ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  "Do you wish me to stay, Mother Superior?" Streggi released Teg's hand and stood near the door.

  "Sit over there beside Tam. Listen and do not interrupt. You must know what will be required of you."

  Teg hitched himself onto the chair recently occupied by Dortujla. "I suppose this is a council of war."

  That's an adult behind the childish voice.

  "I won't ask your plan yet," Odrade said.

  "Good. The unexpected takes more time and I may not be able to tell you what I intend until the moment of action."

  "We've been observing you with Duncan. Why are you interested in ships from the Scattering?"

  "Long-haul ships have a distinctive appearance. I saw them on the flat at Gammu."

  Teg sat back and let this sink in, glad of the briskness he sensed in Odrade's manner. Decisions! No long deliberations. That suited his needs. They must not learn the full extent of my abilities. Not yet.

  "You would disguise an attack force?"

  Bellonda came through the door as Odrade was speaking and growled an objection while sitting: "Impossible! They'll have recognition codes and secret signals for -"

  "Let me decide that, Bell, or remove me from command."

  "This is the Council!" Bellonda said. "You don't -"

  "Mentat?" He looked fully at her, the Bashar apparent in his gaze.

  When she fell silent, he said: "Don't question my loyalty! If you would weaken me, replace me!"

  "Let him have his say." That was Tam. "This isn't the first Council where the Bashar has appeared as our equal."

  Bellonda lowered her chin a fractional millimeter.

  To Odrade, Teg said, "Avoiding warfare is a matter of intelligence - the gathered variety and intellectual power."

  Throwing our own cant at us! She heard Mentat in his voice and Bellonda obviously heard this as well. Intelligence and intelligence: the doubled view. Without it, warfare often occurred as an accident.

  The Bashar sat silently, letting them stew in their own historical observations. The urge to conflict went far deeper than consciousness. The Tyrant had been right. Humankind acted as "one beast." The forces impelling that great collective animal went back to tribal days and beyond, as did so many forces to which humans responded without thinking.

  Mix the genes.

  Expand Lebensraum for your own breeders.

  Gather the energies of others: collect slaves, peons, servants, serfs, markets, workers... The terms often were interchangeable.

  Odrade saw what he was doing. Knowledge absorbed from the Sisterhood helped make him the incomparable Mentat Bashar. He held these things as instincts. Energy-eating drove war's violence. This was described as "greed, fear (that others will take your hoard), power hunger" and on and on into futile analyses. Odrade had heard these even from Bellonda who obviously was not taking it well that a subordinate should remind them of what they already knew.

  "The Tyrant knew," Teg said. "Duncan quotes him: 'War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.' "

  "What do you propose?" Bellonda at her most snappish.

  "A feint at Gammu, then strike their base on Junction. For that we need first-hand observations." He stared steadily at Odrade.

  He knows! The thought flared in Odrade's mind.

  "You think your studies of Junction when it was a Guild base are still accurate?" Bellonda demanded.

  "They haven't had time to change the place much from what I stored here." He tapped his forehead in an odd parody of the Sisterhood's gesture.

  "Englobement," Odrade said.

  Bellonda looked at her sharply. "The cost!"

  "Losing everything is more costly," Teg said.

  "Foldspace sensors don't have to be large," Odrade said. "Duncan would set them to create a Holzmann explosion on contact?"

  "The explosions would be visible and would give us a trajectory." He sat back and looked at an indefinite area on Odrade's rear wall. Would they accept it? He dared not frighten them with another display of wild talent. If Bell knew he could see the no-ships!

  "Do it!" Odrade said. "You have the command. Use it."

  There was a distinct sense of chuckling from Taraza in Other Memories. Give him his head! That's how I got such a great reputation!

  "One thing," Bellonda said. She looked at Odrade. "You're going to be his spy?"

  "Who else can get in there and transmit observations?"

  "They'll be monitoring every means of transmission!"

  "Even the one that tells our waiting no-ship we have not been betrayed?" Odrade asked.

