Chapterhouse: Dune

Chapter Twelve

"Honored Matres don't bargain!"
"But their associates do, I think. Would they remove themselves to... let us say, junction?"
"What is so interesting about junction?"
"Honored Matres are based there in force. And our beloved Bashar kept a memory-dossier of the place in his lovely Mentat mind. "
"Ohhhhhhh." It was as much a sigh as a word.
Tamalane entered then and demanded attention by standing silently until Odrade and Bellonda looked at her.
"The Proctors support Mother Superior." Tamalane held up a clawed finger. "By one vote!"
Odrade sighed. "Tell us, Tam, the Proctor I greeted in the hallway, Praska, how did she vote?"
"She voted for you."
Odrade aimed a tight smile at Bellonda. "Send out spies and agents, Bell. We must goad the hunters into meeting us on junction. "
Bell will deduce my plan by morning.
When Bellonda and Tamalane had gone, muttering to each other, worry in the sound of their voices, Odrade went out into the short corridor to her private quarters. The corridor was patrolled by its usual acolytes and Reverend Mother servitors. A few acolytes smiled at her. So word of the Proctors' vote had reached them. Another crisis passed.
Odrade went through her sitting room to her sleeping cell, where she stretched out on her cot fully clothed. One glowglobe bathed the room in pale yellow light. Her gaze went past the desert map to the Van Gogh painting in its protective frame and cover on the wall at the foot of her cot.
Cottages at Cordeville.
A better map than the one marking the growth of the desert, she thought. Remind me, Vincent, of where I came from and what I yet may do.
This day had drained her. She had gone beyond fatigue into a place where the mind caught itself in tight circles.
Responsibilities!
They hemmed her in and she knew she could be her most disagreeable self when beset by duties. Forced to expend energy just maintaining a semblance of calm demeanor. Bell saw this in me. It was maddening. The Sisterhood was cut off at every passage, made almost ineffectual.
She closed her eyes and tried to construct an image of an Honored Matre commander to address. Old... steeped in power. Sinewy. Strong and with that blinding speed they have. No face on her but the visualized body stood there in Odrade's mind.
Forming the words silently, Odrade spoke to the faceless Honored Matre.
"It is difficult for us to let you make your own mistakes. Teachers always find this hard. Yes, we consider ourselves teachers. We do not so much teach individuals as the species. We provide lessons for all. If you see the Tyrant in us, you are right."
The image in her mind made no reply.
How could teachers teach when they could not emerge from hiding? Burzmali dead, ghola Teg an unknown quantity. Odrade felt invisible pressures converging on Chapterhouse. No wonder Proctors voted. A web enclosed the Sisterhood. The strands held them tightly. And somewhere on that web, a faceless Honored Matre commander crouched.
Spider Queen.
Her presence was known by actions of her minions. A trap strand of her web trembled and attackers hurled themselves onto entangled victims, insanely violent, uncaring how many of their own died or how many they butchered.
Someone commanded the search: Spider Queen.
Is she sane by our standards? Into what awful perils have I sent Dortujla?
Honored Matres went beyond megalomania. They made the Tyrant appear a ridiculous pirate by comparison. Leto II, at least, had known what the Bene Gesserit knew: how to balance on the point of the sword, aware that you would be mortally cut when you slid from that position. The price you pay for seizing such power. Honored Matres ignored this inevitable fate, hewing and slashing around them like a giant in the throes of terrible hysteria.
Nothing ever before had opposed them successfully and they chose to respond now with the killing rage of berserkers. Hysteria by choice. Deliberate.
Because we left our Bashar on Dune to spend his pitiful force in a suicidal defense? No telling how many Honored Matres he killed. And Burzmali at the death of Lampadas. Surely, the hunters felt his sting. Not to mention Idaho-trained males we send out to pass along Honored Matre techniques of sexual enslavement. And to men!
Was that enough to bring such rage? Possibly. But what of the stories from Gammu? Did Teg display a new talent that terrified Honored Matres?
If we restore our Bashar's memories, we must watch him carefully.
Would a no-ship contain him?
What really made Honored Matres so reactive? They wanted blood. Never bring such people bad news. No wonder their minions behaved with frenzy. A powerful person in fright might kill the bearer of bad tidings. Bring no bad tidings. Better to die in battle.
