ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  Mother Superior's party was barely out of sight into the lowering afternoon before Bellonda was on her way to the no-ship.

  Not for Bellonda a thoughtful approach through ring orchards. She ordered space on a tube, windowless, automatic, and fast. Odrade, too, had observers who might send unwanted messages.

  En route, Bellonda reviewed her assessment of Idaho's many lives, a record she had kept in Archives ready for quick retrieval. In the original and early gholas, his character had been dominated by impulsiveness. Quick to hate, quick to give loyalty. Later Idaho-gholas tempered this with cynicism but the underlying impulsiveness remained. The Tyrant had called it to action many times. Bellonda recognized a pattern.

  He can be goaded by pride.

  His long service to the Tyrant fascinated her. Not only had he been a Mentat several times but there was evidence he had been a Truthsayer in more than one incarnation.

  Idaho's appearance reflected what she saw in her records. Interesting character lines, a look around the eyes and a set to his mouth that went with complex inner development.

  Why would Odrade not accept the danger of this man? Bellonda had felt frequent misgivings when Odrade spoke of Idaho with such flaunting of her emotions.

  "He thinks clearly and directly. There's a fastidious cleanliness about his mind. It's restorative. I like him and I know that's a trivial thing to influence my decisions."

  She admits his influence!

  Bellonda found Idaho alone and seated at his console. His attention was fixed on a linear display she recognized: the no-ship's operational schematics. He washed the projection when he saw her.

  "Hello, Bell. Been expecting you."

  He touched his console field and a door opened behind him. Young Teg entered and took up a position near Idaho, staring silently at Bellonda.

  Idaho did not invite her to sit or find a chair for her, forcing her to bring one from his sleeping chamber and place it facing him. When she was seated, he turned a look of wary amusement on her.

  Bellonda remained taken aback by his greeting. Why did he expect me?

  He answered her unspoken question. "Dar projected earlier, told me she was off to see Sheeana. I knew you'd waste no time getting to me when she was gone."

  Simple Mentat projection or... "She warned you!"

  "Wrong."

  "What secrets do you and Sheeana share?" Demanding.

  "She uses me the way you want her to use me."

  "The Missionaria!"

  "Bell! Two Mentats together. Must we play these stupid games?"

  Bellonda took a deep breath and sought Mentat mode. Not easy under these circumstances, that child staring at her, the amusement on Idaho's face. Was Odrade displaying an unsuspected slyness? Working against a Sister with this ghola?

  Idaho relaxed when he saw Bene Gesserit intensity become that doubled focus of the Mentat. "I've known for a long time that you want me dead, Bell."

  Yes... I have been readable in my fears.

  It had been very close there, he thought. Bellonda had come to him with death in mind, a little drama to create "the necessity" all prepared. He entertained few illusions about his ability to match her in violence. But Bellonda-Mentat would observe before acting.

  "It's disrespectful the way you use our first names," she said, goading.

  "Different recognition, Bell. You're no longer Reverend Mother and I'm not 'the ghola.' Two human beings with common problems. Don't tell me you're unaware of this."

  She glanced around his workroom. "If you expected me why didn't you have Murbella here?"

  "Force her to kill you while protecting me?"

  Bellonda assessed this. The damned Honored Matre probably could kill me, but then... "You sent her away to protect her."

  "I've a better protector." He gestured at the child.

  Teg? A protector? There were those stories from Gammu about him. Does Idaho know something?

  She wanted to ask but did she dare risk diversion? Watchdogs must receive a clear scenario of danger.

  "Him?"

  "Would he serve the Bene Gesserit if he saw you kill me?"

  When she did not answer, he said: "Put yourself in my place, Bell. I'm a Mentat caught not only in your trap but in that of the Honored Matres."

  "Is that all you are, a Mentat?"

  "No. I'm a Tleilaxu experiment but I don't see the future. I'm not a Kwisatz Haderach. I'm a Mentat with memories of many lives. You, with your Other Memories - think about the leverage that gives me."

