ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  "In all things you must appear important. No minor decisions pass through your hands unless they are quiet acts called 'favors' done for people whose loyalty can be earned."

  Every reward came from on high. Not a good policy with the Bene Gesserit but this group entering the workroom, they were familiar with a Patroness Great Honored Matre; they would accept "new political necessities." Temporarily. It was always temporary, especially with Honored Matres.

  Bell and watchdogs knew she would be a long time sorting this out. Even with amplified Bene Gesserit abilities.

  It would require extremely demanding attention from all of them. And the first thing was the sharply discerning gaze of innocence.

  That is what Honored Matres lost, and we must restore it before they can fade into the background where "we" belong.

  Bellonda ushered in the Council and retired silently.

  Murbella waited until they were seated. A mixed lot: some aspirants to supreme power. Angelika there smiling so prettily. Some waiting (not even daring to hope yet) but gathering what they could.

  "Our Sisterhood was acting with stupidity," Murbella accused. She noted the ones who took this angrily. "You would have killed the goose!"

  They did not understand. She dredged up the parable. They listened with proper attention, even when she added: "Don't you realize how desperately we need every one of these witches? We outnumber them so greatly that each of them will carry an enormous teaching burden!"

  They considered this and, bitter though it was, they were forced to a qualified acceptance because she said it.

  Murbella hammered it home. "Not only am I your Great Honored Matre... Does anyone question that?"

  No one questioned.

  "... but I am Bene Gesserit Mother Superior. They can do little else but confirm me in office."

  Two of them started to protest but Murbella cut them short. "No! You would be powerless to enforce your will on them. You would have to kill them all. But they will obey me."

  The two continued to babble and she shouted them down: "Compared to me with what I acquired from them, the lot of you are miserable weaklings! Do any of you challenge that?"

  No one challenged but orange flecks were there.

  "You are children with no knowledge of what you might become," she said. "Would you return defenseless to face the ones of many faces? Would you become vegetables?"

  That caught their interest. They were accustomed to this tone from older commanders. The content held them now. It was difficult to accept from one so young... still... the things she had done. And to Logno and her aides!

  Murbella saw them admire the bait.

  Fertilization. This group will carry it away with them. Hybrid vigor. We are fertilized to grow stronger. And flower. And go to seed? Best not dwell on that. Honored Matres will not see it until they are almost Reverend Mothers. Then they will look back angrily as I did. How could we have been that stupid?

  She saw submission take shape in councillor's eyes. There would be a honeymoon. Honored Matres would be children in a candy store. Only gradually would the inevitable grow plain to them. Then they would be trapped.

  As I was trapped. Don't ask the oracle what you can gain. That's the trap. Beware the real fortune teller! Would you like thirty-five hundred years of boredom?

  Odrade Within objected.

  Give the Tyrant some credit. It couldn't all have been boredom. More like a Guild Navigator picking his passage through foldspace. Golden Path. An Atreides paid for your survival, Murbella.

  Murbella felt burdened. The Tyrant's payment dumped on her shoulders. I didn't ask him to do it for me.

  Odrade could not let that pass. He did it nonetheless.

  Sorry, Dar. He paid. Now, I must pay.

  So you are a Reverend Mother at last!

  The councillors had grown restive under her stare.

  Angelika elected to speak for them. After all, I am first chosen.

  Watch that one! A blaze of ambition in her eyes.

  "What response are you asking us to take with these witches?" Alarmed by her own boldness. Was not Great Honored Matre also a witch now?

  Murbella spoke softly. "You will tolerate them and offer them no violence whatsoever."

  Angelika was emboldened by Murbella's mild tone. "Is that Great Honored Matre's decision or the -"

  "Enough! I could bloody the floor of this room with the lot of you! Do you wish to test it?"

  They did not wish to test it.

  "And what if I say to you that it is Mother Superior speaking? You will ask do I have a policy to meet our problem? I will say: Policy? Ahh, yes. I have a policy for unimportant things such as insect infestations. Unimportant things call for policies. For such of you as do not see the wisdom in my decision, I need no policy. Your kind I dispose of quickly. Dead before you know you've been injured! That is my response to the presence of filth. Is there any filth in this room?"

  It was language they recognized: the lash of the Great Honored Matre backed by ability to kill.

  "You are my Council," Murbella said. "I expect wisdom from you. The least you can do is pretend you are wise."

  Humorous sympathy from Odrade: If that's the way Honored Matres give and take orders, it won't require much deep analysis by Bell.

  Murbella's thoughts went elsewhere. I am no longer Honored Matre.

  The step from one to another was so recent she found her Honored Matre performance uncomfortable. Her adjustments were a metaphor of what would happen to her former Sisters. A new role and she did not wear it well. Other Memory simulated long association with herself as this new person. This was no mystical transubstantiation, merely new abilities.

  Merely?

  The change was profound. Did Duncan realize this? It pained her that he might never see through to this new person.

  Is that the residue of my love for him?

  Murbella drew back from her questions, not wanting an answer. She felt repelled by something that went deeper than she cared to burrow.

  There will be decisions I must make that love would prevent. Decisions for the Sisterhood and not for myself. That is where my fear is pointing.