Spider Queen's people went beyond arrogance. Far beyond. No censure possible. You might just as well berate a cow for eating grass. The cow would be justified in looking at you with its moon struck eyes, inquiring: "Isn't this what I'm supposed to do?"
Knowing probable consequences, why did we ignite them? We aren't like the person who hits out at a round gray object with a stick and finds that the object was a hornet's nest. We knew what we struck. Taraza's plan and none of us questioned.
The Sisterhood faced an enemy whose deliberate policy was hysterical violence. "We will run amok!"
And what would happen if Honored Matres met painful defeat? What would their hysteria become?
I fear it.
Did the Sisterhood dare feed this fire?
We must!
Spider Queen would redouble her efforts to find Chapterhouse. Violence would escalate to an even more repulsive stage. What then? Would Honored Matres suspect everyone and anyone of being sympathetic to the Bene Gesserit? Might they not turn against their own supporters? Did they contemplate being alone in a universe devoid of other sentient life? More likely this did not even enter their minds.
What do you look like, Spider Queen? How do you think?
Murbella said she did not know her supreme commander or even sub-commanders of her Hormu Order. But Murbella provided a suggestive description of a sub-commander's quarters. Informative. What does a person call home? Who does she keep close to share life's little homilies?
Most of us choose our companions and surroundings to reflect ourselves.
Murbella said: "One of her personal servants took me into the private area. Showing off, demonstrating that she had access to the sanctum. The public area was neat and clean but the private rooms were messy - clothing left where it had been dropped, unguent jars open, bed unmade, food drying in dishes on the floor. I asked why they had not cleaned up this mess. She said it was not her job. The one who cleaned was allowed into the quarters just before nightfall. "
Secret vulgarities.
Such a one would have a mind to match that private display.
Odrade's eyes snapped open. She focused on the Van Gogh painting. My choice. It put tensions on the long span of human history that Other Memory could not. You sent me a message, Vincent. And because of you, I will not cut off my ear... or send useless love messages to ones who do not care. That's the least I can do to honor you.
The sleeping cell had a familiar odor, peppery pungency of carnation. Odrade's favorite floral perfume. Attendants kept it here as a nasal background.
Once more, she closed her eyes and her thoughts snapped back to Spider Queen. Odrade felt this exercise creating another dimension to that faceless woman.
Murbella said an Honored Matre commander had but to give an order and anything she wanted was brought.
"Anything?"
Murbella described known instances: grossly distorted sexual partners, cloying sweetmeats, emotional orgies ignited by performances of extraordinary violence.
"They're always looking for extremes."
Reports of spies and agents fleshed out Murbella's semi-admiring accounts.
"Everyone says they have a right to rule."
Those women evolved from an autocratic bureaucracy.
Much evidence confirmed it. Murbella spoke of history lessons that said early Honored Matres conducted research to gain sexual dominance over their populations "when taxation became too threatening to those they governed."
A right to rule?
It did not appear to Odrade that these women insisted on such a right. No. They assumed that their rightness must never be questioned. Never! No decisions wrong. Disregard consequences. It never happened.
Odrade sat upright on her cot, knowing she had found the insight she sought.
Mistakes never happen.
That would require an extremely large bag of unconsciousness to contain it. Very tiny consciousness then peering out at a tumultuous universe they themselves created!
Ohhhh, lovely!
Odrade summoned her night attendant, a first-stage acolyte, and asked for melange tea containing a dangerous stimulant, something to help her delay the body's demands for sleep. But at a cost.
The acolyte hesitated before obeying. She returned in a moment with the mug steaming on a small tray.
Odrade had decided long ago that melange tea made with the deep cold water of Chapterhouse had a taste that worked its way into her psyche. The bitter stimulant deprived her of that refreshing taste and gnawed at her conscience. Word would go out from the ones who watched. Worry, worry, worry. Would Proctors take another vote?
She sipped slowly, giving the stimulant time to work. Condemned woman rejects last dinner. Sips tea.
Presently, she put aside the empty mug and called for warm clothing. "I'm going for a walk in the orchards." The night attendant made no comment. Everyone knew she often went walking there, even at night.