  "An encrypted message hidden in the transmission," Teg said. "Duncan has devised an encryption that would take months to break but we doubt they'll detect its presence."

  "Madness," Bellonda muttered.

  "I met an Honored Matre military commander on Gammu," Teg said. "Slack when it came to necessary details. I think they're overconfident."

  Bellonda stared at him and there was the Bashar staring back at her out of a child's innocent eyes. "Abandon all sanity ye who enter here," he said.

  "Get out of here, all of you!" Odrade ordered. "You have work to do. And Miles..."

  He already had slid off the chair but he stood there looking much as he always had when waiting for Mother to tell him something important.

  "Did you refer to the lunacy of dramatic events that warfare always amplifies?"

  "What else? Surely you didn't think I referred to your Sisterhood!"

  "Duncan plays this game sometimes."

  "I don't want us catching the Honored Matre madness," Teg said. "It is contagious, you know."

  "They've tried to control the sex drive," Odrade said. "That always gets away from you."

  "Runaway lunacy," he agreed. He leaned against the table, his chin barely above the surface. "Something drove those women back here. Duncan's right. They're looking for something and running away at the same time."

  "You have ninety Standard days to get ready," she said. "Not one day more."

  ***

  Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch. - Folk Saying.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being.

  - The Bashar Teg

  It was a weakness in the Bene Gesserit that Odrade knew the entire Sisterhood soon must recognize. She gained no consolation from having seen it first. Denying our deepest resource when we need it most! The Scatterings had gone beyond the ability of humans to assemble the experiences in manageable form. We can only extract essentials, and that is a matter of judgment. Vital data would remain dormant in great and small events, accumulations called instinct. So that was it finally - they must fall back on unspoken knowledge.

  In this age, the word "refugees" took on the color of its pre-space meaning. Small bands of Reverend Mothers sent out by the Sisterhood held something in common with old scenes of displaced stragglers trudging down forgotten roads, pitiful belongings bound in bits of cloth, wheeled on decrepit prams and toy wagons, or piled atop lopsided vehicles, remnant humanity clinging to the outsides and densely packed within, every face blank with despair or heated by desperation.

  So we repeat history and repeat it and repeat it.

  As she entered a tubeslot shortly before lunch, Odrade's thoughts clung to her Scattered Sisters: political refugees, economic refugees, pre-battle refugees.

  Is this your Golden Path, Tyrant?

  Visions of her Scattered ones haunted Odrade as she entered Central's Reserved Dining Room, a place only Reverend Mothers might enter. They served themselves here at cafeteria lines.

  It had been twenty days since she had released Teg to the cantonment. Rumors were flying in Central, especially among Proctors, although there still was no sign of another vote. New decisions must be announced today and they would have to be more than naming the ones who would accompany her to Junction.

  She glanced around the
dining room, an austere place of yellow walls, low ceiling, small square tables that could be latched in rows for larger groups. Windows along one side revealed a garden court under a translucent cover. Dwarf apricots in green fruit, lawn, benches, small tables. Sisters ate outside when sunlight poured into the enclosed yard. No sunlight today.

  She ignored a cafeteria line where a place was being made for her. Later, Sisters.

  At the corner table near the windows reserved for her, she deliberately moved the chairs. Bell's brown chairdog pulsed faintly at this unaccustomed disturbance. Odrade sat with her back to the room, knowing this would be interpreted correctly: Leave me to my own thoughts.

  While she waited, she stared out at the courtyard. An enclosing hedge of exotic purple-leaved shrubs was in red flower - giant blossoms with delicate stamens of deep yellow.

  Bellonda arrived first, dropping into her chairdog with no comment on its new position. Bell frequently appeared untidy, belt loose, robe wrinkled, bits of food on the bosom. Today, she was neat and clean.

  Now, why is that?

  Bellonda said, "Tam and Sheeana will be late."

  Odrade accepted this without stopping her study of this different Bellonda. Was she a bit slimmer? There was no way to insulate a Mother Superior completely from what went on within her sensory area of concerns but sometimes pressures of work distracted her from small changes. These were a Reverend Mother's natural habitat, though, and negative evidence was as illuminating as positive. On reflection, Odrade realized that this new Bellonda had been with them for several weeks.

