"You think loyalty will bind this one to you?"
"Especially after Lucilla -"
"That may be too dangerous!"
Odrade sat back into a corner of the divan. Taraza wanted certainty. And the lives of the serial gholas were like melange, presenting a different taste in different surroundings. How could they be sure of their ghola?
"The Tleilaxu meddle with the forces that produced our Kwisatz Haderach," Taraza muttered.
"You think that's why they want our breeding records?"
"I don't know! Damn you, Dar! Don't you see what you've done?"
"I think I had no choice," Odrade said.
Taraza produced a cold smile. Odrade's performance remained superb but she needed to be put in her place.
"You think I would have done the same?" Taraza asked.
She still does not see what has happened to me, Odrade thought. Taraza had expected her pliant Dar to act with independence but the extent of that independence had shaken the High Council. Taraza refused to see her own hand in this.
"Customary practice," Odrade said.
The words struck Taraza like a slap in the face. Only the hard training of a Bene Gesserit lifetime prevented her from striking out violently at Odrade.
Customary practice!
How many times had Taraza herself revealed this as a source of irritation, a constant goad to her carefully capped rage? Odrade had heard it often.
Odrade quoted the Mother Superior now: "Immovable custom is dangerous. Enemies can find a pattern and use it against you."
The words were forced from Taraza: "That is a weakness, yes."
"Our enemies thought they knew our way," Odrade said. "Even you, Mother Superior, thought you knew the limits within which I would perform. I was like Bellonda. Before she even spoke, you knew what Bellonda would say."
"Have we made a mistake, not elevating you above me?" Taraza asked. She spoke from her deepest allegiance.
"No, Mother Superior. We walk a delicate path but both of us can see where we must go."
"Where is Waff now?" Taraza asked.
"Asleep and well guarded."
"Summon Sheeana. We must decide whether to abort that part of the project."
"And take our lumps?"
"As you say, Dar."
Sheeana was still sleepy and rubbing her eyes when she appeared in the common room but she obviously had taken the time to splash water on her face and dress in a clean white robe. Her hair was still damp.
Taraza and Odrade stood near an eastern window with their backs to the light.
"This is Sheeana, Mother Superior," Odrade said.
Sheeana came fully alert with an abrupt stiffening of her back. She had heard of this powerful woman, this Taraza, who ruled the Sisterhood from a distant citadel called Chapter House. Sunlight was bright in the window behind the two women, shining full into Sheeana's face, dazzling her. It left the faces of the two Reverend Mothers partly obscured, the black outlines of their figures fuzzy in the brilliance.
Acolyte instructors had prepared her against this encounter: "You stand at attention before the Mother Superior and speak respectfully. Respond only when she speaks to you."
Sheeana stood at rigid attention the way she had been told.
"I am informed that you may become one of us," Taraza said.
Both women could see the effect of this on the girl. By now, Sheeana was more fully aware of a Reverend Mother's accomplishments. The powerful beam of truth had been focused on her. She had begun to grasp at the enormous body of knowledge the Sisterhood had accumulated over the millennia. She had been told about selective memory transmission, about the workings of Other Memories, about the spice agony. And here before her stood the most powerful of all Reverend Mothers, one from whom nothing was hidden.
When Sheeana did not respond, Taraza said: "Have you nothing to say, child?"
"What is there to say, Mother Superior? You have said it all."
Taraza sent a searching glance at Odrade. "Have you any other little surprises for me, Dar?"
"I told you she was superior," Odrade said.
Taraza returned her attention to Sheeana. "Are you proud of that opinion, child?"
"It frightens me, Mother Superior."
Still holding her face as immobile as she could, Sheeana breathed more easily. Say only the deepest truth you can sense, she reminded herself. Those warning words from a teacher carried more meaning now. She kept her eyes slightly unfocused and aimed at the floor directly in front of the two women, avoiding the worst of the brilliant sunlight. She still felt her heart beating too rapidly and knew the Reverend Mothers would detect this. Odrade had demonstrated it many times.
"Well it should frighten you," Taraza said.
Odrade asked: "Do you understand what is being said to you, Sheeana?"
"The Mother Superior wishes to know if I am fully committed to the Sisterhood," Sheeana said.
Odrade looked at Taraza and shrugged. There was no need for more discussion of this between them. That was the way of it when you were part of one family as they were in the Bene Gesserit.
Taraza continued her silent study of Sheeana. It was a heavy gaze, energy-draining for Sheeana, who knew she must remain silent and permit that scorching examination.
Odrade put down feelings of sympathy. Sheeana was like herself as a young girl, in so many ways. She had that globular intellect which expanded on all surfaces the way a balloon expanded when filled. Odrade recalled how her own teachers had been admiring of this, but wary, just the way Taraza was now wary. Odrade had recognized this wariness while even younger than Sheeana and held no doubts that Sheeana saw it here. Intellect had its uses.
"Mmmmmm," Taraza said.