Within minutes she was in the narrow, link-fenced path to her favorite orchard, her way lighted by a miniglobe fixed on a short cord to her right shoulder. A small herd of the Sisterhood's black cattle came up to the fence beside Odrade and gazed at her as she passed. She looked at the wet muzzles, inhaled the rich smell of alfalfa in the steam of their breathing and paused. The cows sniffed and sensed the pheromone that told them to accept her. They went back to eating forage piled near the fence by herdsmen.
Turning her back on the cattle, Odrade looked at leafless trees across from the pasture. Her miniglobe drew a circle of yellow light that emphasized winter starkness.
Few understood why this place attracted her. It was not enough to say she found troubled thoughts soothed here. Even in winter, with frost crunching underfoot. This orchard was a hard-bought silence between storms. She extinguished her miniglobe and let her feet follow the familiar way in darkness. Occasionally, she glanced up at starlight defined by leafless branches. Storms. She felt one approaching that no meteorologist could anticipate. Storms beget storms. Rage begets rage. Revenge begets revenge. Wars beget wars.
The old Bashar had been a master at breaking those circles. Would his ghola still have that talent?
What a perilous gamble.
Odrade looked back at the cattle, a dark blob of movement and starlighted steam. They had herded close for warmth and she heard a familiar grinding as they chewed their cuds.
I must go south into the desert. Face to face with Sheeana there. The sandtrout thrive. Why are there no sandworms?
She spoke aloud to the cattle clustered by the fence: "Eat your grass. It's what you're supposed to do."
If a spying watchdog chanced on that remark, Odrade knew she would have serious explaining to do.
But I have seen through to the heart of our enemy this night. And I pity them.
To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. (The Amtal Rule) Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake. (Bene Gesserit Commentary)
Duncan Idaho stood almost in the center of the no-ship's practice floor and three paces from the ghola-child. Sophisticated training instruments were near at hand, some exhausting, some dangerous.
The child looked admiring and trusting this morning.
Do I understand him better because I, too, am a ghola? A questionable assumption. This one has been brought up in a way much different from the one they designed for me. Designed! The precise term.
The Sisterhood had copied as much of Teg's original childhood as possible. Even to an adoring younger companion standing in for the long-lost brother. And Odrade giving him the deep teaching! As Teg's birth-mother did.
Idaho remembered the aged Bashar whose cells had produced this child. A thoughtful man whose comments were to be heeded. With only a slight effort, Idaho recalled the man's manner and words:
"The true warrior often understands his enemy better than he understands his friends. A dangerous pitfall if you let understanding lead to sympathy as it will naturally do when left unguided."
Difficult to think of the mind behind those words as latent somewhere in this child. The Bashar had been so insightful, teaching about sympathies on that long-ago day in the Gammu Keep.
"Sympathy for the enemy - a weakness of police and armies alike. Most perilous are the unconscious sympathies directing you to preserve your enemy intact because the enemy is your justification for existence."
"Sir?"
How could that piping voice become the commanding tones of the old Bashar?
"What is it?"
"Why are you just standing there looking at me?"
"They called the Bashar 'Old Reliability.' Did you know that?"
"Yes, sir. I've studied the story of his life."
Was it "Young Reliability" now? Why did Odrade want his original memories restored so quickly?
"Because of the Bashar, the entire Sisterhood has been digging into Other Memory, revising their views of history. Did they tell you that?"
"No, sir. Is it important for me to know? Mother Superior said you would train my muscles."
"You liked to drink Danian Marinete, a very fine brandy, I recall. "
"I'm too young to drink, sir."
"You were a Mentat. Do you know what that means?"
"I'll know when you restore my memories, won't I?"
No respectful sir. Calling the teacher to task for unwanted delays.
Idaho smiled and got a grin in response. An engaging child. Easy to show him natural affection.
"Watch out for him," Odrade had said. "He's a charmer."
Idaho recalled Odrade's briefing before bringing the child.
"Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self," she said, "the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention. "
"Is that necessary with a ghola?"
They had been in Idaho's sitting room that night, Murbella a fascinated listener.
"He will remember everything you teach him."
"So we do a little editing of the original."
"Careful, Duncan! Give a bad time to an impressionable child, teach that child not to trust anyone, and you create a suicide - slow or fast suicide, doesn't make any difference."
"Are you forgetting that I knew the Bashar?"
"Don't you remember, Duncan, how it was before your memories were restored?"