  While he was speaking, Teg came to lean against the console at Idaho's elbow. The boy's expression was one of curiosity but she saw no fear of her.

  Idaho gestured at the projection focus over his head, silver motes dancing there ready to create their images. "A Mentat sees his relays producing discrepancies - winter scenes in summer, sunshine when his visitors have come through rain... Didn't you expect me to discount your little playlets?"

  She heard Mentat summation. To that extent, they shared common teaching. She said: "You naturally told yourself not to minimize the Tao."

  "I asked different questions. Things that happen together can have underground links. What is cause and effect when confronted with simultaneity?"

  "You had good teachers."

  "And not just in one life."

  Teg leaned toward her. "Did you really come here to kill him?"

  No sense lying. "I still think he is too dangerous." Let watchdogs argue that!

  "But he's going to give me back my memories!"

  "Dancers on a common floor, Bell," Idaho said. "Tao. We may not appear to dance together, may not use the same steps or rhythms but we are seen together."

  She began to suspect where he might be leading and wondered if there might be another way to destroy him.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Teg said.

  "Interesting coincidences," Idaho said.

  Teg turned to Bellonda. "Maybe you would explain, please?"

  "He's trying to tell me we need each other."

  "Then why doesn't he say so?"

  "It's more subtle than that, boy." And she thought: The record must show me warning Idaho. "The nose of the donkey doesn't cause the tail, Duncan, no matter how often you see the beast pass that thin vertical space limiting your view of it."

  Idaho met Bellonda's fixed gaze. "Dar came here once with a sprig of apple blossoms, but my projection showed harvest time."

  "It's riddles, isn't it!" Teg said, clapping his hands.

  Bellonda recalled the record of that visit. Precise movements by Mother Superior. "You didn't suspect a hothouse?"

  "Or that she just wanted to please me?"

  "Am I supposed to guess?" Teg asked.

  After a long silence, Mentat gaze locked to Mentat gaze, Idaho said: "There's anarchy behind my confinement, Bell. Disagreement in your highest councils."

  "There can be deliberation and judgment even in anarchy," she said.

  "You're a hypocrite, Bell!"

  She drew back as though he had struck her, a purely involuntary movement that shocked her by the forced reaction. Voice? No... something reaching deeper. She was suddenly terrified of this man.

  "I find it marvelous that a Mentat and a Reverend Mother could be such a hypocrite," he said.

  Teg tugged at Idaho's arm. "Are you fighting?"

  Idaho brushed the hand away. "Yes, we're fighting."

  Bellonda could not tear her gaze from Idaho's. She wanted to turn and flee. What was he doing? This had gone completely awry!

  "Hypocrites and criminals among you?" he asked.

  Once more, Bellonda remembered the comeyes. He was playing not only her but the watchers as well! And doing it with exquisite care. She was suddenly filled with admiration for his performance but this did not allay her fear.

  "I ask why your Sisters tolerate you?" His lips moved with such delicate precision! "Are you a necessary evil? A source of valuable data and, occasionally, good advice?"

&nb
sp; She found her voice. "How dare you?" Guttural and containing all of her vaunted viciousness.

  "It could be that you strengthen your Sisters." Voice flat, not changing tone in the slightest. "Weak links create places others must reinforce and that would strengthen those others."

  Bellonda realized she was barely keeping her hold on Mentat mode. Could any of this be true? Was it possible Mother Superior saw her that way?

  "You came with criminal disobedience in mind," he said. "All in the name of necessity! A little drama for the comeyes, proving you had no other choice."

  She found his words restoring Mentat abilities. Did he do that knowingly? She was fascinated by the need to study his manner as well as his words. Did he really read her that well? The record of this encounter might be far more valuable than her little playlet. And the outcome no different!

  "You think Mother Superior's wishes are law?" she asked.

  "Do you really think me unobservant?" Waving a hand at Teg, who started to interrupt. "Bell! Be only a Mentat."

  "I hear you." And so do many others!

  "I'm deep into your problem."

  "We've given you no problem!"

