Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.
About a Reverend Mother’s
Encounter in the Scattering

Our approach is to abstract from the accidental nature of events; we test the rules, causes and effects, that describe our universe. In this, we are unapologetically at odds with contemporary philosophies. There is an ultimate reality. We corner it by triangulating independent observers who probe it directly. This is not the prevailing dogma passed down through the generations, a vestige of the old Imperium. The prevailing dogma denies the separation between objective and subjective. To them, reality is but a subjective projection, a screen on which elemental observations are changed by the psyche of the observer, painting order on a canvas of chaos. Their look is all inward. Hence their dogmatic interpretation of prescience: the oracle fixes the future according to what it sees; it does not perceive, as we instead theorize, the superimposed projection of all future states. We smile and disprove this senseless dogma every day in our work! Look at what our instruments are capable of. An Ixian paracompass points to the North regardless of its owner’s psyche! With the same confidence, we look inside ourselves and find rules, causes and effects. We do not care about the problem of human agency and free will. The universe’s laws are God enough for us.
- THE IXIAN RENAISSANCE 

Reverend Mother Visella Ashejak's ride up the elevator was smooth despite the vertiginous vertical speed she inferred by looking through the transparent walls of plexi and out into the rainforest surrounding the building. The trees were fast disappearing on the ground. A few seconds later, the door opened but she felt no deceleration. The anti-g suspensors underneath the platform were incredibly powerful. Expensive. This building belonged to top bureaucrats, not the rank and file of the administrators. 

The robo-helper guided her gently onto the open-air floor, which was organized as a garden with patios and wooden frames designed to create comfortable small meeting areas with low tables, tatami, and chairs. The sound of splashing water was everywhere. It was sunrise on the planet she had landed just an hour before; she prayed she could take off just as quickly. 

As she walked along the terrace, Visella noticed she was at the very top of the tower, but no barriers protected people from falling down below. Force fields were surely concealed in the exterior walls to refrain elite bureaucrats from smashing on the ground below. How high was she now? The view was obstructed by the garden hedge. 

Up a few steps she went, and into a gated area where the robo-server pointed to a shoe rack. She left her sandals on the rack, and washed her feet, hands and face in a shallow pool of water and a nearby carved stone basin. From there, she arrived at a raised spear-shaped platform furnished with pillows and low chairs. A female figure with a wide burnt orange gown and a tight white blouse was waiting, looking pensive. The blouse’s fabric fell down her body in ripples, hiding a flat chest and creating sparkling light effects as the breeze blew softly through it. 

Here is the bureaucrat , thought Visella, annoyed. No Reverend Mother had ever touched this planet, or they would have rushed her through the bureaucracy promptly, with the courtesy that her station demanded. Instead she followed a robo-server to this place! 

Her host bowed, invited her to sit down with a gesture. “Good morning, Reverend Mother. And what a splendid morning indeed. I am Sapient Arbatar Sorgo. Sorry to keep you waiting." A scroll hung from a divider, black ink flowing in beautiful calligraphy lines. Summer . 

Visella kept quiet while observing how Arbatar kneeled on the tatami and cleaned a whisk and a bowl with a hemp cloth. The bowl was white, mottled with azure clouds. The straight, squared edges of the gray kettle contrasted elegantly with the curves and hues of the bowl. Water poured from a black flagon into the kettle, which was placed on a stone surface and started glowing a faint orange. Bubbles came up to the surface. It is raging hot , thought the Reverend Mother from her small chair. 

Her host kept silent. Visella focused on the rainforest stretching just beyond the parapet. The moist air, the dawn light invited joy and calm; it had the opposite effect on the Reverend Mother. A beautiful sunrise on a beautiful land… why am I nervous? This is too tall a building for the mind to contemplate nature's beauty. There should be howling winds here, not a gentle breeze. 

Holding the scalding kettle in her hands, the Sapient Arbatar poured water into the bowl in a sweeping move. 

Visella swept her gaze across her host’s figure, the angle of the elbow, the perfect hairdo, the curiously long middle finger on her left hand. Something screamed at her. Is she a Face Dancer? No. How hot is that kettle she is grasping with her bare hands? Realization struck. By all Gods below! Her skin is not burning. It is a machine!

“Tea?” the android in front of her asked colloquially while staring in amusement at her. She scooped a green powder from a ball-shaped container, poured it into the bowl and dissolved it in the water with a whisk. It smelled of matcha tea powder.

Breaking through her Bene Gesserit self-control, the Reverend Mother let a repelled look escape just for a moment before her training took over. The ancient words echoed in her memory: ' Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind!'

The android took the bowl with two hands to her perfectly contoured lips, taking a ceremonial sip to show it was safe. Then offered it to the Reverend Mother.

Visella was still young for Bene Gesserit standards, but ten years in the Scattering had left a mark, a wrinkle under her eyes, her natural beauty had become fiercer, her muscles more sinewy. Yet somehow she felt aging another decade with that exchange of glances. Her hands accepted the bowl. I am deeply exhausted. She opened her lips, but not to sip. “Is that Gamont’s matcha? The leaves’ fragrance is unique.” 

“Not quite, but close,” spoke the android Arbatar. “This is our local variety. Harvested in the hills of our southern continent twice a year. But I admit it is not at the level of Gamont's. Though CHOAM ships rarely bring tea here,” continued the Sapient, still smiling. 

A machine’s smile could mean anything. CHOAM ships , she considered. The venerable trade company from the Old Imperium gets this far. Mayhap I will hitch a ride with them.

“So what is all this?” ventured Visella, looking around.

“Our Immigration and Customs office. I am its Secretary.” 

Visella sipped in silence. Sapient Arbatar produced a second bowl for herself from behind the little table and proceeded to clean it with the same gestures as before. Visella's Other Memories noted how this was not the ancient custom.  

“You are quiet. What is in your mind?” the android continued. Water poured out of the kettle into the second bowl, hot steam clouds evaporating in the brisk morning air. Colorful birds perched on branches around them and sang. There was humidity in the air. It was going to be an oppressively hot morning.

“Never met a machine before,” Visella replied.

“For some it means evoking deeply-rooted ideas from the ancient Butlerian Jihad. For others, a suspicion that I may be just a puppet on strings.” She paused while sipping tea. “Beginnings are interesting. Risk taking is required. Please indulge me in a little game, Reverend Mother. We both write down what is going through our minds and then exchange papers.”

“Why?” replied a puzzled Visella. Another smile in return. Visella took the pen and scribbled quickly: “Are you a person, and should I treat you as one?” They exchanged sheets. Arbatar's paper read: “We don’t know that we think alike but what harm comes from presuming we do?” Visella smiled in return, and she let it be. After all, a smile could mean anything. 

“Similar reservations. That is progress,” said Arbatar in between sips.

“Is it? Is somebody directing you? It could be an elaborate game you play with every Reverend Mother you meet.”

“I have never met an original Reverend Mother from the Million Worlds before. Others who were similar. Not quite, but close. I ask myself the same question: how do I know your mental process too is free of external interferences? Do you have no masters?”

Lectured by a machine. “You were programmed, I was not.”

“What are those precious genes, the Siona markers, that you carry? And the rigorous training? So are they not directing your actions?”

“Influencing versus directing. Let's talk business. Specifically, my safe passage. Why is your Customs department detaining me?”  I do not feel danger, but are my instincts reliable with androids? Visella closed her eyes while savoring the tea and sank into Other Memory, looking for insight. She had Ix ancestors. 

“More like entertaining you," spoke Sapient Arbatar, unaware of Visella's inner dialogue. "Your safe passage, indeed. Where are my manners! You must forgive my little time-consuming experiment. I do dabble in the field of dialectics in my free time.”

“You do! Very fitting for a machine!”

“Well, when you know you are different, you wonder whether there can be shared meaning. How can you know? Every word, every gesture to somebody from the farthest place in the Scattering may mean something different, and that may have consequences. ”

The last word hung in the air like a bringer of bad news. “If understanding is already hard among humans, how deep, or how shallow is the divide between us?”

“Sophisms!” Visella rebuked her, "I need safe passage and permission to leave this planet." If I am to report back to the Missionaria Protectiva. She had ventured to a half dozen planets in a decade-long mission, and vital recon information had to be brought back to the Sisterhood for the natural next step. Planets ready for sandtrout and Sheeana. Bring in the prophetess!

“To simplify," continued Arbatar, "We don’t need to be similar. I certainly do not aspire to be human .” This word also hung in the air, like she had said I do not aspire to be a cooking stove. “By the way, the rice crackers are quite nice,” the android added, nodding toward the little tray next to them.

“So?” replied the Reverend Mother. The android did love to talk. Patience Sister! The first time in history we met this! There could be something useful for the Sisterhood.

“I realized that there is a solution: environmental pressures, Reverend Mother. And natural selection,” Arbatar continued. Visella nodded: “We are both shaped by our environment."

Another android smile: “As long as the environment shaped us the same way, as long as we have been under the same pressure to survive and perpetuate our kind, then I believe both our people have adapted to think alike... So I am optimistic. Different origin, but similar necessities. More tea?”

It made sense, uncomfortably. Visella nodded again, looking at the simul-ivory timepiece on her wrist. Her time-sense was not adjusted to the local circadian rhythms. This meeting is not entirely a waste of time, but I need to be on my way. Obviously she could not read an android the way you could read a human. Would Truthsense work on this thing, if I were a Truthsayer? 

“So be it,” Visella permitted, relaxing on her chair. It was a glorious, tropical day. The haze had all evaporated, revealing a panorama that, at their height above the canopy, spanned several hundred miles from their position to the horizon. Large birds of prey roamed the skies, certainly a local breed of giant eagle dating back from the days when the planet was terraformed with imported Terran fauna; fifteen-feet wingspan, shrieks that pierced the wind. “But I am curious. May I ask about your kind, or would that be against etiquette?”

“Questions,” replied the Sapient, “come with hospitality. Ask away.” 

“How old are you?”
“Three hundred standard years”.

“Can you die?”
“Everything perishes in due time, Reverend Mother.”

“Were you created?”
“We build our bodies and hardware. Our software is created by recombination.”

“Like procreation?”
“Not quite, but close. We breed minds by merging vectors from different individuals. There can be more than two parents.” 

“Is your body entirely mechanical or partly biological?”
No answer, only a smile.

“What is your credo?” Always probe for weaknesses , her Missionaria training reminded her .

“The Reverend Mother asks about religion. That would be very human of us!" the android shrugged. Intentionally mimicking human body language? 

Then it... she? put down the bowl, elaborating: “ We cultivate open-mindedness, and the expansion of awareness. We share one common principle.”

“And that is?”

“Compassion. All sentient beings deserve compassion.”

Voices from Other Memory clamored inside Visella’s head. “Don't toy with me! What do you mean? That you all are Buddhists of old?"

“Our approach is not quite that, but close. We have to thank the holo-libraries our human friends brought to us during the Famine times."

“Approach to what?”

“To interacting with the universe around us. What are we and what are you? What difference does it make if we both think? Sentient beings. We could not find a single passage where Buddhists made Nirvana, the Dharma, and compassion an exclusive club for humans. Instead they talked about sentient beings! What a radical concept for the times”.

“ What a radical concept for all times! It seems very... human. ” Visella snapped, testing.

“Human! But no, this credo is so rarely found among humans!” Arbatar was smiling again. 

As the Mentat had said: “Nothing is out of the question in the Scattering!” Visella leaned back in her small chair, her body pushing against the soft embroidered pillows. She was profoundly disconcerted. Where had these creatures emerged from? A swirl of other questions followed. Would Voice work? Surely not the sexual imprinting the Sisterhood had perfected and was still carefully using. Once back to Chapterhouse, we shall send a whole contingent of Sisters and either annex or completely cauterize this place. The unknown factor! But that was not all, as she had noticed the signs of incredible wealth in the size of this planet’s spaceport, the expensive construction materials, the decor, this very tower shooting up from the ground up to a mile in height, dominating from above like an apex predator on the land.

“How many?” Only a smile.

“Tell me, does the notion of gender mean anything to you?”
“Tricky. We have a construct similar to biological sex, but it is not binary. For simplicity, you can address me as a she.” 

“Very well,” continued Arbatar after noting the time marked on her own golden timepiece. “Your questions are revealing, but not unusual. Now that our little introduction is over, I will endeavor to get to the point.” Finally! Visella stiffened in her chair, all her senses becoming alert. This long diversion was masking the difficulties ahead. If pushed against a corner, could she hurt an inorganic machine ? Would she reach the nearest exit in time? The elevator? How could she flee from here? From an entire planet?

“I have your Old Imperium paperwork. And I have identified you as a Reverend Mother from the old legends. Your presence on our planet is a pleasant surprise. You are the first Mother we have seen in centuries. May I ask what is the purpose of your mission?”

“I am in transit. My lighter’s life systems malfunctioned on the way back to Junction, and this was the nearest star system with a Goldilocks zone.”

“How did you know there would be an inhabited planet here?”

“I didn’t. I only knew it was inhabitable. My craft is a light ship. Crew of one. I am a trained pilot. I had limited autonomy left due to a failure in the air recycling apparatus. I needed fresh air and a base from which to send a distress signal. Or improvise repairs. I am glad this planet is inhabited, and beg your help to repair my ship and leave at once. The Bene Gesserit will remember.”

“You were very lucky to find us here. This place does not usually show up in navigation maps, though we conduct our fair share of business with many worlds.”

“I have noticed your spaceport” continued Visella. An oblique look. “Smugglers?”

“Only proper business, but discreet. Tropical hardwoods. Our signature rose water. Fine tea. Advanced electronics. No weaponry of any kind.” A pause. “Don’t you see how fantastic this is, Reverend Mother? Here you are, comfortably addressing me as a person." That lingered in the air. 

“I give you the benefit of the doubt, sentient being, ” snapped Visella. Then, a suspicion.“ Arbatar, is this just a ruse? A simulated performance? A Turing test? You are declared conscious if you give me the impression of being so? Who is the puppeteer holding your strings?”

“No strings! No tests!" The android came closer to the table to stare at her eyes. "Being shaped by the same pressures, remember”. Android smile.

“And yours is…” Revelation struck again. Reverend Mother Visella stood up in a blink. 

“Survival.” Android smile. 

“Which means…”

“You are safe here, please. No harm will come to you, Reverend Mother.” Arbatar stood up slowly, showing her open hands.  

“So long as I do not try to leave!”  

“Yes. We do not wish our presence to be noticed.”

“By whom? CHOAM? By the sentient beings of my Order? Well I see now the extent of your compassion! ”

“Not quite there Reverend Mother, but close. I need to balance the need for safety of countless sentient beings on this planet. And yes, your Bene Gesserit would certainly remember this ." Arbatar relaxed once again, sat back down on her knees and grabbed the bowl. 

“What would happen if I fled, Arbatar?” said Visella.

“From a mile-high tower? You cannot outrun gravity. Or from this planet? On a ship with failing life support? My timepiece just notified me that our crew has completed the capture of your ship. Do sit down, Reverend Mother, and let’s be sensible. The day is gorgeous. This planet has all that a human may long for. Including other fellow humans. It is a wonderful time to be alive. Enjoy the moment. We will get to know each other better, in time.”

The Sapient paused, then continued: “And do try the rice crackers, by the way — they are quite tasty.”

A furious Visella picked a cracker up and bit into it. It tasted sweet. Like a good trap.
“Tasty, right?” asked the Sapient.
“Not quite, but close,” was the Reverend Mother’s bitter answer.

Chapter Text

II.
Lights on the No-Ship

I tell you that below the desert of Dune there is a secret place with the greatest treasure of all time. I do not lie. When the last worm dies and the last melange is harvested upon our sands, these deep treasures will spring up throughout our universe. As the power of the spice monopoly fades and the hidden stockpiles make their mark, new powers will appear throughout the realm. It is time humans learned once more to live in their instincts. 

- EMPEROR LETO II ATREIDES TO HARQ AL-ADA
[from “Children of Dune”]

Soft amber lamps created a diffuse aura of light at the center of the circular room where Reverend Mother Sheeana stood with palms up to the ceiling, dressed in a tight workout clothing in crimson and gold. Acolyte Oriana looked up expectantly from her kneeled position as she waited for the ritual to get to its crucial moment. All around her sat the other renegade Sisters with whom she had escaped the Bene Gesserit's Chapterhouse planet only two years prior aboard the very same no-ship.

The evening had started with hour-long mantra vocalizations, prana-bindu positions, and powerful slow body movements that left them shaky and breathless by the end. Perspiration had condensation on the ceiling; occasionally a drop would fall on her skin. The ventilation system cannot handle this concentration of human energy , she liked to think. 

Presently Sheeana cried out, and started that night’s dance, shifting the evening from the planned to its unpredictable part. In the following half an hour the group was going to accelerate to a frenzy, hums and chants full of physical power, something her Bene Gesserit training had never contemplated. Sheeana seemed glowing with light, as her cat-like, sensual moves acted like a catalyst for the rest of the group. Jumping up from their sitting positions, all the Sisters started to move in unison with drum beats that boomed through the room's speakers. 

Oriana's mind went to the last stop the no-ship had made planet-side only a week before. Most of the crew had disembarked, and Sheeana had demanded that she and her Sisters performed in front of the crowd in the main spaceport’s city, and even hired live musicians. What a thrill, what a rapture that had been! 

Oriana felt her arms and hips take a life of their own, a simpatico effect moving her in sync with the sisters, with no need to  look at them. She felt the energy leap from one to the other, a thread of light that enveloped and connected them all in the trance dance. She closed her eyes, abandoning herself to the resounding waves, trusting not to  bump into the others. In her heightened state of mind she saw herself from above, looking down them, while millions of glowing light particles pulsated in the air whirling around the center of the room.

Faster and faster the music went, swifter became the movements and the shouts. They yapped, they screamed, more often they would race and dance and laugh in an accelerating sense of euphoria that peaked and left them collapsed on the floor. Oriana felt a rumble shake from her womb, wild and primordial, moving up her, into her lungs and throat, and screamed with the sound of thunder, her mind blowing out her awareness into the air, into the ceiling. Confetti of gold fell like fireworks after reaching the light. The music ended, Everything went quiet. Oriana could not feel her body, likely spread on the cold floor slippery with sweat. After a time that seemed endless, she felt back her feet and arms, found herself naked, crouched on the side, felt Sheeana’s hand put a thick blanket on her body, felt the surge of warmth, and a sensation of comfort and freedom. She was empty, her emotions subsiding, not at bay under the tight Bene Gesserit control she had been taught on Chapterhouse; instead she felt at rest, her entire being quiescent, organs and skin coming together like a singular membrane encompassing all senses: she felt the oxygenated breeze coming out of the vents, the fragrance in the air, the pulse of her blood pulsating in her veins.  

Stumbling, she got up, eyes opening and re-adjusting to the material world. Her Sisters lay in clusters, some dressed and some more or less naked, blankets on all of them, Sheeana was going back and forth like a caring nurse, whispering to an ear, caressing a hand. They regrouped in a circle joining hands, smiles and exhaustion on their faces, but in silence. The men who had joined the dance looked into the void in front of them, still enraptured.

So swift was the change! Oriana thought. They had fled Chapterhouse to preserve the Order’s integrity, as Reverend Mother Murbella had admitted their arch-enemy, the Honored Matres, to the planet. And yet where are these dances and mantras coming from? Oriana did not go through Missionaria Protectiva training, but knew her other Sisters were bothered by these mystic rituals. Aren’t these rites something the Bene Gesserit would use on people to put entire religions under our control? And yet we use them for ourselves. But the vertigo, the abandonment, the heightened awareness! It was so easy for all of them to follow Sheeana’s lead, into and beyond their old training. Coming to a resolution, she approached her at the door: “Sheeana, may I have a word with you later?” The Reverend Mother nodded, a gentle smile softening the fire of her blue-filled eyes. Sheeana certainly had guessed her thoughts. While her Sisters walked all in line in front of her toward their shared quarters, she made a mental list of all the things that bothered her.

Mystic dances.

Public exhibitions.

Training men and women on the Tleilaxu and Honored Matres’ practices for sexual boding!

Even music! The Bene Gesserit were known not to indulge in anything that could evoke the power of feelings. Sounds of footsteps in front of her. Deep in thought, her pace slowed down.

Where Sheeana leads, we follow without questioning. The recent chatter among the Sisters replayed in her mind. The bonding of men! The ecstasy was so great! And such a glorious feeling was the hunting for males on each new planet. She felt giddy at the thought. And yet she could feel the hold that Bene Gesserit training had on her, the very training and tradition she had vowed to preserve while fleeing Chapterhouse and the incoming Matres. That hold was not as firm as before, and that was troubling. I start to see the cracks. I am not alone in this . She looked up, scanning the way ahead. The rest of the group was a few turns away down the hallway, It was time to hurry and rejoin them as the chatter had vanished around the corners. 

She came to a fork at the end of a corridor and made to veer right. The lights in the narrow passage of the ship oddly blinked for a moment. Oriana noticed the side door that was reserved to the maintenance crew was open, darkness within. Unusual, and careless. As she peeked in, the lights in the main corridor came off again. Then a metallic thud, the sensation of her body falling, slamming on the plasteel of the floor. Darkness.

Somebody crouched by Oriana's body and lightly rested a hand on her forehead. The aggressor’s body violently reshaped itself, and now slender, taller, features shrinking or growing to model after hers, settling into a perfect copy of the original.

As the lights came back on, a different Oriana crossed back to the main corridor, closing the door behind, the service passage still shrouded in darkness, hiding the dying body within. 

In a last glimpse of awareness, Oriana the Acolyte saw herself from above, particles of light around her, felt her mind dissolve as fleeting specks in the air of the no-ship. 

Chapter Text

III.
Taboo Breakers

For I saw that humankind’s survival was at stake, I took myself out of the flow of humanity and became an alien, a pharaoh, an untold terror onto this land.The countless multitude inside me provides me with the moral compass I seek. How deep can a judge sense what is right and wrong? My senses go all the way down. I created the Golden Path, humanity’s guarantee of survival, based on two very simple concepts. For untold billions of people, a captive peace conditioning minds to longing, desire, a subconscious impulse for life. To the few I trained, my breeding program, the concentration of great skill and talent, making way for the best leaders the universe has ever seen. What did that take, you ask? Thousands of years of suffering! And the resolve to use means to an end going beyond anything a single, short-lived man could bear. Will history judge me? I will judge myself!
- LETO II ATREIDES, THE DAR-ES-BALAT DIARIES

Bellonda strode out of Chapterhouse's Archives with a menacing look on her face, so that the acolytes she encountered on the way to the labs would steer clear of her path. Skipping the line where her Sisters waited to grab lunch, she reached out to chef Duana, who handed the ill-tempered Reverend Mother a small package wrapped in thermoplaz.

She covered the distance to the labs in a transportation pod, while gobbling down her lunch  – a saute of meat and garden vegetables – with a mix of fury and discomfort. Not only the late Odrade, by means of her own death on Junction, had inflicted Murbella on her; now Murbella had put her in charge of all the tasks she liked the least. 

The sand grains were swirled around the pod, lifted in the air by the afternoon breeze. It was the dry, desert air that bothered her. The desert was less than a thousand miles away, its expansion rapidly accelerating as the transplanted Rakis sandtrout encapsulated and confined more and more of Chapterhouse's water. The two remaining oceans were shrinking by the day, and fishing had stopped. No reason to keep moving vessels and equipment down the shore every week, rebuild harbors, extend roads into the old seabed.

The last Tleilaxu Master Scytale, keeper of the secret of spice production, had disappeared with Sheeana and Duncan into the Scattering. But the Sisterhood had already been growing three clones using the very same axolotl tanks the Master had reluctantly helped them build. The best kept secret of the Tleilaxu, these uncanny human wombs/tanks allowed the regrowth of a dead body’s cells into a new ghola, capable of remembering his past life’s memories. 

Bellonda felt revulsion at the thought of the axolotl tanks they housed in what they deceptively called the labs . The late Mother Superior Taraza had correctly guessed that the tanks were not machines, but Tleilaxu females turned into industrial wombs, machinery joined to the grossly expanded organic bodies to grow the Bene Tleilax’s twisted creatures. We had to recruit volunteers among our Sisters, and even found them! The war had come, the Honored Matres had almost eliminated the Sisterhood, and survival considerations had prevailed over deep-rooted scruples. What will survival dictate that we do next? At what point will necessity turn us against our very Bene Gesserit identity?

Outside of the window, the ever-increasing desolation of Central paraded through the window. More buildings had been hastily assembled even as the aridity of the soil turned the gardens and the orchards to lifeless husks. Odrade would have fought to keep them alive. The new Central looked more like a dormitory and a campus than the seat of the multi-planetary Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. Whatever it takes to bring in and train the Honored Matres, subtly turning them from uncontrollable deadly creatures to wise Reverend Mothers. There was no doubt Murbella's plan was working. The New Sisters, having crossed from their Matres' conditioning to full Reverend Mother awareness, had a great influence on the unconverted ones. Slowly, we are stabilize them. She suppressed her thoughts as the transport veered toward the labs, coming to a stop. That area of Central was deserted. The Sisters stayed away, from the building causing so many unsettling thoughts. Out of sight, out of mind. Looking out, Bellonda saw in the distance an air twister spiraling away to the south, felt the sand dust that littered the pavement crack under her shoes. Sand, sand everywhere.She dropped in a recycler her unfinished lunch, walking briskly through the entrance and into the endless corridors, carefully skirting the facility housing the tanks. Her Sisters!

And so yes, the Sisterhood had taken those volunteering Sisters, turned them into the docile biological laboratories needed for their ghola experiments. Once that first taboo was broken, it had been surprisingly easy to cover up the details. Nobody wanted to know. But the volunteers who sacrificed themselves to a life of pain and immobility, those we need to remember. Out of the tanks had come the clone of Miles Teg, the best commander of the Sisterhood. Another one who was taken from us the day that Sheeana's no-ship lifted off. And another one we have brought back with Tleilaxu technology. On and on cloning humans... How far until we clone ourselves? She shuddered. Every Sister knew the futility of that Museum mentality. The fallacy of prolonging the past. The Tleilaxu Master's own trap. Adaptation and survival would not permit it. New blood and genes were needed to keep the Sisterhood in sync with the times. And yet, they still needed those clones until their survival was ensured. These are not ordinary people we are bringing back: a new Teg-ghola, and not one but three Scytales to ensure we don’t fail. She hoped they could shut off the program soon, but the temptation to continue would be there. The Sisterhood was short of critical talent.

Having reached the ante-chamber of Scytale's section, she stopped to recompose herself.

Scytale- ter – the second replica of the original – was only eleven. The child who was not a child sat on a chair much larger than his body, something that surely made the grown-up mind inside the body uneasy. Bellonda entered the observation room and found Murbella was already there, waiting. 

"Has he been there all along?" murmured Bellonda, fearing for a moment that he could hear them through the screen. "I do not have all day, Bell. How long will this take?" Murbella's voice was a whiplash, betraying how often these days the Honored Matres had to be kept in their place. Bell remembered how until recently a Matre could become the Great Matre by killing her predecessor. Murbella herself had slayed Logno on Junction to assert her primacy. The Matres' fighting skills and faster-than-the-eye reflexes remained unattainable with Bene Gesserit training. And that's why we tame them with our other teachings. 

"Our Imprinters have been at work earlier this morning," she replied. "He has just recovered his memories. He still believes he is on the no-ship. We built a perfect replica of his quarters to reinforce that belief." 

"Better getting started, Bell."

"Where is Odrade?" said Master Scytale- ter as Murbella entered the room, closing the door behind her. The Master's eyes looked deep, his whole being looking inward, adjusting to his recently acquired memories. 

"Odrade is dead. I rule now," replied Murbella, finding a chair-dog to sit on, her black robe coming to rest in cascading folds around her. 

"Rule? No more elections? An unusual successor. You do not wear the Sisters' aba ," he added, looking at Murbella’s cobalt dragon robe.

"Things have changed; things have stayed the same."

"I see. I am the new ghola. How much time?"

"One year. Since your last incarnation's death," lied Murbella, glancing at the comeyes that were recording the meeting. Bellonda would be observing the scene and reporting back later.

"How did I die?"

"A Honored Matres’ attack on Chapterhouse. Many deaths. We prevailed. There is a truce between the Orders," she suppressed a sigh. She had rehearsed the lie many times. 

"Why do you call them Matres?"

"Because that's how they call themselves. Do you want me to call them whores ?"

"You were one of them."

"I was. Before giving the Bene Gesserit children."

A long silence. There was no betraying the look of distrust in his eyes. We came to the Tleilaxu pretending to be one with their cult; the other one, Master Waff, fell into the trap so easily – but he is gone, and this smart one is not easily fooled.

"I heard you met Muad'Dib in the old times of the Imperium. Tell me how it was.'' That was the beginning of Murbella's distraction.

"Interested in the old times, Murbella?"

"Remember the little conspiracy you and the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam hatched on Wallach IX?

Scytale- ter had a tic of rubbing his hand on a place on his chest, just like his previous incarnation had done. Except the previous incarnation was not dead, was on a real no-ship somewhere they could not track, away with Sheeana and Duncan, somewhere out of reach in the Scattering.

The Master was lost in thought. A delay in merging his new memories? This moment was as good a test as anything. Did they truly possess the know-how to clone a Tleilaxu Master? Who knew what secrets he had withheld from them.

"I..." a slight stumbling of the words, "... remember I was with Muad'Dib in Sietch Tabr the night of the crisis. His eyes burnt by the stone-burner, empty sockets, but how alive he looked instead! His hand never wavered, his steps so sure making his way through the ancient tunnels."

"Using his prescience to guide him, though it guided him to a bitter end."