"I knew the Bashar could do it and I thought of him as my salvation."
"And that's how he sees you. It's a special kind of trust."
"I'll treat him honestly."
"You may think you act from honesty but I advise you to look deeply into yourself every time you come face to face with his trust."
"And if I make a mistake?"
"We will correct it if possible." She glanced up at the comeyes and back to him.
"I know you'll be watching us!"
"Don't let it inhibit you. I'm not trying to make you self-conscious. Just cautious. And remember that my Sisterhood has efficient methods of healing."
"I'll be cautious."
"You might remember it was the Bashar who said: 'The ferocity we display to our foes is always tempered by the lesson we hope to teach.' "
"I can't think of him as a foe. The Bashar was one of the finest men I've ever known."
"Excellent. I place him in your hands."
And here the child was on the practice floor getting more than a little impatient with his teacher's hesitations.
"Sir, is this part of a lesson, just standing here? I know sometimes -"
"Be still."
Teg came to military attention. No one had taught him that. This was from his original memories. Idaho was suddenly fascinated by this glimpse of the Bashar.
They knew he would catch me this way!
Never underestimate Bene Gesserit persuasiveness. You could find yourself doing things for them without knowing pressures had been applied. Subtle and damnable! There were compensations, of course. You lived in interesting times, as the ancient curse had it. All in all, Idaho decided, he preferred interesting times, even these times.
He took a deep breath. "Restoring your original memories will cause pain - physical and mental. In some ways, the mental pains are worse. I am to prepare you for that."
Still at attention. No comment.
"We will begin without weapons, using an imaginary blade in your right hand. This is a variation on the 'five attitudes.' Each response arises before the need. Drop your arms to your sides and relax."
Moving behind Teg, Idaho grasped the child's right arm below the elbow and demonstrated the first movements.
"Each attacker is a feather floating on an infinite path. As the feather approaches, it is diverted and removed. Your response is like a puff of air blowing the feather away."
Idaho stepped aside and observed as Teg repeated the movements, correcting occasionally with a sharp blow to an offending muscle.
"Let your body do the learning!" When Teg asked why he did that.
In a rest period, Teg wanted to know what Idaho meant by "mental pains."
"You have ghola-imposed walls around your original memories. At the proper moment, some of those memories will come flooding back. Not all memories will be pleasant."
"Mother Superior says the Bashar restored your memories."
"Gods of the deep, child! Why do you keep saying 'the Bashar'? That was you!"
"But I don't know that yet."
"You present a special problem. For a ghola to reawaken, there should be memory of death. But the cells for you do not carry death memory."
"But the... Bashar is dead."
"The Bashar! Yes, he's dead. You must feel that where it hurts most and know that you are the Bashar."
"Can you really give me back that memory?"
"If you can stand the pain. Do you know what I said to you when you restored my memories? I said: 'Atreides! You're all so damned alike!' "
"You hated... me?"
"Yes, and you were disgusted with yourself for what you did to me. Does that give you any idea of what I must do?"
"Yes, sir." Very low.
"Mother Superior says I must not betray your trust... yet you betrayed my trust."
"But I restored your memories?"
"See how easy it is to think of yourself as Bashar? You were shocked. And yes, you restored my memories."
"That's all I want."
"So you say."
"Mother... Superior says you're a Mentat. Will that help... that I was a Mentat, too?"
"Logic says 'Yes.' But we Mentats have a saying, that logic moves blindly. And we're aware there's a logic that kicks you out of the nest into chaos."
"I know what chaos means!" Very proud of himself.
"So you think."
"And I trust you!"
"Listen to me! We are servants of the Bene Gesserit. Reverend Mothers did not build their order on trust."
"Shouldn't I trust Mother... Superior?"
"Within limits you will learn and appreciate. For now, I warn you the Bene Gesserit work under a system of organized distrust. Have they taught you about democracy?"
"Yes, sir. That's where you vote for -"
"That's where you distrust anyone with power over you! The Sisters know it well. Don't trust too much."
"Then I should not trust you, either?"
"The only trust you can place in me is that I will do my best to restore your original memories."
"Then I don't care how much it hurts." He looked up at the comeyes, knowledge of their purpose in his expression. "Do they mind that you say these things about them?"
"Their feelings don't concern a Mentat except as data."
"Does that mean fact?"
