ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

"In some things, Dar."

  "I'm fortunate to have you as a friend."

  "You have other supporters. When the Proctors voted, it was your creativity that worked for you. 'Inspired' is the way one of' your defenders put it."

  "Then you know I'll have Sheeana on the coals quite thoroughly before I make one of my inspired decisions."

  "Of course."

  Odrade signaled Communications to remove the projector and went to wait at the edge of the glassy area.

  Creative imagination.

  She knew the mixed feelings of her associates.

  Creativity!

  Always dangerous to entrenched power. Always coming up with something new. New things could destroy the grip of authority. Even the Bene Gesserit approached creativity with misgivings. Maintaining an even keel inspired some to shunt boat-rockers aside. That was an element behind Dortujla's posting. The trouble was that creative ones tended to welcome backwaters. They called it privacy. It had taken quite a force to bring Dortujla out.

  Be well, Dortujla. Be the best bait we ever used.

  The 'thopters came then - sixteen of them, pilots showing displeasure at this added assignment after all the trouble they had been through. Moving whole communities!

  In a fragile mood, Odrade watched the 'thopters settle to the hard-glazed surface, wing fans folding back into pod sleeves - each craft like a sleeping insect.

  An insect designed in its own likeness by a mad robot.

  When they were airborne, Streggi once more seated beside Odrade, Streggi asked: "Will we see sandworms?"

  "Possibly. But there are no reports of them yet."

  Streggi sat back, disappointed by the answer but unable to lever it into another question. Truth could be upsetting at times and they had such high expectations invested in this evolutionary gamble, Odrade thought.

  Else why destroy everything we loved on Chapterhouse?

  Simulflow intruded with an image of a long-ago sign arching over a narrow entry to a pink brick building: HOSPITAL FOR INCURABLE DISEASES.

  Was that where the Sisterhood found itself? Or was it that they tolerated too many failures? Intrusive Other Memory had to have its purpose.

  Failures?

  Odrade searched it out: If it comes, we must think of Murbella as a Sister. Not that their captive Honored Matre was an incurable failure. But she was a misfit and undergoing the deep training at a very late age.

  How quiet they were all around her, everyone looking out at windswept sand - whaleback dunes giving way at times to dry wavelets. Early afternoon sun had just begun to provide sufficient sidelighting to define near vistas. Dust obscured the horizon ahead.

  Odrade curled up in her seat and slept. I've seen this before. I survived Dune.

  The stir as they came down and circled over Sheeana's Desert Watch Center awakened her.

  Desert Watch Center. We're at it again. We haven't really named it... no more than we gave a name to this planet. Chapterhouse! What kind of a name is that? Desert Watch Center! Description, not a name. Accent on the temporary.

  As they descended, she saw confirmations of her thought. The sense of temporary housing was amplified by spartan abruptness in all junctures. No softness, no rounding of any connection. This attaches here and that goes over there. All joined by removable connectors.

  It was a bumpy landing, the pilot telling them that way: "Here you are and good riddance."

  Odrade went immediately to the room always set aside for her and summoned Sheeana. Temporary quarters: another spartan cubicle with hard cot. Two chairs this time. A window looked westward onto desert. The temporary nature of these rooms grated on her. Anything here could be dismantled in hours and carted away. She washed her face in the adjoining bathroom, getting the most out of movement. She had slept in a cramped position on the 'thopter and her body complained.

  Refreshed, she went out to a window, thankful that the erection crew had included this tower: ten floors, and this the ninth. Sheeana occupied the top floor, a vantage for doing what the name of the place described.

  While waiting, Odrade made necessary preparations.

  Open the mind. Shed preconceptions.

  First impressions when Sheeana arrived must be seen with naive eyes. Ears must not be prepared for a particular voice. Nose must not expect remembered odors.

  I chose this one. I, her first teacher, am susceptible to mistakes.

  Odrade turned at a sound from the doorway. Streggi.

  "Sheeana has just returned from the desert and is with her people. She asks Mother Superior to meet her in the upper quarters, which are more comfortable."