"He sacrificed himself so that the Prophet Leto could be born," he reprimanded her, "I was there. I offered him to revive his beloved Chani, to live the life he wanted, to delay the inevitable moment."

Murbella held her breath in silence. 

"But he did not take the offer," Scytale continued. "Supreme restraint! He walked into the desert as the law of his Fremen pets prescribed. And thus saved the future of Leto and Ghanima. A supreme act of sacrifice for a much maligned man!"

"There and then you learned you could restore a ghola's memories. Muad'Dib did it with Duncan Idaho. With that secret unlocked, you and the other Masters found the way to live serially for thousands of years. But how can you remember this moment you just described? You were killed at Muad'Dib's hand that fateful night. Did Face Dancers retrieve your body? Did the Tleilaxu infiltrate the deathstills of the Fremen?"

Scytale stared at the wall. "As I died, a look of astonishment came over his face," he continued to remember. "Pure surprise."

"Paul Muad'Dib, the Kwisatch Haderach, came and went, Scytale. The Prophet came and went. Look around. Only we remain now."

"And no more sandworms?"

"That's not accurate. The Prophet’s spawn. The sandworms. Come in!" she clapped her hands.

It had already happened with the original Master and it was about to happen again. The door opened and a Sister came in pushing a container floating on suspensors. A three-foot long sandworm was squirming against the transparent plexi. Here we go again . 

Bellonda observed all of this as deja vu, and looked at the screens in time to observe a deep panic taking over the Master. 

"We have brought back the Prophet," barked Murbella, "and the spice melange is back! For all that you hold sacred, can you not see what we are doing here? You wanted the True Belief to spread like fire in the Universe, why won't you help us in the endeavor? Join us now !"

Scytale's child hands were shaking. An uncontrollable trembling took over his whole body. Bellonda hoped this would play out as they had planned. Will he see through our ploy? We must have his spice-making tanks! The last secret he withheld!

" Give me my own tanks!” shouted Scytale. “If you are on the same side as you profess, why do you take everything away from me!” The shaking did not stop even as he jumped on his legs, stumbled toward the container, fell on his knees near the miniature worm's mouth, the miniature furnace hissing and spitting fire against the plexi walls. He stared.

And just like that, Scytale- ter collapsed.

Screaming to the comeyes, Murbella jumped by the Master's side: "Bring the medics in! I can feel his heart stopped!"

Suk doctors scrambled in from a hidden door, defibrillators in hand, put the body on the portable bed, did what they had done before. 

Murbella glared at the point on the false wall where she knew Bellonda sat staring through the glass, in the observation room. "Pray he lives Bell," she roared, "Or next time I will have the medics in for you! "

Bellonda stepped back, fell onto the chair-dog and half slipped to the floor, taken aback at the direct threat she had just received from Sister to Sister. 

Scytale-bis died three month ago. This Scytale-ter likely dead. We awake them too early! 

Murbella's voice boomed from the other room: "There is only one other ghola left of Scytale. Do not let any of your scruples restrain your hand. None of these Bene Gesserit taboos should weaken us any further!"

Chapter Text

IV.
Agenda Items

Beginnings are such delicate times.

– THE LADY JESSICA, FROM “WISDOM OF ARRAKIS” 

Conversation recorded by the no-ship systems on day 3 from Chapterhouse's Departure. Main deck’s commander room. Systems record three in attendance, identified as: Miles Teg, Sheeana Brugh, Duncan Idaho. Notes captured with standard movement descriptors and voice tonalities.

Teg Miles: “It is going to be just us three. First item of the day is, of course, the spice melange.” 

Sheeana: “Yes, please. Our melange will support the needs for the Reverend Mothers aboard for about three years, if we exclude the spice needed for the sandworm’s catalysis.”

Duncan Idaho ( coming from a distance, entering the room ): “Sheeana, what happens to you when the spice runs out?”

Sheeana: “Withdrawal may cause a slow agony until death, or mental crippling. To me and to the others.”

Teg: “No way to be weaned off of it?”

Sheeana: “Not for a Reverend Mother. That also means, we cannot create new ones. No Acolyte will go through the spice Agony until we have a source.” 

Teg: “Let us focus there. Three questions arise. One: how did the Reverend Mothers sent into the Scattering handle this? We know some survived and were turned into Honored Matres. Drug substitution? Two: It took over ten years to create the first spice on Chapterhouse, and we are starting with an infant sandworm and no planet. We need a source sooner. Which means…”

Duncan: “We have a more pressing matter, Teg. How long can the sandworm survive on our ship?”

Sheeana: “Days. We did not have the time to prepare a suitable habitat for the worm in the hold of the ship.”

Teg: “So Duncan: can you find a suitable planet? Then: ration all melange until we have a solution. We should explore the drug of the Honored Matres, and then, Scytale.”

Duncan: ( nods ).

Sheeana: "If the Master spilled his secret, an axolotl tank could produce all the melange we need, not to speak of earning us the coin we need for our voyage through the stars. And right on topic: where are we? Duncan erased the on-board computer memory.”

Duncan: “It’s here in my mind, Sheeana. I will recreate pieces of it so that we can plan our course.”

Sheeana: “Really? How far are we?”

Duncan: “From the old Imperium? How do you convey distance in the Scattering?”

Sheeana: “Far enough from the Sisterhood? And from what remains of the Honored Matres? I do not want to be hunted.”

Teg: “Yes. We should not discuss our position, not even for the ship’s software to record, until we have completed the analysis of the on-board systems. Second agenda item: Chapterhouse.” 

Duncan: "I doubt they have the time to look for us. Murbella is going to have her hands full with the Matres for a long time."

Sheeana: "How can we be sure? I was their Missionaria's carefully planned prophetess, and you my presumptive Royal Consort."

Duncan (stiffly) : “Presumptive is the right word.”

Teg: "Duncan is right about Murbella. Axolotl tanks may have turned us into a cheap commodity. They can recreate all of us -- if they have gathered cell samples in advance and can overcome some petty prejudices, particularly about cloning Reverend Mothers."

Sheeana ( gasping ): "They will not dare!"

Duncan: "Your Sisterhood's sense of morality may change quite quickly…”

Sheeana: “It was my Sisterhood…”

Duncan: “...if survival is at stake. We should assume they have cell samples for all of us and Scytale. Ask the Odrade Memory in you."

Sheeana ( after a pause ): "They have them, yes. But only one time? Or thousands of times? Cloning us once for each sandworm they will get out of Chapterhouse? They will not dare! "   

Duncan: "And each Sheaana they create will be a rebel one, like you. Do you think Odrade would have done it?"

Sheeana: "Aah," (another pause) "maybe. If survival required it. The question is, whether Murbella will do it."

Teg: "Third agenda item: we are a spaceship flying no flag and traveling in the void of space. We have a crew of forty-three, including a splintered cell from Secret Israel, Tleilaxu Master Scytale, and four futars. Besides our survival, I would like to invite you all, and I'd like to include the entire crew of this ship too, to think about what you want to do with your life in the Scattering. Under the constraint that in no way we can leave clues as to our position to either the Sisterhood or any Honored Matres group that could still exist."

Sheeana: “Right. And it is about time we call an all-hands meeting. I will send word. In an hour on this very deck.” 

(Footsteps, Sheeana walking out)

Teg: "So it seems our Sheeana knows what she is running from, but not yet what she is running to. Nice little plan you two have come up with by the way."

Duncan: "I owe you an apology. There was little time to activate the plan and we dared not risk it. You were not given a choice between joining us or remaining on Chapterhouse. I was."

Teg: "I will be ready to discuss this at a more appropriate time. Mentat to Mentat, that is not what I had as the last agenda item."

Duncan: "Yet I hope we can discuss this soon."

Teg: "Yes. Here is my last item: you deleted significant portions of the navigation software. Why?"

Duncan: "To avoid tracking."

Teg: "You are acting on the basis of different data than mine, then. What is it?"

Duncan: "There may be bigger powers at work than we know."

Teg: "You are going to have to be more specific than this."

Duncan (footsteps, about to step out of the room ): "I will soon."

Teg: "And, Duncan?"

Duncan (turning his head, one foot already out of the room) : "Yes?"   

Teg: "What would have Leto Atreides the First said, had he known your oath to his House implied over five thousand years of uninterrupted service, extending even to future Atreides Reverend Mothers?"

Duncan: "Leto is dead."

Teg: "I am Atreides, Duncan.”

Duncan (bitter) : “Your face reminds me of this very fact every minute. As Odrade kindly reminded me, my water is yours.” 

Teg: “Hear me now. I am Atreides. And as Atreides, I now release you from your oath.”

Duncan (voice betraying confusion) : "Pardon!?"

Teg: "You are released from service, Duncan Idaho. Served House Atreides for over five thousand years. Gave his life on behalf of the House countless times. From now on, you are free to choose what man you want to be."

Duncan ( body caving in ): "But I ... what… you cannot…"

Teg: "Hear me! I, Teg Miles, of Atreides descent, have just released you. The values and reasons, the affections that you poured into that oath, those remain yours forever. But I will have no more Duncan Idaho in a cage of his own making.”

Duncan: “I… do not know whether to thank you or…”

Teg: “Focus on this instead, will you? As a Mentat. Why did Leto II the Tyrant keep bringing you back, hundreds of times?"

Duncan ( distraught ): "The Paul Atreides who lived through him wanted me around to keep him company in his lone journey across the millennia."

Teg: "And that is, of course, the Primary computation. Surely Paul loved you, as well as the Duke Leto and Jessica." (footsteps toward the opposite door) "And after all you were and are an incredible military mind. But now, compute the question: why did Leto keep bringing you back? What part of the Golden Path required, may still require, a Duncan Idaho?"

Chapter Text

V.
A Mentat’s Dream

A domesticated animal is made captive by his habits. Not by his owner, not by his cage. Train a donkey to be tied to a pole, and eventually it will stay close to it even when it is not tied anymore. Even when the rope dangles on the ground, the animal thinks itself captive.

- THE ZENSUNNI WANDERER

For the first time in a long time, Duncan Idaho could not sleep. The familiar white noise of the no-ship which had become his permanent home, and perhaps his final home, the soft echoes from the hallways, the darkness around him did not help.

Where is the market to accept our fugitive talents?

He had always been a man of action, brilliant in his own way but impulsive as well. Long-term plans were the stuff of the Master of Assassins and Mentats. And while he was a Mentat, too, his mind could work other ways. So he had devised with Sheeana a plan to evade the Bene Gesserit on Chapterhouse, to flee as renegades in the Scattering. This was a half-plan, really. The other half, he reminded himself, was improvisation. Adapt the plan to the circumstances. They were an unidentifiable craft in an unidentifiable universe.

That was not what bothered him though. In a move that had been completely instinctual, he had also evaded the vision of the strange couple, whom for lack of a better term he called the Gardeners; he had escaped their net, erased the ship's computer memory and performed a random jump in foldspace. 

He rolled on a side, chest bare, extending an arm seeking a comforting presence that was not there. No matter how much his intellectual mind reminded him, his instinct looked every night for the Murbella he had left behind. His body ached at that realization. The sexual imprinting had been two-way, that fateful evening on Gammu, and he never had tried to push the boundaries of that dependency. How long before the withdrawal crisis kicked in? It would have to be much more painful than drug withdrawal. Would the separation drive him mad? He surely knew no cure. My sweet, indomitable Murbella...

His body was twitching spasmodically, just at the memory of her smell. Gradually the spasms passed. He closed his eyes once again, started reviewing all his lifespans in sequence, memory after memory. That was his sleep medicine.

Sunsets on the sea, seagulls screaming in the wind as the evening breeze moved the waves. How many loves the young Atreides cadet had on Caladan! He remembered a blonde girl in her twenties, whispering in his ears the gentle words of a Danian song.

Ginaz, Grumman - nothing but metal and training, until his nerves became as swift as a Laza tiger’s. 

Sands and rocks creating landscapes in hues of blue, yellow and purple. Stilgar the Naib at Sietch Tabr, offering him spice coffee. People come and go like the sand, but friends bonded in water are grounded on the rock. The Fremen! Their wise ways of the desert, rooted in their unchangeable faith in doom. Doomed creatures, like doomed had been their desert.

The sweet face of Alia of the Knife, young Alia with her musical laughter. That was a different me . That Duncan that was designed as a weapon for both the Emperor Muad'Dib and his sister, the Zensunni philosopher. 

Another memory intruded. I recalled meeting Leto II as the God Emperor for the first time.  " Died twice for the Atreides ," that child in a living stillsuit had said resting on his father's golden throne in Arrakeen, " rest assured, Duncan Idaho, that I will hatch a plan so bold, a plan so vigorous, one that humanity has never been able to envision. Would you be part of it? I have a most demanding role which needs a virtuoso, and you just look like the part."

"Died twice as you said, sire, Leto. So why did you bring me back? Are you anxious for me to die a third time in the Atreides service? Haven't you had enough of those Tleilaxu dogs?"

"I will not care about how many times you die for us, Duncan. But I reward loyalty. Ask me of anything." the Emperor said, extending his trout-covered arm. So much gravity in such a young scion. 

"What do you want me to say? You brought me back, but I have nothing left to care about."

"You could build a new life. Leave Dune for good."

"And renege my oath to your House?"

"I would not hunt you down."

"Free me from the oath then!"

"If you will renege on your oath, I promise not to exact justice. No revenge or retort."

"But you won't free me from it!"

“Would you take the oath today, if you hadn’t already?”

“Nonsense! You are Paul’s son. I died to save your sister,” then he had added, “But you scare me. You sound more Fremen than Atreides.” 

"[using Leto I Atreides' voice] Duncan, raise above! Don’t you see my grandson needs you more than ever?"

 "How.. you..."

"You have been told, but now you experience it. I am House Atreides, Duncan. All of it. You are welcome back to our service. I plant a seed that will be for you to cultivate. You are a hunter, but one day you will turn into a farmer. One day, I tell you truly, you will be freed from this oath, I promise. Then, to what end will you put your precious gifts?"

Am I really free? It sure did not feel it. More than elation, he felt a sense of tragedy.

His oath was to an ideal, what House Atreides represented in the past. A union of pride, military camaraderie, an obligation to serve the people to one’s limits.

I swore an oath of allegiance to the Atreides people who embodied the Atreides code. That code survived through the millennia and it is everything I care about, now that the Atreides people I swore allegiance to are gone. What will I do then? Dedicate myself to an Atreides ideal?

What now?

His plan had been to free himself from the grasp of the Sisterhood.

I never swore an oath to the Bene Gesserit.  

Thoughts of Jessica came back to him .A long, long time ago, he was in love with her, as was every lieutenant in the House. In his time under Leto II he had married more than one woman who looked like Jessica reborn, picked among the Emperor's  Fish Speakers. Just like Miles Teg was a carbon copy of the original Duke Leto I of Caladan.

What a formidable memory those genes had, flowing down the centuries in countless new bloodlines.

So, whom or what do I serve now?

Realization gripped him. I have never had to decide that in all my past lives.

He felt immersed in a universe of possibilities, planets floating around him in the void, each one leading to a different story. His cellular matrix was incomplete, I could see it, yet he felt the past from all his past lives. Using the very same awareness, he let himself float in the void, all Mentat senses dormant, expecting nothing.

An image of Siona came into his memory. A verdant planet, a house overlooking a desert. 

"How does it make you feel, to have produced countless sons and daughters throughout all your lives?"

Duncan lost all awareness, and deep, dreamless slumber came like a cool wave of silence over him.   

Chapter Text

VI.
Odrade’s Sword

It is said that Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse, the most powerful city-state of the Greek, was so afraid of being assassinated that he slept in a bed surrounded by a moat and that only his daughter could use a razor to shave his beard. One day, a courtesan named Damocles flattered the tyrant by telling him he envied his power and bliss, at which point Dionysius decided to give him a taste of power. He had Damocles seated on a golden couch, a host of servants ready to wait on him. He was treated to lavish meals, perfumes and ointments. Damocles was relishing the luxury and privilege he was experiencing, until he noticed that the tyrant had hung a sword from the ceiling, positioned over Damocles’ head,and suspended only by a single strand of horsehair. 

— TALES FROM OLD TERRA

In those late nights in Central, Murbella always felt like a particle of light lost in the sea of stars of the Universe.

Duncan gone, Odrade gone. And me, the only one holding Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit Sisters back from going at each other’s throat. Odrade, the burden you have passed on to me!

She would stare at the window showing her the lights from the new and sprawling School buildings they had erected in a rush to accommodate the countless Matres going through training. Deep in the night, I can finally let my tears flow . Every day was a fierce battle to fight, so that she could keep herself above the crashing waves: the Bene Gesserit waves, the Honored Matres waves, and whatever else lurked out there. And I am alone. Oh, I have you Odrade, but your presence in Simulflow is rarely a soothing one. The Odrade in her Other Memory was constantly instructing, observing, and endlessly articulating the risks and needs ahead of her. 

Ensure Bene Gesserit training is offered equally to the Matres of high rank, so that they may acquiesce , and to the Matres from the various Orders, so that scales can be balanced. The spice Agony is becoming a sign of prestige, the ultimate symbol of influence. Arrange Proctors’ special training. Call the war council. Send envoys to the Matres’ splintered cells…

"Stop, Odrade! I don’t want the job anymore!” she shouted at the window. Luckily nobody could see her. She had ordered the comeyes removed shortly after becoming Reverend Mother Superior. You kept the Archives’ surveillance comeyes and broadcasting system, the proctors committees, Odrade, but I need no votes to stay in charge.  

And that was something all the Bene Gesserit who were left on the four, only four! , planets that had not been invaded by the Matres had come to terms with. Murbella was the first Matre to be captured, trained and converted to a Reverend Mother; the first to embrace the melange and the spice agony which brought the knowledge of all her older female ancestors. The reasons why only she could have the job was simple: she was the only one of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood who could beat a Matre in hand-to-hand combat; she was Odrade Primary, having absorbed all of Odrade’s memories just before the Mother Superior’s death on the Matres’ headquarters on Junction; she had brought back to Chapterhouse the seven million Memories of the Lampadas Reverend Mothers. And Sheeana, while designated as an alternative successor by Odrade herself, far from becoming her competition, had instead escaped in the void of the Scattering. 

Damn you Sheeana! You took my Duncan and my freedom in one act!

With Sheeana here, she used to think, she could have set the power and responsibilities aside. And Duncan! Still, she had to admit that her love for him had waned the day she had become a Reverend Mother. The spice ordeal had nullified the sexual enslavement that bonded her to him. Duncan was a psychological support, a crutch that had helped for a time, but was not needed anymore. Romantic love. Both her Honored Matres and Reverend Mother training had her curse at the notion. Worse, it had been a fierce passion, and one that had burned very quickly. He is the father of my three children. She made a mental note to check on what had become of them in the Proctors’ hands.

A gentle knock on the door announced her assistant Fayela, tasked to bring her the midnight coffee. “Come in.” Murbella cultivated an aura of fear on Central, and so the assistant came in silently and left swiftly like a ghost. 

Like many times recently, she considered using a poison snooper, then decided to trust her Reverend Mother sensibility. Her body chemistry could always detect a poison and neutralize it. Yet one day our famous Bene Gesserit powers may once again fall short of the advances of the universe around us. I need to develop more Plan Bs.

She inhaled the smell of the warm coffee, a hint of melange, plus Matres’ powder of guar-tea. Everything had to mingle together. She missed the feeling and freedom of a walk outside, but did not want to bother calling her security detail.  

I remain the resting point of the scales. The Matres lived in the illusion that they had won the war against the Sisterhood. And that day on Junction, the Sisterhood army had been defeated despite Miles Teg’s leadership. That part was true. Matre Murbella coming back to the Order, defeating the Supreme Honored Matre in combat, and bringing to them the Sisterhood’s secrets, chiefly including the location of Bene Gesserit’s Chapterhouse planet, was the illusion she had cultivated. But I am no Matre. So slowly, I have turned completely into a Bene Gesserit. But I will never drop my Matre mask. 

And so we lure them with our  secrets, and covertly turn them into us. Odrade, you paved the way through me. The Odrade Memory inside her did not smile. Coming to a resolution, Murbella took her light coat, azure and amber, and called for Bellonda. The Mentat-Reverend Mother’s raucous answer over the intercom revealed she was in an even worse mood than the Reverend Mother Superior. Murbella could not hide a hint of cruel satisfaction. Odrade, why did you inflict me on Bell? 

“Bell needed to be shaken up. Too predictable.” was the answer she felt in Other Memory.

“Bell, I am taking a walk. See that I have the security I need. Discreet.”

“Five minutes,” was the dry reply. Of course, Bell did not sleep either.

“But, hear me. Deploy a decoy for me, would you Bell? Split the security detail. Let the decoy follow the same path I always follow. I will take a different path.”

“What? Yes. Will you lend us your light coat? Give me a moment to find somebody your height and body shape.” Bell sounded surprised. This was a first-time request. Well, more data for her to draw conclusions about the Mother Superior. Bell’s top concern always seemed to be whether Murbella had really embraced the Sisterhood or whether she still relished her Matre origin. 

“My assistant, Fayela is her name correct? She will do. It is pitch dark outside.”

Murbella sipped her coffee continuing her internal dialogue. But Odrade, you had a sense of premonition, a hound’s indefatigable ability to chase smells in the night until you found their owners. I am not Atreides, Dar. No prescience to guide me. 

“Nor I dared use prescience, except unconsciously, to make decisions for the Sisterhood. Use your gifts,” said the Odrade Memory inside her. “Your creativity is more impetuous than mine. You too can balance on strange surfaces.”

She walked down to the ground floor, saw the security detail. She and the guards exchanged password-gestures, then she handed her light coat to Fayela, who left with half of the security team while she took her half out to see Dar’s orchards. Sand was covering the ground where the apple trees used to grow. 

And impetuous I have been , she thought. Institute formal training for the Matres! Grow our residences and schools tenfold! Suppress the Proctor committees! Ration all melange! Move the army cores from Junction to Chapterhouse! 

And then some more.

Accelerate the desertification of the planet. Merge all fighting and Imprinting schools. Merge the Missionaria Protectiva with the army. Require every Matre with planetary command to be escorted to Chapterhouse to declare allegiance and receive full training, or else be replaced. Pair each one with a Sister-advisor. She had imprinted all top army generals herself to avoid mutinies.  At this point, she knew the Matres were mostly under her control. 

That had come naturally. They feared violence and understood the threat of violence, even from a long-lost peer, who would spend mornings bothering to discuss with (instead of ordering around!) the Reverend Mothers who were her subjects. The secrets of body-chemistry, Voice, religious control, Truthsense and prana-bindu were tempting enough for a Matre to submit to a six month period of obedience and non-violence. Enforced by their peers. Yes, a few bodies had been removed from the training grounds in the early days. A few were Reverend Mother teachers’, but mostly Matres students’ who had been killed by their peers as punishment and example. Do not let one bad apple bar us from grasping the secrets we seek, and the status we covet.  

The higher status one would achieve with the spice agony was a ticket to a faster career. It was common knowledge that the new Matres sisters were given the most prestigious offices in Murbella’s administration, to the disdain of the more qualified Reverend Mothers. And there laid the trap: as Murbella had experienced, surviving the spice Agony implied shedding the subconscious hatred and the rapid violence which had been the landmark of a Matre. The new sisters were truly Bene Gesserit, but more ruthless. Honored Matres, but their worst instincts pacified. 

And still, three out of every ten Honored Matres joined a splinter cell in the months after Junction. The war had not ended there. Dissenting Matres as vicious as ever controlled entire sectors and continued to keep a full grasp of entire planets by sexually bonding key generals, functionaries, and leaders. Murbella’s primacy was going to be tested on a daily basis for years to come. 

Crickets were chirping in the quiet summer night. The heat was intense. Her shoes were scraping the arid soil, pushing the red sand. Red sand from the south. Dying crops. The costs of importing food from the rest of the Imperium started to weigh on their finances, notwithstanding the capital injection that the takeover of the Matres had brought. 

Soon enough, the crickets will die too. And I will move the headquarters to a greener place, leaving this planet to the damned sandworms. 

Most of her time was a balancing act, giving and negating support to the political currents inside the new Sisterhood she was forging out by mediating massive colliding forces. Odrade, you never told me that being at the top there is very little time to govern. The list of daily chores was incredible, even with Bellonda properly empowered and chastised. And yet massive dangers lurk just outside of our purview.

Recruit for the male harem (Matres needed to be entertained); test all Matres for Siona markers; establish standard approvals for new ghola and cyborg creation (they needed all the talent they could get). Separate Sisters from Matres in all public events. And so on…

Did you welcome your last battle, Dar? Your great gamble! How much you hated the daily chores.  

Now for a few minutes she had been walking on the main streets, almost deserted given the hour but never quite; a few acolytes strolled by (late night work shifts?) toward the dorms. The summer air provided relief from the heat, giving a good reason for small groups of Sisters and workers to be out wandering, or sitting on marble benches placed at the two sides of the Way. 

A full twenty minutes into her walk, Murbella came to a bend on the path to the Labs. She could sense the two guards who were cautiously shadowing her, her security detail. Bell’s own agents. They were very discreet. She noted to herself to compliment Bellonda on that. Bell needed careful drops of encouragement in a sea of criticism.

As she focused her attention forward, she noticed a man sitting on a bench fifty yards away, a lamplight casting a glowing light around him. Appearance and clothing revealed he was one of the imported male companions she had ordered to keep the Matres happy. 

She approached the man and noticed he was strumming a modern baliset, black in ebony and with the thirty-six string design that had surpassed long ago the design of Paul Muad’Dib’s times. Not that many besides Reverend Mothers knew the difference. 

The man was singing. She slowed down her pace to listen:

Eventide in the grassy marsh
Moonflowers open wide,
Shadows vanish from my heart
As the bright-eyed girl smiles;

The bright-eyed girl smiled at me
Her hair as red as fire;
With Danian words, swayed my resolve
I’d do what she required;    

The bright-eyed girl smiled at me
Her mouth as sweet as pearl;
Was it heaven’s joy, or an evil ploy 
My heart’s desire and…

He stopped there, the last chord lingering in the hot air.

“My lady, could you by chance help me complete this stanza?” 

Ha, definitely a male companion in training.  “Yes?”

“What rhymes with pearl?” asked the man. Murbella stopped in her tracks.

“What could possibly rhyme with that? Despair? Fair?” she replied bluntly. Let’s hope our recruiters are choosing well – there have been a lot of complaints about the quality of the men lately , she thought. 

“Despair? Was it heaven’s joy or an evil ploy / My hear’s desire and despair… a bit too too long.”

“Fair? Girl? Earl? Air?” her mindly amused reply.

“My heart warms in the air? No, this is it: Was it heaven’s joy or an evil ploy / Fulfilled my heart’s desire. ” he finished, caressing the instrument. She could not but notice his physical prowess, delicate features in a muscular body. Somehow he reminded her of a jaguar. 

 Murbella commented: “Beautiful voice.”

“Thank you, fair lady.”  

“Not so much the words”.

“Oh, but it’s not finished:

The bright-eyed girl, sweet was her smile,
Her passion burned like flame;
Her man I killed, desire-filled,  
My mind she had beguiled.”

“That last verse needs work, too,” she could not refrain from commenting.

“So hard to finish without a muse here to inspire me! How would you change it?” inquired the man, black eyes shining in the lamplight.

“What is this thing about Danian girls you all men have to sing about?” she replied.

“A passion, a look, a gesture… the Danian girl is just a symbol of love to be sought in every lady.” 

“Yes? And you are?”

“Lorain is my name. Singer, poet and lover of women.”

“Astonishing. Well, not many Danian girls on this planet. You may have some luck with the hundreds we land here to fill our Schools.”

“I will dedicate to you my next song, lady…?”

“Find another muse, will you. Have a good night.”

“See? They are so proud in their rigidity! They never melt!”

“Better not to say that to the new students,” she advised while walking away. “Some itch to kill just like the man in your song.”  

She strode on, shaking her head. Reprimand recruiters on the quality of the male companions… She had passed the flat area where the no-ship had been. Don’t dwell on that , she reminded herself. The air was pleasant, fireflies could be seen in the darkness beyond the lamplights. Then she reached the Labs, lights on day and night as the personnel were at work on the tanks. I was almost calm. That idiot turned my mood sour again. She went in and proceeded toward the axolotl tanks. Let reality shake up my feelings.  

There she stood in darkness, thirty-five tanks around her, thirty-five women turned into engorged bodies with gigantic wombs, skin hanging like discolored draped fabric on all sides, metal tubes and robotic arms enveloping it like a containment frame. 

That finally shocked her - where were the eyes, the mouth, the nose? Were those women awake? Conscious? She was disconcerted to realize she had never asked the question. Is that the way a woman should go? A womb? To create new flesh as the only goal in life? Are our breeders any different, or is it the same factual emptiness? Would love make a difference? We Sisters loathe love … and yet do we just fear the loss of control?

She longed for the unpredictability that had made everyday she had spent with Duncan worth it. Relinquishing control over every moment. Her loneliness grew in her heart while standing in that industrial darkness. She did not want to lay alone in bed tonight, looking for somebody who was not there.

***

Just before dawn, she was awakened by a soft knock at the door. Not a recognizable one. Murbella rose still naked, the man Lorain still drowsy in her bed. She asked through the door in a whisper: “What now?”

The whisper answered: “Badrana, your aide, Reverend Mother Superior.”

“At this hour?”

“Fayela is dead, Reverend Mother Superior.”

Murbella took a breath in, while steading herself against the door at a sudden dizziness, while the aide whispered the details.

“Less than an hour ago, while acting as a decoy. Silent projectile weapon. Reverend Mother Bellonda has declared a security alert. If you please, follow me to a safe room.”  

She slipped into her robe without a sound, cracked open the door, and left.