"Facts are fragile. A Mentat can get tangled in them. Too much reliable data. It's like diplomacy. You need a few good lies to get at your projections."
"I'm... confused." He used the word hesitantly, not sure it was what he meant.
"I said that once to Mother Superior. She said: 'I've been behaving badly.' "
"You're not supposed to... confuse me?"
"Unless it teaches." And when Teg still looked puzzled, Idaho said: "Let me tell you a story. "
Teg immediately sat on the floor, an action revealing that Odrade often used the same technique. Good. Teg already was receptive.
"In one of my lives I had a dog that hated clams," Idaho said.
"I've had clams. They come from the Great Sea."
"Yes, well, my dog hated clams because one of them had the temerity to spit in his eye. That stings. But even worse, it was an innocent hole in the sand that did the spitting. No clam visible."
"What'd your dog do?" Leaning forward, chin on fist.
"He dug up the offender and brought it to me." Idaho grinned. "Lesson one: Don't let the unknown spit in your eye."
Teg laughed and clapped his hands.
"But look at it from the dog's viewpoint. Go after the spitter! Then - glorious reward: Master is pleased."
"Did your dog dig more clams?"
"Every time we went to the beach. He went growling after spitters and Master took them away never to be seen again except as empty shells with bits of meat still clinging to the insides."
"You ate them."
"See it as the dog did. Spitters get their just punishment. He has a way to rid his world of offensive things and Master is pleased with him."
Teg demonstrated his brightness. "Do the Sisters think of us as dogs?"
"In a way. Never forget it. When you get back to your rooms, look up 'lese majeste.' It helps place our relationship to our Masters."
Teg looked up at the comeyes and back to Idaho but said nothing.
Idaho lifted his attention to the door behind Teg and said: "That story was for you, too."
Teg jumped to his feet, turning and expecting to see Mother Superior. But it was only Murbella.
She was leaning against the wall near the door.
"Bell won't like you talking about the Sisterhood that way," she said.
"Odrade told me I have a free hand." He looked at Teg. "We've wasted enough time on stories! Let me see if your body has learned anything."
An odd feeling of excitement had come over Murbella as she entered the training area and saw Duncan with the child. She watched for a time, aware that she was seeing him in a new and almost Bene Gesserit light. Mother Superior's briefing came out in Duncan's candor with Teg. Extremely odd sensation, this new awareness, as though she had come a full step away from her former associates. The feeling was poignant with loss.
Murbella found herself missing strange things in her former life. Not the hunting in the streets, seeking new males to captivate and bring under Honored Matre control. The powers that came from creating sexual addicts had lost their savor under Bene Gesserit teaching and her experiences with Duncan. She admitted to missing one element of that power, though: the sense of belonging to a force nothing could stop.
It was both abstract and specific. Not the recurrent conquests but the expectation of inevitable victory that came in part from the drug she shared with Honored Matre Sisters. As the need waned in the shift to melange, she saw the old addiction from a different perspective. Bene Gesserit chemists, tracing the adrenaline substitute from samples of her blood, held it ready if she required it. She knew she did not. Another withdrawal plagued her. Not the captivated males but the flow of them. Something within her said this was gone forever. She would never re-experience it. New knowledge had changed her past.
She had prowled the corridors between her quarters and the practice floor this morning, wanting to watch Duncan with the child, afraid her presence might interfere. This prowling was a thing she often did these days after the more strenuous of her morning lessons with a Reverend Mother teacher. Thoughts of Honored Matres were much with her at these times.
She could not escape this feeling of loss. It was an emptiness such that she wondered if anything could possibly fill it. The sensation was worse than that of growing old. Growing old as an Honored Matre had offered its compensations. Powers gathered in that Sisterhood had a tendency to grow rapidly with age. Not that. It was an absolute loss.
I have been defeated.
Honored Matres never contemplated defeat. Murbella felt herself forced to it. She knew Honored Matres were sometimes slain by enemies. Those enemies always paid. It was the law: whole planets blackened to get one offender.
Murbella knew Honored Matres hunted for Chapterhouse. As a matter of former loyalties, she was aware she should be assisting those hunters. The poignancy of her personal defeat lay in the fact that she did not want the Bene Gesserit to pay the remembered price.
The Bene Gesserit are too valuable.