  "But you have. You have, Bell. You're misers the way you parcel out the pieces but I see it."

  Bellonda abruptly remembered Odrade saying: "I don't need a Mentat! I need an inventor."

  "You... need... me," Idaho said. "Your problem is still in its shell but the meat's there and must be extracted."

  "Why would we possibly need you?"

  "You need my imagination, my inventiveness, things that kept me alive in the face of Leto's wrath."

  "You've said he killed you so many times you lost count." Eat your own words, Mentat!

  He gave her an exquisitely controlled smile, so precise that neither she nor the comeyes could mistake its intent. "But how can you trust me, Bell?"

  He condemns himself!

  "Without something new you're doomed," he said. "Only a matter of time and you all know it. Perhaps not this generation. Perhaps not even the next one. But inevitably."

  Teg pulled sharply at Idaho's sleeve. "The Bashar could help, couldn't he?"

  So the boy really listened. Idaho patted Teg's arm. "The Bashar's not enough." Then to Bellonda: "Underdogs together. Must we growl over the same bone?"

  "You've said that before." And doubtless will say it again.

  "Still Mentat?" he asked. "Then discard drama! Get the romantic haze off our problem."

  Dar's the romantic! Not me!

  "What's romantic," he asked, "about little pockets of Scattered Bene Gesserit waiting to be slaughtered?"

  "You think none will escape?"

  "You're seeding the universe with enemies," he said. "You're feeding Honored Matres!"

  She was fully (and only) Mentat then, required to match this ghola ability for ability. Drama? Romance? The body got in the way of Mentat performance. Mentats must use the body, not let it interfere.

  "No Reverend Mother you've Scattered has ever returned or sent a message," he said. "You try to reassure yourselves by saying only the Scattered ones know where they go. How can you ignore the message they send in this other fact? Why has not one tried to communicate with Chapterhouse?"

  He's chiding all of us, damn him! And he's right.

  "Have I stated our problem in its most elemental form?"

  Mentat questioning!

  "Simplest question, simplest projection," she agreed.

  "Amplified sexual ecstasy: Bene Gesserit imprint? Are Honored Matres trapping your people out there?"

  "Murbella?" A one-word challenge. Assess this woman you say you love! Does she know things we should know?

  "They're conditioned against raising their own enjoyment to addictive levels but they are vulnerable."

  "She denies there are Bene Gesserit sources in Honored Matre history."

  "As she was conditioned to do."

  "A lust for power instead?"

  "At last, you have asked a proper question." And when she did not reply, he said: "Mater Felicissima." Addressing her by the ancient term for Bene Gesserit Council members.

  She knew why he did it and felt the word produce the wanted effect. She was firmly balanced now, Mentat Reverend Mother encompassed by the mohalata of her own Spice Agony - that union of benign Other Memory protecting her from domination by malignant ancestors.

  How did he know to do that? Every observer behind the comeyes would be asking that question. Of course! The Tyrant trained him thus, time and time again. What do we have here? What is this talent Mother Superior dares employ? Dangerous, yes, but far more valuable than I suspected. By the gods of our own creation! Is he the tool to free us?

  How calm he was. He knew he had caught her.

  "In one of my lives, Bell, I visited your Bene Gesserit house on Wallach IX and there talked to one of your ancestors, Tersius Helen Anteac. Let her guide you, Bell. She knows."

  Bellonda felt familiar prodding in her mind. How could he know Anteac was my ancestor?

  "I went to Wallach IX at the Tyrant's command," he said. "Oh, yes! I often thought of him as Tyrant. My orders were to suppress the Mentat school you thought you had hidden there."

  Anteac-simulflow intruded: "I show you now the event of which he speaks."

  "Consider," he said. "I, a Mentat, forced to suppress a school that trained people the way I was trained. I knew why he ordered it, of course, and so do you."

  Simulflow poured it through her awareness: Order of Mentats, founded by Gilbertus Albans; temporary sanctuary with Bene Tleilax who hoped to incorporate them into Tleilaxu hegemony; spread into uncounted "seed schools"; suppressed by Leto II because they formed a nucleus of independent opposition; spread into the Scattering after the Famine.

