Chapterhouse: Dune

Chapter Eighteen

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.
Tonight, she was lost in an insane world of words. The cause was clear. Bellonda that morning had learned Murbella spoke nine languages and had aimed the suspicious acolyte down a mental path called "Linguistic Heritage." But Bell's influence on this nighttime madness provided no escape.
Nightmare. She was a creature of microscopic size trapped in an enormous echoing place labeled in giant letters wherever she turned: "Data Reservoir." Animated words with grimacing jaws and fearsome tentacles surrounded her.
Predatory beasts and she was their prey!
Awake and knowing she sat on the edge of her bed with Duncan's arm on her legs, she still saw the beasts. They herded her backward. She knew she was going backward although her body did not move. They pressed her toward a terrible disaster she could not see. Her head would not turn! Not only did she see these creatures (they hid parts of her sleeping chamber) but she heard them in a cacophony of her nine languages.
They will tear me apart!
Although she could not turn, she sensed what lay behind her: more teeth and claws. Threat all around! If they cornered her, they would pounce and she was doomed.
Done for. Dead. Victim. Torture-captive. Fair game.
Despair filled her. Why would Duncan not awaken and save her? His arm was a lead weight, part of the force holding her and allowing these creatures to herd her into their bizarre trap. She trembled. Perspiration poured from her body. Awful words! They united into giant combinations. A creature with knife-fanged mouth came directly toward her and she saw more words in the gaping blackness between its jaws.
See above.
Murbella began to laugh. She had no control of it. See above. Done for. Dead. Victim...
The laughter awakened Duncan. He sat up, activated a low glowglobe, and stared at her. How tousled he looked after their earlier sexual collision.
His expression hovered between amusement and upset at being awakened. "Why are you laughing?"
Laughter subsided in gasps. Her sides ached. She was afraid his tentative smile would ignite a new spasm. "Oh... oh! Duncan! Sexual collision!"
He knew this was their mutual term for the addiction that bound them but why would it make her laugh?
His puzzled expression struck her as ludicrous.
Between gasps, she said: "Two more words." And she had to clamp her mouth closed to prevent another outburst.
"What?"
His voice was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She thrust a hand at him and shook her head. "Ohhh... ohhh..."
"Murbella, what's wrong with you?"
She could only continue shaking her head.
He tried a tentative smile. It gentled her and she leaned against him. "No!" When his right hand wandered. " I just want to be close."
"Look what time it is." He lifted his chin toward the ceiling projection. "Almost three."
"It was so funny, Duncan."
"So tell me about it."
"When I catch my breath."
He eased her down onto her pillow. "We're like a damned old married couple. Funny stories in the middle of the night."
"No, darling, we're different."
"A question of degree, nothing else."
"Quality," she insisted.
"What was so funny?"
She recounted her nightmare and Bellonda's influence.
"Zensunni. Very ancient technique. The Sisters use it to rid you of trauma connections. Words that ignite unconscious responses."
Fear returned.
"Murbella, why are you trembling?"
"Honored Matre teachers warned us terrible things would happen if we fell into Zensunni hands."
"Bullcrap! I went through the same thing as a Mentat."
His words conjured another dream fragment. A beast with two heads. Both mouths open. Words in there. On the left, "One word" and on the right, "leads to another."
Mirth displaced fear. It subsided without laughter. "Duncan!"
"Mmmmmmm." Mentat distance in the sound.
"Bell said the Bene Gesserit use words as weapons - Voice. 'Tools of control,' she called them."
"A lesson you must learn almost as instinct. They'll never trust you into the deeper training until you learn this."
And I won't trust you afterward.
She rolled away from him and looked at the comeyes glittering in the ceiling around the time projection.
I'm still on probation.
She was aware her teachers discussed her privately. Conversations were choked off when she approached. They stared at her in their special way, as though she were an interesting specimen.
Bellonda's voice cluttered her mind.
Nightmare tendrils. Midmorning then and the sweat of her own exertions a stink in her nostrils. Probationer a dutiful three paces from Reverend Mother. Bell's voice:
"Never be an expert. That locks you up tight."
All of this because I asked if there were no words to guide the Bene Gesserit.
"Duncan, why do they mix mental and physical teaching?"
"Mind and body reinforce each other." Sleepy. Damn him! He's going back to sleep.