Another innocent!

It could have been me!

Security breach – there will be hell to pay!

“After, check the man I brought into my room,” she instructed.

That’s something you did not tell me about being at the top, Odrade. Always watch the sword dangling over you, hung on a thin horsehair that may just snap.

Chapter Text

VII.
Axolotl Tanks

It was an old tale already at the time, and I was but a child. A man leaves his woman and the sietch to go to the city. The man knows the desert and the Fremen ways, but has never been in a village, not to speak of Carthag, tentacular and crowded. Yet enter he must, for he and his wife are in great poverty and a merchant from the city promised him help in a time of need. “You have a debt of water to settle” he told the merchant. But the merchant responds: “I have nothing for a man of the desert but my water. But what good would that be, if you slayed me now? I offer you to practice a profession, learn it from my aides, so that you will earn three times what my water was worth when you saved me that day in the desert.” The man’s apprenticeship in the Merchant’s house is full of blunders, lessons, and painful changes, for it is hard for a Fremen to adjust to a city’s life. And so after all challenges are overcome, the man earns not three but four times what the merchant’s water is worth, and swiftly goes back to the sands. His wife welcomes him for now they will not be poor anymore, water being more precious than the spice on Dune. But the man finally learns he cannot live in the sietch anymore, the wind does not speak to his soul. They leave for the city. And there he is welcome back by the same merchant. But his wife hates the city. She dies of desert sickness. Desperate, the man goes to the merchant. “I took four times the water. I was greedy. Then I lost my wife. I will give my wife’s water to the benefit of the poor. That makes it three times, per our deal. Now let me continue to work in your house.” This is how the story ends. The audience then debates the moral. Greed? Betraying your origin? Has the man atoned for his sin? I only knew that Fremen was a fool, for he bargained for water, but the merchant bargained for his soul.

- FREMEN ORAL HISTORY

Scytale had noticed many changes happening inside the no-ship. One day he had awoken to an violent force that pinned him to his bed for minutes, the vibration of tortured metal shaking the ship from stern to bow, revealing they were in motion. He could not access the ship’s computers, or else he would have tried to look outside. 

He had waited at the transparent barrier that barred his passage into the other areas of the no-ship. Nobody had come for an entire day, then thankfully an acolyte had dropped food. 

Odrade had stopped visiting. He had gestured to the occasional passerby to pass a message, but the crew did not bother to pay attention to him.

Then, water was being rationed. A trickle would come out of the sink where before there was abundance.  

Then, he picked up subtle new scents in the air. 

Several days later, the food he was being served changed. No more the sour and spicy flavors of his Chapterhouse time; he detected unknown flavors and ingredients in what was given him, sweetness, sugar cane, cardamom, cinnamon.

The no-ship has left Chapterhouse! We have stopped at new planets!

The fact that he was still alive meant the Bene Gesserit witches still harbored plans for him. They still longed for the ultimate knowledge, the perfected axolotl tanks. He restlessly paced his quarters back and forth, impatient to fit this new reality in his plans. 

Old Waff was tricked by these sisters into believing they shared the same faith , he thought. I must have plans within plans. The witches had the Prophet’s sandworm. Such a holiness in powindah ’s hands. The arrogant Reverend Mothers posed as believers but their actions betrayed them as outcasts. They could speak the sacred Islamiyat language only Tleilaxu Masters used, but they did not belong in the kehl. No brotherhood with… these fake sisters. And yet, they sounded so convincing at times!

The transparent barrier vanished for a moment, letting three Sisters in. Visitors.

“It’s about time,” Scytale took the initiative with a whining tone. “That you let me know what is happening. How soon will I talk to Odrade?” Then gasped at the sight of Sheeana, the sandworm’s master, who had just revealed her dark blue eyes and water-poor, Rakis-shaped profile. Beautiful and fierce.

“Odrade is no more, Master Scytale. We are in space. I speak for this ship’s crew, the New Sisterhood, and have full powers of negotiation. You need us and yes, we really need you.” replied Sheena, sitting on a dog-chair while the Master rested on an inorganic one, the other two sisters taking position right behind him.

“The New Sisterhood?” he inquired. 

“We left Chapterhouse for good. We are in the Scattering. We are discussing your position.” A finger pointed at him.

This may be the room to maneuver that I need . His zeal forced him to face all challenges as God’s trials. The one God, who had sent Leto the Prophet to teach humanity and the Bene Tleilax His terrible lesson. The air, the familiar sounds and smells of Tleilaxu civilization were gone, destroyed in the fury of the Honored Maters, but Scytale knew as long as one Master remained, hope to rebuild the holy order remained. And Tleilaxu ascendancy over the universe.

“You want my axolotl tanks.”

“Yes,” a smile. “A willing, and complete, transfer of knowledge. The gholas and the spice. And you, Master,” she reached out to delicately touch his face, “what do you truly want?”

“My tanks, my Face Dancers and Domels, ways to feel in the company of my people”, he ventured. Keep them busy with the tanks, ask for my own to create Face Dancers, and with these excuses get access to the ship’s systems. Ixians and Tleilaxu had shared many secrets, and he knew how to backdoor into any terminal to take over control. When I strike it will be swift and unexpected.  

“Is that all?” Sheeana pressed, her face getting closer to him, expectant eyes. “How long have you been alone and lonely here?”

If that is her naive attempt at seducing me, she has it all wrong , thought the Master. Powindah thinking! That a creature so soiled with the impurity of the universe could stay this close to a Master without consequence!

But Sheeana did not press this line of inquiry more.

“I do not want you to feel like a prisoner, though we cannot let you go until we have working tanks that can be serviced by my team, with additional time to make sure there is nothing that has been withheld. Quarters, entertainment, food, anything you need to make your stay more comfortable, just name it.”

Scytale looked back hesitantly at the Sisters behind him. 

“Let me go? And where would you have me go?” ventured.

“Your pick in the Scattering.”

“Truly you expect me to believe you will set me free? Childish.” challenged Scytale.

“It is my word as a Reverend Mother. Has Odrade ever promised something she did not deliver?”

“Odrade never promised anything!” 

“Because she did not want to be obliged to deliver. As you notice, I am sparing you all the talk about religion. This is strictly speaking a business proposition. In friendly terms. You will be free when you have served us and your departure cannot trace back to us. It may even be a decade. But the knowledge, that we want now.”

“A decade?”

“Is that much to ask of a man several millennia old?”

So much easier than I ever hoped for, thought Scytale, but there will be a trap hidden in the deal. And yet, my tanks can spring a trap as well. And with his hand he rubbed pensively the area on his chest where the nullentropy capsule was hidden. Below his skin, impenetrable to probes, stood a capsule that contained all the Tleilaxu’s civilization: blueprints, cell samples of all the great Masters, as well as countless heroes of old: the Duncans, Gurney Halleck, Thufir Hawat, Leto I and II, Paul Atreides, Jessica, even the Baron Harkonnen… many ways to set worlds afire with the true word of God. My brothers, I will bring you back into existence. Then you will ask me to perform ghufran, purify my soul and body from the contact with the lawless Powindah, and I will set in kehl with you and feel the presence of God.

“Curious.” commented one of the Sisters.

“Yes?” asked Sheeana.

“He always rubs that area in his chest. The body does what the mind thinks.”

Heavens! He froze, then blurted out: “Let’s see how serious you are then! Here are my immediate demands: the food is inadequate. I am to be relocated in bigger quarters with rooms prepared for the work. I need to be able to call you. And a Reverend Mother to volunteer for my experiments.”

“Forget it!” laughed Sheeana, standing up. “I am not sacrificing any of us for your tank business. But the rest is granted.”

This one is either a bad negotiator, or they must be pushed against a corner. What do they need?

“Then we are in agreement, Reverend Mother,” murmured the Master, feigning consternation.

“I request that the first tank be operative within thirty days. Melange is the first deliverable. Your new benefits are conditional to performance, Master Scytale.” 

A performance you will never forget , he thought.

 ***

Later in his new quarters, over his newfound sweet dinner food, he reflected on the exchange. It had very different tones than what he was used to when negotiating with Odrade. God bless my path, I will restore your religion and the Bene Tleilaxu. The trials you give me make me stronger. Bless your last master, for he will bring back an entire civilization, and with that the power of your revelation. Much was to be done; firstly, the attempt to create a tank while taking control of the ship; then, the creation of his Face Dancers, finding a suitable planet. He could almost feel the path in front of him. And those new sisters, so naive. And the ghola, but we Tleilaxu have ways to take care of him. For the first time in years, he felt close to joy. A holy joy, he thought. The last Master who will bring the Bene Tleilaxu back. Scytale, who talked to Muad’Dib and saw the Prophet born! I am the only one, and the first one. May God keep me humble.  

***

Much, much later, he found himself awakening from a turbulent dream. Sweaty. Where was he? Still in his quarters on the no ship. A vague premonition. He tried to rise, but found himself undressed and strapped to the bed. Three soft bodies were on him, next to him. Warmth. He made it to scream, but a hand blocked his throat. They had drugged him! The new food?

“Close your eyes, Master.” said one Sister.

“What are you doing to me?” Scytale’s muffled voice protested, but he already knew. He resisted but his body was defenseless, out of control; his mind slipped out of his grasp as outrage built up and turned into coerced bliss, a wash of pleasure and agony that overtook him completely for so long that he gasped for breath as his body fell into exhaustion. His brain was left craving blindly for more, even as another part of him tried to focus on loathing it. I have failed to resist these women! He was panting and berating and accusing himself silently. I am your instrument, God, but what challenges do you put in front of me. How can I serve you as a slave of a woman?   

“A collateral we require of you. As agreed before, it is all strictly business.” whispered a victorious Sheeana. She had wondered if Tleilaxu men were any different. But the sexual imprinting, the long endless ecstasy, and the dependency that they created right there made this Master just a slave as any other. Minutes later, she re-appeared in front of Duncan while lost deep into Mentat concentration. "He is mine,” she savored her triumphant words. 

Chapter Text

VIII.
Prime Computation

We of the Bene Tleilax have developed over thousands of years an intimate vocabulary. We do not expect to understand or verbalize the Language of God. But the daily toil, the feverish work in the axolotl tanks forced us to develop new words to describe our craft. These words we forged in the sacred Islamiyat so that only Masters would remember, and transmit. But do not be fooled! Words are not wisdom. Yet, every word has meaning. They are words of power. Pronounce them at your own peril. We have a specific word for the state where a ghola is awakened while its source is still alive. That is airbabialmin. Moreover, we call ghamar al'iirada, or Submerging of the will, the fleeting time where a Master is encountering its ghola-successor, and ritually giving in. Another word we have for the state where two awakened gholas are unleashed at the same time, for they can both tap into the same memory pool. It is antihak lilwahda. We mark that as a supremely dangerous circumstance, an unholy occurrence.

— REFLECTIONS, THE NAMELESS MASTER

The Council room on Central was quiet, crows squeaking in the courtyard outside where white desert flowers were blooming on the cacti. That morning Teg Miles could not but feel moody. Reawakened twice for the Sisterhood, his service never quite ending. His young flesh ached to live but his mind felt all the weight of his three hundred years of service. His thought went back to something that amused him at present. Another Teg lived on Sheeana's no ship, the one who had fought the Matres on Junction and saw victory turned to defeat at the hands of their secret sonic weapon. What was that Teg doing and thinking? Had the Tleilaxu ever brought back somebody twice at the same time? He made a mental note to ask any surviving Scytale ghola in the near future.      

His eyes sought Bellonda's familiar face. The Reverend Mother-Mentat was patiently waiting at the other side of the table. She wondered how it must feel to be a grown-up Teg's mind in a ten-year-old body, whether it was discomforting for him to find his voice squirmy and young. We awaken them too early! And yet, they had done it once under Odrade, who was Teg's daughter; and done it again under Murbella. Old reservations died so quickly! 

Like most Bene Gesserit, Bell was very alert about anything that could reveal affection. Affection bred dependency. It was deceptive. She sometimes found herself looking at the small child, evoking (believe it or not!) maternal feelings in her. Would his body resent the lack of a proper childhood? But he was an old, cunning man with the voice of an innocent. 

It had been several minutes. Teg broke the silence:  "What have you done to get the secret out of Scytale?"

Bellonda’s answer was factual: "Two gholas. Archive records call them Scytale- bis and - ter . First was imprinted. Killed himself with a kitchen knife after."

"Not to reveal his secrets to the Imprinter who had just sexually bound him? You should have seen to that! And the knife? Rookie mistake!"

"He was given one during the meal that morning - in error. He deliberately misled us! Acted so swiftly with the Imprinter still in the room!"

"Employ a Matre next time. Faster reactions."

He is right. My mind is dulling, thought Bellonda. Murbella had been furious about the knife, used a very colorful and ancient vocabulary the Odrade in Other Memory had been fond of using. 

"That reveals sexual imprinting works on Masters too,” continued Teg. “Why didn't you try it with the second ghola?"

"We did try. Changed the strategy,” explained Bell. “We showed him a sandworm right after the imprinting. Maximum pressure. The first Scytale had seen it before, we roleplayed that scene many times. Died of heart attack."

"Do you suspect it was self-induced?"

"Scytale panicked much like his former self had done with Odrade. We do not know much about gholas, and we wean them so early! His body could not take it!" Bellonda could not shake the feeling that Teg was constantly teaching and reprimanding her. But then again, he had been one of the best commanders of the Bene Gesserit’s forces. 

"I know it myself, Bell. Well we have a problem, and only one ghola left to fix it. Our spice stocks are the limiting factor for the conversion of Matres into Reverend Mothers. They remain a threat until we have enough spice for all of them. They may revolt, kill Murbella, or enslave us if we let them wait for too long. It would take a few more years to bring back another Scytale. We do not have that time."

"The ones we converted are helping us a great deal. The New Sisters are Murbella-like. The other Matres are both terrified and intrigued, but also impatient."

"I see that." replied Teg "By now all the remaining Matres have realized there is a dual layer Sisterhood: advancement requires being in the lucky group of the ones who went through the Agony of the melange. They are not new to castes, but they may not like the thought of staying in the lower caste for too long. So back to the last ghola. What alternatives? "  

"We considered many approaches. A T-probe may succeed where an Ixian one would fail. There are..." continued Bellonda, dissimulating her frustration. And yet Murbella asked her to report to Teg everything she was doing. Complete trust in this Atreides ghola, the most formidable commander the Sisterhood had ever had. And yet, a man and not a Sister.

"Bell. At what point will we submit to necessity and leave our principles? You are falling deeper into violence. Look at yourself! Your repertoire needs updating." Bellonda felt struck by it, something very close to Voice, but kinder. 

"Do you think of me as obsolete? You do it then!" she whined.

Teg stood up and motioned toward the door. “You need expert help. Prime Computation.” 

“Then lecture me!”

“Me? Murbella gives me other tasks, and we are two. You only need yourself. The path is clear. How can you not understand yet, that the Bene Gesserit’s vision of the Universe is infinitely narrow? Answer me as a Mentat!” 

“So patronizing of you! So what? I should think like an Honored Matre?”

“Nicely done! Start there. Aren’t they resourceful?” 

"Those vicious beasts?"

"Before meeting us, they stole, and collected all sorts of resources and allies along the way." said Teg leaving her ruminating at the table.

Bellonda looked at the table. Very carefully, she breathed in, focusing. Then, very suddenly but very calmly, her eyes lit up. And she gasped. Allies!

Chapter Text

IX.
Gholas’ Games

Mentat state can be observed as a state of flow. Only a naive mind can derive the most accurate inferences. Your mind is the lenses with which the data is absorbed, classified and used as the test of the pattern. It is of primary importance to recognize that us Mentats can never be truly objective. That is an end-state that will take your entire lifetime, an asymptote you should always strive for. You have already learned how to assess that and remove the gross sources of bias in order to reach a tabula rasa state, an empty container where inferences can be created anew. Yet the peril of a subjective seed into the computation is always there. The solution to that is three-fold: seek contrast in your data sources, seek diverging assumptions, and identify radical vantage points.

- THE NEW MENTAT HANDBOOK, CVII EDITION

“I have come to terms with it. It is best for me to be here in the no-ship than on Chapterhouse right now,” murmured Miles Teg.

The two Mentats were sitting one in front of the other, no table between them, in a small cubicle that provided the opportunity for more intimate conversations, not only because of its ambience but chiefly because of the lack of comeyes. Sheeana had insisted on maintaining the Bene Gesserit tradition of broadcasting for the entire crew, but ways could be found. At any rate, most observers would not have made sense of the rapid fire of words and syllables that the Mentats were exchanging. Hands on knees, palms facing up, eyes locking. Mentat linking . To Teg it was like seeing the computation in the eyes of the other. Even dialogue could be cut short to single words.

Teg said: "Our talents are most useful in already populated areas. You did not randomly sent the ship to the void."

Duncan: "Random within certain constraints. We are in a sparsely populated sector. Planet shipwrecks are a waste of time."

Teg: "Why hasn't any Reverend Mother come back from the Scattering?"

Duncan: "This is a universe where the coordinates of a habitable system are treated with utmost secrecy."

Teg: "Yet you said your map lists millions of known planets."

Duncan: "It is the list of the places of trade. They are like the local Suk market. The location of the actual villages in the countryside is secret." 

Teg: "So what happened to those Sisters? They landed and..."

Duncan: "Likely could never leave. A planet cannot be conquered if it cannot be reached."

Teg: "Dark sectors. Pilots committing to memory secret coordinates."

Duncan: "Sworn to secrecy, and to kill themselves if their ship is captured. No records in a ship's systems. Maps only show the agreed upon gathering places, the bonfires shining from afar."

Teg: "So most planets are off the maps. An ultimate defense against domination. Self-government is guaranteed."

Duncan: "Where you are from? could be the least tactful question to ask in this universe."

Teg: "And yet there must be exchanges. Local markets. Trade centers."

Duncan: "Yes. Space-faring nations built on trade centers and carefully picked secret planets. And multitudes of autonomous worlds staying off the charts. You also have to count the Reverend Mothers who died of spice withdrawal. I estimate a very large number. Others have been picked and trapped right in the middle of space."

Teg: "What data?"

Duncan: "A suspicion. I had access to the Archives shortly after freeing the no-ship.” A pause. “By the way, your performance on Junction was most compelling. The enemy ships you found and hit cannot be explained by the use of miniature laser-shield pairs I designed. You see the no-ships. You are prescient."

Teg: "So you are."

Duncan: "In a fashion.”

Teg: "And what you see is?"

Duncan: "Technology has developed to unthinkable levels. Some may be able to locate and capture no-ships. Power concentrated in a few factions, it means that are formidable intergalactic foes at work."

Teg: "And instead of escaping..."

Duncan: "We should find a way straight into the maelstrom. But first, the sandworm."

Teg: "You found a planet with religious significance."

Duncan: "A stop there will help us gather intelligence. But we need help on the ground -- a temporary home. You have the body of a child and I do not have Siona gene markers. Unlikely we can be sent on the surface. And we need.. Scytale..."

Teg: "I asked the Rabbi to join us. Sheeana agrees."

That was the way of the world, Duncan thought. If Sheeana agrees, it is done.

Duncan: "If Murbella has ordered another clone of you, Miles."

Teg shrugging. "It is possible."

Duncan: "Let me warn you about the risk of recursive computations. Do not try to compute your own actions on another planet."

Teg: "The hall of mirrors again. I will not think about me on Chapterhouse. And you think they may be cloning you?"

Duncan: "It has not happened. But they have my children." Mentat certainty in it.

They interrupted the link as the sound of approaching footsteps betrayed the entrance of the Rabbi. 

He seemed aged a decade since the day he and his party were rescued on Gammu. He had spent most of his days in the ship confined to his quarters, conferring with Sheeana in multiple occasions. A dark aura seemed to follow him. This man has had a lot to absorb , Teg thought. 

There was no room for a third chair, so the two Mentats stood up to welcome him. 

"I am old," said the Rabbi, eyes glazing over the surface of the walls, looking for a seat. "Me and my group will happily disembark from this ship to find a place for ourselves."

"We will oblige, Rabbi," replied Teg, "Yet Sheeana would ask you a favor in the spirit of the ancient alliance with the Reverend Mothers."

"Say it."

"Surely Secret Israel has found many homes in the Scattering."

"I do not know where we are in the Scattering."

"We will show you."

"We cannot go back." said the Rabbi, implying: The imperium is not a place for us anymore; our community on Gammu is dispersed. We are on the run again.

"We cannot go back, Rabbi. But your people must have left signs across the Scattering."

"There are clues in the names of the planets sometimes; there are procedures to initiate contact, safe words designed to stand the passing of the centuries," the Rabbi cleared his throat. "And trials only the initiate can pass. Land anywhere and I can attempt a contact. Israel will honor the alliance. The Bene Gesserit name is not forgotten in the Scattering. You will be our guests, but after that me and my party will depart. We have given much."

"We thank you for your help."

"Rabbi..." inquired Duncan.

"Yes."

"Will Rebecca go with you?"

"She may just remain a perturbing presence among Israel's daughters. But the choice is hers to make." deliberated the Rabbi.

"I was inquiring, Rabbi, because she will need access to the spice."

"And there is no spice where we are going? Besides the stock on this ship?"

"There is no more spice in the universe, Rabbi."

"The accursed spice," burst out the Rabbi in an anger that was quite uncharacteristic of him, "To the hell with the spice, and its precious Bene Gesserit gifts! "

The next gift of the spice, thought Teg gloomily, is going to be a woman in an irreversible vegetative state. Our axolotl tank needs a volunteer. 

Chapter Text

X.
The Tree of Life

I tell you now that the Tleilaxu must be the richest people in the Universe. Crowds of servants wait on them, while they consume succulent meats and drink the freshest sherbets. Their arts create mentats, gholas, replacement organs, medical devices and medicines that the Imperium cannot do without. Their craft produces meats and other proteins that they sell to the Imperium. And yet let me tell you: they only export their lowest-quality goods. The best and the most delightful perfumes, foods, and lavish delights, they keep to themselves. They indeed are kings of their own, and from their golden worlds they wait for the rest of Humanity to rot.

– TOR RAGHDRAM: MY CLANDESTINE JOURNEY INTO THE FORBIDDEN PLANETS

It was thirty days of work. First the cleaning, every surface disinfected and blessed, then the self purification, the kneeling and pronouncements. Emotion is the enemy of reason. Scytale realized he had lived too long as a prey to lower energies. Fear, isolation, doubt. The newfound dedication to the Work had cleansed him of impure thoughts, impure actions, impure feelings. The Work never ends , he reminded himself. The Work does not hurry. The toil of the peasant is the glory of God. And he was the last peasant, a special peasant, for he was both the farmer and the seed. I consecrate myself to the Work. He was immersed in the darkness of his new apartments on the no-ship. He was certain the comeyes could see in the dark, but anything he could to hide his exact movements from the crew. 

It all started with a flowering plant, leaving the lizard alone in its cage. He licked the pistils, the pollen being the catalyzer imprinted in his body's memory. Every master is a master and a ghola, the creator and the creation. His saliva became dense, opaque as it reacted. He reached out to the flower to deposit a drop. 

Three days later, he collected the little berry that the flower had turned into, catalyzed by his act of pollination. He sliced the leg of the lizard with a knife, applied the crushed berry juice on it. The small lizard, no longer than a palm long, shrieked. Since the Great discovery, masters have forged themselves to be a seed. All the universe in one body. A few minutes later he dunked the animal in a water bowl. He stopped, thanking the poor little animal for its service and suffering. 

Seven days later, the little animal had started to grow a new, tender limb. Life anew. The first Tleilaxu masters were artists of the flesh. No machines, no chemical shortcuts. Painless work, experimentations in translating the language of God. Within the Work, we give and we take. We gift what we give, we regret what we take. He drank the water of the bowl, added back his urine. My body is its own tank, a reservoir of surprises. 

Nine days later, the lizard body had extruded many limbs which stuck to the bottom of the bowl. It did not move anymore, its appearance closer to that of a tree with many roots. Its front fingers up in the air, the head immobile with eyes open. Now he had the limb stumps with which he could grow more catalysts. He started focusing on the guinea pig. Tanks made via enzymes produced by the master's body, guess that witches! 

If only he had some company. He thought of Waff, even of Bijaz. Bijaz, Malik-brother, would chastise me now. Face Dancers, the Innocents. Masters, the Experienced. What did we do wrong? We drowned in the decadence of Bandalong. Lost interest. We stopped engaging with the universe. It was the Scattered Masters who made the Futars, and we could not even grasp their methods. 

Ten days later, the little pig's stomach had grown tenfold. His fat body made his movements slow in its pen. The zipper on its stomach allowed for easy access when the enzymes needed to be extracted. Fluids from the lizard being refined and elaborated via the mammal's digestion. The eleventh day, the lizard was transplanted into the stomach cavity. The primordial stew.   

Every great work has its unnamed victims. He kept the lizard-tree alive with the aid of fluid mixtures he kept preparing with the plant and his body fluids, collecting the new colloids from the aching pig. In creating something, get closer to God. His mind felt pure now, his senses balanced. I regret the pain I caused these animals. I shall regret more the pain I will cause to the women in the tanks. Let their breasts spring spice in fountains of orange and brown fluids, and then I will have the token to bargain for my Face Dancers.

Unless a faster way out presented itself. I remain enslaved to Sheeana and her Sisters. But they don’t have my soul. I remain Your humble servant.  

Chapter Text

XI.
Contingency Plans

Us Bene Gesserit refer to it as “Murbella’s Stew”. It is really chef Placido’s creation under the direction of late Reverend Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, but that is not the point. Shortly after the Honored Matres arrived on Chapterhouse, everything R.M.S. Murbella did became a signal of status for them. Walk in the orchards? There must be a deep significance. Spice coffee? Certainly it had mystic powers. Oyster stew? Only the Reverend Mother Superior had it in company with her closest advisors. Suddenly the new Matres/Reverend Mothers went around Central dressed like Murbella, acted like Murbella, chased the same clothing, hairdo, jewelry, vocabulary. Never before we had had a celebrity R.M.S. She kept them hanging by continuously making changes, and keeping some items out of reach. That oyster stew became the most coveted of all in a rapidly desertifying world. And so “Murbella’s Stew” became our label for the never-ending, never-satisfying chase for status embodied by petty objects. To pull off a “Placido Salat” is the act of exploiting people’s craving for status with manufactured exclusivity.

- THE KRAZELIC COMMENTARIES 

“What should we tell the envoy?” Belllonda repeated in a hoarse voice while aide Badrana was serving a light breakfast. Food and drink did go well with decision-making, but Bell was not to make a point with Murbella at that moment. Especially not in front of the recently restored comeyes which were now recording the meeting for the Archives; especially not in front of a full council of both Reverend Mothers and Honored Matres.

“Here, this is a living fossil. A croissant .” Disregarding Bell’s last comment, Murbella bit on the baked thing, a recipe chef Duane had just brought back from the most ancient times. The councilors sat refraining from touching the food. 

The fact that full Reverend Mothers did not need an explanation was not lost on the Matres who were sitting with her and watching Murbella’s act of conspicuous consumption. “A fossil from old Terra. Still delicious,” she continued while sipping coffee. In a clear break of manners for a Sister, she continued to talk while chewing. Show them power, show them disinhibition. “The trick is to get the crust to be crisp, while the custard needs to be fresh. Ashala, try some,” she pointed to the Reverend Mother Ashala, the recently elected Magistra Equitum, who shook her head.

“Respectfully, can we continue, Reverend Mother Superior?” blurted Bell. The rays of the sun had shifted in the room up to a point in the wall that marked the mid-morning, and the window panes became tinted to blur the intensity of the light.

“She is making a point,” helped Matre Angelika, playing for her Sisters and the comeyes.

“No matter, we can come back to this,” Murbella continued, swallowing down the last bite. “Angelika, you may continue. What do the Matres know about these Handlers from the Scattering?”

Angelika raised her chin, with her full blue eyes induced by the spice addiction which displayed with pride her recently acquired status. The spice agony had produced a new depth in her, though it had not blunt her ambition one bit. Apparent to all the eight councilors standing in the room, Matre Angelika and Magistra Ashala were the yin and yang in the room, Murbella's natural successors.  

“Please hear my words, Sisters, as this is information that was not disclosed before even in our ranks,” Angelika paused for effect, “Before the meeting of our Orders, we had been on a mad march to the Million Worlds to find respite. Our forces now are effectively a tenth of what they used to be, equipment and manpower-wise. We suffered three large defeats in battle with what we simply call the Hunters, and you call Handlers. This enemy has not directly engaged diplomatically, is superior in terms of weaponry, spacecraft and intelligence. We used to have extensive intelligence on them but our original headquarters on Steilan was destroyed in a surprise attack that wiped out a third of our forces.”

Murmurs started around the room among the Matres in attendance. One tenth? No intelligence? Murbella registered this by making eye contact with Bell and Teg. So the extent of the crisis had been kept from most of the Matres by the previous regime.

“What held them back from completely destroying you?” asked Ashala. 

“Their style varies from all-in space battles to hit-and-go invasions. They don’t generally seem to spend much time establishing control of the planets they have taken from us.”

“Any insight as to their government, aims?”

“We do not know. None of the Matres here today remembers a time where there was a peaceful engagement between them and ours. Fleurinde was the first time they attacked – a massive landing after taking over our orbital forces. After that we have approached them on neutral ground, mostly ineffectively. Ahem,”

“Ineffectively?”

“We tried to capture and bond some, with success; however each time the planet was invaded shortly after and the subjects perished. For the Mentats in the room, the reports on ridulian paper provide details on their tactics and equipment.” 

“That’s enough to digest, Angelika,” intervened Murbella. An unhappy Teg put his hands on the report: “A mentat needs data. Give me access to the Matres’ spy network, to their archives.”

