oval face drawn into a look of distaste, the wide-set green eyes intent, obviously thought Odrade referred to some common signal, a word or saying the Sisters used in such situations.

  "What word?"

  "Any word, dammit! Whatever's appropriate. It's like a mutual reflex. We share a common 'tic' that comes not to annoy us. We welcome it because it keeps us on our toes."

  "And you'll watchdog me if I become a Reverend Mother?"

  "We want our watchdogs. We'd be weaker without them."