  Odrade nodded.

  Sheeana's quarters on the top floor still had that prefab look at the edges. Quick shelter ahead of the desert. A large room, six or seven times the size of the guest cubicle, but then it was both workroom and sleeping chamber. Windows on two sides - west and north. Odrade was struck by the mixture of functional and nonfunctional.

  Sheeana had managed to make her rooms reflect herself. A standard Bene Gesserit cot had been covered with a bright orange and umber spread. A black-on-white line drawing of a sandworm, head-on with all of its crystal teeth displayed, filled an end wall. Sheeana had drawn it, relying on Other Memory and her Dune childhood to guide her hand.

  It said something about Sheeana that she had not attempted a more ambitious rendering - full color, perhaps, and in traditional desert setting. Just the worm and a hint of sand beneath it, a tiny robed human in the foreground.

  Herself?

  Admirable restraint and a constant reminder of why she was here. A deep impression of nature.

  Nature makes no bad art?

  It was a statement too glib to accept.

  What do we mean by "nature?"

  She had seen atrocious natural wilderness: brittle trees looking as though they had been dipped in faulty green pigment and left on a tundra's edge to dry into ugly parodies. Repellent. Hard to imagine such trees having any purpose. And blindworms... slimy yellow skins. Where was the art in them? Temporary stopping place on evolution's journey elsewhere. Did the intervention of humans always make a difference? Sligs! The Bene Tleilax had produced something disgusting there.

  Admiring Sheeana's drawing, Odrade decided certain combinations offended particular human senses. Sligs as food were delectable. Ugly combinations touched early experiences. Experiences judged.

  Bad thing!

  Much of what we think of as ART caters to desires for reassurance. Don't offend me! I know what I can accept.

  How did this drawing reassure Sheeana?

  Sandworm: blind power guarding hidden riches. Artistry in mystic beauty.

  It was reported that Sheeana joked about her assignment. " I am shepherd to worms that may never exist."

  And even if they did appear, it would be years before any achieved the size indicated by her drawing. Was it her voice from the tiny figure in front of the worm?

  "This will come in time."

  An odor of melange pervaded the room, stronger than usual in a Reverend Mother's quarters. Odrade passed a searching look across the furnishings: chairs, worktable, illumination from anchored glowglobes - everything placed where it would serve to advantage. But what was that oddly shaped mound of black plaz in the corner? More of Sheeana's work?

  These rooms fitted Sheeana, Odrade decided. Little other than the drawing to recall her origins but the view out any window might have been from Dar-es-Balat deep in Dune's drylands.

  A small rustling sound at the doorway alerted Odrade. She turned and there was Sheeana. Almost shy the way she peered around the door before entering Mother Superior's presence.

  Motion as words: "So she did come to my rooms. Good. Someone might have been careless with my invitation."

  Odrade's readied senses tingled with Sheeana's presence. The youngest-ever Reverend Mother. You often thought of Quiet Little Sheeana. She was not always quiet nor was she small but the label stuck. She was not even mousy, but frequen
tly quiet like a rodent waiting at the edge of a field for the farmer to leave. Then the mouse would come darting out to glean fallen grains.

  Sheeana came fully into the room and stopped less than a pace from Odrade. "We've been too long apart, Mother Superior."

  Odrade's first impression was oddly jumbled.

  Candor and concealment?

  Sheeana stood quietly receptive.

  This descendant of Siona Atreides had developed an interesting face under the Bene Gesserit patina. Maturity working on her according to both Sisterhood and Atreides designs. Marks of many decisions firmly taken. The slender, dark-skinned waif with sun-streaked brown hair had become this poised Reverend Mother. Skin still dark from long hours in the open. Hair still sun-streaked. The eyes, though - the steely total blue that said: "I have been through the Agony."

  What is it I sense in her?

  Sheeana saw the look on Odrade's face (Bene Gesserit naivete!) and knew this was the long-feared confrontation.

  There can be no defense except my truth and I hope she stops short of a full confession!

  Odrade watched her former student with exquisite care, every sense open.