“Granted,” it was Angelika and not Murbella who had spoken. That small override was met with concerned looks, then the Matres in the room relaxed. They had just been reassured of their role in the hierarchy. Mentats come after.   

“It is important to notice," Ashala took over, "that never before the Handlers had reached out to Matres; they established contact on Buzzell with the Bene Gesserit, and them reaching out formally right now gives us the possibility to gain breathing space.” 

“Against attack? But, we are not Honored Matres!” commented Bell.

“There are no more Mothers, nor Matres, only Sisters.” intervened Murbella calmly. "Let us hope we can convince them of this." She stood up, looking at every council member in the eyes, daring them to speak, paused. 

Here I rule with silence while the power is still strong in my hand, Murbella thought. She had the Romans to thank. Their Republic was mortally threatened, and the Senate elected a chief magistrate with extraordinary powers. Those were the exact words she had used at the Bene Gesserit Convocation she was forced to hold after the failed attempt at her life. She had stood and formally asked for a vote. "Dictator!" she had said. "My Sisters, you know the Latin meaning: 'the prescriber'. We are dead without change. Our Teachings will last, but our attachments will perish. I urge you to keep me your prescriber. The comeyes and observers will be reinstated. I also allow you to elect my right hand, the Magistra Equitum. The Romans knew it best". And so it had happened, and Ashala's title had stuck. 

A decision was needed, right then. A tremble shook her for a moment. Murbella saw reflected in her retina the faces of thousands of Reverend Mother Memories. She breathed in, proferred the plan like an act of creation:

"Teg and I will meet the envoy in person. On Gammu."

Bell shook her head: "Too dangerous."

"I trust Teg to prepare arrangements. I need to lead by example. Angelika, yours is to check if among our Matres' assets there is talent to be found to condition our captive Futars to hunt Face Dancers," the Matre nodded in silence.

“It is just a theory so far,” commented Teg, “we don’t know that the Handlers are Face Dancers.”

“No taking chances,” was Murbella’s reply.

"The practice of sexual bonding stops today," Murbella continued. "Matres and Imprinters both. I need to show proof of atonement." 

The Matres in the room gasped. Atonement?

"Teg, complete the census of the Million Atreides bloodlines. All survivors to be listed in case of evacuation. The Idaho bloodlines too."

"Evacuation, Murbella?"

"Hatch a plan. Both Sisterhoods may have to go underground and Scatter."

"We are not going down without a fight!" protested one of the lesser Matres.

"Are you to be slaughtered on the field while we all watch?" asked Ashala politely.

"Reverend Mother, do we clone Sheeana?" Bell's imagination had already leaped ahead. The Missionaria was going to play a critical role in the Scattering. 

"I rule against! We will not duplicate a Sister. Ever. Let us be clear for all the Sisters to hear," the message hung in the air for everybody to absorb. We have the secret of eternal serial life, but we will never use it for ourselves! You could see from their reaction who in the room had hoped to take advantage of the axolotl tanks.  

"I order every Matre on every planet to submit to the Agony in the next ninety days. Take every care that as many as possible will survive."

"Whoever refuses, let them join the splinter Sisters," suggested Angelika. Feed the enemy of our enemy. Teg nodded.

"So be it. Reverend Mother Bellonda, the agony will need much spice. See to it."

She looked back at the wild gazes of her Councilors, roared: "Let it be clear that I will be a wolf hiding in sheep skin. Does anybody want to challenge me? Challenge me now!" 

She sat back down on her chair, muscles ready to leap, but in reality she had merely ended the meeting. In wild discomfort, the councilors exited the room, hiding their emotions with Bene Gesserit elegance. Only Bell was lingering, staring for some reasons at the crumbles on the table.

"We cannot risk you, Murbella. How is Dar counseling you?"

“Do you wish me weak? I will not hide behind a chair while mortal forces are at work. But I am not a gambler, and Teg will assist me. The Sisterhood has become one of these food fossils, Bell. Delicious in their own times. Adapt or die is the first rule of life. Badrana, lunch in my quarters."

"Oyster stew again, Reverend Mother Superior?"

"The accursed stew, yes. And make sure you make a big spectacle of it at the cafeteria."

Chapter Text

XII.
Cognitive Gaps

For the human mind was shaped by the forces of evolution to survive. Logic is not innate to it. “Better an egg today than an egg tomorrow.” Ancient wisdom runs so deep it was encoded in the cells of the primates that trod upon the land before Homo Habilis started to craft tools. Today’s primates behave according to deep psychological conditioning that ensures the species will survive. Eat now, fast later. Exploit then explore. When us humans look in the mirror, we do not see the plank in our own eyes. This is why we will endeavor to correct the incorrigible human nature. Scientific methods first. Then we will build a better mirror, one that does not simply look into the eye, but which at the occasion will punch back its owner. Only in the balance of forces will we set humans free.

— THE IXIAN RENAISSANCE    

Four cards were laid on a white table in front of the Reverend Mother Visella, who was captive on the unmapped planet of Agarath. She had been at this for the whole morning, comfortably sitting in her newly assigned apartments in one of the vertiginously high towers in the jungle. A robo-server pointed at the cards with a robotic arm and asked in a mechanical voice: “Each card has numbers or letters printed on each side.”

“I’d rather be done with this,” she commented, unsure whether the robo-server listened. Giant eagles were circling around the building, using a thermal column to lift. They were spectacular to watch. With a sigh, she focused her gaze on the four cards, which read: 1, K, A, 4. Feeling under the lenses like an Acolyte's examination. 

“Allow me to focus you on the task at hand, Reverend Mother. Which cards would you turn to prove this rule: behind every vowel there is always an even number?”

She paused. “A and 1.”

“Correct,” pressed on the robot, “Annotations: delay registered in response time, still faster than average human subjects.”

She leaned back on the chair, “how many more batteries of tests do you want me to get through? I am starving.”

“Biological responses are inhibited by lack of nutrition, thirst, and lack of sleep. We will suspend the test at this moment.” and the robot ran away, hopefully looking for lunch.

Visella stood up with the control and elegance of a Bene Gesserit. Oppressive humidity, air climatization notwithstanding – she thought she would have grown used to it after many months – and hunger were nothing compared to more pressing needs: she knew in a few hours she would enter spice withdrawal. She could feel her stomach twitch. Her lucidity had lapses.

A figure dressed in gray stood by the entrance. A human assistant had been assigned to her. Or jailor. Jails on this planet are friendly and comfortable. “Good day, Leerna,” Visella ventured, “your test subject is taking a break.”

“Good day to you, Reverend Mother” replied Leerna, an unusually tall young woman wearing a bulky gray suit that seemed to be distinctive of the bureaucrat class on this planet. “I brought you some food.” She unwrapped several leavened dough pockets, placing them on the low table near Visella. Lunch customs were very informal on the planet, she had noticed. And spicy does not begin to describe the cuisine.

“I had in mind to ask you what your plans are for me here,” she commented some time later, after the first pocket of meat and wild eggs had been munched away, “The tests. The scoring. What this is all about.”
“The Sapients I work for are very keen on probing human programming. Instinctual behaviors, and cognitive gaps,” replied Leerna, sharing in some of the food and drinking an orange liquid from a curious saddlebag. A tonic, Visella had learned.  

“And the reason you are testing a Reverend Mother among all the people here on this planet is…”
“The Bene Gesserit training is legendary , Reverend Mother!”

“You know what that robot asked me a few minutes ago? I quote: ‘You are three people on an abandoned island, with nothing to eat. Due to an accident, one of you has fallen into a deep coma. You will die of hunger in a couple of days. There are no food sources. What do you do? ’ It was very keen to learn whether I would have butchered my comatose companion in order to survive. And then, it asked: ‘What if the companion in question is your sister? Your mother? ’ These androids have a morbid imagination.”

“They are curious.”
“So what ethical system do they subscribe to? Beyond Buddhism. Do they consider a fly’s life and a human one all one and the same?”
“A fly’s life is very short and its brain is quite limited.”
“Make sure you tell them that, Leerna.”
“And so what did you tell them? About the island, I mean.” and her jailor offered a sip of the orange liquid. She had obliged, letting the spicy orange syrup warm her throat. Sharing food and drink is a sign of interdependence.

“Well, Reverend Mothers can induce a deep trance to slow down our rhythms and survive for a month. It was too early to decide. Too bad for your employer’s hopes for cannibalism.”
“How about the lifeboats question?" Leerna pressed on. "Did it ask whom to choose to save when sinking on a ship without enough lifeboats?”
“Yes?”
“And?”
“You will be surprised how large human groups can make their own decisions when under pressure. The species has an instinct for survival. Who decides?”
“So fertile women will be given room…” started Leerna.
“And room for enough rowers and navigators to make the journey…” continued Visella.
“And… children?” There was an air of expectancy around that question.

Visella flashed a disarming smile: “If it truly were the end of the world, my dear, the unholy truth is that the children would not be saved. The species needs all the fertile men and women who can ensure continuity. The children are weak, may not survive the journey and will deplete the party’s resources. Did you know the primates on Mizar eat their offspring during catastrophic famines? The surviving females can always rebuild the species.”

“Provided there is one male left. Isn’t it cruel?”

“Real humans make merciless decisions. Isn’t it a paradox that it takes a human a ruthless ethical leap to cross the chasm of innocence, while animals do so out of their instincts?”

Leerna remained silent.

“It is a beautiful day as always, Leerna. Come, walk me outside to the roof… ooh…” Visella visibly stumbled while getting up.
“What is it, Reverend Mother?”
“Spice withdrawal. I meant to warn you. My subcutaneous injector is empty. Hold me!” and she fell into the woman’s arms while her arms and legs started to twitch.
“My apologies, we did not know!”
“My eyes have no white in it, Leerna. I need…”
“But there is no spice in the Scattering, Reverend Mother. How did you?”

Visions started interfering with her eyesight. 

“My ship…” she continued, gasping for air. “My stash...” then started to shake uncontrollably. 

A robo-server swung the door open coming in. Visella was gently laid on a gurney by two robo-servers, with Leerna at her side. Other Memory invaded her erratic thought process, an endless procession of Reverend Mothers too scared to be kept in check. The face of her own biological mother took over her inner eye. Now the seizure starts. Focus on your mind while letting go of your body. A pain greater than the Agony started enveloping her into a nightmarish darkness.

In between the spasms she detected the injection of a sedative, which did little to slow down the seizure. “To my ship!” she continued to implore. 

Finally a reluctant Leerna ordered the robots to a transport. “To the ship! I will get clearance to open it!” she shouted in a microphone attached to her suit.

It was a full hour of agony until they arrived at the spaceport. Spasms and tremors followed her all the way. Leerna put something in her mouth to make sure she did not swallow her tongue. Her blue eyes rolled back in the eyesockets revealing blue on blue – and no pupils.

Finally, her silvery lighter, a compact vessel no more than 150-foot long stood in the open air, the entrance passage to the airlock open. In a moment of calm between seizures, Visella sat and gasped: “Let me in. Let me in! It is protected by a spring trap…” 

“Reverend Mother, I will come with you.” the preoccupied Leerna was visibly shaken, eyes betraying fear for her captive. One arm over her shoulder, she helped the Mother step down and climb the stairs to the main cabin. They had arrived at the airlock, the exterior door opening at Leerna's soft touch. With her help, Visella laid down on the metal floor, while breathing irregularly. The trap was already disabled. 

"Find a blue capsule hidden in the casing just right of the pilot's cockpit" she blurted.

Visions started blurring her eyesight again . 
Footsteps on a metallic floor, the airlock's interior door opening, fading in her consciousness. 
Waiting in waves of pain.
Saffron and indigo lights sparkled in the twilight, carrying distorted memories from distant pasts. 
The aching was so insufferable it was speaking to her.
Filaments of firefly-like light glowed from hundreds of people locking arms together. 
Rushed footsteps coming back and hands gently raising her chest. 

A drop of a liquid touched her tongue, felt blue in her mouth in a synesthetic sensation as she swirled it, tasted it, welcomed it. From out in the nowhere her mind came back, like an echo bouncing back across millions of worlds. A fraction of a second had elapsed, but in her subjective time it seemed several minutes. 

"Reverend Mother, open your eyes!" implored Leerna.

Visella opened her eyes...
... a flicker of awareness ...
... nerves once again tense like at the peak of her training...
... the sudden twisting of the body with her fingers rigid like a blade...   
"Revere.. Oh!" a gush of blood erupted from the jugular which had been cut just below Leerna's chin.

Visella was up and even before she could ask herself if she could stand. The drop of spice had been way more than her daily dose but still short of what her body needed. Like a drunk body being unceremoniously awakened by a drop of wine after a night's drinking , she could not help herself from thinking as the similitude appeared unbidden in her mind from the depth of Other Memory. Time felt suspended.

She saw the fork in the road.

Leerna, her captor, laid on the floor, blood rapidly flowing onto the floor from the gash Visella had opened with her bare fingers. The poor thing was gasping for air. 

Freedom, just a few feet away.

Visella jumped through the open door of the ship's airlock and into the cockpit no more than ten paces away, used her thumb on the scanner which instantly activated the ship's systems, started the engines and initiated the take off procedure, sealing both airlock doors. Within five seconds, all systems were nominal. Outside of the window she could see no reaction -- the robo-servers standing idle next to the gurney outside, the airlock out of sight . The internal camera showed red on the metal floor.

The Sisterhood needs to know!

Freedom was near...
... so near...
... and yet...
... and then just yet...

Visella catapulted herself out of the cockpit, crashed open a nearby container and in a moment was back opening the airlock door. Self-shaping bandages and a blood-stiller syringe emerged from the container and were in her hands before she could think.

A few moments later, a stabilized Leerna was breathing through a tube pierced in her throat while the blood had stopped hemorrhaging, the vein held firm in place with the improvised medical equipment. 

Now bring her in and take off!

And right then, the engines shuttered. The robo-servers opened the outside door, entering with the gurney and Sapient Arbatar following suit.
"Help me! She is stable now but needs a transfusion! She is unconscious, her pulse is stable."
The robo-servers gently took Leerna's body from her, hurried her away on the gurney. What looked like a medical vehicle was standing just outside, on the tarmac.
The Sapient looked at her watch with a worried look, then relaxed: "The robo-servers are examining her right now. I am told that she will survive. You have my thanks."

"I couldn't..." Visella stuttered.
"I know."
"I just..."

"Breathe in and lay down, Reverend Mother. You obviously are still in withdrawal, so if you will endeavor to give me instructions I will retrieve the melange."

Agony was about to sweep her again. She nodded, laid down while giving Arbatar the instructions. 
"There is a box hidden in the hold . Skin injectors. My fingerprints..."
A slight touch on her forehead, and the Sapient was gone. 

A couple of minutes later, holding a fresh new injector stuck to her arm, Visella came back to her senses. She deliberatively feigned confusion for a bit, assessing her chances while the Sapient was busy around her. 

Unlikely she could overpower an android whose skin did not mind scalding hot teapots.
The airlock's interior door was now closed and locked.
Plenty of people and robots seemed to be waiting outside. 
The engines had shuttered -- if they had installed remote controls, at this point they were turned on and in range.  

Damn!

"I missed my chance, haven't I?" she commented slowly standing up, the extra dose of melange creating pain and ecstasy through her veins.  
"Have you?" 
"How could you be here in such a short time? Was all this planned?"
"Was it?"

Rage filled her once again.

“So that was staged? How did you guess my intentions?”
“No tricks, Reverend Mother. The opportunity for a natural experiment presented itself,” Sapient Arbatar's smile was not a mocking one, “one you brilliantly passed!”
 “You infamous piece of circuitry! You did keep me away from the ship until you were sure I was going to go into withdrawal…”
“Crisis and survival.”
“You wanted to see how far I would go? Discover my hidden spice reserve? Pocket the money?”
“The spice? Pah !” Arbatar waived a hand as to say like sand in the wind !

Visella was shocked. “That thimble of spice that is my sustenance could buy you a planet here in the Scattering!”

Arbatar offered her arm to steady the Reverend Mother's pace as they stepped out in the open. A dozen people stood outside in what looked like military gear. 
“But courage and wisdom weighs less and is worth more, Reverend Mother. What is the weight of a soul?”
She sighed. “And so I am once again your captive, I just won’t die too soon.”
“Aaah, but we would like you to rule instead, Visella,” said the android, using her name for the first time. 
“What?”
“Moral obligations and natural pressures. We just witnessed an outstanding performance. Will you accept to become one of our Six Sages?
“Your executive council? But there are only Five, all machines like you…”
“It is time to introduce new sensibilities.”
“You still won’t let me leave!”
“No, but you will be in a position of power and respect.”
“As it befits a Reverend Mother”.  
“As it befits a moral being. A species that is hard to find.”
“You are sifting through people!” she sneered.
“And machines alike,” the Sapient smiled complicitly. “Why, we learn from the best!”
“Then I will teach you a lesson you will never forget!”, she replied.
“And thus teaching to one another, our two kinds will endure.”

Arbatar's face betrayed only elation, with a degree of amusement. The android stood with her hands joined as other people -- new captors? -- helped Visella to the nearest vehicle, where she collapsed thankful on the seat, exhausted and enraged.

A gust of air blew dust all around them as the vehicle sped through the tarmac, and the wind blew in whirlwinds on the hot surface of the spaceport’s field. A giant eagle from above shrieked and its sound was heard to the very top of the mile-high buildings that towered around them.

Chapter Text

XIII.
The Festival

It’s proven that paradigm changes in society and human awareness appear only when new generations take over from the previous ones. Do you see now the inherent paradox in every Reverend Mother?

 –  DARWI ODRADE, THE BENE GESSERIT CODA 

Sheeana, the youngest ever Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit and fugitive in the Scattering, had chosen a light festive dress and then decided to hide it underneath her traditional hooded robe; at the level of her ankles, just above her leather sandals, she allowed two colorful anklets to show through. The same sandals stepped onto the soft, dusty soil of the new world. Moving as a tight group of nine, five with full blue eyes – the sign of spice addiction – masked by contact lenses, she and her Sisters made slow progress among the crowds that had gathered in the large capital of Lat in the drylands of Delphyne. The ozone in the air after the light rain, the smell of the food stalls, the merchants calling their wares from the gates of the big city enveloped her in a journey of the senses, everything so vivid, magnified in her awareness. After the seclusion of the spaceship, the recycled air, the geometrical passages and tunnels, she felt her mind expand, her heart touched by a cascade of everyday memories she thought she would not feel again. She stared at the white, fluffy clouds in the azure sky, pondered if they would be soft at the touch. Who thought the sky could be so deep.

A sandy-haired mid-age woman named Ecath was their hired guide, more than a wrinkle of wisdom showing on her tanned face. Sheeana had liked her immediately because she did very little to hide the aging of her face, and even less the pride in her eyes. Navigating the streets on foot while chatting up her audience, she carefully avoided asking questions. Was that the custom with exo-planetary pilgrims? Their guide paused in her walk to aim at a passerby with her gaze, murmuring back to the Sisters she was leading.

“Who is that? A merchant perhaps?”, wondered Sheeana out loud. As she was picking up conversations along the way, she was registering the unusual vocabulary and intonations of the local Galach dialect, miraculously still intelligible to her.  

“You are blessed with intuition, madam,” chimed in Ecath, “The red and black suit marks him as a Cornucopian. Wealthy. Crops and cattle engineering. Any land they touch, they turn into the Prophetess’ most fertile land. They say their planets grow wheat as tall as buildings, vegetables so large they live in them,” she gestured with arms wide.

“What about the bodyguards around him?” ventured Oriana, the only one walking close to Sheeana and caring not to be distracted. The two who walked with him were short, man and woman, ornately dressed with white jackets that were wrapped in gold ridges creating a symmetrical pattern, and what looked like traditional curved scabbards on their sides.

“The ones in white and gold are Spearwood bodyguards. Always in pairs, woman and man. They contract for life; should something happened to their patron, they will remain in his service until justice is exacted, and then commit ritual suicide," remarked Ecath. 

"They must be the subject of more than a folk ballad," commented Walli while passing the trio which was soberingly walking down the road. It was good it had not stopped at the loud comments. But Sheeana felt daring in the open air. After all, they could be any group of strangers from any strange planet dropping in for the festival. She was aware of the subtle looks trailing the group, some of the men trying to lock gaze with her despite her somber robes. Their merry company strode forth in an andante con brio, laughter and excitement leaving a trail that smelled like adventure. 

"They are!” continued the guide, “Many Delphyne’s ballads sing of the love of man and woman as they seek revenge for their dead master, and then find their tragic end when all evil has been vanquished. Blades flashing at candlelight, presumed dead men waking up after their soulmate has already taken her life." Ecath spoke with a sharp, factual tone that made clear she was past that tragic material. "Spearwood tree is sharper than metal and virtually unbendable, making it the traditional material for their curved blades. But do not be mistaken, the swords are for show. These bodyguards are deadly with projectile weapons and in close quarters. Or so the ballads say."

"Let's hope we will never find out,” smiled Sheeana as the group brushed past a fortune-teller and a hooded client intent on reading the ancient Tarot. They came closer to some market stalls offering alien-looking cosmetics, herbs, and folk remedies. An array of powders, tools, charms and other portents was displayed in all hues of the rainbow, their exotic scents mounting an assault to their nostrils. On the days of Dur's Decennial Festival on Delphyne the big crowds drew the traders out of their shops and into the streets; pilgrims came from distant systems in brown robes, men in ruby shirts and short pants, the occasional lady in white.

"And if you do, hope to have them by your side. Chivalrous, the Spearwood guards. Did you notice the black collars? They were showing off their nervine armor. Traditional vine grown on Senke. Madams?" 

But the Sisters, including Ecath, had already veered toward the stalls like bees swarming to the hive and were marveling at the wares on display, asking the vendors to illustrate. Their many-color summer clothes made a splash against the more sober hues of the pilgrims around, drawing many looks. What were those flowers for? And the pigments, what plant or creature were they made of?

"Very sensitive vine," muttered the guide to Sheeana, bothered by having lost her hold on the audience. "It is trained to attune with the owner’s nervous system and hardens in place when its owner senses danger. Flexible and tough."

Sheeana noticed the girls were flirting with the male vendors, certainly to get a discount on the perfumes. And what marvel were those orchids? "These red ones, madam, they are aphrodisiac orchids. Do not smell them here in public. I can pack them for you in a static capsule," belabored the seller, a young lady with an elaborate hairdo and sprinkling stars painted on her skin. Showing off her products . "Ecath," she went back to her guide, "'it is a delight to listen to your knowledge. How do you know so much?”

“I have had many friends and many lovers, madam. Delphyne is a crossroads planet, and in my youth I was possessed by an insatiable curiosity for strangers,” she replied smiling. 

Reason why you pushed hard to be your guide; what else had she said? ‘Madam, this is a planet of diverse sensibilities. A man escorting a woman is a chaperon. A man with a group of ladies is suspicious. An older woman guiding the group is just the teacher training the pups’.

"An insatiable curiosity... and what products here would you recommend my Sisters use in order to satisfy theirs?"

"Theirs and yours, madam?"

"And mine, Ecath."

A genuine smile came to her guide unbidden: "Madam, but you are young and attractive, you need nothing from these stalls. Still, I will be happy to illustrate some of my favorites." And the guide proceeded to list the power of the scent of each and every orchid – from calming, to relaxing, to arousing, and more. "This cactus needle you can dip into the essence of dreamstate – prickle your rival and she will be sleeping for a good night's sleep, leaving you alone to pursue your lover's attention. These fireflies, you buy in bottles and add a drop of your perfume, or simply a hair. Then you can lift the cap and they will light the air around your figure, creating the most beautiful display – dressed or not." All the Sisters were now quietly listening to Ecath the teacher. "Those jars of mud contain living algae that will cover your body and burn your outside layer so that when they are done, your skin will be as soft as a baby’s".

"Did you hear that? Come on girls, get some!" urged Sheeana.

The Sisters were haggling hard with the sellers now. She only hoped they would not openly use Voice. The sun on their backs felt so nourishing, and it was so restorative to lose just a little bit of control, to frolic in the fresh air. Notwithstanding the Bene Gesserit discipline, living in a ship could be the death of the spirit. She felt pity for Duncan, forever forced to live in a no-ship or other no-room lest he made himself discoverable by prescient seekers. The very same Duncan who had disapproved of this planet-side stop. “You have no idea of what awaits us below on this planet!” he had blurted, eyes possessively looking at her, following the soft, brown cheeks down to the curve of her neck in a way that felt uncomfortable to her, but not unpleasant. She had stood her ground: “Teg has sent a spy in recon. It is an agricultural planet and a religious center, independently governed, and nobody seems to know about the Matres. You did well Duncan, throwing us to the deep end of the Scattering! We cannot stay bottled up in a ship for the rest of our existence. It is time to go down and experience. Life awaits!” she concluded, looking joyfully at the many-lives Duncan. 

While she was replaying the meeting in her mind, a tall lady dressed in white and red translucent veils, which did little to conceal the toned body underneath, came to the stall, walking lightly with feet clad in white sandals sporting charm anklets, whose white pearls shone in the morning light. She started looking at the powders, her make-up carefully applied in the manner of an Egyptian goddess of old, Sheeana noticed. She was watching with interest the girls' excited conversations.

"Ha," had warned her Duncan still, "this carelessness, this naivete will get you in trouble. Why do you seek the innocent bliss of the inexperienced...," at which she had lashed out with a Reverend Mother's Voice "I am a grown Reverend Mother! Do you want to know what the lives in my other memory think of your chiding, Atreides?". He had taken a step back, not because of her use of Voice, she had noticed, but perhaps just regret. Then he had unexpectedly taken her hand in his and lowered his voice “It is important to me to know that you will be safe there. I will ask Teg to take extra care. You are important. I will wait here.” Sheeana had taken her hand back, frustrated at a little charge of electricity she had felt at the touch. Her lungs were breathing in his skin's smell admittedly for a little longer than her training required to read his emotions. “What escort? We are all trained fighters!” she had replied, and she had then strode out.

“Who is that lady in white?” whispered Oriana a little too loud. A few faces around them took a step back; the lady in question met Sheeana’s gaze for a moment, revealing fierce, exacting eyes. Sheeana felt a strange similarity to Murbella’s. Reality came back to her as the white lady pointed a finger to a nearby masseuse who was massaging a weary traveler’s back, and raised her voice above the crowd. "Security! That girl!” In a swift moment two guards dressed in black under the scorching midday sun stepped out of the crowd and surrounded the masseuse. 

“I am Eilenna of the Houris and I invoke the Order's privilege! No unlicensed services on city grounds. I have exclusivity and you have not purchased a permit. Same with you perfume sellers! The orchids, the powders and the charms are subject to the Order’s permits. I am here with the city's enforcers to see you fined and removed and your goods confiscated. Bless the Goddess!"

Sheeana froze in surprise. Hints of Voice-like tonalities!

In a heartbeat the masseuse and the perfume sellers were on their knees: "Goddess' lady! I seek your benevolence! We were not aware the Order ruled the festival town! Let us go with our lives and belongings! These wares belong to you." In a heartbeat all the nearby customers, including her Sisters, who were too close to the scene, took furtive steps back, money still in their hands or bags full of merchandise finding their way in the folds of their clothes. 

"Apologies and concessions! As it is required! Eilenna is satisfied. You are free to go but will incur in my Order’s wrath should any of you be seen here again.” The sellers shouted "The Goddess may bless your mercy!" and promptly stood up, took the cash box and strode away without looking back. “Lucky ones! The fine is the nine-tailed cat,” whispered Ecath. Then she pulled Sheeana’s sleeve peremptorily and whispered: "Walk away with your eyes on the ground!" 

The eight of them took notice and started to turn, eyes low but Bene Gesserit senses on high alert. New land, new customs, thought Sheeana. So what is a Houri? 

"You, stop!" barked the white lady from behind their backs. 

No Voice, but they froze nevertheless, then slowly turned around. Sheeana prepared herself for the confrontation. Foolish of us! We should have scattered around and regrouped far from watchful eyes!

"You heard me too, women! Our privilege extends to all services. No escorts in the festival city are allowed besides the Order’s! What you bought from these sellers, and your looks betray your cover. You will now drop what you have and reveal yourselves to me, for the Order does not tolerate competition. This is our market!"

Several scenarios went through Sheeana's mind. No reason to pick a fight with a local authority they did not know. "Obey, Madam. The Houris are sacred,” whispered Ecath. Yet this lady’s impudence had hit her hard. The Sisterhood could make an example of bad behavior, even when in disguise. 

"My lady," Sheeana raised her Voice over the crowd that was watching, while closing the door of other Memory to the countless Reverend Mothers who were in turmoil in her head, "We are but visitors going about.”

“You have coin to spend, that I have seen!”

“Just a game! Pretending to be highborn ladies for a day. Our skins are worn and our hearts are sad. What harm is it from prettying up for once to forget our carefree youth and long lost lovers?"

"Worn skins, you say! Remove the hood and let me be the judge!" cried the Houri. The crowd was following at a distance. Walli and the other Sisters imperceptibly changed stance, ready to flee as much as to resist. They could see their wild Sheeana was in a fighting mood.  

Sheeana removed her hood in a move that showed the dress under the robe. She stood defiantly, flowing dark hair on brown skin, oval face with sharp features with the marks of her early Rakis years, and with fiery, intense eyes. The guards made a step forward, cautious but with batons at the ready.

"I knew it was a cover! Robes of a pilgrim over the dress of a temptress. Security, stop them!"

The guards (they only would be victims) made two steps forward…

… Sheeana gasped surprised as a feeling of energy climbed from her feet, spiraling up her body and electrifying her hair. A wild rage filled her mind while her mind went blank…

The guards approached, framing the white lady's figure in the center.