  Something had happened to Bellonda. Any Reverend Mother could exercise reasonable control over weight and figure. A matter of internal chemistry - banking fires or letting them burn high. For years now, rebellious Bellonda had flaunted a gross body.

  "You've lost weight," Odrade said.

  "Fat was beginning to slow me too much."

  That had never been sufficient reason for Bell to change her ways. She had always compensated with speed of mind, with projections and faster transport.

  "Duncan really got to you, didn't he?"

  "I'm not a hypocrite nor criminal!"

  "Time to send you to a punishment Keep, I guess."

  This recurrent humorous thrust usually annoyed Bellonda. Today, it did not arouse her. But under pressure of Odrade's stare, she said: "If you must know, it's Sheeana. She has been after me to improve my appearance and broaden my circle of associates. Annoying! I'm doing it to shut her up."

  "Why are Tam and Sheeana late?"

  "Reviewing your latest meeting with Duncan. I have severely limited who has access to it. No telling what will happen when it becomes general knowledge."

  "As it will."

  "Inevitable. I only buy us time to prepare."

  "I did not want it suppressed, Bell."

  "Dar, what are you doing?"

  "I will announce that at a Convocation."

  No words but Bellonda glared her surprise.

  "A Convocation is my right," Odrade said.

  Bellonda leaned back and stared at Odrade, assessing, questioning... all without words. The last Convocation of the Bene Gesserit had been at the Tyrant's death. And before that, at the Tyrant's seizure of power. A Convocation had not been thought possible since Honored Matres attacked. Too much time taken from desperate labors.

  Presently, Bellonda asked: "Will you risk bringing Sisters from our surviving Keeps?"

  "No. Dortujla will represent them. There is precedent, as you know."

  "First, you free Murbella; now it's a Convocation."

  "Free? Murbella is tied by chains of gold. Where would she go without her Duncan?"

  "But you've given Duncan freedom to leave the ship!"

  "Has he?"

  Bellonda said, "You think that information from the ship's armory is all he'll take?"

  "I know it."

  "I am reminded of Jessica turning her back on the Mentat who would have killed her."

  "The Mentat was immobilized by his own beliefs."

  "Sometimes the bull gores the matador, Dar."

  "More often he does not."

  "Our survival should not depend on statistics!"

  "Agreed. That is why I call Convocation."

  "Acolytes included?"

  "Everyone."

  "Even Murbella? Does she get an acolyte's vote?"

  "I think she may be a Reverend Mother by then."

  Bellonda gasped, then: "You move too fast, Dar!"

  "These times require it."

  Bellonda glanced toward the dining room door. "Here's Tam. Later than I expected. I wonder if they took time to consult Murbella?"

  Tamalane arrived, breathing hard from hurrying. She dropped into her blue chairdog, noted the new positions and said: "Sheeana will be along presently. She is showing records to Murbella."

  Bellonda addressed Tamalane. "She's going to put Murbella through the Agony and call a Convocation."

  "I'm not surprised." Tamalane spoke with her old precision. "The position of that Honored Matre must be resolved as soon as possible."

  Sheeana joined them then and took the slingchair at Odrade's left, speaking as she sat. "Have you watched Murbella walk?"

  Odrade was caught by the way this abrupt question, uttered without preamble, fixed the attention. Murbella walking in the ship. Observed just that morning. Beauty in Murbella and the eye could not avoid it. To other Bene Gesserit, Reverend Mothers and acolytes alike, she was something of an exotic. She had arrived full-grown from the dangerous Outside. One of them. It was her movements, though, that compelled the eye. Homeostasis in her that went beyond the norms.

  Sheeana's question redirected the observer's mind. Something about Murbella's quite acceptable passage required new examination. What was it?