  Immediate necessities restored her. She sent her councillors away, promising pain and death if they failed to learn this new restraint.

  Next, Reverend Mothers must be taught a new diplomacy: getting along with no one - not even with each other. It would grow easier in time. Honored Matres slipping into Bene Gesserit ways. One day, there would be no Honored Matres; only Reverend Mothers with improved reflexes and augmented knowledge of sexuality.

  Murbella felt haunted by words she had heard but not accepted until this moment. "The things we will do for Bene Gesserit survival have no limits."

  Duncan will see this. I cannot keep it from him. The Mentat will not hold to a fixed idea of what I was before the Agony. He opens his mind as I open a door. He will examine his net. "What have I caught this time?"

  Was this what happened to Lady Jessica? Other Memory carried Jessica threaded into the warp and woof of Sharings. Murbella unraveled a bit and paraded elder knowledge.

  Heretic Lady Jessica? Malfeasance in office?

  Jessica had plunged into love as Odrade had plunged into the sea and the resultant waves had all but engulfed the Sisterhood.

  Murbella sensed this taking her where she did not want to go. Pain clutched her chest.

  Duncan! Ohhhh, Duncan! She dropped her face into her hands. Dar, help me. What am I to do?

  Never ask why you're a Reverend Mother.

  I must! The progression is clear in my memory and...

  That's a sequence. Thinking of it as cause and effect beguiles you away from totality.

  Tao?

  Simpler: You are here.

  But Other Memory goes back and back and...

  Imagine it's pyramids - interlocked.

  Those are just words!

  Is your body still functioning?

  I hurt, Dar. You don't hav
e a body any more and it's useless to...

  We occupy different niches. The pains I felt are not your pains. My joys are not yours.

  I don't want your sympathy! Ohh, Dar! Why was I born?

  Were you born to lose Duncan?

  Dar, please!

  So you were born and now you know that's never enough. So you became an Honored Matre. What else could you do? Still not enough? Now you're a Reverend Mother. You think that's enough? It's never enough as long as you're alive.

  You're telling me I must always reach beyond myself.

  Pah! You don't make decisions on that basis. Didn't you hear him? Don't think; do it! Will you chose the easy way? Why should you feel sad because you've encountered the inevitable? If that's all you can see, confine yourself to improving the breed!

  Damn you! Why did you do this to me?

  Do what?

  Make me see myself and my former Sisters this way!

  What way?

  Damn you! You know what I mean!

  Former Sisters, you say?

  Oh, you are insidious.

  All Reverend Mothers are insidious.

  You never stop teaching!

  Is that what I do?

  How innocent I was! Asking you what you really do.

  You know as well as I do. We wait for humankind to mature. The Tyrant only provided them time to grow but now they need care.

  What's the Tyrant have to do with my pain?

  You foolish woman! Did you fail the Agony?

  You know I didn't!

  Stop stumbling over the obvious.

  Oh, you bitch!

  I prefer witch. Either is preferable to whore.

  The only difference between Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre is the marketplace. You married our Sisterhood.

  Our Sisterhood?

  You bred for power! How is that different from...

  Don't twist it, Murbella! Keep your eyes on survival.

  Don't tell me you had no power.

  Temporary authority over people intent on survival.

  Survival again!

  In a Sisterhood that promotes the survival of others. Like the married woman who bears children.

  So it comes down to procreation.

  That's a decision you make for yourself: family and what binds it. What tickles life and happiness?

  Murbella began to laugh. She dropped her hands and opened her eyes to find Bellonda standing there watching.

  "That's always a temptation for a new Reverend Mother," Bellonda said. "Chat a bit with Other Memory. Who was it this time? Dar?"

  Murbella nodded.

  "Don't trust anything they give you. It's lore and you judge it for yourself "

  Odrade's words exactly. Look through the eyes of the dead at scenes long gone. What a peep show!

  "You can get lost in there for hours," Bellonda said. "Exercise restraint. Be sure of your ground. One hand for yourself and one for the ship."

  There it was again! The past applied to the present. How rich Other Memory made everyday life.

  "It'll pass," Bellonda said. "It gets to be old hat after a time." She laid a report in front of Murbella.

  Old hat! One hand for yourself and one for the ship. So much just in idioms.

  Murbella leaned back in the slingchair to scan Bellonda's report, fancying herself suddenly in Odrade's idiom: Spider Queen in the center of my web. The web might be a bit frayed just now but it was still there catching things to be digested. Twitch a trigger strand and Bell came running, mandibles flexing in anticipation. The twitch-words were "Archives" and "Analysis."

  Seeing Bellonda in this light, Murbella saw the wisdom in the ways Odrade had employed her, flaws as valuable as the strengths. When Murbella finished the report, Bellonda still stood there in characteristic attitude.

  Murbella recognized that Bellonda looked on all who summoned her as ones who had not measured up, people who called on Archives for frivolous reasons and had to be set straight. Frivolity: Bellonda's bete noire. Murbella found this amusing.

  Murbella kept amusement masked while enjoying Bellonda. The way to deal with her was to be scrupulous. Nothing to subtract from strengths. This report was a model of concise and pertinent argument. She made her points with few embellishments, just enough to reveal her own conclusions.