Then Ecath threw herself in front of her, hands up to the sky shouting "Ariesh’a! Sister of the tribe, hold and listen!" 

And everything stopped!

"Sister of kin,” their guide continued in a calm but loud voice, “I beg you not to cross your tribe in the hour of need!" silence stilled the crowd. "Delphyne was your home as it is mine. You may have forgotten, but my blood is your blood. Your village was my village!"

Everybody around them took a cautious step back, the air dead quiet. "I am a guide of Lat and have sworn the Guide's oath. I will see my patrons to safety. I am your sister of kin, born in the same village. Don’t you remember me? Is kin less important than business?"

"This is my claim!" squirmed the Houri, furious but suddenly less certain.

"The Festival is here! I guide these visitors. What would Dur think of the law of hospitality broken during His sacred days?" Ecath spoke directly to the guards.

In the brief silence that followed, Sheeana broke away from the living dream that had taken her. Uncharacteristically for her training, her mind had skipped a beat. I lost myself for a blink. But what was it? I felt a void surging inside. I have never felt so defiant!

Tension lingered in the air. The faith in Leto-Dur can be relied upon.

Then the lady in white and red raised her head, speaking to the crowd as much as to the guide: "I recognize you, blood of my blood. I am Sister of kin as much as I am the Goddess’ daughter. I put the responsibility of these women in your hands. You are free to go, but do not ever think for a moment to source any kind of business on city grounds, or you will see me again."

"I recognize you, Sister." replied Ecath in a hurry, pushing the party to march ahead. 

They walked briskly into the alleys of the suk, then ran until they were certain nobody had followed.

Chapter Text

XIV.
The Price of Spice

Tupile had been the place of refuge for renegade Great Houses since the Battle of Corrino. The Guild carefully kept the planet away from the Imperium’s focus. The Tupile Entente in reality encompassed far more planets than commonly believed. Under Shaddam IV, the Guild had expanded to a thousand worlds. The rate of expansion was only limited by available fuel, melange, and the cost of CHOAM bribes. The steady increase in the covert space trade with the planets off the Imperium contributed to spice prices tripling in the two centuries before Shaddam IV. The ascension of the Atreides is traditionally seen as a result of the Imperium’s political struggles; yet it ultimately originated in the Guild strengthening the monopolistic hold the owners of Arrakis could exert on all of Humanity.

— ATREIDES ACROSS THE AGES: A HISTORICAL REVISION 

“I seek the counsel of our planet Delphyne’s Cabinet regarding this matter. As the Orange Catholic Bible says, the gift of a lifetime is for one’s eyes to be opened wide,” concluded High Priest Brogallo at the end of his report. The small, disadorned room on the ground floor of the city of Lat’s Prismatic Tower lacked charm and solemnity, while providing all the qualities of a planetary situation room: no-globe insulation from prescient seekers, underground escape passages, and secure comm systems to connect with the rest of the planet and its orbital stations. 

“It is the real thing,” commented a man dressed in elegant animal leather and with a golden ring marking him as the head of Delphyne’s Commerce League. A crystal marble laid on the table, and inside it a single electric blue drop immersed in the clear liquid swirled without dissolving, kept together by its high surface tension. “The spice melange.” 

A needle inserted into the drop and then carefully withdrawn had produced the scent of cinnamon that Priest Brogallo, who had escaped from Rakis of old years before, found unmistakable. “It is our God’s blue elixir indeed,” he murmured, bringing the needle to his tongue. He dropped to his knees, crying: “By the product of Your suffering our souls will be tested!” and muttered a prayer. Around the room some, but not all, made the sign of Dur, patiently waiting. The group was tolerant to different faiths; always had been. “And it is not the diluted Tleilaxu imitation either,” chimed in an older woman carrying the insignia of the Minister of the Interior.

In the pause that followed, Priest Brogallo could almost hear everybody’s inner dialogue. This was the original spice melange created by Dur’s sandworms in the sands of Rakis before its great planetary annihilation. Nothing like that had been seen in decades! It had mystic power, not one that mere mortals could unleash. In a universe without sandworms, it was also the ultimate commodity. The rarest of the rarest of the currencies, the life-prolonging drug. It spoke of ecstasy, and power. The priest, coming back to his senses, was the first to break the silence: “Of course, it will be kept inside a temple from now on, and displayed to the public only during Dur’s festival at the turn of every decade. A holy gift for an auspicious time!”

"For God will fulfill your desires, and by those you will know thy punishment . Also from the O.C. Bible, oh Brother,” commented flatly the First Sayyadina.   

“But there are possibilities,” said the Suk Doctor.

“Where does it come from?” asked the League agent, a veil of suspicion in his eyes.

“Why, it came with the big ship!” replied the Commissioner.

“It cannot be just it,” said the Sayyadina, “this is but a sample. Did they tell you how much they are carrying in their hold, Brogallo?”

“What? Do you think there is more?” gasped the Priest.

“Of course there is more!” jumped the Agent, “That’s how they can part with a drop of it.”

“The two came this morning,” repeated the Priest, “Father and child. An odd couple. They donated the holy item. They did not seem to belong to the true Faith, to be true. But it is hard to know customs these days, with pilgrims and visitors from all places coming through.”

“What did they ask you to do in exchange?” inquired the Sayyadina.

“In exchange? No! They gave no conditions to their gift, but…”

“But you offered to help them with their stay in town, for the Festival. Did they ask to be shown around the Prismatic Tower? Did you give them the full tour?” she continued, lifting her head in a caricature of her fellow priest, “A 150-feet building rising just south of the festival plaza! Over countless flags in blue and saffron! The keystone for the twenty triangle-shaped buildings that encircle the festival area like a wind rose…’ “

The Priest blushed, diminished. “Well…”

“And then, at the end of your histrionics, they asked for your help. What did they say they are, traders looking for business contacts?” commented sarcastically the Sayyadina.

Priest Brogallo lowered his eyes.

In the silence that ensued, the Defense Commissioner spoke: “This. This is dangerous.” He was the only person wearing a plain, weathered green uniform. “Counselors, are you aware of our own reactions? Have you observed the smiles on your faces? This spice speaks many languages. It speaks of holiness to the pious, knowledge to the seeker, longevity to the fearful, riches to the greedy. I… like it not.”

“It is not the drop we have here, it is the stock they keep on their ship, or hidden away in some unmapped planet,” intervened the Agent, “How much will they have? A literjon? A cartful? Even a cupful may be enough to destabilize the local currency.”

“And that is the best case scenario”, continued the Commissioner. “Honey like this throws a scent other bees will be attracted to. A swarm could be chasing close behind this one bee. I will bring Delphyne’s forces to high alert,” he decided standing up, “and it is paramount that we order the ship to leave the planet at once. Take that couple in for questioning, too.”

“That won’t be necessary,” commented the Priest.

“Why, are you meeting them for dinner?” inquired the Sayyadina sarcastically.

“Ha, he thought better of it! He brought them here!” laughed the Commissioner.

 “You guessed correctly,” replied the shamed Priest, “It was evident to me that this is a matter of State,” he continued, finding his voice and composure back, “No matter my excitement for the holy gift. Which our Church will take good care of, multiplying the significance of our Festival, Sayyadina. Not to speak of the income that will be earned thanks to it, Agent. This event speaks of changes. They are in the antechamber, if this Council cares to receive them.” 

"For the dog of Providence we rescued at twilight, showed itself a wolf at dawn,” commented the Sayyadina. Priest Brogallo looked up at her, betraying a puzzled look on his face: “Whose words? The O.C. Bible’s?”

"Mine. And so, enter the wolf,” concluded the Sayyadina.

Chapter Text

XV.
Expert Advice

The Seeking, or Scattering, as it is called in the old Imperium, is the exponential multiplication of human possibility. The Tyrant of old, whatever the judgment that we may pass of him, made his goal plain in his memories. Survival of humankind means humankind needs to explore toward infinity until it cannot be controlled, dominated, or reined in with power or prescience. What delights, what darkness lurks in the corners of the Universe? Human potential is the only limit. We must expect resources, knowledge and talents of all kind to be available in great abundance. We call the Mentat’s dilemma the following question: are all these powers long range or short range? Is the infinite universe an endless collection of isolated clusters of incredible human diversity, barely interacting? Or are there powers that spread across untold distances and influence, even if not directly, Humanity as a whole? The Tyrant’s design points to no one being able to influence humankind’s development and direction since Siona’s blood came to be. Is the Tyrant right? What were the limits of his vision, and did he lie to us on purpose?

- THE NEW MENTAT HANDBOOK, CVII EDITION  

"Master," the plain voice rang in his years as something familiar. "Master," repeated the small pale-skinned figure in front of him, thin arms, thin body. “Do you remember?"

Scytale- quater dropped the knife on the ground. It was an ancient thing he had held. He could feel it. For a long moment, he had been fighting Muad'Dib, the emperor who had killed him millennia ago. It only had been an actor, a Face Dancer, of course, but the violent fight, the will to kill, the gut-wrenching struggle had tore a piece in his self, unlocked the serial memories inside him once again, like entrails dropping down his inside, like a logjam giving sudden way to the flow. He stumbled, leaning on the wall for support; his balance lost as a bottomless depth of experiences that had just opened like a crevasse inside his soul. Ages passed in a blink. 

"So I have died,” he whispered. A pause. “...and I am back. But, “ he looked deep into the Face Dancer’s eyes, eyes coming into focus, “I do not remember how I died. You, whom do you obey?"

"Master Scytale, I serve at Master Zoel's command." said the Dancer’s plain voice.

"I have never known a Master named Zoel."

"And so my Master begs that you meet him. He commanded me to say: Brother reborn,”

“Brother of old” replied Scytale, recognizing the old ritual.

“Brother anew,” responded the Face Dancer. “And now that we have followed the norms, please come. All will be explained."

Chapter Text

XVI.
Coffee and Houris

Few historians focus on the fact that the history of our Universe was forever re-written by Jessica Atreides’ unbidden act of love and disobedience.
— DARWI ODRADE, THE BENE GESSERIT CODA 

"Ecath, what was that about?" asked Walli as the Sisters sat on mats by the coffee seller in a shady area between giant acacia trees. The adrenaline rush had made way to a quiet waiting, then slowly the carefree chatter had resumed, thanks to the shallow plexi cups and the warm, scented coffee they were sipping. Sheeana could taste barley, guarana, and robusta. It was once again an enjoyable sunny afternoon. Their guide's eyes were distant, returned to focus on the group after a sip. 

"Did you notice the lady's necklaces?” continued the ever-knowledgeable Ecath. “The white pearls, they are tiny larvae and mussel flesh fed with a variety of potent drugs, then dried in the sun. You can see those ladies chew them at every hour of the day, the color of the pearl related to the service they are called to perform, an enchantment, an act of seduction, or to coerce a confession from a lover."

"Useful as ever, my dear Ecath, but who are these ladies?" asked Sheeana.

“The Goddess' Houris, from Kef. White and red dresses, distinctive face makeup."

"Are they love… experts?"

“Among other things. Ancient order, very influential here," replied the guide with a murmur, "Dates back to the God Emperor’s times, they say. The oral history says Dur himself kept a few Houris to be entertained. Very skilled women, when it comes to business and politics. Do you know how they are selected? Their recruiters go village by village. You have to be either a beautiful virgin, or the love worker most in demand. They trained them on a distant planet, and sent back to their home planet to conduct business."

"What business specifically?" asked Walli, who overheard. If love is not the Matres’ monopoly here, we may be in a good sector, reflected Sheeana.

"They often contract to be mistresses for executives, diplomats, and traders. Term contracts, or can become permanent concubines when the need arises."

"And what needs may arise?" continued Sheeana.

"The Houris are highly educated, fit to keep kings company, and are everywhere in high society and government. I have seen them serve as government functionaries. When the local politics are favorable to their Order. But sometimes a Houri keeps her own male harem, I am told." she added conspiratorially.

This Ecath is a knowledgeable one , thought Sheeana. And these houris! Sisterhood-like patterns in the Scattering. How many variants of the Mother-Maiden-Meretrix are out there?

"Ecath, we are really enjoying your company."

"I am grateful for yours, kind ladies."

"And I am grateful that you got us out of a tight corner back at the market. How did you do it? Did you know the Houri?"

"Oh no, madam. But see, the Houris are recruited from the villages and then sent back home. But see, they change when they acquire their education. None of them ever goes back to visit their home village. To what end? They have left behind their families and small-town life. So I thought, I bet she would not recognize her sister if she saw her. Any woman your age in a village here is sister of kin. You cannot ignore the bond. You cannot defy it, not when surrounded by the common folk like we were back there. The ladies’ strength comes from the aristocrats they follow, but they have to walk carefully among city folk. I took a gamble," she smiled.

"For us? We paid you in advance. What prompted you to protect a pack of strangers?"

"Strangers are sacred, madam. Hajj pilgrims."

"Why? What was the worst that could have happened to me? Being recruited and sent off to a distant planet to get the same education?"

"Nine-tail cat lashes would break anybody. And my heart tells me you need no training, madam. There is a wonderful electricity around you, I sense it. And you are young. Compared to this one. You know if my daughter were still alive, she would be your age.” A shadow clouded her eyes.

"I am sorry to hear about your daughter.” A pause, then Sheeana continued: “Would you tell me more about her?"

"Nothing that would please you madam. She died as a pearl diver in the great ocean. Proud. Tense. With a bigger purpose in mind."

"Do you think I have a purpose in mind, then?"

"I see you on the edge of great depths."

Is there any deeper meaning in this?, thought Sheeana. 

"Take my hands, Ecath". She clasped hands together with the old guide, and let eyes make contact. It was a long, direct stare, hands trembling a little at first touch, the two directly probing each other's depths. Then Sheeana felt it. It was not like the Sharing of two Reverend Mothers, but a passage of energy that lasted a single moment. This is what happens when two hearts touch . Sheeana felt an incredible force, a warmth, a loving care from this stranger woman, felt directedness, ingenuity. A hint of darkness somewhere, hers or mine? And then below, she sensed steadfast ground, a person who accepted herself fully. Not even Reverend Mothers could always pride themselves of that. Feeling transparent, all her emotions transparent to the guide. Then the moment evaporated away. They unlocked gazes. Ecath recomposed herself, kicked back a tear. “I see you, madam Sheeana. I am touched and I have touched you. Let us be friends today, if you allow it.”

Sheeana laughed gently with joy. “Ecath, my friend of today and of tomorrow. Your sincerity brings me joy. And now, my girls here are giddy with excitement and are strong with the drink you gave us. I hear the music that announces the celebrations. Take us to dance!"

Chapter Text

XVII.
The Rabbi’s Reasons 

A wanderer came, one who was called a genius, for he had found a way to reconcile Science and Faith, and Faith with Philosophy. He came to the edge of the village, jubilant. He ordered the villagers to prepare a feast, so that afterwards he may impart his knowledge onto them. The villagers baked their bread, slaughtered the lambs, and cut their fragrant flowers. They made merry all night only to wake up at dawn, the wanderer gone, their banquet spoiled, their coin vanished.  

– THE ZENSUNNI WANDERER  

The Rabbi entered the situation room inside the Prismatic Tower with a slow but powerful stride among the councilors who had been waiting in the small round room. Something in his walk communicated the gravitas of a leader who was dignified to talk to a group of peers. Three paces behind followed a ten-year-old looking boy dressed in black, a formal garment that looked odd on a kid that young. The man found and sat in a chair without an invitation; none of the councilors took it as an affront given the age of the guest; but they were surprised of the energy beyond his deep throaty voice as he broke the silence: “We are grateful for being admitted to your presence, Councilors, as these must be busy days with Dur’s Festival upon you. We are weary travelers from the old Imperium, traveling far, seeking counsel and opportunity. By the Creator that is One , we truthfully bring the news that the ancient Million Worlds are shaken by a terrible war, but that war has ended.”

The Priest stood up smiling and cleared his throat: “By the glory of Dur and the gift of the holy spice, it is our pleasure to have you on this planet. Consider those you see here as friends whose interests guarantee the prosperity and safety of our planetary community. We seldom welcome travelers from afar and beg you to continue.”

“I am obliged. A group called Honored Matres invaded the Million Worlds a little over a decade ago. As Priest Brogallo can testify, they were the force that destroyed Rakis, the Fremen, His Holiness’ Sandworms, the Priesthood, and the prophetess Sheeana,” continued the Rabbi, with the same penetrating voice that could have instead carried a powerful argumentation about the halakha , the Way. An attendant entered the room bringing refreshments. The Rabbi ignored the glass placed not far from his hands.

“We are indeed aware of the destruction of the Holy planet. The Worms are gone, yet Dur and the faith in Him endure,” spoke the First Sayyadina. “Tell us, what is of the Reverend Mothers of Old?” she cautiously continued. 

 “For what we know, they endure. A truce of a kind has been established between the groups, but much human life has been lost. Me and my associates were fortunate enough to leave Gammu and find refuge via our properties in the Seeking.”

“And so you are here now, away or free of all the properties… of matter.. . I meant,” said the Commissioner, apparently showing his meandering thoughts, “...as a matter of inquiry, Priest Brogallo told us of a most incredible gift. We are astonished and grateful,” said the Commissioner.

“Truly jubilant,” added the Priest.

“ On the Creator that has no body ,” continued the Rabbi, “we brought the last of the spice melange. We could not think of a better endeavor than to put it into safe hands.”

“Don’t mind my manners,”  interjected the Agent, “but it is of extreme significance to this group and the safety of this planet’s population to learn if you are planning to share, or gift, or otherwise trade more spice, openly or not.”

“My peer here said it rightly, for it is the first concern of my office as the Planetary Defense Commissioner that this planet does not become subject to undue interest by foreign powers that may be attracted to any source of spice.” continued the Commissioner sternly. “This includes whether your ship carries or will carry any quantity of the spice melange in its hold; whether that is itemized or not in the ship’s manifest is not the matter. While it is the last concern of mine, with due respect to our holy Sayyadina, the status of a war that is cosmically so far from our borders as to not change our prospects.”

In the brief silence that followed, the Commissioner suddenly burst in laughter. “But we are doing wrong to our guests here by lacking etiquette! A round of introductions is required: you can see here our First Sayyadina Idala Alquim, our representative from the Commerce League Idmondo Kilaz, and I am Defense Commissioner Hilom. How should we address you?”

The Rabbi hesitated, then dryly answered: “You can call me Kesil . It will please you to know we do not carry spice at the moment…”

“But will you?” asked the Agent.

“We could procure it. If there were a market. Not spice of the Rakis kind, mind you,” he added quickly.

“And where would that be produced? Are there sources left in the Million Worlds?”

“There are, but for obvious reasons it is best not to divulge them,” remarked the Rabbi.

“Your profit, of course!” laughed the Agent.

“Wouldn’t that be of interest to your League?” questioned the Rabbi.

“Enough!” boomed the Commissioner’s voice. “There is no trade when security is at risk. These are exceptional times. Dear guest, hospitality is still sacred in this part of the cosmos. As we say in our parts of the world, ‘tis for the day is long and the messiah may tarry. But we cannot tolerate the risk that a trade of this kind, on this planet, will entail.”

“We are proposing an arrangement in plain sight, very small lots, and out of public view,” continued the Rabbi, his voice measured and subdued. “We would not oppose forging an exclusive relationship,” he added. The light of the globes floating high above their heads cast the imitation of an afternoon light, giving the stranger an aura of mystery. After all, he came from a ship straight out of the Imperium of legends.

“Humble,” grinned the Agent. 

“This, our security imperatives will not abide. I kindly, but firmly, ask you to remove yourself, your son and the ship you came on within nightfall, or you will force our hand.”

The high pitch voice of the boy standing behind the stranger suddenly collided with the somber mood of the room. “Counselors! If you could stop for a moment…”

Commissioner Hilon cut him off: “Be quiet, kid”. He raised a warning hand to him. “And be respectful in front of your esteemed father,” then turning once again to the Rabbi: “We can not toy with attracting attention of any kind to a crossroads planet like ours. There would be consequences. And you, coming in with your massive ship, which is already the talk of the town.”  

The boy stopped, laying eyes on the father.

“We are staying,” calmly replied the Rabbi with finality in his voice.

“Why?”

“The reasons are mine.” was the Rabbi’s dry reply. 

“Then you are going to remain in our custody for now, and your ship will be boarded and searched,” concluded the Commissioner, satisfied. Guards entered the room at the pressing of a button, and the unresisting couple was escorted out. 

“We should go into the details of this plan of yours again,” blurted the kid while stomping his feet in the hallway.

What a curious reaction , thought the Sayyadina.

Chapter Text

XVIII.
The Six 

If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way; if a man is able to serve the State, he is not hindered by obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life.”
— PERICLES, FUNERAL ORATION

Visella had arrived within the government premises on her first calm summer day there, only to find it was laid out as a ground-level, immense garden: streams, rocks, and sky high bamboo trees brought shade, humidity and many, many singing birds. The executive room was nothing but a wooden table under a wooden temple open on all sides. “What do you do during the rain season?” she had asked. “We see that there is no rain,” said Sapient Arbatar with an enraging smile. She stared, then realized: “You are a Five after all!” 

“A Six now, with you, Reverend Mother. Can I just call you Visella?”

Around the table the other four had already convened. There was no technology, screens, nothing that she would have expected for a meeting of people, let alone technology-dominated androids. Essential. She had spent the previous three days brushing up on the volumes of reports and data they had brought to her, but the space there was pristine. Not even a communication system or a globe light. And, so pleasing to the eye , thought Visella.

“Welcome, Reverend Mother Visella,” Sage Rangrig had quickly introduced the entire room, “we stand so that we keep all our senses sharp and alert but you are, mmh, welcome to summon a chair if needed.” She looked around but saw no means to ask anybody about it. After all, did androids need to sit? She focused again on the crimson-dressed Rangrig, red-haired and flashing smile, with an android body looking no older than a human’s twenty-something. 

“Firstly: Population update. Klondi, ahem, if you please…”

 “A riot in the Riala region has ensued after an escalation of resentment against the local government.” opened Sage Klondi, a bulky ( how could an android be overweight? ) man who ceremoniously underlined every word with a gesture. 

“Cause?”

“It is a generational shift.” continued Klondi.

“Has it been redirected?” asked Arbatar.

“We always count on some mischief to release population pressures. Generational change is overdue, local administrators are at the top 90% of the age range.”

“What does this group, mmh, suggest?” 

“What is the level of aggression?”

“Mostly ritualistic in nature, no casualties so far. Demonstrations and damages to buildings. Some arson.”

“Continue to monitor,” chimed another Sage, Avatasuyara. “We know sublimating passions does not work, so emotions need to be expressed and transformed. Our agents are ready to act?”

“Yes. Nonviolent means will be sufficient for the protesters to succeed in their demands.” 

“Approved.” said the Five in unison, and clapped their hands once. 

Wait, thought Visella in a blink, what just happened?  

She reviewed her memory to reconcile what she heard and the reports she was given.  

The conversation moved on, but the pace accelerated. It did not matter who was the speaker, for all voices seemed to follow the same rhythm and tune.

“Rangrig, what do the public committees propose?”

“They, mmh, welcome a human on the council, (nod to Visella) , the motion was approved.”

“Wait, was a vote cast for my inclusion in this group?” she asked.

“Of course. You will be surprised how, ahem, much voting is going on behind the scenes. Direct votes and delegates are consulted non-stop. Now let’s take a look at the strife map.”

“Challenge level is peaking for specific ethnic segments in the polity of Chairoshi. I am projecting trouble in the next decade unless we take action.”

“What does it mean, please?” blurted a confused Visella.

“Ethnic based xenofobia is rising.” 

“Among what human groups?”

“Android groups.” chimed another Sage, Avatasuyara. “Don’t be surprised, my dear, deep prejudice arises in androids and humans alike. The inescapable byproduct of free will.”

“How is that possible?”

“Excuse me, Visella? What use is an android that is only conditioned to do good? And based on whose definition?”

“Ha,” she paused, “You let your kind learn on its own.”

“Only the exercise of freedom leads to maturity. This is a sub-segment of the android population who discriminates against other androids. Unfortunate.”

“Fascinating.” Visella would have sat if a chair had been there. On the basis of what did androids find other androids inferior?

“There are no bodhisattvas here, only striving beings,” Avatasuyara reminded her.

“Humans population employed to dilute android density is a proven dampening factor.”

“Then, mmh, healthy population movements from and to Chairoshi and Rhiala will solve this. More mixing. We can find the right economic and social incentives for both man and android.”

“I will get this to the local propaganda ops.”

“Approved.” Clap .

“Next item: our new Sage.”

“I am here to serve, but I am no Sage,” said Visella quickly.

“And serve you will, mmh” continued Rangrig with his characteristic shrug. “Not us, obviously, but our citizens. You may have absorbed the first concepts of our planetary society. We run an ever-evolving experiment in distributed, representative government across a multicultural, multiethnic, multi-sentient, mmmh, melting pot . Some would almost call it: democracy. I like to stress: imperfect. Mark my words.”

Klondi picked it up: “Anyone of us can be demoted with a general vote. There is significant investment in the information infrastructure. Arbatar will go into the details after your first lesson. Meantime, you are appointed to govern our southern continent.”  

“What?”

“That was voted upon, too.”

“Wait, when has all of this happened?”

“About five minutes ago, Visella. Do not worry, we trust you will catch up.” 

***

Visella’s quarters were on the sandy white beach not far from the capital city. A car had driven her and Arbatar back. Presently she was listening to the waves, the sound of the sea soothing her mental exhaustion. 

“Arbatar,” she ventured, “I have seen no visible government apparatus here! What are you giving me to administer an entire continent? If it’s true you have a representative democracy I will be demoted by tomorrow.” A robo-server had brought fruity drinks made with icy mango puree and aromatic flowers.

“A cabinet of elected officials and a staff of twenty have been appointed to support you,” replied the android, ever nonplussed.

“And I am meeting them?”

“Tomorrow. And of course Leerna will continue to be of assistance, as soon as she is fully recovered,” replied Arbatar with her signature accommodating tone. That allowed Visella to focus. 

“She still wants to work with me?”

“The stories of what you are and can do are traveling fast.”

“What stories? You keep observing me and producing new aptitudinal tests. What do you want to make of me, a popular scapegoat? Your human on strings, for the sake of the people’s entertainment?”

“It does not work like that, here. Leerna is very curious to learn from you.”

“Everybody has quite the inquisitive mind, down here.”

“Sharp as a razor. Now, about the session with the Five today…”

“So we are not the Six anymore?”

“We are. And I am grateful the others are willing to slow down a bit to make sure you can follow.”

Visella withheld a gasp. “You usually go faster than that.”

“Yes.”

“Decisions are made in what, less than a minute?”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“A human will never cope with that.”

“You will, with some training. But that also explains why so few humans have been sitting at the table. It takes a degree of speed, and it takes a willingness to serve. Do you have that?”

Visella paused. “Things… have gone very fast for me in the last few weeks, but… I exist only to serve.”

“Warms my heart, truly.”

“Do android hearts beat?”

“Metaphorically, yes.”

“Arbatar… explain to me how this government of yours works, if you please.”

“We call it the Experiment.

“Direct voting?”

“Billions of people are consulted daily on a wide range of topics. There are sentiment polls, lawmaking polls, and formal votes. Vote delegation is common, mind me. We have set up a public pool of voting delegates…”

“Politicians!”

“Not quite, but close. A transparent competitive system where delegates have equal access to the media, are rated by their constituents and independently funded watchdogs. It’s a taxing job, to be clear. Your entire personal and professional record is made transparent. They stand naked in front of everybody’s eyes.”

“And do you really think that equals democracy? Every government system is about the allocation of power.”

“And here we try to push it to individual voters as much as possible.”

“Ambitious. Opening the way for demagogues to bewitch the masses.”

“Something your Sisterhood has indeed analyzed and learned a few tips from.”

“You wound me, Arbatar. We hold no illusions that power is given to the ones who take it. If learning a skill makes us stronger, we do it and the hell with scruples.” 

“How much experience do Reverend Mothers have governing?”

“We have ruled our planets for thousands of years – Wallach IX, Lampadas, Chapterhouse.”

“And the Imperium?”

“Ours is a supranational entity that coexists with local governments – we aid and support.”

“Maintaining a hand on the wrist that holds the stick? Without directly involving the population.”

“The war has forced our hand a lot, Sapient. We have our own democracy experiment running too. Governing across planets with local and Reverend Mother committees. Our head of State can be removed in one swift vote at the occurrence, and all administrators at the top are camera-monitored.” she continued, emboldened by the fresh memories of the Order, and of the familiar worlds she had not seen… for too long. “The Archives and the Proctors act as watch dogs, compile the findings and make them available to the rest of us.”

“Ah yes, commendable. I see some similarities here. And still…”

“Yes?”

“Your order is for females only. Your democracy is only inside your Order.”

“Our top general is a man whose fame and ability is equal to our Reverend Mother Superior.”

“The army is not the government,” was the android’s dry reply.

She suddenly wondered if Odrade was still in charge. So many years without news from Chapterhouse. Where were her Sisters at? How was the war with the Matres evolving after Teg had been revived? She had left just before the climax!

 “Is it true only women can be Reverend Mothers?” continued Arbatar.

“Only a few, well trained, genetically endowed female acolytes can become one.”

“The genetic memories are a thing of the females.”

“Throughout the centuries, the spice melange has killed all the men who have tried. Well, all but a couple. But you already know that.”

“I just observe that men have stopped trying.”

“Some believe it is a key genetic difference. The species has evolved to specialize the sexes.”

“Thought provoking. And what drove that? Survival necessity?”

“We do not know. Some theorize women who give birth are predisposed to dip their bucket in the well of genetic memory.”

