Suipol returned. "They ask us to wait for an escort."
Odrade decided to start negotiations immediately with a chat for the benefit of Suipol, the comeyes, and listeners on her no-ship.
"Suipol, did you notice those Ixians ahead of us?"
"Yes, Mother Superior."
"Mark them well. They are products of a dying society. It is naive to expect any bureaucracy to take brilliant innovations and put them to good use. Bureaucracies ask different questions. Do you know what those are?"
"No, Mother Superior." Spoken after a searching look at their surroundings.
She knows! But she sees what I'm doing. What have we here? I've misjudged her.
"These are typical questions, Suipol: Who gets the credit? Who will be blamed if it causes problems? Will it shift the power structure, costing us jobs? Or will it make some subsidiary department more important?"
Suipol nodded on cue but her glance at the comeyes might have been a little obvious. No matter.
"These are political questions," Odrade said. "They demonstrate how motives of bureaucracy are directly opposed to the need for adapting to change. Adaptability is a prime requirement for life to survive."
Time to talk directly to our hosts.
Odrade turned her attention upward, picking a prominent comeye in a chandelier. "Note those Ixians. Their 'mind in a deterministic universe' has given way to 'mind in an unlimited universe' where anything may happen. Creative anarchy is the path to survival in this universe."
"Thank you for this lesson, Mother Superior."
Bless you, Suipol.
"After all of their experiences with us," Suipol said, "surely they no longer question our loyalty to one another."
Fates preserve her! This one is ready for the Agony and may never see it.
Odrade could only agree with the acolyte's summation. Compliance with Bene Gesserit ways came from within, from those constantly monitored details that kept their own house in order. It was not philosophical but a pragmatic view of free will. Any claim the Sisterhood might have to making its own way in a hostile universe lay in scrupulous adherence to mutual loyalty, an agreement forged in the Agony. Chapterhouse and its few remaining subsidiaries were nurseries of an order founded in sharing and Sharing. Not based on innocence. That had been lost long ago. It was set firmly in political consciousness and a view of history independent of other laws and customs.
"We are not machines," Odrade said, glancing at the automata around them. "We always rely on personal relationships, never knowing where those may lead us."
Tamalane stepped to Odrade's side. "Don't you think they should be sending us a message at the very least?"
"They've already sent us a message, Tam, putting us up in a second-class hostelry. And I have responded."
***
Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know.
- Zensunni koan
Teg took a deep breath. Gammu lay directly ahead, precisely where his navigators had said it would be when they emerged from foldspace. He stood beside a watchful Streggi seeing this in displays of his flagship's command bay.
Streggi did not like it that he stood on his own feet instead of riding her shoulders. She felt superfluous amidst military hardware. Her gaze kept going to the multi-projection fields at command bay center. Aides moving efficiently in and out of pods and fields, bodies draped with esoteric hardware, knew what they were doing. She had only the vaguest idea of these functions.
The comboard to relay Teg's orders lay under his palms, riding there on suspensors. Its command field formed a faint blue glow around his hands. The silvery horseshoe linking him to the attack force rested lightly on his shoulders, feeling familiar there in spite of being much larger relative to his small body than comlinks of his previous lifetime.
None of those around him any longer questioned that this was their famous Bashar in a child's body. They took his orders with brisk acceptance.
The target system looked ordinary from this distance: a sun and its captive planets. But Gammu in center focus was not ordinary. Idaho had been born there, his ghola trained there, his original memories restored there.
And I was changed there.
Teg had no explanation for what he had found in himself under the stresses of survival on Gammu. Physical speed that drained his flesh and an ability to see no-ships, to locate them in an image field like a block of space reproduced in his mind.
He suspected a wild outcropping in Atreides genes. Marker cells had been identified in him but not their purpose. It was the heritage Bene Gesserit Breeding Mistresses had meddled with for eons. There was little doubt they would view this ability as something potentially dangerous to them. They might use it but he would certainly lose his freedom.
He put these reflections out of his mind.
"Send in the decoys."
Action!
Teg felt himself assume a familiar stance. There was a sense of climbing onto a refreshing eminence when planning ended. Theories had been articulated, alternatives carefully worked out, and subordinates deployed, all thoroughly briefed. His key squad leaders had committed Gammu to memory - where partisan help might be available, every bolt hole, every known strongpoint and which access routes were most vulnerable. He had warned them especially about Futars. The possibility that humanoid beasts might be allies could not be overlooked. Rebels who had helped ghola-Idaho escape from Gammu had insisted Futars were created to hunt and kill Honored Matres. Knowing the accounts of Dortujla and others, you could almost pity Honored Matres if this were true, except that no pity could be spared for those who never showed it to others.
The attack was taking its designed shape - scout ships laying down a decoy barrage and heavy carriers moving into strike position. Teg became now what he thought of as "the instrument of my instruments." It was difficult to determine which commanded and which responded.
Now, the delicate part.
Unknowns were to be feared. A good commander kept that firmly in mind. There were always unknowns.