  "Does it amuse you to summon me?" Bellonda asked.

  She's sharper than she was! Did I summon her? Not in so many words but she knows when she's needed. She says here our Sisters must be models of meekness. Mother Superior may be anything she needs to be but not so the rest of the Sisterhood.

  Murbella touched the report. "A starting point."

  "Then we should start before your friends find the comeye center." Bellonda sank into her chairdog with familiar confidence. "Tam's gone but I could send for Sheeana."

  "Where is she?"

  "At the ship. Studying a collection of worms in the Great Hold, says any of us can be taught to control them."

  "Valuable if true. Leave her. What of Scytale?"

  "Still in the ship. Your friends haven't found him yet. We're keeping him under wraps."

  "Let's continue that. He's a good reserve bargaining chip. And they're not my friends, Bell. How are the Rabbi and his party?"

  "Comfortable but worried. They know Honored Matres are here."

  "Keep them under wraps."

  "It's uncanny. A different voice but I hear Dar."

  "An echo in your head."

  Bellonda actually laughed.

  "Now here's what you must spread among the Sisters. We act with extreme delicacy while showing ourselves as people to admire and emulate. 'You Honored Matres may not choose to live as we live but you can learn our strengths.' "

  "Ahhhhhh."

  "It comes down to ownership. Honored Matres are owned by things. 'I want that place, that bauble, that person.' Take what you want. Use it until you tire of it."

  "While we go along our path admiring what we see."

  "And there's our flaw. We don't give ourselves easily. Fear of love and affection! To be self-possessed has its own greed. 'See what I have? You can't have it unless you follow my ways!' Never take that attitude with Honored Matres."

  "Are you telling me we have to love them?"

  "How else can we make them admire us? That was Jessica's victory. When she gave, she gave it all. So much bottled up by our ways and then that overwhelming wash: everything given. It's irresistible."

  "We don't compromise that easily."

  "No more do Honored Matres."

  "That's the way of their bureaucratic origins!"

  "Yet, theirs is a training ground for following the path of least resistance."

  "You're confusing me, Da... Murbella."

  "Have I said we should compromise? Compromise weakens us, and we know there are problems compromise cannot solve, decisions we must make no matter how bitter."

  "Pretend to love them?"

  "That's a beginning."

  "It'll be a bloody union, this joining of Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre."

  "I suggest we Share as widely as possible. We may lose people while Honored Matres are learning."

  "A marriage made on the battlefield."

  Murbella stood, thinking of Duncan in the no-ship, remembering the ship as she had seen it last. There it was finally, not hidden to any sense. A lump of strange machinery, oddly grotesque. A wild conglomeration of protrusions and juttings with no apparent purpose. Hard to imagine the thing lifting on its own power, enormous as that was, and vanishing into space.

  Vanishing into space!

  She saw the shape of Duncan's mental mosaic.

  A piece that cannot be moved! Get in tune... Don't think; do it!

  With an abruptness that chilled her, she knew his decision.

  ***

  When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces
at work.

  - Darwi Odrade

  "Move with extreme care," Sheeana had warned him.

  Idaho did not think he needed warning but appreciated it nonetheless.

  Presence of Honored Matres on Chapterhouse eased his task. They made the ship's Proctors and other guards nervous. Murbella's orders kept her former Sisters out of the ship but everyone knew the enemy was here. Scanner relays showed a seemingly endless stream of lighters disgorging Honored Matres on the Flat. Most of the new arrivals appeared curious about that monstrous no-ship sitting there but no one disobeyed Great Honored Matre.

  "Not while she's alive," Idaho muttered where Proctors could hear him. "They have a tradition of assassinating their leaders to replace them. How long can Murbella hold out?"

  Comeyes did his work for him. He knew his muttering would spread through the ship.

  Sheeana came to him in his workroom shortly afterward and made a show of disapproval. "What are you trying to do, Duncan? You're upsetting people."

  "Go back to your worms!"

  "Duncan!"

  "Murbella's playing a dangerous game! She's all that stands between us and disaster."

  He already had voiced this worry to Murbella. It was not new to the watchers but reinforcement made everyone who heard him edgy - comeye monitors in Archives, ship guards, everyone.

  Except Honored Matres. Murbella was keeping them out of Bellonda's Archives.

  "Time for that later," she said.

  Sheeana had her cue. "Duncan, either stop feeding our worries or tell us what we should do. You're a Mentat. Function for us."

  Ahhh, the Great Mentat performs for all to see.

  "What you should do is obvious but it's not up to me. I can't leave Murbella."

  But I can be taken away.

  Now it was up to Sheeana. She left him and went to spread her own brand of change.

  "We have the Scattering for our example."

  By evening, she had the Reverend Mothers in the ship neutralized and gave him a hand-signal that they could take the next step.

  "They will follow my lead."

  Without intending it, the Missionaria had set the stage for Sheeana's ascendancy. Most Sisters knew the power latent in her. Dangerous. But it was there.

  Unused power was like a marionette with visible strings, nobody holding them. A compelling attraction: I could make it dance.