“Sex as a genetic differentiator. Or is it the way society endows the sexes with different skills and traits?”

“How about your society? Humans dwell in equanimity with androids?”

“We have been coexisting on this planet for centuries.”

“Are you consciously imitating human traits? Klondi. A fat android? Oh, excuse my manners.”

“We indulge in optics as well. But in this case, there is a reason. The ego-self is known to grow attached to the body, so we change it to negate it. Beautiful and ugly, thin or fat, it all can be a source of experience.”

“Always stretching beyond comfort?”

“Cultivating awareness. Training for future adversity encompasses things large and small.”

“And so, no dangerous demagogues?”

“You will be surprised at the calming effect androids have on humans and vice versa. It dampens the most extreme behaviors. Dangerous trends lose momentum.”

“Are you saying the cognitive and emotional differences are complementary?”

“See for yourself. Aren’t we?”

“Us?” her body jumped in surprise. “There is a ‘us’ now? Where is the equality? So far you have held the strings and dispensed the rewards. I am a student on a short leash.”

“Your leash is… as long as the southern continent.” The android paused. Visella looked at the mottled light patterns that kept moving on the surface of the waves… a hypnotic action that made her mind drift. “Do you know? My home planet was… is…  Buzzell,” she whispered, “Warm Buzzell, islands of white sands just like this place… pearl and soostone divers…”

“You should try diving too. There is quite the reef a few hundred yards out.” 

The thought was tempting. Visella went back into her attack: “So you are telling me that an android-assisted form of government that by nature of its operations can only support inorganic intelligence at the top, is now a form of progressive democracy?”

“An experiment.”

“I’d rather call it a crypto-oligarchy, and one based on the segregation of the biological from the silicon!”

“Then,” replied the Sapient raising a glass, “Your Sisterhood is a gerontocracy, a junta made of old people! And a gender-segregated one. I will believe you have a democracy only the day I see a Bene Gesserit Father Superior.”

“You think we are a ruling class made of old shrews? How little do you know of what our Memories do!”

“They stabilize you, we think.”

“True,” conceded Visella, “but look at yourself! You Sages are planetary plenipotentiary with untold constitutional powers. I observed you providing orders to your propaganda operatives to move entire populations!”

“And yet, this is all transparent to our citizens. Nobody is misled. Messaging and incentives.”

“It is transparent that your Sages are but a carefully cultivated elite too! You need a new word, the automata-cracy !”

“Maybe, and still, we come and go like the breeze. Did you know four of them were not in charge twelve months ago? Dismissed by popular vote?”

“You are accelerating your speed with technology, but does that produce a balanced form of government?”

“Your Sisterhood is constantly swayed by internal currents no matter how balanced you try to be! Factions and squabbles!” 

“But our principles are sound, Arbatar!”

“Yes! So are ours.”

“I will choose mine over yours every day! But I concede that it all depends on how the principles are implemented.” 

“We have learned on this planet that the way a government operates depends on the principles of its governed and of its governors. What is a decadent democracy if not a society where people have lost faith and leaders have lost purpose?”

“Where is the solution to that?”

“Attention to the individual. Education. Growth. Mindfulness. Taking an active role in society. Each and every one of us.”

There was a pause as the Reverend Mother was thinking how to respond.

“Arbatar?”

“Yes, Visella?”

“I am starting to really like arguing with you.”

“I am glad you find entertainment value in it.”

They laughed, human and robot, sipping their drink made of some non-descript exotic fruit and ice-cream.

Visella had to admit that the place broke all the molds. And while she was captive, life nevertheless remained interesting. She raised her head, resolved to be deliberate, while feeling a drop of fear entering her bloodstream as she whispered: “Arbatar, I am a trained Reverend Mother but I am a Missionaria operative, not a head of State. I won’t last three minutes in this government of yours. I am… trained in the black arm of the Sisterhood. I can single-handedly shift the balance of an entire society so that it lands flat on its muzzle, lock my legs and arms on top of it, and force its ears to listen to my songs until I possess its hopes and fears down to the bones. There, I said what should not be said.”

“The gift of candor. Thank you. Let me think about this,” Arbatar said, then after just a moment: “The way I see it,” the android gently replied, “a knife can be a tool, or a weapon. It depends on its owner.”

“I have conditioned millions to wait for the coming of one of my sisters in the guise of a prophetess.”

“That was bad? Good?” asked the Sapient, leaning closer. “Whether magic is black or white depends on the moral compass of the sorceress.”  

Arbatar stood up from the chaise-longue, in a swirl of the gown. 

“I will leave you now while the sun is up. You are ready. Your lesson starts at sunset.”

She almost had forgotten. “What lesson would that be again?” It felt more tempting to stare at the sea with an empty mind until the night breeze grew cold.

“At the training dojo. Mind and body need to act in unison. You can’t be expected to govern with the habits you have picked up in the Scattering.”

“Dojo? Habits? But I am a trained fighter!” Visella protested.

“Fighting? Who talked about fighting?” mused the android, and left laughing.

Chapter Text

XIX.
Deceptions 

This information I acquired as an agent for the Republic of Xintaro. The republic is long gone, destroyed by the male-devourers, the Honored Matres. May Dur curse them! My cover on planet Higamore was that of a smuggler. Smugglers hide their past, but have deep connections planetside. The Handlers had a school on the planet. There, a student talked too much while under the effect of the semuta I was so generously providing. The Handlers, he said, can tune their hunters to detect the chemistry of different types of humans. That the Matres were one of the targets was already known. With selective breeding, appropriate stimulation with odors and sounds they could train their predators to target even a single individual. The Futars are a product of their skills and training. They genuinely have a bond with that formidable animal. I never had the time to verify the student’s story. A day later my cover was blown and I ran for my life off-planet, narrowingly escaping two Futars in their hot chase to get me. They watched me intently as I took off from the landing pad. I only glimpsed at them briefly as my lighter gained height. What formidable creatures! What beauty in those fiery eyes!

- MY SERVICE IN THE XINTARO REPUBLIC

Scytale- quater sat on a plain chair in the presence of another Master. He was deep in thought, weighing the suspicions he was harboring. Master Zoel spoke up: "You do not know me as a brother, because I was not a Master in the kehl ". 

“You have the smell of the Scattering," observed Master Scytale. His gaze lingered on the bald head, the round ears pierced with metal earrings, the small canines enclosed in perfect supple lips, the puffy cheeks, and down to the simple but alien-looking black vest adorned with metal spikes. He could smell the musky perfume of the Tleilaxu of old, a hint of chemicals showing thisMaster had recently worked near the tanks. He smiled weakly, not liking what he saw. True Masters did not wear metal, or cared about appearances.  

Master Zoel broke the silence: "No, I was not in the kehl . I came to Bandalong to pay homage to the brothers, Master Scytale. I performed the ghufran rites to purify myself from the contact with the unbelievers. Thirty days Master Donze had me wait before I was admitted, but I could not shake the thought that reservations lingered in his mind. The Masters doubted my purity, for they did not know what had happened to me and my brothers in the Scattering."

“The Scattering is impure,” whispered the true Tleilaxu Master, trying to make sense of Zoel’s musical accent.

“ Powindah feet trample soil and pollute rivers,” confirmed Zoel. “Everything they touch. Except our holy soil.”

“Do you have cities? Planets?”

“We cram into well guarded communities.”

"And now you… revived… me?" continued Master Scytale with a challenging expression.

"Master Scytale, there are many Scattered Tleilaxu, and there are some who have left the purity of the kehl , as you suspected. Even so, the rest of us adhere to the code."

"And so have you stayed true to the teachings and the seeking?"

"It is for you to decide. I was the only one the Masters admitted to the Tleilaxu core.” 

“And how come I have never met you?”

“Master Scytale, were you in Bandalong when the Matres attacked?”

They both paused, remembering the viciousness of those savage fighters.

"I had left the system just before. And we are...?"

"The Honored whores, the ones who perfected sex as their way to rule, found the Bene Gesserit planet and destroyed it. We are presently in a safe-house, just outside the Million Worlds. Our presence is masked by a no-globe. Your predecessor met me and I asked him whether he would want to be revived, should an untimely death happen to him."

"Ha!" Scytale felt elated and lost at the same time. Bene Gesserit he loathed, and could not care less about their demise, but the Matres he was afraid of. “But I… my predecessor would have never consented to that.”

"In fact he did not. The no-ship you were on escaped in time from the Bene Gesserit planet. A group of us and other forces were not many stars away. We helped."

"And how come you found yourselves so conveniently close?" 

"We were searching. For the last true Master. For you. We came from the Scattering to re-associate ourselves with the old secrets, but could not prevent the obliteration of our brothers of old. I witnessed the beginning of the destruction as I was sent away by your brothers with a message to my brethren. You need to know that a Guild Navigator, one of the few surviving ones, is in our service. We had been searching for you."

"How could you find me, if I was a prisoner in a no-ship?”

"Ha, but see,” smiled Master Zoel, “the Navigator saw you as soon as you stepped outside of it. You were on walks. He could not see others, but the Navigator told us you were conversing with powindah people of Siona's blood." 

Scytale eyes opened wide. 

"How did I die? My predecessor, I mean."

He clutched his skin where the nullentropy capsule should have been. But this must have been a new body, it seemed, grown from the cells of his last one. Where was the capsule?  

“Your no-ship was destroyed en route, but not before we had made contact with you”. 

"And you left us and fled? Why did you not let me on your ship?"

"I offered, but you refused, Master Scytale. I do not know that I would have trusted myself in the same situation."

"So, my former incarnation, and body, is gone."

"It is gone." 

Scytale nodded, keeping a sense of loss at bay. And so is my nullentropy capsule. And my brothers’ seeds of rebirth. I will never talk to Waff again, and tell him he was an overzealous fool.

"Why do I not remember any of this?" he wondered.

"We have revived you, Master, but the cell strands we cultivated did not come from the body of yours that died. You did not let us graft any tissue from your body. You told to my face that I was impure and imperfect. Master Scytale, my Face Dancers took from you some clothing without your knowledge while on the ship, and that was all we could work with. Seek your last memory. What is it?"

Scytale paused for a moment, then uttered: “I remember coming back from one of the many walks with the Mother Superior Darwi Odrade on Chapterhouse. The witches wanted,” he hesitated. The witches knew, but this impure Master may not know about our spice-making secret yet. “ ... wanted to learn our secrets.”

"That must have been in the days immediately before the attack to the Bene Gesserit planet, then. The cells were far and few, and attached themselves to your clothing in the sweat of that last walk. I regret I wasn’t more convincing with your former self. I would have saved his body and memories for you to remember."

Scytale sniffed the air. Scents that were familiar, of Tleilaxu perfumes and body odor. No more home, no more brothers, no more kehl. No more capsule, to grow Bandalong’s best and recreate anew. To rebuild an entire civilization, millennia of tradition and faith. No more the brothers will meet in kehl and feel the presence of God. Only half-brothers, impure, twisted ones. A deep sorrow shook him. God! I had no idea to what lengths and depths you were going to test me. And yet back I am, and I need to build.

"Who told you to look for me?" Scytale replied.

"We got in touch with the Bene Gesserit – the witches – on many planets as they were retreating," continued the Master from the Scattering, "we still have our ways to acquire information". Scytale nodded; certainly a Face Dancer had taken over a witches’ Acolyte messenger and passed the information. The new Dancers would not copy a Reverend Mother, but would otherwise steer clear of them. Maybe one of them had made it all the way to the witches' secret planet? He gave Master Zoel a questioning stare.

"Our Dancers did not make it so far as the witches’ planet, Master, but they reported surprising news. We learned that the witches had their own axolotl tanks. Thanks to the Last Master," Zoel replied in a subtly accusing tone. "And that is of course how we learned the last Master still lived. We cannot let our Tradition die."

“What are you insinuating? I shared my knowledge at the instruction of Master Waff, the Mahai and Abdl. So, do you expect us to work together?”

“Master Scytale, I will be your Brother in kehl if you will let me; we came back from the Seeking to share our secrets and learn the Old Tradition; to come back into communion with God. If our ways have deviated, only you can tell us. If our conscience is impure, only you can cleanse us. I bow to the last of the True Masheikhs. The Mahai and Abdl. What you need will be yours. What wisdom you decide to share, we will treasure.”

Scytale paused. “Say I find you unworthy? Not in God’s Grace?”

Zoel switched to the sacred language of the Islamiyat: “If I am not in His Grace, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.” A faint smile came upon Scytale’s lips. The burden was his. He was the last true Master. Among impure, maybe unfaithful imitations. Yet useful.

“I thank you,” he concluded, “I will need resources to restore my power, my tanks. I ask two of your Face Dancers to change hands so that I will be their Master.” 

“They are yours, Master.”

“And you will teach me the secret of your Futars.”

Zoel hesitated. Then replied, submissively: “It is yours.”

Very well, Scytale thought. The capsule is destroyed in the void of space, and if truly I am the last true Master, we will do what we must do. And so it will be the path that God has chosen for me. But the loss!

Master Zoel, once dismissed, left quickly by the door, ordering the Face Dancer servants to put themselves at Scytale’s service. “Don’t reveal anything critical”, he whispered.

He walked a great length, turning corner after corner, climbed flights of stairs until he reached the observation room, sat into a chair with a sigh. 

“Is it done?” Reverend Mother Bellonda asked with a hoarse voice from behind the chair.

“It is done.” sighed Scattered Tleilaxu Master Zoel.

“Pride worked. He likes to be the last pure Master. In his thoughts.”

“He believed the story, yes. Oh, he will test it. There will be doubts. Our Face Dancers will play along. He does not suspect how different my Dancers are from his. We will keep him confined with the excuse of keeping him in the fake safehouse, far from the Matres’ threat. He will build his own tanks. And that way, he will betray his own secrets.” 

“Master Zoel, you have my thanks,” offered Bellonda.

“At your service. We serve the Supreme Honored Matre.”

“That’s Murbella, and you should call her Mother Superior now.”

“As you wish.”

“Your allegiance to the Matres is recognized and appreciated. But the Matres now are Reverend Mothers”. 

“Understood.” How meekly , Bellonda noted. The imprinting Murbella performed on this one is easily all that stands between him and my death. “Zoel?”, she asked with a commanding tone that was just a bit shy of true Voice. The Master stopped himself, his back already turned to Bellonda as he approached the door. “Yes, Reverend Mother?”

“You were bound to the Honored Matres just like you are bound to us now. We merged, and we are one. I am Bene Gesserit. Do not think I cannot read you. The nature of this exchange is not lost on us. You get the secret of the spice-producing tanks, which your kind never attained in the Scattering. Scytale will demand to learn the secret of the Futars. We will learn of both. Nothing escapes our eyes. Remember that.”

“So I am told, and so I will.”

And this is the most daring plan I could come up with, Miles Teg , Bellonda thought gloomily.

Chapter Text

XX.
A Taste of Melange

The young look at the elders and envy their power; the elders look at the young, regretful for the power they did not know they had. Which one of these fools will you be? 

– THE ZENSUNNI MASTER

“What’s in this dessert, Celia?” the student asked.

“You don’t know?” asked her friend and assigned school buddy on her first day.

“What?”

“It is not cinnamon!” Celia continued. 

“It can’t be! Every time I take a bite of this cake it feels like the first time I taste it.”

“And that…” said Celia complicitly, “is the first secret.”

“That we are all students again on this planet of cows and dust?” she giggled.

“No! Listen up…”. The student leaned closer to Celia’s face, who was dying to tell her something.

“This food…” Celia continued, “is made with Spice scent.”

“The dessert.”

“Yes.”

“It is the thing?”

“It is real. In the food. In your coffee. And this…” Celia whispered, smiling but with her eyes turning slightly orange in the Matre's sign of danger. “You will see. It is only the beginning”.

And so on that first morning on Chapterhouse, after having landed in a shuttle at the tailend of a three thousand parsec journey, her Matres’ dragon dress ruffled from being squeezed into transports and ships with hundred others without care for rank or experience by fully ordained Matres acting as guides, after days of boredom and claustrophobia and being treated like cattle, and by these new mysterious and beautiful dames dressed like nuns, she was there, enjoying a real meal, on the dusty planet they had been searching for so so long, the cradle of the old Imperium’s secrets, the legendary powers of old that her Matres order had heard so much about – the commanding voice, the perfect control of body and mind, the swiftness of thought, the provocative knowledge – all was there laid at her feet.

And now, student Tairasu Beinovelija had just sampled the mythical spice, the sap of knowledge.

“And now?” she asked, unbelieving.

“Don’t you feel anything?” replied her onboarding buddy. “No reaction? I see… well, not everybody is fit to become a Reverend Mother. But don’t worry, the training will sort that out,” she completed with another rueful smile.

Tairasu took another bite, a big large bite she chewed apprehensively. Something was not working? What was this drug supposed to be?

“What is it supposed to do?”

“Don’t rush it!” shushed Celia. 

“No, nothing.”

“It is not meant to be then.” 

“Stop it!” replied Tairasu vehemently, and threw a piece of the cake at her new friend, who swiftly moved to avoid it, overcompensated, and due to her Matre’s swift speed and lack of control ended up losing balance and falling on the floor. Tairasu laughed and so did the nearby acolytes. 

“Hear her, speaking like an ordained Matre! Get up and get a grip!”

Celia came back up clearly deflated and embarrassed by the poor demonstration of her Matre-in-training skills.

“So, let this be clear,” Tairasu continued, making eye contact with her, her own eyes flashing orange in alarm: “No tricks. No lies. This is not the Spice, is it?”

“No…”

“It is just… mmh… cinnamon and cane sugar?”

“It’s just cake. Some mix of exotic flavors. You fell for it. Admit it. All the new ones fresh from the ship come down with big dreamy eyes like you,” replied Celia, without losing her edge.

“You owe me now, my dear onboarding buddy.”

“So?”

“You owe me the Spice. The real thing. I want to try it.”

“You don’t understand, do you? We are all in training! Even the Great Matres! What do you think this is, the Bene Gesserit buffet of knowledge? I tell you, you have come to the most boring planet in this Galaxy,” whined Celia standing up from the table. “Nothing ever happens. Come.”

“So what about the Secrets?”

“They remain so! It’s more evasive than our acolyte training! It is us, Reverend Mothers in training, and them!”

“By them, you mean the Bene Gesserit shrews?”

“Those are just the trainers. It’s the Honored Matres turned Reverend Mothers who run the show here! They are a closed caste!”

“You know much for a student.”

“Stay here for a year and you will see!”

“A caste? How soon before we can go through the ordeal?”

“Nobody knows! It seems completely random. Or political. You need connections.”

“Like Murbella!”

“Yes, but… well… ”

“What?”

“Don’t touch her. We all love Murbella, here.”

As they were exiting the Schools’ refectory Tairasu, barely standing on her feet after hours with no sleep in the ship that took her there, stopped in the middle of the courtyard to breath the sun. It was dry and dusty and it reminded her of her birth planet. She opened her eyes to see the group of nearby students part in two dividing lines, making room for a lady in a cobalt dress passing through. The lady looked fierce and motherly at the same time, her fluid feline movements had the elegance of a queen, royal but not ostentatious, with a sense of calm pride. Her perfect make-up highlighted the high cheekbones, the symmetrical, supple mouth and elfin ears adorned with sparkly soostone earrings. While transfixed by this godly apparition, Tairasu realized she was standing alone in the middle of the way while the Matre was approaching steadfastly. She not so much jumped but stumbled out of the way – get in the way of a Great Matre at your own peril! – fast enough to avoid entering the danger zone, but not fast enough to avoid getting noticed. The other students observed from the sides and cringed, or smiled wickedly. Poor her, they were surely thinking.

“Fresh from the ship, my dear?” asked the lady in cobalt with penetrating eyes that seemed to cut through hers. Tairasu stepped back, confused by the lack of white in her irises – blue-on-blue eyes! No golden orange from the laiz drug!

“Murbella?” Tairasu could only manage to whisper. 

“Murbella? I?” and the lady burst into a laughter that was amused and belittling at the same time. This queen could shame you with an inflection in her voice. Then a candid, warm smile: “No my dear, I would not dare. I am Great Matre Angelika Dorian.”

“Please forgive my ignorance, Great Matre,” implored Tairasu kneeling down, her dragon robes rumped in a mess of fabric in front of this imperious goddess. “Get up my dear,” she replied, “I don’t mind at all. But my dear friend Murbella would not take that lightly,” she winked. “Come, I visit the new recruits every now and then, you and your friends will keep me company for a few hours.”

Was that true? “At your service, Great Matre.”

“Angelika will suffice. And you are…?”

“Tairasu, third level Matre-in-Training, of the order of Hormu.”

“A distinguished order. You and you six, over there, why don’t you come with me. Care for some coffee? You must be exhausted.”

“I already had some, Matre,” dared Tairasu, stumbling behind the cobalt lady who had already accelerated toward the Sisterhood main cafeteria. 

“From the Schools’ kitchen? Rubbish. Let me introduce you to real spice coffee.”

“The Spice, my lady?” gasped Celia who followed.

“What are we here for, then? We have to wean you off sooner than later from laiz . Though you will trade orange for blue.”

“Is it true, Great Matre, that it tastes like cinnamon?”

“Its taste changes every time you try it. But it’s not the taste you should think about. Let’s go. I am so bored and want to chat idly for an afternoon.”

Tairasu breathed deeply, following suit. “As you command.”

Chapter Text

XXI.
The Circuitry of Memory

For a long time we humans thought of electronics as a mirror to biology. We named our programs “neural nets”, used “memory chips”, and created “electronic viruses”. We completely disregarded the emergent nature of the software itself, a potential for life and intelligence that cannot be defined in biological terms, requiring instead its own brand-new vocabulary.

– THE IXIAN RENAISSANCE 

Cables were sprawled on the floor of the work room. Reverend Mother Garimi caught herself before stumbling on a mass of wires that blocked the way in. "Who is there?" she asked hesitantly. Two steps forward, and she caught the shape of two bare feet, attached to a pair of black pants that disappeared below a cabinet made of shelves of electronics.  

"Duncan?" she hesitated for a moment. The Mentat was in fact laboring under a tower of shelves, wafers an inch thick that hid inside all the marvels of Ixian technology. He was carefully extracting them, one by one; stacks piled up across the hallway showed he had been labeling them, connecting them, and sorting them. As he got out from under the wafers and stood up, shirt off due to the heat coming from the bright lighting, to continue the sorting operation, Garimi noticed drips of sweat falling from his bronze skin on the floor.  

"Do you know how Ixian navigation systems work, Garimi?"' Duncan asked her, his voice pensive.

"Superficially. Navigation imitates the mental state of a Guild Navigator," she replied, leaning on the wall a few feet away. 

"Metaphorically. But exactly?"

"It's technical work," she replied, dismissive. 

"I wish we had not left technology development in the hands of a single faction for millennia. An old Bene Gesserit preconception right there. You Sisters are humanists. You get technicians to order around and do the work. How come so few of you have ever become scientists?"

"Our subject of study is the human race, not subatomic particles," she replied. “No matter the technology, there is usually a human behind the controls.”

"I am sure that's quoted somewhere in your manuals. Subatomic particles won't transport you through megaparsecs of empty space to Delphyne,” continued Duncan.

“Is this a routine control of the ship’s systems? You said you have never found any tampering by the Sisterhood,” she cautiously asked. In the beginning, Duncan had disappeared for weeks examining the low level code of the ship systems, searching for traps laid by the Sisterhood, comms hacks, autopilot overrides, finding nothing. Searches for tracking devices had not borne fruit. What was he up to? Sheeana had warned Garimi: “ Duncan is a friend of undetermined value.” She smiled. “Whatever you do, remember the stories about Duncan being irresistible to women, sister mine. The Bene Tleilax's first ghola was also designed to appeal to Alia Atreides. Be sure the Tyrant had the Tleilaxu enhance that trait throughout the eons.” That was undoubtedly true. Duncan's physique was attractive, but even more the pheromones she detected in the smell that permeated the small room. Captivating. Sense-pleasing. A human equivalent of catnip. A woman could stand there in the room for a whole day, just breathing.       

“It must be the Holzmann effect,” he muttered mostly to himself as he slid down back under the stacks. 

“What?” she asked, breaking out of her temporary daydreaming.

“There must be technology out there capable of seeing and trapping a no-ship.”

Garimi stood quietly. No reason to interrupt a Mentat’s wanderings. “I will be on my way, Duncan.”  She backtracked and at the last instant, took the shirt that laid on the floor with her. She continued toward her apartments, smelling the fabric. If he wants it back, he is going to have to come and get it.  

The oblivious Duncan remained in the small room, deciphering the hardware. The warm lights and the small volume of space made the air warm. The electronics were cold to the touch, differently than his old days in the Imperium. Light conduction at low temperatures. There were parts of the ship systems that were immersed in cryogenic chambers. 

Back on Chapterhouse I could see the Gardeners, and they saw me back. Despite the no-ship cloaking. It was I who searched for them, when in the right mind state, or did they seek me out? Who did we establish a bridge that ignored the Ixian machinery? Are they prescient? How did their net work? I recall I escaped the net when I dumped the ship's navigation systems, and chose a place at random. Actually, he reminded himself, it was not exactly at random. Manually choosing one of thousands of pre-coded locations in the Scattering – no reason to emerge in one of the deep Voids. 

There is technology out there capable of seeing and trapping a no-ship. But how come it was neutralized by dumping the ship's navigation systems? 

A remembrance took over his field of vision. His past. On a Guild heighliner of old, en route to the Ixian Core. Leto sent me to Ix to get an engineer’s training once. Not that the Ixians had been very forthwith. 

He snapped out of that unbidden memory, came to sit on the floor. Another uncontrolled flash took over. He stood like he was now, but on a terrace. The vision was so engrossing he sensed the smell of flowers, a sense of humidity. The gross, beastly body of the God-Emperor was behind him, he could feel the vibration in the air that compelled him to complete attention, lest the Emperor decided to bring forth his fury. Fix this in your memory Duncan , he had started, the sandtrout that I carry will turn any planet into a new Dune, if you follow these instructions…

He had memorized, but not understood. 

Duncan blinked, and was back into the work room. He focused on the no-ship. The Ixians modeled the machine to replicate the ability of a Guild Navigator. Pity that he had not gone to train with the Ixians at that time. If a machine can do the job of a Navigator, could technology be prescient? Were the Gardeners bridging into the navigation systems to navigate the ship to them?

He compared the ship’s electronics, now neatly organized in the new layout, to the schematics he had found in the system itself. It was going to be a long day. Longer, if he could not shake away the deja-vus in his mind. The sexual withdrawal was playing tricks on his mind. He had tried ingesting any medical substance he found to be helping.  

A vision came to him again. Now it was the Sareer desert, on a starry night. 

“Never again,” the voice beside him had said, the Second Moon’s light sparkling on the yellow sand devoid of melange.

“Never?” That one Duncan had turned to the worm laying flat against the surface of the dune. 

“No, there will never be somebody like me, Duncan-seed.”

“You consider yourself a one-time cure.”

"Do not be dull. I am humanity’s rearer,” continued the voice, a voice full of the sounds and tones of man but encased in a large deformed body. “Never again will there be a prescient seer of my caliber, Duncan-seed. That gene will die with me. I ensured the Atreides line does not have enough of it. Only me.” The Emperor’s body flowed in the sand to rest ten paces away. His gesture showed disapproval of him. Was he being too slow?

He was old, old for a Duncan. He had lived up to expectations.  

“Why do I keep you in my genetic program, Duncan?” the Emperor had asked from the crest of the next dune, the vibrations in the sand hinting at the tremendous force kept on leash there.

“To avoid in-breeding, Sire.”

“Since when do you passively accept my suggestions? Function as a Mentat. Doesn't being the ancestor of my majordomos across so many bloodlines defeat the purpose?”

“I am an idealist. A counterbalance to the power-hungry Corrino and Atreides genes both?” The answer seemed to annoy Leto. Something in the air trembled. You ignored the worm’s sounds at your peril.

“I have already told you what my Golden Path is about. Never before I have told a Duncan.” He had sneered at the remark that there had been many like him.

“Yes, Sire. Invisibility to prescience.”

“Stop being asinine!”

“What?”

“Summon your talents, and tell me what the Path is really about!” There was a deadly callousness in Leto’s voice, the worm sitting in acquiescence but continuing to emit tiny vibrations that made sand share lightly on the crest of the dune.  

Duncan’s mind had raced quickly, with that sense of urgency that so many times had saved him at the crucial moment. Prescience. Invisibility. Project the current state of the Imperium, Fish Speakers, total space travel control, absence of melange and extrapolate to an upside-down future universe. A Mentat projection, he had thought, will take too long. Leto knew that and wanted a leap of insight from him.

“You seek… you seek... the large-scale imprinting of human nature into something that is not susceptible to tyranny.” 

A pause. “Continue.” A flat-voice order. 

Continue? 

“Your plan is to shield humanity from peril. No!” he quickly added, seeing a flash in Leto’s angry eyes; the worm-body still. “You want humanity to evolve into a state where it can take care of itself." Silence in the Saher. “It implies eradicating all existing powers, prescience, male combativeness, and your own,” he had ventured, breaking the silence.

The Emperor was quiet. Duncan had continued.

“How do you achieve that? Invisibility to prescience, Atreides bloodlines. That can’t be enough. What is the point of invisibility if you are saying there will never be a prescient seer like you again? You Atreides are more ambitious than that. You seek... the profound reprogramming of the human species.”

“Maturation, Duncan-seed. See? You are a man on the sand. Sand is not a human’s environment. I slide on sand while you stumble on it. A man has to evolve, adapt to its surroundings. Humans are the genetic product of a small, beautiful, life-teeming planet. They were not born the children of the universe."