  Fear! What do I sense? Something when she spoke?

  The steadiness of Sheeana's voice had been shaped into the powerful instrument Odrade had anticipated at their first meeting. Sheeana's original nature (a Fremen nature if there ever was one!) had been curbed and redirected. That core of vindictiveness smoothed out. Her capacity for love and hatred brought under tight reins.

  Why do I get the impression she wants to hug me?

  Odrade felt suddenly vulnerable.

  This woman has been inside my defenses. No way to exclude her totally ever again.

  Tamalane's judgment came to mind: "She is one of those who keeps herself to herself. Remember Sister Schwangyu? Like that one but better at it. Sheeana knows where she is going. We'll have to watch her carefully. Atreides blood, you know."

  "I'm Atreides, too, Tam."

  "Don't think we ever forget it! You think we'd just stand idly by if Mother Superior chose to breed on her own? There are limits to our tolerance, Dar."

  "Indeed, this visit is long overdue, Sheeana."

  Odrade's tone alerted Sheeana. She stared back suddenly with that look the Sisterhood called "BG placid," than which there probably was nothing more placid in the universe, nothing more completely a mask of what occurred behind it. This was not just a barrier, it was a nothing. Anything on this mask would be transgression. This, in itself, was betrayal. Sheeana realized it immediately and responded with laughter.

  " I knew you would come probing! The hand-talk with Duncan, right?" Please, Mother Superior! Accept this.

  "All of it, Sheeana."

  "He wants someone to rescue them if Honored Matres attack."

  "That's all?" Does she think me a complete fool?

  "No. He wants information about our intentions... and what we're doing to meet the Honored Matre threat."

  "What have you told him?"

  "Everything I could." Truth is my only weapon. I must divert her!

  "Are you his friend at court, Sheeana?"

  "Yes!"

  "So am I."

  "But not Tam and Bell?"

  "My informants tell me Bell now tolerates him."

  "Bell? Tolerant?"

  "You misjudge her, Sheeana. It's a flaw in you." She is hiding something. What have you done, Sheeana?

  "Sheeana, do you think you could work with Bell?"

  "Because I tease her?" Work with Bell? What does she mean? Not Bell to head that damnable Missionaria project!

  A faint twitching lifted the corners of Odrade's mouth. Another prank? Could that be it?

  Sheeana was a prime gossip subject in Central's dining rooms. Stories of how she teased Breeding Mistresses (especially Bell) and elaborately detailed accounts of seductions fleshed out with Honored Matre comparisons from Murbella spiced more than the food. Odrade had heard snatches of the latest story only two days ago. "She said, 'I used the Let-him-misbehave method. Very effective with men who think they're leading you down the garden path.' "

  "Tease? Is that what you do, Sheeana?"

  "An appropriate word: reshape by going against the natural inclination." The instant the words were out of her mouth, Sheeana knew she had made a mistake.

  Odrade felt warning stillness. Reshape? Her gaze went to that odd black mound in the corner. She stared at it with a fixity that surprised her. It drank vision. She kept probing for coherence, something that spoke to her. Nothing responded, not even when she probed to her limits. And that's its purpose!

  "It's called 'Void,' " Sheeana said.

  "Yours?" Please, Sheeana. Say someone else did it. The one who did this has gone where I cannot follow.

  "I did it one night about a week ago."

  Is black plaz the only thing you reshape? "A fascinating comment on art in general."

  "And not on art specific?"

  " I have a problem with you, Sheeana. You alarm some Sisters." And me. There's a wild place in you we have not found. Atreides gene markers Duncan told us to seek are in your cells. What have they given you?

  "Alarm my Sisters?"

  "Especially when they recall that you're the youngest ever to survive the Agony."

  "Except for Abominations."

  "Is that what you are?"

  "Mother Superior!" She has never deliberately hurt me except as a lesson.

  "You went through the Agony as an act of disobedience."

  "Wouldn't you say rather that I went against mature advice?" Humor sometimes distracts her.