Decoys were nearing the defensive perimeter. He saw enemy no-ships and foldspace sensors - bright dots arrayed through his awareness. Teg superimposed this onto the positions of his force. Every order he gave must appear to originate from a battle-plot they all shared.
He felt thankful Murbella had not joined him. Any Reverend Mother might see through his deception. But no one had questioned Odrade's order that Murbella wait with her party at a safe distance.
"Potential Mother Superior. Guard this one well."
Explosive demolition of decoys began with a random display of brilliant flashes around the planet. He leaned forward, staring at projections.
"There's the pattern!"
There was no such pattern but his words created belief and pulses quickened. No one questioned that the Bashar had seen vulnerability in the defenses. His hands flashed over the comboard, sending his ships forward in a blazing display that littered space behind them with enemy fragments.
"All right! Let's go!"
He fed the flagship's course directly into Navigation, then turned full attention to Fire Control. Silent explosions dotted space around them as the flagship mopped up surviving elements of Gammu's perimeter guardians.
"More decoys!" he ordered.
Globes of white light blinked in the projection fields.
Attention in the command bay concentrated on the fields, not on their Bashar. The unexpected! Teg, justly famous for that, was confirming his reputation.
"I find this oddly romantic," Streggi said.
Romantic? No romance in this! The time for romance was past and yet to come. A certain aura might surround plans for violence. He accepted that. Historians created their own brand of drama-cum-romance. But now? This was adrenaline time! Romance distracted you from necessities. You had to be cold inside, a clear and unimpaired line between mind and body.
As his hands moved in the comboard's field, Teg realized what had driven
Streggi to speak. Something primitive about the death and destruction being created here. This was a moment cut out of normal order. A disturbing return to ancient tribal patterns.
She sensed a tom-tom in her breast and voices chanting: "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
His vision of guardian no-ships showed survivors fleeing in panic.
Good! Panic has a way of spreading and weakening your enemies.
"There's Barony."
Idaho had converted him to the old Harkonnen name for the sprawling city with its giant black centerpiece of plasteel.
"We'll land on the Flat to the north."
He spoke the words but his hands gave the orders.
Quickly now!
For brief moments when they disgorged troops, no-ships were visible and vulnerable. He held elements of the entire force responsive to his comboard and responsibility was heavy.
"This is only a feint. We go in and out after inflicting serious damage. Junction is our real target."
Odrade's parting admonition lay there in memory. "Honored Matres must be taught a lesson such as never before. Attack us and you get hurt badly. Press us and the pain can be enormous. They've heard about Bene Gesserit punishments. We're notorious. No doubt Spider Queen sniggered a bit. You must shove that snigger down her throat!"
"Quit ship!"
This was the vulnerable moment. Space above them remained empty of threat but fire lances arced inward from the east. His gunners could handle those. He concentrated on the possibility that enemy no-ships might return for a suicide attack. Command bay projections showed his hammerships and troop carriers pouring from the holds. The shock force, an armored elite on suspensors, already had the perimeter secured.
There went the portable comeyes to spread his field of observation and relay the intimate details of violence. Communication, the key to responsive command, but it also displayed bloody destruction.
"All clear!"
The signal rang through the bay.
He lifted off the Flat and repositioned in full invisibility. Now, only the comlinks gave defenders a clue to his position and that was masked by decoy relays.
Projection displayed the monstrous rectangle of the ancient Harkonnen center. It had been built as a block of light-absorbing metal to confine slaves. The elite had lived in garden mansions on top. Honored Matres had returned it to its former oppression.
Three of his giant hammerships came into view.
"Clear the top of that thing!" he ordered. "Wipe it clean but do as little damage as possible to the structure."
He knew his words were superfluous but spoke for the release. Everyone in the attack force knew what he wanted.
"Relay reports!" he ordered.
Information began flowing from the horseshoe on his shoulders. He brought it up on secondary. Comeyes showed his troops clearing the perimeter. Battle overhead and on the ground was well in hand for at least fifty klicks out. Going far better than he had expected. So Honored Matres kept their heavy stuff off-planet, not anticipating bold attack. A familiar attitude and he had Idaho to thank for predicting it.
"They're power-blind. They think heavy armor is for space and only light stuff for the ground. Heavy weapons are brought down as needed. No sense keeping them on planet. Takes too much energy. Besides, awareness of all that heavy stuff up there has a quieting effect on captive populations."
Idaho's concepts of weaponry were devastating.
"We tend to fix our minds on what we believe we know. A projectile is a projectile even when miniaturized to contain poisons or biologicals."
Innovations in protective equipment improved mobility. Built into uniforms where possible. And Idaho had brought back the shield with its awesome destruction when struck by a lasgun beam. Shields on suspensors hidden in what appeared to be soldiers (but were actually inflated uniforms) spread out ahead of troops. Lasgun fire at them produced clean atomics to clear large areas.
Will Junction be this easy?
Teg doubted it. Necessity enforced quick adaptation to new methods.
They could have shields on Junction in two days.