The Emperor had paused, looking up as a shooting star traced a wide arc into the night sky. 

"There will always be prescience, Duncan-seed. You, you are but a patch of soil, which I am lovingly attending to. Water and air and sunlight. The seed does not understand, but at the right time it will transform into a sprout.”

“You speak of designs that I am too immature to grasp.”

“There will be many types of prescience. But never again like mine. I am the last universal Oracle.”

Duncan’s mind kept investigating lines of inquiry. “Unsolved paradox, Sire. You are creating your own blindness. You say you exist for humanity to be free, but you enslave it and create a blind spot to your powers. Your prescience cannot see if your long-term plan will be achieved. Can it?”

“Do you think so?” Leto’s voice had a finality in it.

“You are just a… a gambler, then? On a cosmic scale?”

No, no no!

The rush of the air was a distraction while Duncan’s mind raced… Can he see the action around the blind area? I have to… but Leto’s sandworm body landed squarely on him, crushing all his bones. Stupid , had been his last thought.

His mind shook the memory and the pain away. It took a minute to calm his body, restore normal breathing. The wafers of circuitry were there, unchanged. Only a fraction of a second had passed. Duncan got back to his work, sorting circuits, sorting memories.

Chapter Text

XXII.
The Just Jailors

What about alien species? Talmudic tradition solved it eons ago, recognizing endless creations happened on many planets. Either aliens will have free will, and hence can join the people of Israel, or they do not, in which case the question does nor arise. What about artificial intelligence? The scholars agree that should that ever be created, it will have but the will its creators instill in it. Hence once again, they won't be able to join the People.
-- COMMENTARIES OF THE DIASPORA  

"Rabbi, we are staking all that we have on your quotes of Maimonides , " exclaimed Miles Teg. In the metal-encased apartment they were confined to, he did not dare say more for fear of being listened to. If that was a jail, it was a comfortable one indeed, with a fully furnished room, sleeping quarters and bathroom. He did not like the implication that their stay could be long. Thankfully, they did not have to wait for their first visit. The door swung open to let the Security chief enter, Commissioner Hilom. 

"Rabbi Fool ," he began, "what a fitting name you chose for your little act! Surely Kesil is not your real name? We can speak freely here," he added as the Rabbi watched him alarmed, and sat down at the nearest chair. "Since when the Secret Protocol says you can utter our secret words in front of a planetary council? We can only hope the Sayyadina has not picked up on the clues. Oh, don't you worry, there will be a line of people outside before you know it. Spice makers! All of the trades Israel has picked up along the way, indeed this is the most singular, Rabbi!"

"We adapt."

"So we did. Tradition and change. One of our Rabbis has been notified, obviously. We expect a strong examination before believing your claim. By the deep sky! I had not heard Maimonides' utterances in ages."

"Maimonides' words are eternal, dear Commissioner."

"Is there going to be a test?" asked Teg.

"Merely an interview," replied the Commissioner. "Do you allow riding a transport to the synagogue on Shabbat, Rabbi?"

"Yes," he replied, "but if you are riding on a no-ship, does God know you are on your way?"

The Commissioner laughed. Then, turning serious: "By the Secret of our community, Rabbi, you have come to this place at a terrible time. Our community will give you asylum, granted, but the ship needs to go. Every day it is orbiting Delphyne, it asks for trouble."

"How so? What can the Commissioner tell us of this planet?" asked Teg. 

"Hilom," commented the Rabbi, "the youth you see here is not a youth. He is wise beyond his years."

"I can see that. I will tell you about Delphyne soon enough. What is the motive for your trip here?"

"The Honored Matres displaced us."

"Never heard of them in this part of the Universe."

"Let's pray it stays that way."

"Well then, that spice offer was a gamble. Is it real, Rabbi?"

"It can be real, in small quantities."

"More trouble. There will be a line out of this room in a second."

He paused because of a knock at the door, after which the thin figure of Priest Brogallo timidly entered the room. Tread cautiously, was the meaning of Teg's look to the Rabbi.

"The sons of Israel are welcome to Israel," started the priest. Realization flashed on the Rabbi's eyes. 

"Priest Brogallo, you... one of us! But... ordained as a priest of the Worm?"

"Judge not a man until you come into his place," replied the Commissioner. Priest Brogallo's wide smile could not have come from the same shy priest they had seen perform in Council. 

"On Delphyne, jails have soft pillows and chains made of feathers," replied the Rabbi, "And our jailors seem attentive as much as demanding. So, Brogallo, do you live as a converso ? Rakian priest by day and son of Israel by night?"

"Rabbi, delicate times offer unique opportunities. Anything, so that our secret community does not get exposed."

"Delicate as our offer of spice."

"I have said it already, Rabbi. There will be a line out there soon enough," intervened the Commissioner. "Rabbi Olza will meet you, and if accepted you will have my conditional protection. My conditions are two: the no-ship needs to leave within days, and any spice trade happens off this planet. I am not putting our chapter at risk."  

"As you said it. Will it be possible to trade with Israel, elsewhere?"

"If you are accepted. Your circumstances are exceptional. For the time being, you are forbidden to speak of your melange openly. Trust no one. Do you understand armies from other nations will land here in a heartbeat if the information is known?"

"We are in your hands. ' I will seek the lost one, and that which has been cast out I will bring back, and the broken one I will cure. ' We have a list of urgent needs for the group of us that remains aboard our ship."

"How many people?"

"Five of the People."

"And how many others?"

"Three dozen or so."

"We cannot promise asylum for them."

"Yes you will" interrupted Miles Teg, a surety of tone that betrayed a much older awareness.

"Tell us Rabbi? Who is this really? A midget?" asked the Commissioner coldly. 

"You are in the presence of Miles Teg, a renowned leader from the Million Worlds, and one of the Bene Gesserit. His mind is much older than his looks."  

"Bene Gesserit," replied Brogallo, his eyes twitching. "How many?"

"All the others on the ship."

"Emigration, or colonization Rabbi? You bring the Bene Gesserit. Are they setting their eyes on this planet?" asked the Commissioner.

"You can think of us as an offshoot. The Sisterhood of old does not know our location."

"A Diaspora of Sisters! Landing here again to spread that Sheeana cult! More and more now they copy the ways of our nation."

"How did they copy..." asked Teg, then kept silent. 

"The Azhar book? Matrilineal descent and lineage records? And who do you think first prophesied the advent of the Kwisatch Haderach, the witches?" blurted out the Rabbi, out of real anger or maybe just for the sake of impressing the Commissioner and the Priest. 

"Thousands of years of pharaonic rule, because of the Sisterhood games. Remember history." continued Priest Brogallo.

"And yet, a secret alliance with the same, bringing safety and refuge in the most trying of times," warned the Commissioner, relaxing. "Do not mind our bantering, Teg-boy. Debate, disagreement and dissent all are in our blood." 

"Yet you hide in the shadow of the Rakian religion, Brogallo? Do you prostrate in front of an animal deity?" demanded the Rabbi.

"The old worm was just a worm. We are first and foremost a pragmatic folk, stepping up to the role of governing this planet so that our community remains safe, discreet, and undetected. And in doing so we act as conduits for other communities of Israel scattered in deep space. People, customs and even religions change as they Scatter, Rabbi."

Hilom came closer, speaking with finality: "We honor the commitment to our people, and to the Bene Gesserit. Forgive us the theatricals in the council room. Everybody's informants had learned about your gift before we could do any damage control. Delphyne has established itself as a safe haven, a place of religious freedom and prosperity, but the times are changing."

"How so?" asked the Rabbi. 

"The neutral stance we achieved by forestalling foreign interests, that stance will be tested soon. We don't want to offer any opportunity -- and that includes a giant no-ship orbiting around the planet -- to create points of friction."

"Yet, Commissioner, this ship comes to you as a free rook just as you thought you were running out of pieces on the board," stated Teg.

"Very perceptive. What makes you think of that?"

"I have limited data to make a guess, but..." continued Teg with emphasis and manners that assured his audience he was no youth, "you act like under contrasting pressures. Your council has representation from the most singular power groups, representatives of foreign powers. You embrace us while calculating how you can discredit us, hide us away, wait for the right moment. Make no mistake, our entrance here has altered the old balance."

"What Bene Gesserit trick is this boy? Know that this planet has been living off of its neutrality for decades. The center where all forces balance out. No power too strong, no action without a reaction. The conquest nobody pursued, fearing their opponents' reactions."

"That's admirable," replied Teg. "It is the subtlest of games, balancing opposing enemies out..."

"Yes!" replied the priest.

"Except a single feather can unbalance the scales." 

"And the scales were quite unbalanced just before you arrived."

"Is war coming?"

"Perhaps."

"But then," asked the Rabbi, "do be clear with me. If the presence of spice-trading merchants is so troublesome, why haven't you sent us away already?"

"Their balance is about to collapse," replied Teg, "... but a giant no-ship came out of the sky with promises of spice. If you work with us, we will together dish out the melange to any interested party -- and all of Delphyne's enemies are on that list -- and this planet will become once again too precious for any faction to let it fall into other people's hands. And so the pendulum will swing back to equilibrium."

"I am speechless," admitted the Commissioner, "But then again, we heard the Bene Gesserit would make your mind feel naked." He stood up while heading for the door: "We will play the act, you understand. There will be an inspection of the ship. We will pretend to expose you as empty handed. Which for what I know could really be the case." He stood up. "In the meantime, you will be our guests. The chapter will accept or reject our dear Rabbi shortly. Our brother Ben -- Brogallo for all others -- will take care of your needs. I will find an excuse to see you later," and without another word, he marched out. 

"Ben, speak clearly," said the Rabbi. "Why are you two so involved? Pack up, or go underground, what compels you to steer the politics of this planet? To trust a no-ship that came out of the past?"

"I don't! I will let our Rabbi speak for you. But would you refuse the gift of Providence?"

The false priest searched around the room, looking for something to lean on.

"Do you know," he continued in a whisper, "that Delphyne is the crossroads of all faiths? Walk south a few miles, just outside the city center, and you will find a ruined temple that was built by the first wave of fugitives from the Million Worlds. The priestesses there follow no religion we can remember. And Israel does remember history. They drink the fumes rising from the cracks in the ground, they shake in wild seizures while proffering the most unholy words. I visited once. The head prophetess, wearing rags, laughed at me as I approached. It took time for me to realize she was talking in her sleep. I woke her up -- I am the chief priest of Dur, after all -- and asked her to foretell the future of my People. Do you know what she said while dancing above the mists?"

"What..." attempted to chime in Teg. 

"She touched my arm," interrupted the priest touching Teg's arm, "and said words I remember to this day. She said: 

The Emperor's gold it carries defiant 
in its belly, Golem the name of the giant." 

"I started laughing at the notion of gold, but the laughter died in my throat as soon as she uttered the giant's name. I froze. I felt found, exposed, but the woman uttered words that were not hers. Like she was being played by an invisible hand. She did not know what the Golem was or how that revealed my origins. I derided her and told her I was a priest -- what good was gold to a priest? 

"Out of the sky the giant will land
to back the righteous who inherits the land" 

"That's how she finished, and she collapsed on the floor and never spoke again. Rabbi, is your vessel called Golem, by chance?" 

"No," replied the Rabbi in earnest.

"But it indeed brings the Emperor's gold. Only, Rabbi..."

"Yes?"

"Do not forget to let your giant rest at Shabbat, this time."  

The door re-opened. Commissioner Hilom stood in the way. "I am back sooner than expected. Rabbi Esther Olza is waiting in the next room for our 'fool'," he said with a harmless smile. 

"I will..." chimed in Teg. 

"I should go alone, Miles. I am ready," replied the Rabbi, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Ready as we always must be," continued the Commissioner. "Oh and, Commerce Agent Kilaz has been seen walking toward us. I trust that your Teg-boy can handle an impious scumbag? Because he is going to be alone with him while you are busy with your meeting, Rabbi. Oh, and please pardon my old Galach." 

Chapter Text

XXIII.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Our species is not genetically nor culturally programmed to care for the long-term. Slash-and-burn civilizations expand into the Seeking, unleashing destruction to the same planets they will call home. Mass extinctions, climate obliteration, and long-term challenges for human habitability is the result. The endless destruction of nature’s infinite variety and the disregard for humankind’s own biological roots must end. The wheel of karma must be broken. That is why we act.
— THE ECOLOGISTS’ MANIFESTO 

Early in the morning Murbella, stunning in a translucent white dress and high black heels, and wearing a golden necklace and bangles on her wrists in the forgotten Etruscan fashion, stopped at the cafeteria to bathe in the looks of the admiring Acolytes. Her hair fell in a perfectly shaped bobbed hairdo, undisturbed by the wisp of desert wind that came in through the doors. She stared at the Sisters gathered there, then grabbed spice coffee and rigidly walked back to the meeting room she had established nearby. The Sisters, guards and cafeteria personnel alike, all followed her out with admiring looks. Standing on the pedestal, don’t trip on your gown, she warned herself.

Bellonda entered the work room shortly after, and the Mother Superior looked at her.

“About Scytale?" guessed Bellonda.

“Yes," murmured Murbella.

"Our trick worked,” Bell replied. “Master Zoel says a test tank will be ready within a month. The secret of production is a catalyst that interacts with the sandworm's water of life – the concentrated spice essence, and once at full regime it can output a literjon of spice per month."

"A tank, you call ‘it’? I'll remind you we are talking about one of our Sisters."

"Yes. Based on our needs, we will need two dozen tanks, and the same number of volunteers."

"Our survival demands it. See to it.”

"Already done, Murbella."  

"Where did you find twenty-four Sisters willing to volunteer to be spice factories for the Matres who need to be converted?"

"Didn't say Sisters."

"Honored Matres?"

"The Splintered ones we captured in last month's recapture of Lampadas."

"Lampadas? That is fitting. A hundred years of pain is what I wish for the whores who destroyed our most beautiful school."

Bell hesitated, then lowered her voice: “Murbella?”

“What now?

“If other Matres within our ranks heard you…”

“Other Matres? Do you still think of me as one of them?”

“I don’t, but certainly they do…”

“A Matre can call another Matre whatever she wants.” 

“Fine. Teg is out here,” concluded Bellonda standing aside.

“Call him in, we need some of his leaps of imagination.”

Bell walked out, certainly upset by the line. She understands imagination is not a thing for her.

While waiting, Murbella found herself daydreaming… of sweaty bedsheets and baliset songs. That bad minstrel is sneaking in my senses as well as my room , she thought. I must not lose control.  

Teg was through the door with the Tleilaxu Master before Bell could stop him; he climbed on a chair and pillows in front of Murbella, studied her pensive gaze before she broke eye contact. Ever the observer. He does not like me, this new ghola Bashar. But, we had no time for Odrade's motherly conditioning. 

 “I thought we would be alone.” snapped Murbella. 

“We have allies to consult.” pressed Teg, pointing to the Master. 

“We may as well. The four of us, let’s begin,” she consented. The other council members, especially Angelica and Ashala, were going to be furious. They can watch the recording… there are too many projects in flight for them to grasp the entire scope.

“Murbella, we need to leave Chapterhouse,” began Teg, his body on three stacked pillows on top of the chair.

“I know. We are due for a rendez-vous with these Handlers in a month. We hoped, Master Zoel, that you could tell us more about the nature of this threat.” This Tleilaxu master, she reflected, appeared quite like a punk from the old Terra days, metal piercings and the simple dark coat that could have hidden more than a weapon. He was such a far cry from the simple, unadorned and despicable masters of the Tleilaxu of old, but the same pointy teeth. No wonder the Bandalong masters never really trusted these Scattered ones. The new Tleilaxu stood in the foreground, the old ones faded in the back.

Teg pressed on: “No, Murbella, the Order needs to evacuate Chapterhouse and designate a new capital. The location of this place is not hidden anymore, and the desertification makes for very expensive food imports. Do you think there are any fish left in the wild?”

“That’s on purpose. My stew needs to be an incredibly costly item.”

“Bell here tells me the spice problem is about to be solved, by a large measure thanks to Master Zoel here. We stopped creating new Matres, and the existing ones are undertaking the agony in the largest numbers. One in five fails, which means a number of them will think twice before volunteering.”

“How many have we lost?”   

“Seven thousand so far, while converting thirty-five thousand.”

Bellonda chimed in: “Angelika has suggested changes in the training which are being implemented right now.” 

“Good girl,” commented Murbella.

“Meanwhile we have to halt almost all spice ordeals,” concluded Bellonda.

 “Our regular Sisters also need our attention,” Teg pressed on, “They lament that the Matres’ refuse to train them in combat. I need your Angelika to work with me so that we can make their speed skills a staple of our training.”

“For Reverend Mothers and for your soldiers?” 

“That’s my recommendation.”

“Bold proposal. Did Angelika agree?” asked Murbella.

“She would kill me on the spot if I proposed it,” said Teg cooly.

“She would kill a boy?”

“Don’t mock me.”

“But you are faster than she is.”

“Don’t tell her. I’d get to the door, but this body of mine would not outrun her in the hallway.”

“I will talk to her," she paused, looking out of the window. Dar, why are we still here? Your mission is complete, and the worms are back. “ It is time to leave. Weather stations will remain here to monitor and harvest the spice. But we need not turn into the Fremen of old."

"Our infrastructure cannot support all the Matre freshwomen we keep landing on Central. Our water facilities are collapsing," confirmed Bellonda. 

"It is time to go. Yes, let’s pick a new planet. We will call it Chapterhouse… wherever our headquarters are, it will always be Chapterhouse," proposed Murbella.

Bell nodded: “Then this planet where we stand, is New Rakis.”

“Precisely.”

“The new planet will be one seeded with sandtrouts, of course,” continued Teg, “no reason to create another bottleneck in spice production."

"And so we will have to move every twenty years or so as the worms overtake the place,” continued Bellonda.

"An itinerant HQ? Are we ready for this?" asked Murbella.

"The way I see it, we are a relatively minor faction confronting one or more unknown enemies. Movement is strength,” advised Teg.

"And so we will become like the errant Zensunni, forever hunted," said the ever-bitter Murbella. 

"Until we have enough desert planets. We know of enough uninhabited planets not charted yet in navigation maps." 

“Does that mean we will move to the borders of the Million Worlds, Teg?”

“There are no uncharted planets near Kaitan, if that is what you are asking. We will gradually drift toward the Scattering.” 

“How will you train your soldiers to speed combat, Teg?” asked Bell, suspicious.

“The same way I think Matres are trained. Hypnosis, prana-bindu, harsh environment, and the synaptic rewiring of the T-probes.”

“Your recruits will die in droves. Faster to give them the Agony.”

“Salusa Secundus was a warrior testing ground once and it will become it again. Al-Dhanab is where I will refine the training. It will be a small corps, given the losses I expect.”

Murbella shook her head. “How have we Atreides come to this?” she blurted. 

“Murbella?” questioned Bellonda, eyes like a hawk. 

“Dar asked me to make her thoughts known,” the Reverend Mother replied, “don’t you look at me like I am some kind of abomination.” 

“Very well,” commented Teg. “Tell my daughter in your head that she made extreme decisions too – remember Rakis, Lampadas? The Atreides of old had a sense of justice and scruples that almost caused their extinction. There is no chivalry in this age. This lesson the Atreides have learned thanks to the Fremen, I think: the necessity to choose between two dark paths.”

“We are not in extremis yet, Teg. Hatch our contingency plan and prepare. Do not thin out the ranks of our army. Conserve our forces. The time of the Saurdaukar ended a long time ago.”

Belloda spoke up: “And, you continue to evade the subject of your tribulations on Gammu. I still would want to know what happened there, how you acquired your own speed, and any other talent that you may have discovered there.”

“Be my guest, Bellonda, but should we not speak of our rendez-vous with the enemy?” replied Teg. 

The master had been quietly observing, rubbing his chin. “How is the war?” he muttered in that musical accent common in the Scattering, “I mean the current one.”

Teg reassured him: “At current speed, in less than a decade we will have all the splintered Matres cornered, with minimal losses. Faster if the Handlers decided to pursue them, which is not the case so far.” 

"If these Handlers are Face Dancers, I can assure you we can deal with them. But I have never heard of Dancers without Masters."

"There could be Masters behind them," continued Teg.

"Or they may not be Face Dancers."

"We only have suspicions. Master Zoel,” concluded Teg., "Would you join Murbella and I to Gammu?"

"If Murbella asks, I will join." 

How can he not? I adequately enslaved him , thought Murbella. He knows there will be rewards he is addicted to.

“I am asking you, Master,” said Murbella.

“I will oblige,” he replied, the fleeting smile on his face and the sudden change in the light of his eyes; a change that revealed for a just a moment a deep sense of expectancy, a dependency, like the addict’s pavlovian response to an expected reward. Murbella’s. 

"I cannot stress more how dangerous this trip is going to be,” concluded Teg. 

"My own ghola is already growing in the tanks,” was his plain answer.

***

It was twilight on Central, and yet you could still make out the shapes of the shuttles that continued to land Matres students on a daily basis, small yellow pilot lights that seemed like fixed stars when high above the stratosphere. Murbella took off her shoes while gazing out of the window to catch the last glimpse of sunlight. A male voice was singing with a soothing voice next to her. 

Darling, dearest red-haired nymph
Of the passion of love you gave me a glimpse

The trees of Fidalgo spill sap made of honey
For a taste of your lips, I suffer divinely

You hide, and chide me, and leave me breathless
Make me long for a taste of your sweetness…

“You are improving,” Murbella remarked, failing to muster the energy for more sarcastic comment, “these rhymes are decent.”

The echo of the baliset’s last chord faded, while Lorain, his muscular body cross-legged by the window, made a frown.

“Decent! She says they are decent! These lyrics have won awards on Chusuk! Maybe you’d prefer to hear some indecent ones?”

“How did I allow you to come into my bedroom again?” she smiled, closing the window and proceeding to undress herself, not in a provocative way, but with a deliberate indifference that told him he was but a casual observer.

“If not my songs, it must be my beautiful skin.”

“I took you in despite them,” continued Murbella.

“You are going to be more attracted to someone you like and who makes you feel insecure. Or someone you like and is considered desirable by other women. Or someone you like and dislike at the same time in a way that makes you feel slightly superior.”

“These are attractions any living woman should wholeheartedly reject.”

“Because they are tried and true!” 

“Attraction, courtship and love are different concepts.”

“And yet it all works, trust the troubadour.”

“Try me,” she challenged him.

“Precisely.”

“It’s not working, my dear.” Murbella stood up, grabbing a towel and walking briskly toward the shower. Since when did I allow men to burden me with their emotions? The answer came immediately: since I have been trying to fill the space left by Duncan. 

“A massage before going to bed?”

“It’s been a long day. Don’t touch me. Keep playing though.”

When Murbella came out at the end of her hot shower, the air saturated with steam, her body  smelling of energy and vitality, Lorain was there - naked, muscular, breathing. “You are lonely,” that’s all he said.

Had he been someone else... a gesture, a look would have been all that was necessary. But there was no electricity in the air. “You are out of tune today,” she stopped him, ignoring his naked body and striding toward the wardrobe.

“Are you just going to stare at me and go to bed? Why did you call me?"

“Right. Now, dear, melt back into the background as room decor.”

“Murbella,” he came closer to caress her shoulder slowly…

“Last warning,” she stared coldly at him, and he sensed it was a gaze that did not imply a playful challenge. He retreated with a sigh, then carefully walked out of the apartment, still naked! , in protest.

Murbella laughed, some of the day's tension releasing. However annoying, I don’t feel ancient inside when he is around , she realized. That did not bring any comfort.

From outside her apartment, she followed him in her mind while he sang and played. Was he still walking around naked like a wildman? How long before the guards would stop him? Or let him go for the ridiculous minstrel he was? She pictured him going about his business, his baliset as his only piece of clothing, the building's personnel watching him in chagrin or contempt, while the chorus of a song dating back to the Corrino Imperium resounded across the hallways of the capitular building:

The Galacian girls do it for pearls,
And the Arrakeen for water!

But if you desire dames like consuming flames,
Try a Caladanin daughter!

… and then, to Murbella’s astonishment, new verses followed:

Stacked up tall in their mystic halls
Are the Bene Gesserit Sisters!

Haughty souls in lousy robes
Both charming and sinister!

If you fear not, their fruit to taste
In ecstasy and disgrace,

Try the saint and sinner all in one,
And bed a Chapterhouse nun!

Chapter Text

XXIV.
Sheeana's Serpent

"Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free."

– RUMI

Sheeana, Ecath, Oriana, Walli and the others had to push through the mob as they passed the market area, making their way up the steps to a stoneplaz arc that acted as the gate to the main plaza. The drums were blasting through the speakers, announcing the decennial festival of Dur to the local population, to the petitioners gathered from distant planets, to the merchants who were looking to profit from the foot traffic. 

A vast slab of laser-cut stone stood in the middle of an open plaza three miles large. The heart of the city of Lat, temples and fairgrounds all around in triangle-shaped buildings all pointing East, with the eye-blinding Prismatic Tower, the seat of the Rakian Diaspora, rising from its southern point.

The plaza seemed immense, an open playground for the human experience. They started the dance as they always did, feeling their way around the ritual music played by the local  musicians. Walli felt that Sheeana’s initial steps were nervous, charged with electricity that afternoon. Sheeana's eyes were closed as the trance started overtaking her. Walli could not but feel a connection with her and that inner self substance she was expressing, the void that required attention. It was a wave that sucked her in. In unison, the other sisters responded to Sheeana's mind state and initiated a series of unpredictable moves. Here we come! thought Walli, redoubling her efforts. The fluid, seductive arm movements turned into menacing arcs that was a dance as well as a fight. Passer-bys stopped to watch, then a few joined in as the drummers and the baliset players transitioned from the repetitive trance-like ritual music into an encore that chased the bodies' movements. Women and men alike discarded their sandals to join the dance; no, not a dance anymore but a rush with no recursive rhythm, backbeats raising and then vanishing. Then, Walli heard an inner click as the music locked in dancers, musicians and spectators in the same wave, a resonance that made them part of the same energy flow. As the percussion accelerated, she closed her eyes and felt the entirety of the crowd on her skin, new groups joining in the endless square under the Delphyne sun. 

Where were they now? Were her Sisters close by? Walli abruptly opened her eyes only to be reassured they were all around her. Clothes and robes were being dropped everywhere as they sweated, their swirling bodies seeking the kiss of fresh air. Most dancers were completely enraptured, with only her Sisters keeping eyes open, both simultaneously lost in the dance and aware of their surroundings. Looking out, Walli saw people crowding the far sides of the square. More were joining, dancing or playing improvised instruments, drums and the occasional baliset; all hypnotically caught into a net. How many now? Three hundred, five hundred, more? How long had it been, half an hour, or longer?

Panting from the effort, and managing a nascent sense of dread, Walli decided to stop. This physical rush was not a dance anymore. But her body did not comply. It did not slow down. Surprised, she focused on relaxing  every muscle. She should have collapsed down on the ground. That did not happen. Her mind was awake in a dream she could not control. A gasp came out of her. This must be what the Rakian dance of old was like. Then came the realization that the dance wave would not stop. Energy jumped from one body to the other, and there, behind Oriana and Ecath, she saw Sheeana, the wild one, extending her arms and legs in slow motion, like wading water, at the center of countless bodies which were whirling frantically like a sufi dance of old, then breaking up, creating crests and troughs like breaking waves. She could not shake the feeling that the gigantic serpent which was swaying them up and down was one Sheeana was riding, she was the snake rider and the reinholder, and she was not stopping, but going deeper and deeper into the trance as thousands around her were so caught in the collective hypnosis that they were not aware they could not get away.

    The vortex spun and spun and spun, Walli's mind exploding into infinity as she just whirled and whirled, raised and then crawled, her body producing incoherent beautiful movements she did not know she could produce, aggression and seduction and joy and anger like different colors of an ethereal dragon that enveloped them all. Crushing, jumping, weaving, caressing, holding, changing steps.

As Walli crashed against another dancer, she finally shocked herself out of the trance. A tremor was rising, a tremor of discomfort which transformed into restlessness and into frustration. She could not make up the contours of that – was it aggression, repression, sexual energy? – no, she could not figure it out. Frustration grew into anger. Kneeling to the ground, Walli saw Ecath next to her and shook her of her state. "Grab five robes and stay close to Sheeana!" she shouted.

Cries arose like a thousand voices across the square. Somewhere anger was turning into violence. She grabbed her Sisters one by one and connected them hand-to-hand, then grabbed Sheeana, the wild Sheeana which snapped out of her trance suddenly, unaware.

"Run now! Stay linked!" Walli urged them on. Dancers everywhere had entered a wild paroxysm of kicks and elbows. Screams floated up high among the crowd, of rage or pain or maybe both. Two men to their left punched each other to the ground, their eyes still closed. 

As they shoved the crowd they finally found themselves at the edge of the plaza, next to a side lane, Walli could not fathom how they had made it with barely a few bruises. Now in the desolate void of the lane, they faced one another, distressed. Walli grasped Sheeana's wrist, and out of exasperation used Voice on her Sister: "Sheeana, what have we done!" 

Sheeana cowered, now fully aware: "I... lost myself."

"Do you know what is going to happen next?"

"There is going to be a riot," said Ecath.

"The word does not begin to describe it!"

"I... cannot stop this," replied Sheeana.

"Sheeana, now we run!" intimated Walli. 

And run they did, as the noise of the tumult erupted, ear-deafening, behind your backs.   

***

Under a firmament of thousands of bright white stars, Sheeana, Ecath and her party strode across narrow lanes in the southernmost part of the city of Lat. Out of breath and tightly wrapped in their dark robes, they hurried single-file along the shaded wall, avoiding the light of the full moon. Come to a crossing, Ecath signaled to stay back while she peered around the corners. A hand gesture and one at a time they crossed, narrowly escaping the sound of footsteps approaching. More than once that night they maneuvered to avoid Delphyne’s security, marching in double-file squads across all but the narrow lanes their guide was leading them through. A towering building in white and gray – a cathedral? – seemed to be the epicenter toward which Ecath was leading them. 