Odrade heard the humming sound of the Mother Superior's internal reflections as part of a simulflow. Odrade's own memory had surged backward. The Sisters who had brought Odrade her food when she studied late had always loitered to observe her in their special way, just as Sheeana was watched and monitored at all times. Odrade had known about those special ways of observing from an early age. That was, after all, one of the great lures of the Bene Gesserit. You wanted to be capable of such esoteric abilities. Sheeana certainly possessed this desire. It was the dream of every postulant.
That such things might be possible for me!
Taraza spoke finally: "What is it you think you want from us, child?"
"The same things you thought you wanted when you were my age, Mother Superior."
Odrade suppressed a smile. Sheeana's wild sense of independence had skated close to insolence there and Taraza certainly recognized this.
"You think that is a proper use for the gift of life?" Taraza asked.
"It is the only use I know, Mother Superior."
"Your candor is appreciated but I warn you to be careful in your use of it," Taraza said.
"Yes, Mother Superior."
"You already owe us much and you will owe us more," Taraza said. "Remember that. Our gifts do not come cheaply."
Sheeana has not the vaguest appreciation of what she will pay for our gifts, Odrade thought.
The Sisterhood never let its initiates forget what they owed and must repay. You did not repay with love. Love was dangerous and Sheeana already was learning this. The gift of life? A shudder began to course through Odrade and she cleared her throat to compensate.
Am I alive? Perhaps when they took me away from Mama Sibia I died. I was alive there in that house but did I live after the Sisters removed me?
Taraza said: "You may leave us now, Sheeana."
Sheeana turned on one heel and left the room but not before Odrade saw the tight smile on the young face. Sheeana knew she had passed the Mother Superior's examination.
When the door closed behind Sheeana, Taraza said: "You mentioned her natural ability with Voice. I heard it, of course. Remarkable."
"She kept it well bridled," Odrade said. "She has learned not to try it on us."
"What do we hav
e there, Dar?"
"Perhaps someday a Mother Superior of extraordinary abilities."
"Not too extraordinary?"
"We will have to see."
"Do you think she is capable of killing for us?"
Odrade was startled and showed it. "Now?"
"Yes, of course."
"The ghola?"
"Teg would not do it," Taraza said. "I even have doubts about Lucilla. Their reports make it clear that he is capable of forging powerful bonds of... of affinity."
"Even as I?"
"Schwangyu herself was not completely immune."
"Where is the noble purpose in such an act?" Odrade asked. "Isn't this what the Tyrant's warning has -"
"Him? He killed many times!"
"And paid for it."
"We pay for everything we take, Dar."
"Even for a life?"
"Never forget for one instant, Dar, that a Mother Superior is capable of making any necessary decision for the Sisterhood's survival!"
"So be it," Odrade said. "Take what you want and pay for it."
It was the proper reply but it reinforced the new strength Odrade felt, this freedom to respond in her own way within a new universe. Where had such toughness originated? Was it something out of her cruel Bene Gesserit conditioning? Was it from her Atreides ancestry? She did not try to fool herself that this came from a decision never again to follow another's moral guidance rather than her own. This inner stability upon which she now stationed herself was not a pure morality. Not bravado, either. Those were never enough.
"You are very like your father," Taraza said. "Usually, it's the dam who provides most of the courage but this time I think it was the father."
"Miles Teg is admirably courageous but I think you oversimplify," Odrade said.
"Perhaps I do. But I have been right about you at every turn, Dar, even back there when we were student postulants."
She knows! Odrade thought.
"We don't need to explain it," Odrade said. And she thought: It comes from being born who I am, trained and shaped the way I was... the way we both were: Dar and Tar.
"It's something in the Atreides line that we have not fully analyzed," Taraza said.
"No genetic accidents?"
"I sometimes wonder if we've suffered any real accidents since the Tyrant," Taraza said.
"Did he stretch out back there in his citadel and look across the millennia to this very moment?"
"How far back would you reach for the roots?" Taraza asked.
Odrade said: "What really happens when a Mother Superior commands the Breeding Mistresses: 'Have that one go breed with that one'?"
Taraza produced a cold smile.
Odrade felt herself suddenly at the crest of a wave, awareness pushing all of her over into this new realm. Taraza wants my rebellion! She wants me as her opponent!
"Will you see Waff now?" Odrade asked.
"First, I want your assessment of him."
"He sees us as the ultimate tool to create the 'Tleilaxu Ascendancy.' We are God's gift to his people."
"They have been waiting a long time for this," Taraza said. "To dissemble so carefully, all of them for all of those eons!"
"They have our view of time," Odrade agreed. "That was the final thing to convince them we share their Great Belief."
"But why the clumsiness?" Taraza asked. "They are not stupid."
"It diverted our attention from how they were really using their ghola process," Odrade said. "Who could believe stupid people would do such a thing?"
"And what have they created?" Taraza asked. "Only the image of evil stupidity?"
"Act stupid long enough and you become stupid," Odrade said. "Perfect the mimicry of your Face Dancers and..."
"Whatever happens, we must punish them," Taraza said. "I see that clearly. Have him brought up here."
After Odrade had given the order and while they waited, Taraza said: "The sequencing of the ghola's education became a shambles even before they escaped from the Gammu Keep. He leaped ahead of his teachers to grasp things that were only implied and he did this at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Who knows what he has become by now?"
***
Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.
- Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat
Duncan followed his guide through the dawn light at a punishing clip. The man might look old but he was as springy as a gazelle and seemed incapable of tiring.
Only a few minutes ago they had put aside their night goggles. Duncan was glad to be rid of them. Everything outside the reach of the glasses had been black in the dim starlight filtering through heavy branches. There had been no world ahead of him beyond the range of the glasses. The view at both sides jerked and flowed - now a clump of yellow bushes, now two silver-bark trees, now a stone wall with a plasteel gate cut into it and guarded by the flickering blue of a burn-shield, then an arched bridge of native rock, all green and black underfoot. After that, an arched entry of polished white stone. The structures all appeared very old and expensive, maintained by costly handwork.
Duncan had no idea where he was. None of this terrain recalled his memories of the long-lost Giedi Prime days.
Dawn revealed that they were following a tree-shielded animal track up a hillside. The climb became steep. Occasional glimpses through trees on their left revealed a valley. A hanging mist stood guard over the sky, hiding the distances, enclosing them as they climbed. Their world became progressively a smaller place as it lost its connection with a larger universe.
At one brief pause, not for rest but for listening to the forest around them, Duncan studied his mist-capped surroundings. He felt dislodged, removed from a universe that possessed sky and the open features that linked it to other planets.
His disguise was simple: Tleilaxu cold-weather garments and cheek pads to make his face appear rounder. His curly black hair had been straightened by some chemical applied with heat. The hair was then bleached to a sandy blond and hidden under a dark watchcap. All of his genital hair had been shaved away. He hardly recognized himself in the mirror they held up for him.
A dirty Tleilaxu!
The artisan who created this transformation was an old woman with glittering gray-green eyes. "You are now a Tleilaxu Master," she said. "Your name is Wose. A guide will take you to the next place. You will treat him like a Face Dancer if you meet strangers. Otherwise, do as he commands."
They led him out of the cave complex along a twisting passage, its walls and ceiling thick with the musky green algae. In starlighted darkness, they thrust him from the passage into a chilly night and the hands of an unseen man - a bulky figure in padded clothing.
A voice behind Duncan whispered: "Here he is, Ambitorm. Get him through."
The guide spoke in an accent of gutturals: "Follow me." He clipped a lead cord to Duncan's belt, adjusted the night goggles and turned away. Duncan felt the cord tug once and they were off.
Duncan recognized the use of the cord. It was not something to keep him close behind. He could see this Ambitorm clearly enough with the night goggles. No, the cord was to spill him quickly if they met danger. No need for a command.
For a long time during the night they crisscrossed small ice-lined watercourses on a flatland. The light of Gammu's early moons penetrated the covering growth only occasionally. They emerged finally onto a low hill with a view of bushy wasteland all silvery with snow cover in the moonlight. Down into this they went. The bushes, about twice the height of the guide, arched over muddy animal passages little larger than the tunnels where they had begun this journey. It was warmer here, the warmth of a compost heap. Almost no light penetrated to a ground spongy with rotted vegetation. Duncan inhaled the fungal odors of decomposing plant life. The night goggles showed him a seemingly endless repetition of thick growth on both sides. The cord linking him to Ambitorm was a tenuous grip
on an alien world.
Ambitorm discouraged conversation. He said "Yes," when Duncan asked confirmation of the man's name, then: "Don't talk."
The whole night was a disquieting traverse for Duncan. He did not like being thrown back into his own thoughts. Giedi Prime memories persisted. This place was like nothing he remembered from his pre-ghola youth. He wondered how Ambitorm had learned the way through here and how he remembered it. One animal tunnel appeared much like another.
In the steady, jogging pace there was time for Duncan's thoughts to roam.
Must I permit the Sisterhood to use me? What do I owe them?
And he thought of Teg, that last gallant stand to permit two of them to escape.
I did the same for Paul and Jessica.
It was a bond with Teg and it touched Duncan with grief. Teg was loyal to the Sisterhood. Did he buy my loyalty with that last brave act?
Damn the Atreides!
The night's exertions increased Duncan's familiarity with his new flesh. How young this body was! A small lurch of recollection and he could see that last pre-ghola memory; he could feel the Sardaukar blade strike his head - a blinding explosion of pain and light. Knowledge of his certain death and then... nothing until that moment with Teg in the Harkonnen no-globe.
The gift of another life. Was it more than a gift or something less? The Atreides were demanding another payment from him.
For a time just before dawn, Ambitorm led him at a sloshing run along a narrow stream whose icy chill penetrated the waterproof insulated boots of Duncan's Tleilaxu garments. The watercourse reflected bush-shadowed silver from the light of the planet's pre-dawn moon setting ahead of them.
Daylight saw them come out into the larger, tree-shielded animal track and up the steep hill. This passage emerged onto a narrow rocky ledge below a ridgetop of sawtoothed boulders. Ambitorm led him behind a screen of dead brown bushes, their tops dirty with wind-blown snow. He released the cord from Duncan's belt. Directly in front of them was a shallow declivity in the rocks, not quite a cave, but Duncan saw that it would offer some protection unless they got a hard wind over the bushes behind them. There was no snow on the floor of the place.
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