And no inhibitions about how to employ them.
Shields had dominated the Old Empire, he knew, because of that oddly important set of words called "Great Convention." Honorable people did not misuse weapons of their feudal society. If you dishonored the Convention, your peers turned against you with united violence. More than that, there had been the intangible, "Face," that some called "Pride."
Face! My position in the pack.
More important to some than life itself.
"This is costing us very little," Streggi said.
She was becoming quite the battle analyst and much too banal for Teg's liking. Streggi meant they were losing few lives but perhaps she spoke truer than she knew.
"It's difficult to think of cheap devices doing the job," Idaho had said. "But that's a powerful weapon."
If your weapons cost only a small fraction of the energy your enemy spent, you had a potent lever that could prevail against seemingly overwhelming odds. Prolong the conflict and you wasted enemy substance. Your foe toppled because control of production and workers was lost.
"We can begin to pull out," he said turning away from the projections as his hands repeated the order. "I want casualty reports as soon as -" He broke off and turned at a sudden stir.
Murbella?
Her projection was repeated in all of the bay's fields. Her voice blared from the images: "Why are you disregarding reports from your perimeter?" She overrode his board and the projections displayed a field commander caught in mid-sentence: "... orders, I will have to deny their request."
"Repeat," Murbella said.
The field commander's sweaty features turned toward his mobile comeye. The comsystem compensated and he appeared to look directly into Teg's eyes.
"Repeating: I have self-styled refugees here asking for asylum. Their leader says he has an agreement requiring the Sisterhood to honor his request but without orders..."
"Who is he?" Teg demanded.
"He calls himself Rabbi."
Teg moved to resume control of his comboard. "I don't know of any -"
"Wait!" Murbella overrode his board.
How does she do that?
Again her voice filled the bay. "Bring him and his party to the flagship. Make it quick." She silenced the perimeter relay.
Teg was outraged but at a disadvantage. He chose one of the multiple images and glared at it. "How dare you interfere?"
"Because you don't have the proper data. The Rabbi is within his rights. Prepare to receive him with honors."
"Explain."
"No! There's no need for you to know. But it was proper for me to make this decision when I saw you were not responding."
"That commander was in a diversionary area! Not important to -"
"But the Rabbi's request has priority."
"You're as bad as Mother Superior!"
"Perhaps worse. Now hear me! Get those refugees into your flagship. And prepare to receive me."
"Absolutely not! You are to stay where you are!"
"Bashar! There's something about this request that demands a Reverend Mother's attention. He says they are in peril because they gave temporary sanctuary to the Reverend Mother Lucilla. Accept this or step down."
"Then let me get my people aboard and pull back first. We'll rendezvous when we're clear."
"Agreed. But treat those refugees with courtesy."
"Now, get off my projections. You've blinded me and that was foolish!"
"You have everything well in hand, Bashar. During this hiatus another of our ships accepted four Futars. They came asking that we take them to Handlers but I ordered them confined. Treat them with extreme caution."
The bay's projections resumed battle status. Teg once more called in his force. He was seething and it was minutes before he restored a sense of command. Did Murbella know how she undermined his authority? Or should he take this as a mea
sure of the importance she attached to the refugees?
When the situation was secure, he turned the bay over to an aide and, riding on Streggi's shoulders, went to see these important refugees. What was so vital about them that Murbella risked interference?
They were in a troop-carrier hold, a congealed party held apart by a cautious commander.
Who knows what may be concealed among these unknowns?
The Rabbi, identifiable because he was being deferred to by the field commander, stood with a brown-robed woman at the near side of his people. He was a small, bearded man wearing a white skullcap. Cold light made him appear ancient. The woman shielded her eyes with a hand. The Rabbi was speaking and his words became audible as Teg approached.
The woman was under verbal attack!
"The prideful one will be brought low!"
Without removing her hand from its defensive position, the woman said: "I am not proud of what I carry."
"Nor of the powers this knowledge may bring you?"
With knee pressure, Teg ordered Streggi to stop them about ten paces away. His commander glanced at Teg but stayed in position, ready to act defensively if this should prove to be a diversion.
Good man.
The woman bent her head even lower and pressed her hand against her eyes when she spoke. "Are we not offered knowledge that we might use it in holy service?"
"Daughter!" The Rabbi held himself stiffly erect. "Whatever we may learn that we may better serve, it never can be a great thing. All we call knowledge, were it to encompass everything a humble heart could hold, all of that would be no more than one seed in the furrows. "
Teg felt reluctant to interfere. What an archaic way of speaking. This pair fascinated him. The other refugees listened to the exchange with rapt attention. Only Teg's field commander appeared aloof, keeping his attention on the strangers and giving an occasional hand-signal to aides.
The woman kept her head respectfully lowered and the shielding hand in place but she still defended herself. "Even a seed lost in the furrows may bring forth life."
The Rabbi's lips tightened into a grim line, then: "Without water and care, which is to say, without the blessing and the word, there is no life. "
ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6 Page 40