  Prester, Sheeana's acolyte aide, came to the door and rapped lightly on the wall beside it until she had their attention. "You said I was to tell you immediately when the search teams returned."

  "What do they report?"

  Relief in Sheeana's voice?

  "Team eight wants you to look at their scans."

  "They always want that!"

  Sheeana spoke with forced frustration. "Do you want to look at the scans with me, Mother Superior?"

  "I'll wait here."

  "This won't take long."

  When they had gone, Odrade went to the western window: a clear view across rooftops to the new desert. Small dunes here. Almost sunset and that dry heat so reminiscent of Dune.

  What is Sheeana hiding?

  A young man, hardly more than a boy, had been sunning nude on a neighboring rooftop, face-up on a sea-green mattress with a golden towel across his face. His skin was a sun-warmed gold to match towel and pubic hair. A breeze touched a corner of the towel and lifted it. One languid hand came up and restored the cover.

  How can he be idle? Night worker? Probably.

  Idleness was not encouraged and this was flaunting it. Odrade smiled to herself. Anyone could be excused for assuming he was a night worker. He might be depending on that specific guess. The trick would be to remain unseen by those who knew otherwise.

  I will not ask. Intelligence deserves some rewards. And, after all, he could be a night worker.

  She lifted her gaze. A new pattern emerging here: exotic sunsets. Narrow band of orange drawn along the horizon, bulging where the sun had just dipped below the land. Silvery blue above the orange went darker overhead. She had seen this many times on Dune. Meteorological explanations she did not care to explore. Better to let eyes absorb this transient beauty; better to permit ears and skin to feel sudden stillness descend upon this land in the quick darkness after the orange vanished.

  Faintly, she saw the young man pick up mattress and towel and vanish behind a ventilator.

  A sound of running in the corridor behind her. Sheeana entered almost breathless. "They found a spice mass thirty klicks northeast of us! Small but compact!"

  Odrade did not dare hope. "Could it be wind accumulation?"

  "Not likely. I've set a round-the-clock watch on it." Sheeana glanced at the window where Odrade stood. She has seen Trebo. Perhaps...

>   "I asked you earlier, Sheeana, if you could work with Bell. It was an important question. Tam is getting very old and must be replaced soon. There must be a vote, of course."

  "Me?" It was totally unexpected.

  "My first choice." Imperative now. I want you close where I can keep watch on you.

  "But I thought... I mean, the Missionaria's plan..."

  "That can wait. And there must be someone else who can shepherd worms... if that spice mass is what we hope."

  "Oh? Yes... several of our people but no one who... Don't you want me to test whether the worms still respond to me?"

  "Work on the Council should not interfere with that."

  " I... you can see I'm surprised."

  "I would have said shocked. Tell me, Sheeana, what really interests you these days?"

  Still probing. Trebo, serve me now! "Making sure the desert grows well." Truth! "And my sex life, of course. You saw the young man on the roof next door? Trebo, a new one Duncan sent me for polishing."

  Even after Odrade had gone, Sheeana wondered why those words had aroused such merriment. Mother Superior had been deflected, though.

  No need even to waste her fallback position - truth: "We've been discussing the possibility that I might imprint Teg and restore the Bashar's memories that way."

  Full confession avoided. Mother Superior did not learn that I have weasled out the way to reactivate our no-ship prison and defuse the mines Bellonda put in it.

  ***

  No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. If it tastes bitter, spit it out. That's what our earliest ancestors did.

  - The Coda

  Murbella found herself arising in the night to continue a dream although quite awake and aware of her surroundings: Duncan asleep beside her, faint ticking of machinery, the chronoprojection on the ceiling. She insisted on Duncan's presence at night lately, fearful when alone. He blamed the fourth pregnancy.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. The room was ghostly in the dim light of the chrono. Dream images persisted.

  Duncan grumbled and rolled toward her. An outflung arm draped itself across her legs.

  She felt that this mental intrusion was not dreamstuff but it had some of those characteristics. Bene Gesserit teachings did this. Them and their damned suggestions about Scytale and... and everything! They precipitated motion she could not control.