  Murbella's motions were always carefully chosen. She excluded anything not required to go from here to there. Path of least resistance? It was a view of Murbella that sent a pang through Odrade. Sheeana had seen it, of course. Was Murbella one of those who would choose an easy way every time? Odrade could see that question on the faces of her companions.

  "The Agony will sort it out," Tamalane said.

  Odrade looked squarely at Sheeana. "Well?" She had asked the question, after all.

  "Perhaps it's only that she does not waste energy. But I agree with Tam: the Agony."

  "Are we making a terrible mistake?" Bellonda asked.

  Something in the way this question was asked told Odrade that Bell had made a Mentat summation. She has seen what I intend!

  "If you know a better course reveal it now," Odrade said. Or hold your peace.

  Silence gripped them. Odrade looked at her companions in succession, lingering on Bell.

  Help us, whatever gods there may be! And I, being Bene Gesserit, am too much agnostic to make that plea with anything more than a hope of covering all possibilities. Don't reveal it, Bell. If you know what I will do, you know it must be seen in its own time.

  Bellonda brought Odrade out of reverie with a cough. "Are we going to eat or talk? People are staring."

  "Should we have another go at Scytale?" Sheeana asked.

  Was that an attempt to divert my attention?

  Bellonda said: "Give him nothing! He's in reserve. Let him sweat."

  Odrade looked carefully at Bellonda. She was fuming over the silence imposed on her by Odrade's secret decision. Avoiding a meeting of eyes with Sheeana. Jealous! Bell is jealous of Sheeana!

  Tamalane said, "I am only an advisor now but -"

  "Stop that, Tam!" Odrade snapped.

  "Tam and I have been discussing that ghola," Bellonda said. (Idaho was "that ghola" when Bellonda had something disparaging to say.) "Why did he think he needed to talk secretly to Sheeana?" A hard stare at Sheeana.

  Odrade saw shared suspicion. She does not accept the explanation. Does she reject Duncan's emotional bias?

  Sheeana spoke quickly. "Mother Superior explained that!"

  "Emot
ion," Bellonda sneered.

  Odrade raised her voice and was surprised at this reaction. "Suppressing emotions is a weakness!"

  Tamalane's shaggy eyebrows lifted.

  Sheeana intruded: "If we won't bend, we can break."

  Before Bellonda could respond, Odrade said: "Ice can be chipped apart or melted. Ice maidens are vulnerable to a single form of attack."

  "I'm hungry," Sheeana said.

  Peace-making? Not a role expected of The Mouse.

  Tamalane stood. "Bouillabaisse. We must eat the fish before our sea is gone. Not enough nullentropy storage."

  In the softest of simulflows, Odrade noted the departure of her companions to the cafeteria line. Tamalane's accusatory words recalled that second day with Sheeana after the decision to phase out the Great Sea. Standing at Sheeana's window in the early morning, Odrade had watched a seabird move against the desert background. It winged its way northward, a creature completely out of place in that setting but beautiful in a profoundly nostalgic way because of it.

  White wings glistened in early sunlight. A touch of black beneath and in front of its eyes. Abruptly, it hovered, wings motionless. Then, lifting on an air current, it tucked its wings like a hawk and plummeted out of view behind the farther buildings. Reappearing, it carried something in its beak, a morsel it swallowed on the wing.

  A seabird alone and adapting.

  We adapt. We do indeed adapt.

  It was not a quiet thought. Nothing to induce repose. Shocking rather. Odrade had felt jarred out of a dangerously drifting course. Not only her beloved Chapterhouse but their entire human universe was breaking out of its old shapes and taking on new forms. Perhaps it was right in this new universe that Sheeana continued to conceal things from Mother Superior. And she is concealing something.

  Once more, Bellonda's acidic tones brought Odrade to full awareness of her surroundings. "If you won't serve yourself, I suppose we must take care of you." Bellonda placed a bowl of aromatic fish stew in front of Odrade, a great chunk of garlic bread beside it.

  When each had sampled the bouillabaisse, Bellonda put down her spoon and stared hard at Odrade. "You're not going to suggest we 'love one another' or some such debilitating nonsense?"