  "He kept a few of the finest teachers on Dune, but the question Anteac forces you to confront now does not go there. Where have your Sisters gone, Bell?"

  "We have no way of knowing yet, do we?" She looked at his console with new awareness. It was wrong to block such a mind. If they were to use him, they must use him fully.

  "By the way, Bell," as she stood to leave. "Honored Matres could be a relatively small group."

  Small? Didn't he know how the Sisterhood was being overwhelmed by terrifying numbers on planet after planet?

  "All numbers are relative. Is there something in the universe truly immovable? Our Old Empire could be a last retreat for them, Bell. A place to hide and try to regroup."

  "You suggested that before... to Dar."

  Not Mother Superior. Not Odrade. Dar. He smiled. "And perhaps we could help with Scytale."

  "We?"

  "Murbella to gather information, I to assess it."

  He did not like the smile this produced.

  "Precisely what are you suggesting?"

  "Let our imaginations roam and fashion our experiments accordingly. Of what use would even a no-planet be if someone could penetrate the shielding?"

  She glanced at the boy. Idaho knew their suspicion that the Bashar had seen the no-ships? Naturally! A Mentat of his abilities... bits and pieces assembled into a masterful projection.

  "It would require the entire output of a G-3 sun to shield any halfway livable planet." Dry and very cool the way she looked down at him.

  "Nothing is out of the question in the Scattering."

  "But not within our present capabilities. Do you have something less ambitious?"

  "Review the genetic markers in the cells of your people. Look for common patterns in Atreides inheritance. There may be talents you have not even guessed."

  "Your inventive imagination bounces around."

  "G-3 suns to genetics. There may be common factors."

  Why these mad suggestions? No-planets and people for whom prescient shields are transparent? What is he doing?

  She did not flatter herself that he spoke only for her benefit. There were always the comeyes.

  He remained silent, one arm thrown negligently across the boy's shou
lders. Both of them watching her! A challenge?

  Be a Mentat if you can!

  No-planets? As the mass of an object increased, energy to nullify gravitation passed thresholds matched to prime numbers. No-shields met even greater energy barriers. Another magnitude of exponential increase. Was Idaho suggesting that someone in the Scattering might have found a way around the problem? She asked him.

  "Ixians have not penetrated Holzmann's unification concept," he said. "They merely use it - a theory that works even when you don't understand it."

  Why does he direct my attention to the technocracy of Ix? Ixians had their fingers in too many pies for the Bene Gesserit to trust them.

  "Aren't you curious why the Tyrant never suppressed Ix?" he asked. And when she continued to stare at him: "He only bridled them. He was fascinated by the idea of human and machine inextricably bound to each other, each testing the limits of the other."

  "Cyborgs?"

  "Among other things."

  Didn't Idaho know the residue of revulsion left by the Butlerian Jihad even among the Bene Gesserit? Alarming! The convergence of what each - human and machine - could do. Considering machine limitations, that was a succinct description of Ixian shortsightedness. Was Idaho saying the Tyrant subscribed to the idea of Machine Intelligence? Foolishness! She turned away from him.

  "You're leaving too quickly, Bell. You should be more interested in Sheeana's immunity to sexual bonding. The young men I send for polishing are not imprinted and neither is she. Yet no Honored Matre is more of an adept."

  Bellonda saw now the value Odrade placed in this ghola. Priceless! And I might have killed him. This nearness of that error filled her with dismay.

  When she reached the doorway, he stopped her once more. "The Futars I saw on Gammu - why were we told they hunt and kill Honored Matres? Murbella knows nothing of this."

  Bellonda left without looking back. Everything she had learned about Idaho today increased his danger... but they had to live with it... for now.

  Idaho took a deep breath and looked at the puzzled Teg. "Thank you for being here and I do appreciate the fact that you remained silent in the face of great provocation."

  "She wouldn't really have killed you... would she?"