She shook Duncan's shoulder. "If words are so damned unimportant, why do they talk about disciplines so much?"
"Patterns," he mumbled. "Dirty word."
"What?" She shook him more roughly.
He turned onto his back, moving his lips, then: "Discipline equals pattern equals bad way to go. They say we're all natural pattern creators... means 'order' to them, I think."
"Why is that so bad?"
"Gives others handle to destroy us or traps us in... in things we won't change."
"You're wrong about mind and body."
"Hmmmmph?"
"It's pressures locking one to the other."
"Isn't that what I said? Hey! Are we going to talk or sleep or what?"
"No more 'or what.' Not tonight."
A deep sigh lifted his chest.
"They're not out to improve my health," she said.
"Nobody said they were."
"That comes later, after the Agony." She knew he hated reminders of that deadly trial but there was no avoiding it. The prospect filled her mind.
"All right!" He sat up, punched his pillow into shape and leaned back against it to study her. "What's up?"
"They're so damned clever with their word-weapons! She brought Teg to you and said you were fully responsible for him."
"You don't believe it?"
"He thinks of you as his father."
"Not really."
"No, but... did you think that about the Bashar?"
"When he restored my memories? Yeah."
"You're a pair of intellectual orphans, always looking for parents who aren't there. He hasn't the faintest idea of how much you will hurt him."
"That tends to split up the family."
"So you hate the Bashar in him and you're glad you'll hurt him."
"Didn't say that."
"Why is he so important?"
"The Bashar? Military genius. Always doing the unexpected. Confounds his foes by appearing where they never expect him to be."
"Can't anyone do that?"
"Not the way he does it. He invents tactics and strategies. Just like that!" Snapping his fingers.
"More violence. Just like Honored Matres."
"Not always. Bashar had a reputation for winning without battle."
"I've seen the histories."
"Don't trust them."
"But you just said..."
"Histories focus on confrontations. Some truth in that but it hides more persistent things that go on in spite of upheavals."
"Persistent things?"
"What history touches the woman in the rice paddy driving her water buffalo ahead of her plow while her husband is off somewhere, most likely a conscript, carrying a weapon?"
"Why is that persistent and more important than..."
"Her babies at home need food. Man's away on this perennial madness? Someone has to do the plowing. She's a true image of human persistence."
"You sound so bitter... I find that odd."
"Considering my military history?"
"That, yes, the Bene Gesserit emphasis on... on their Bashar and elite troops and..."
"You think they're just more self-important people going on about their self-important violence? They'll ride right over the woman with her plow?"
"Why not?"
"Because very little escapes them. The violent ones ride past the plowing woman and seldom see they have touched basic reality. A Bene Gesserit would never miss such a thing."
"Again, why not?"
"The self-important have limited vision because they ride a death-reality. Woman and plow are life-reality. Without life-reality there'd be no humankind. My Tyrant saw this. The Sisters bless him for it even while they curse him."
"So you're a willing participant in their dream."
"I guess I am." He sounded surprised.
"And you're being completely honest with Teg?"
"He asks, I give him candid answers. I don't believe in doing violence to curiosity."
"And you have full responsibility for him?"
"That isn't exactly what she said."
"Ahhhhh, my love. Not exactly what she said. You call Bell hypocrite and don't include Odrade. Duncan, if you only knew..."
"As long as we're ignoring the comeyes, spit it out!"
"Lies, cheating, vicious..."
"Hey! The Bene Gesserit?"
"They have that hoary old excuse: Sister A does it so if I do it that's not so bad. Two crimes cancel each other."
"What crimes?"
She hesitated. Should I tell him? No. But he expects some answer. "Bell's delighted the roles are reversed between you and Teg! She's looking forward to his pain."
"Maybe we should disappoint her." He knew it was a mistake to say this as soon as it was out. Too soon.
"Poetic justice!" Murbella was delighted.
Divert them! "They aren't interested in justice. Fairness, yes. They have this homily: 'Those against whom judgment is passed must accept the fairness of it.' "
"So they condition you to accept their judgment."
"There are loopholes in any system."
"You know, darling, acolytes learn things."
"That's why they're acolytes."
"I mean we talk to one another."
"We? You're an acolyte? You're a proselyte!"
"Whatever I am, I've heard stories. Your Teg may not be what he seems."
"Acolyte gossip."
"There are stories out of Gammu, Duncan."