“That was bold of us,” whispered Oriana who was near the top of the line. 

“Bold? Us? Can anybody explain what happened there?” gasped Walli a few steps ahead. Sheeana at the top line made a gesture to silence them. Vivid images were still in front of her. 

"This way!" murmured Ecath. We are fortunate this woman is full of strength , she thought, even as she saw her nearly lose her footing on the cobblestone. For how long had they been walking, marching, running from house to house?

  They had glimpsed at what had happened. Fights had erupted. Buildings assaulted. Incoherent chanting. Security forces – not the police, but the local military – had appeared on all the main streets. Clashes, fires, and blind violence. Martial law had descended over the city.

And yet, their guide had not abandoned her. Confused she was, but still with them. 

A back door no farther than a block from the white and gray opened wide, a light flickering through the entrance. They silently walked indoors. No talking. A man in his late youth recognized Ecath, gestured to go down the richly decorated staircase. Lights led down into a basement in expensive hardwood, then to a wide tunnel with candelabra and wall portraits. Sheeana glimpsed at the portraits of the God-Emperor next to more ancient figures – deities she could not make out in the half light. Up they went again on the other side. Sheeana knew they had reached the large cathedral on the other side of the street, but wondered at the underground detour. They emerged in a hallway and then up again through ramps – no elevators? – leading to a large ante-chamber. Ecath was fidgeting. "Where is it that you are taking us?" inquired Sheeana. 

"We need protection, madam. After what happened today. There could be police looking for us. There is only one power stronger than the government on this planet, and Ecath knows the doors." The conversation was interrupted as the double doors in front of them swung open, and a robed youth carrying a smokeless candle light announced: "She will receive you now."   

Sheeana turned back to Walli, made the Atreides hand signal for potential spy in relation to Ecath , then walked in. All followed but their guide. 

A circular room lit by candelabra welcomed them. The place smelled like moldy rock and plaster instead of the more practical simil-marble. A single hooded woman dressed in white stood in the middle of it, "I am First Sayyadina Idala Alquim. We have much to talk about."

"Beware, First Sayyadina Idala Alquim," replied Oriana in a threat, "for you are at the presence of five full Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit." Not a good idea to pull rank on this one , thought Sheeana. In a universe without spice the Sayyadina, the Fremen equivalent of a Reverend Mother subordinate, were likely at the top of the religious hierarchy. 

The Sayyadina raised her hood to reveal the soft face features of the people of Dan, motherly brown eyes just touched by wrinkles at the corners. She smiled. Realization dawned.  "My heart is full of joy, Sisters, for I was Acolyte to Reverend Mother Torandor Eiseta on Lampadas. For fifteen years I have awaited this moment." 

They exchanged the sign. Tension abated.

"Your presence has caused quite a ruckus," the Sayyadina continued. "Is the young ghola which visited the Council today part of your entourage?"

"Have you met him? And the man that came with him?"

"They are being temporarily withheld, but now that I know of the connection, I will persuade the Commissioner to set them free. Politics are quite a crucible on this planet at the moment."   

"Is Ecath a spy, Idala?" was Walli's first question. 

"Of course. My spy. And a beautiful soul. Superbly trained, though not in the Way."

"Where is the rest of your unit?"

"The spice withdrawal took the Reverend Mothers. They could wait no longer for the sandtrout to evolve."

"Is there sandtrout on Delphyne?" asked Oriana.

"It failed to take, Sister. Fifteen years, and no perceptible change in the climate. I would have come back, but the coordinates of Chapterhouse died in the mind of the last Reverend Mother; and rightfully so, as none of us Acolytes were deemed ready. So we went back to our task: the Missionaria. With splendid results on a planet so welcoming the cultivation of new faiths."  

"Then take us to a place where we can rest safely, Idala."

"Nobody will dare violate the grounds of Delphyne's Oracle, Sister. I am elated you are who I hoped you to be. You can rest safely here tonight. Are you in need of a meal? Yes, I see that. Well, I will have food arranged promptly. There are so many things I'd like to ask you." 

"We will be glad to trade stories, Sister. The girls will go ahead," commented Sheeana, "I will need to pay a visit first."

Chapter Text

XXV.
The Lesson of the Body

Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.
-- THE GATELESS GATE

It will never end, thought Visella as she fell heavily on the bed. It was the wee hours of the morning. Every muscle was aching, her head on fire. These sessions will kill me. Her body had spent so much time exerting itself, it was not adapting quickly to relaxation. Her palms were facing down but her brain registered them as being face up. Her feet twitched. Yet she could use the three hours of sleep the night still held for her. If I could only get a massage.  

What had master Reta called it? The dojo of the mind. But the pain was all physical. She recollected the event. 

"Again!" he had told Visella while she was shaking away the pain to rise up from the wooden floor of the dojo that had smelled of her sweat. The master, far from breathless from the latest skirmish, had looked her in the eyes and remarked: "What’s speed? Body and mind. Body and mind. Reactions start at the surface, in your fingertips. Instantaneously. A miracle? No, it is training. The dojo of the mind. Again!"

"How is this training supposed to help me govern a continent?" she had sneered, dodging the sudden swing of the bamboo cane that kept coming for her from the left and right and above and below. Yes, how is that? "Where there are questions, there is mind! Thought will slow you down!" And on and on he had kept attacking, feinting, and blocking Visella's attempts to break through his guard, to no avail. The master had stopped the cane an inch from Visella's temple.

And there was the drink, too. "Dojo tea," Master Reta had called; but her body recognized it for a new substance. Tame to the body, until activated. She had drank the tea, blissfully unaware. Her senses did not find anything else but the usual compounds. 

"What is in the tea, master?" Visella had asked while aiming to gain as much time as possible to catch her breath. 

"Immanence," was his reply. "Now get to work, chop chop."

Outside the dojo it had been pitch dark. Hardwood floors and paper-thin dividers like a dojo of old. "Do not think we are teaching you combat," the master had said. "This is master Reta's school for civil officers!" 

All clear, master. Back in the present, her body finally capitulated and was fast asleep. But in a curious feeling of disassociation, her mind continued to burn. She saw flashes of light on the back of her eyelids. 

It's all Arbatar's fault... Damn her!

The panel had slid open, revealing the inner courtyard, a fountain, half a dozen cherry trees whose artly modeled branches spoke of years of care and attention. Sapient Arbatar Sorgo had entered dressed in the formal gray suit of a Sage. Evidently, she had only stopped by on her way to other government duties, and greeted the trainer with a slight bow: "Reverend Mother, this is our distinguished Master Reta. I entrust you to him. You ask how to govern a continent. The answer, as you know, is to govern yourself first." 

Whatever was mixed with the dojo tea had activated immediately with physical activity. Her nerves burned. The nightly sessions seemed endless. The first time she had stumbled out of the dojo, and so the second and third. But over the course of many days, a new vigor had started to build. Plenary sessions with the other Five running loops around her, nightly sessions to break her body. Again and again and again.

"Again!" she heard now the Master's bark shaking through her body. Let me sleep, Master.   In her delirium, she saw him float in front of her closed eyes. "Back to the floor. Dodge both canes," he said, his ethereal body adding a second short stick held upside down in the style of a wakizashi. Visella could not tell memory from actuality. Am I in bed? She had waited for the man to swing the long stick, had she? Raised her leg at chest level against the Master, starting to kick lightning fast...

... and once again she had blanked out and found herself on the floor, the calf of her other leg exploding with pain. It had taken a moment for her brain to register how the short cane had deflected her kick while the long one had struck her supporting leg. All her eyes had seen was a blur. In her hallucination she was up again, breathing hard. 

Her nerves kept pulsating. 

Her memory was now revisiting new fight scenes, him with canes, then her. Before her eyes could register any movement, the master had taken hold of the end of the stick she had held, pirouetted forward to lay a hand directly under Visella's neck, and sent her crashing on the floor six paces away. "Hai, master! Enough!" 

Now in her dreams, Visella chose to confront her Master directly.

"What is the value of this lesson, as taught by an android?" she asked.

"Aah, but I am human like you! We are done with the warm-up. Let's do real work."

Visella had stumbled. Real work?

"Now you see, even the androids can learn something from a human trainer. Better, our organic muscles and nerves can adapt, while theirs stay as designed. The tea you consumed contains chemical compounds that activate under duress. You must have felt it." 

And I still feel it , she reminded herself. 

Something had awakened in her bloodstream, and did not want to stop. Bene Gesserit senses had magnified the sensation a hundred-fold. Her nervous system was alive, sinuous and incredibly fine, like a vine extending branches to twigs to sprigs to needles deep into her flesh. She could touch every single minuscule termination.

What session had that been? Number thirty?

"Now, we will train every muscle of your body. Very tedious. But not new to you. A simple exercise. Extend your hand out, take it back to avoid my stick. I will go faster and faster. Go now... caught you. Go now... caught you. Again!"

Visella's hands were still livid from the hits. 

Oh, it was this last lesson.

"Your mind requires a state of flow. It starts at your fingertips. The nerve ends sense before your brain does. The hand and the arm retract faster than your awareness."

"Is this how the Honored Matres fight, Master?"

"I know them not. Combat, by the way, is not the point. We are retraining your nervous system for speed. Neuroplasticity peaks when nerve-tea is activated. This is what our governors achieve, Reverend Mother."

"Physical training to prepare for politics?"

"To prepare for superior decision-making. Again!"

My hands, excoriated.

"Reverend Mother, you are attaching yourself to the idea of accelerating your muscles. That’s not the correct approach. You are trying to tell your nerves to be responsive. That is not the correct approach."

"I see the cane but my body is a long time coming!" she had replied. 

"The correct approach is to re-evaluate your sense of time. As long as you feel you can perceive time, then your conscious mind is bound to feel it, see it move. Your instinctual brain will grasp velocity much faster without the intrusion of consciousness. Stand up! Repeat! Better this time! Do your muscles ache? They are developing new shortcuts."

These shortcuts won't let me sleep, Master.

"Before you go, some tips for later. Movement at speed will confuse your mind, because your vestibular system is slow to catch up. Feel your muscles, rely on proprioception alone. Your calorie burn will jump; remain sensitive to your blood sugar levels. As you advance, you will need to account for air friction. Find the path of least resistance."

That was the night she had just spent training, she knew. She had been laying on the wooden floor, panting. Master, how come my body is reacting so quickly? Her internal chemistry was working to harden the new behaviors. New finer nerves were branching into her flesh.

Her sleepless mind was dashing erratically. 

Martial training to speed up body movements? But what is the connection to government?

A loud noise intruded into her catalepsy. She opened her eyes: it was already dawn.

It took a few seconds to realize it was Arbatar calling through the house system. The link was established before she could move. "I trust your first cycle of lessons went well, Visella."

"Master Reta is keen on bruising his pupils," she whispered, not knowing where the microphone was in the room.

"Quite so. It is a brand new day. Are you sitting in a comfortable position?"

"I can't quite get up. Too tired to move. Hard to speak."

"Good. Stay there. Now, Reverend Mother, I wanted to have you do this before the effect of the nerve-tea dissipated," she continued after a pause, "would you do this for me? Go ahead and recall your briefings." 

Visella breathed in, sought the knowledge in her head, and... vertigo took over. A vast network of particles shone suspended inside her mind, every detail in focus. She observed... millions of golden leaves falling from a tree, each and every one frozen in space, unobstructed by the others. It was all there, perfectly organized. She savored it for a moment. 

Perfect recall.

"Is that how you have trained, Arbatar?" she ventured, still not daring to move an inch of her body.

"Me? Oh, surely not. We only thought this would be an enticing approach for you. I am not much for combat."

"There are other ways? You tell me now after a month of harrowing?"

"Androids do not sweat. I am not saying our process isn't painful," she added quickly,

"But Master Reta said..."

"Of course we have sent him many students, many androids... so that we can help him become a better master."

"And... are there other ways for humans?"

"There are. Painting. Scuba diving. Making tea."

"I would have rather dived my way through!"

"But so very few humans, Visella, are able to learn like you, straight from the center of your pain."

Chapter Text

XXVI. Makers of Miracles  

I enter gladly on the path that is opened to me. 

-- BARUCH SPINOZA  

"I am Rabbi Esther Olza of Delphyne. If you are of the faithful, show me a miracle." That was his examiner's opening move after a long staring silence. 

"I am Rabbi Eben Abih Estel of Gammu. I live," replied the Rabbi. Here the match begins , he thought.  

"For decades I have trodden the soil of this world without ever encountering a manifestation of the Lord," continued Rabbi Olza. The small room chosen for their meeting was damp and badly lit. The silence inside the room was staggering.

"The Lord is," replied Rabbi Estel, "where you let Him in."

"Why, Rabbi Estel? Why have we not recorded any new miracle in the thousands of years we have spent in hiding? What if our bet is wrong?" replied Olza.

"What bet?" 

"That all this comes from the Lord! What happened to miracles?"

"Dew at sunrise. Motherly love. Our continued survival. How are these not miracles?" was the Rabbi Estel's rebuke. 

"Indeed they are," replied Rabbi Olza. "But, try and split the Red Sea in two with motherly love!" 

She has a point , he thought. 

"As a contemporary believer with knowledge of life and science, I rationalize what our ancestors called miracles," she continued. "Did they really happen? Would the revelation be less worthy if they didn't? If they really did happen, were they caused by natural laws especially prepared by God? Should we instead observe the small miracles that plague our everyday life? Does their size make them any less miraculous?" 

"You sound like a skeptic, Rabbi Olza."

"Of all the countless planets in the universe, and trillion people therein, you still think only us, numbering in the mere millions, are the chosen ones?"

"Yes," replied Rabbi Estel. "And the proof of it is in front of your eyes: our diaspora, millions of observant souls, surviving against all odds; enduring strength supported by the faith and the community, and our unviolated secrecy."   

"Is survival proof enough? Or simply natural selection?"

"Isn't it a marvelous and improbable thing though? Improbable, without an invisible and divine hand guiding us forward? Natural selection, but what pushed us to evolve? Answer me, Rabbi Olza."

"Doubts? Of course I have them! You know Jacob fought with Him, and Abraham contested His decisions; who are we to submit blindly to ancient words without noticing the silence of the last thousands of years? Maybe He exists and chose somebody else!"

"Rabbi Olza, permit me to not to answer your question with another question. The exegesis of the Holy words, the debate about interpretation is the lifeblood of our congregation. A simple life, it was on Old Terra, with horizons only a few miles wide, a people of farmers and shepherds, and yet minds whose visionary jumps have opened doors for people's lives for millennia. Even the language the Scriptures were written in has faded from everyday use. Yet you point out a great truth. If all miracles to us are just nes nistar -- the small, hidden ones -- then should we still believe the grandiose acts described in our books? To that, the scholars provide many answers: that He used to act directly, but now uses individuals of a more mature humanity; that it is foolish to expect big miracles if we are not the ones preparing the conditions for the miracle to arise; that caring about the magnitude of the miracle is delusional, because the Lord tweaks human existence in response to prayer and need, sometimes invisibly to the eyes, and in some small cases visibly; others assert that in an infinite universe, cosmic miracles happen all the time, but humans -- and particularly, non-believers -- may not be so perceptive to identify them. Who are we to only look only at instances of nes galui -- the dramatic miracle that subverts nature -- for a reason to believe? Faith is rooted in reason and our history with Him. We need no special effects. There was wind, and earthquake and fire, but the Lord came as a gentle whisper. "

"And yet, Rabbi Estel, other scholars simply state that there is no reason to believe in miracles at all, least of all the ones violating physical laws," continued Rabbi Olza.

"Why is it hard for you to believe in nature-subverting miracles? They are in front of you: interstellar travel, navigation devices finding safe paths through space-time, drugs from alien planets making ancestral memories emerge... what about splitting the Red Sea so subversive, Rabbi Olza?"

"Ah, but that's exactly my point, Rabbi Estel. What if He has delegated to us the power to subvert nature, to make changes happen? The maturity of humanity?"

"Do you think humanity commonly performs miracles?"

"I do. Faithful and gentiles alike."

"A novel viewpoint, Rabbi Olza. Some commentators of old would say that just you believing this, and still keeping the faith, is a miracle in itself."

"It may be so, Rabbi Estel."

They stood in silence, half in the darkness, half in the light.

"I have to ask, then..." ventured Rabbi Estel.

"Yes?" replied Rabbi Olza with feigned surprise.

"The problem of the Tyrant."

"Must we go through the multitude of opinions our scholars have given throughout the centuries?"

"It is a most intractable problem."

"It is the Kwisatch Haderach problem, not the Tyrant problem, Rabbi Estel."

"The prophecy was ours."

"Indeed."

"The Messiah we were waiting for, we are still waiting for, was not the Atreides."

"Imposters we have met many times in our history, Rabbi Estel."

"The Tyrant suppressed all religions but his. He stylized himself as God."

"An apostate. That is unanimous."

"An apostate with miraculous powers, Rabbi Olza."

"Some say that, some say devilish powers."

"His prescience did shed light into every dark corner of the universe."

"This has been historically documented. The subject of debate is the scope and limits of his prescience, and the presumed divine source of it."

"The melange is not divine. He suppressed all religion, yet Israel perpetuated itself and emerged unscathed, Rabbi Olza." 

"He even met one of us."

That took the Rabbi by surprise."What?"

"It was Rabbi Ekmet Tushallo. You did not know? He was brought before Emperor Leto himself."

"Brought before him... to die?" asked Rabbi Estel.

"The Fish Speakers discovered and rounded up our chapter on Dan back in those days."

"Certainly it was a courageous thing, to face the apostate, Rabbi Olza."

"To face and survive, even more so."

"Leto II spared a man who deliberately told him he was no god?"

"Yes."

"I am in disbelief."

"I will lend you his chronicles then, and you will see for yourself, Rabbi Estel."

"What does it say?"

"For four hours, Rabbi Tushallo conversed with the Emperor. He describes the apostate's throne room in detail. And the monstrous shape of the emperor. Their dialogue was most interesting."

"How so?"

"As it turns out, the Emperor was quite fond of chatting, Rabbi Estel."

"Chatting? Is that why the Tyrant spared Rabbi Tushallo's life?"

"So Rabbu Tushallo said. He writes that he was spared because he spoke truth to power. He told Leto that he was the new ice age -- a time for lethargy. He also used another metaphor: the shepherd turning humanity to sheep."

"Why didn't Leto kill him on the spot, like countless other priests and preachers, Rabbi Olza?"

"Rabbi Tushallo doesn't say."

"That's it?"

"Oh, he (the emperor) also exhibited his powers in an irrefutable way."

"Did he demonstrate his oracular faculties?"

"He named every single Secret Israel community and Rabbi in the Imperium at the time, including ones the Rabbi himself did not know, but was able to verify later."

"He verified later?"

"Do you doubt the thoroughness of an interpreter of the Torah? But the Rabbi risked more."

"How so?"

"He threw the gauntlet of a Talmudic challenge at the Emperor!"

"The risk!"

"Oh yes. More than he thought. It turns out, the Emperor could be quite a strong commentator of the Law."

"The Emperor himself? Impossible."

"The Rabbi reports he talked directly to the Emperor's memory of Rabbi Shammai."

Rabbi Estel was jolted in his seat.

"The power!" he murmured. "Did he win?"

"The emperor? The emperor lost."

"That's comforting."

"Rabbi Tushallo asked Shammai to deliberate on the propriety of his awareness surfacing in the mind of a non-believer, centuries after his own death. He retreated from the emperor's mind."

"Pride?" Rabbi Estel was disconcerted .

"Who would know? So, what is your assessment of the Tyrant, Rabbi Estel?"

"He came and went, and yet we survived."

"No, he came and went, and let the People survive. Knowingly."

"That does not make him a prophet, nor a good soul."

"A miracle-doer, Rabbi Estel."

"A mortal soul, Rabbi Olza."

"An angel of death."

"A victim of melange, Rabbi Olza." 

"The very same melange I heard you are offering to us from your spaceship, Rabbi Estel."

He bit his lip.

"See, Rabbi from the Million Worlds? Our worldview has evolved in the Seeking, layering more and more facets along the way. Modernity continues to happen to us and around us. Yet to the tolerant mind, this awareness is growing around the seed of the Revelation like a beautiful diamond. I welcome you to our Secret Chapter in Lat. I do hope you will be able to join us in the synagogue in three days' time."

"I am honored, Rabbi Olza. Dialectics aside, what is your exact position on miracles, and the Tyrant?" 

"I can hold paradoxes in my head, Rabbi Estel. But at the end of my life, I still have made just one bet: that the voices I have heard and the signs I have seen all came from the Almighty."

Chapter Text

XXVII.
A Day on The Way

Centuries after my death, people's understanding of the Golden Path will keep evolving. They will say, the Tyrant subjugated the human will at unprecedented scale. Which is what I did, but merely as means to an end. Time later, they will say the Golden Path was about setting humans from the yoke of prescience. A thousand years later, it will be something else yet. Let me spare you centuries of indecision. I sought to only achieve one thing: the shaping of humanity into ultimate rebels. 

– LETO II, THE DAR ES BALAT DIARIES 

Tairasu found going back to training almost liberating. Working for the Matres required toiling endlessly in chores that were best left to servants. Even though her status as Matre-in-training commanded respect and attention wherever else she went. But she was still nothing in the presence of full or Great Matres. 

Dorm life on Chapterhouse meant no privacy, that was true, but in the first few weeks she woke curious to learn what a Bene Gesserit life was like. The prana-bindu classes proved to be the hardest and most boring. When can we compare notes on Imprinting?, she asked around, but basic training was only about mind and physical control. Where is Voice training? Great Matres dropped in from time to time, motivating and admonishing them. Not so differently from her old training days on Belasca, Hormu’s own school. Matre Angelika visited every week, spending time with the Tutors and trainers behind closed doors. Screams and sounds of heated discussions would seep out of the meeting room. One time she emerged smiling, and proceeded to the kitchens to order the cooks to lace the food with the tiniest amount of spice. Over the course of a few weeks, the much coveted ingredient became unescapable – in the food, in the coffee, even in the air. A worm had been sighted ten miles from Central, among the rapidly encroaching sand dunes south of the School, and new spice blows scattered blue particles in the evening wind. 

One morning she woke up, and her face in the mirror showed how her eyes had lost the orange speckles of the laiz drug. She ran to Tutor Gammala, the old failed Bene Gesserit, who for once paid her attention. “Calm down, sister,” (her voice was able to convey the subtlety of a lowercase ‘s’!), “our melange is a jealous mistress. She likes her addiction to be exclusive. The exposure to spice is weaning you off of whatever alternative your order was so fond of.” Tairasu had noticed the spite she had used to say ‘order’. 

“Tutor,” Tairasu replied, “is this what the Bene Gesserit in training go through also?” she asked innocently. “Bene Gesserit!” the Tutor exclaimed, ignoring her question. “I wish we could train them still! We just host the hordes of you flowing from countless planets until we burst at the seams. The faster we can set you off, the better!” 

Tairasu stepped back, astonished that somebody could speak so lightly of the Matres without facing repercussions. But Gammala seemed to inhabit that uncharted territory between a Matre and a Bene Gesserit one, an authority that did not see it necessary to cultivate respect from her pupils.

Tairasu dropped Celia, the buddy-turned-hostile, only a few days before on account of discovering she was a failed acolyte. Gerta - another Matre-in-training that had joined only three months before - had become a fast friend instead, if only because she proved to be more knowledgeable about local gossip.

“Have you noticed that there are no Bene Gesserit students around?” Tairasu had asked her on their free day as they were hanging out near the main cafeteria, secretly hoping to meet at Angelika, and escape their boredom. 

“I heard they shipped them away. Too many altercations with our kind. They are slow,” said Gerta looking at the sun, “But do you know what’s worse? They closed down Belasca.”

“My school of old?”

“No Matres schools anymore. By order of Murbella.”

Tairasu gasped. “Is this the end of us?”

“They are merging the Schools. No more laiz . Only spice. Mandatory ordeal for whoever is ready.” Was it going to happen this fast?

“That makes me happy. I want it all," replied Tairasu, "I want their Voice, their control over nerves, over body chemistry, I want the mysteries of the Reverend Mothers. Let’s get on with it.”

“Maybe. Rumors are, there isn't enough spice. That's what Angelika and the Tutors have been fighting about. But hey, let's have fun. Today we are off. I, in fact, have in mind to visit the men’s quarters. There must be somebody idle there at this time of the day.”

“You only have one thing in mind, Gerta!”

“Come along! My friend Sutica is waiting for us there. This planet is a countryside farm, but the B.G. are as hungry as we are. I hear some of the men are excellent,” and she strode off.

“The B.G.?” laughed Tairasu, running to keep up with her. 

“Their name is a mouthful, isn’t it?”

They walked steadily through The Way, the main avenue of Central, which at that time of the day was the place where the Matres and B.G. of rank went to see and be seen. Murbella made regular appearances there, and Angelika too. They gazed at the women, guards, and operatives walking by, while exchanging the latest gossip. “That’s Sister Liomé. She promoted her real-life sister, a total failure. Do you know what happened next? The sister died in the spice ordeal. See how she looks innocent? I bet sent her sister to death on purpose.” 

“Gerta, so you can die of spice?”

“Like any overdose. I am telling you, it was planned.”

And ten feet later: “You see that handsome guard walking with the group?” continued Gerta.

“Mmmh. He looks delicious.” 

“He comes to visit us at School some nights. Brings his pals. Do you like uniformed men?”

“I like men in uniforms I can take away.”

“That one is not bonded, let’s approach him now. Hey, beauty!”

“You don’t remember his name?” whispered Tairasu.

“Why would I?” The two approached the group of men in uniform, observed the mixed reactions of the soldiers who could not take their gaze away from them, the ones who suppressed the urge to do so, and the ones who did both. Gerta, the more worldly of the two, smiled and gently whispered to the handsome one, so fast she was gone before anybody could say a thing. And on the two girls went, before the startled men could figure out whether they had been subject to a joke, a threat, or, as it were, an open invitation. 

“What did you tell him?”

“To come over tonight!”

“Aren’t we going to be busy in the men’s quarters already?” asked Tairasu.

“For how long though? I have not had a man in days!” smiled her friend, “By the way, that one is Sutica.”

The younger Matre-in-training, certainly a second level, had joined them by matching their pace.

“Keeping the men in check, sister?” asked the newcomer.

“Always, my dear Sutica. Meet my friend Tairasu, she is coming along for the ride.”

“Have you noticed the kid?” continued Sutica.

“What kid?” asked Tairasu, catching up.

“The boy the men you just approached were escorting?” replied Sutica.

“Why does a boy have bodyguards? Is he Murbella’s son?” asked Tairasu, still not making sense.

“Are you a failed nun? That was the legendary Miles Teg!”

“A general? The boy?”

“The one who pushed us in such a corner at Junction, my dear. Read the books.”

"I can't believe he is still alive, then," commented Gerta.

"New policy. Don't kill useful slaves," replied Sutica.

“All I see from here,” argued Tairasu looking behind her, “is a ten year old boy dressed with a black uniform. He just gave me a stare! Look at those big puppy eyes!”

“Tairasu, it’s a ghola ! Inside he is centuries old!”

“Yes? Does he still wet the bed too?”

“Feign ignorance. He is still staring at us.”

“Let him stare. A grown man’s mind has urges. Imagine the craving, looking at all of us beautiful women and not being able to touch us – not without standing on a ladder.”

“You are the craver here, Gerta. The men’s quarters are near. Will you bond or just be entertained?”

“Always bond the male, my dear Sutica. Devour the energy. Declaw the tiger and turn it into a docile little cat.” 

It is just a matter of time , Tairasu found herself thinking a few hours later in between the adventures of that long day. The training, the ordeal, and all the men in the world.

Chapter Text

XXVIII.
The Pythian’s Prophecy

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

- BENE GESSERIT CODA

The Deep One's face was in the dark as the wax candles – primitive candles of old! – threw an acrid smell of smoke in the stone room. She did not move as Sheeana entered the eerie place. Her body sat cross-legged on a rock near the hole on the leveled stone ground from where white vapors emanated from below, rising into the small chamber, touching the stone vault, and slowly dissolving among other white wisps. The woman's hair was ragged like her clothes, dark and long and falling in braids and folds over her face and onto the rock. The stone platform sat three marble steps higher than the floor. This is one of the ecstatic Seers. Sheeana cleared her voice to speak, but the Deep One's voice boomed like an explosion, reaching her first: "Here is another petitioner. You are far past closing time. Come back tomorrow."

"I am past closing, yet you are still here, Deep One."

"I am the Prime Pythian, and I both serve and live in this place."

Sheeana advanced two steps in the room, bringing the bowl with the offerings she had prepared. The Pythian did not stop her, looking up from her rock, and murmuring so low that Sheeana had to strain to hear her in the dark: "In the beginning, the smells of spring aroused our senses, speaking of love. We summoned our instincts, compelled by the sweet murmur of Mother Earth. We followed the cycles, died and were reborn every year."

Sheeana moved closer. The Deep One's voice seemed to rise from the hole in the ground and reach the top of the vault, from murmur to a deep rumble: "Winters, famines and diseases harassed us. The Lord of Rats kept our muzzles to the ground, touching the soft black soil that had made us. The Lady of the Crossings' many faces terrified us for every path meandered in the dark. The world was mysterious, omen-filled. Beasts laid in the depth of the caverns in which we found refuge, emerged from the night to snatch our young, green eyes ablaze. We crouched by the embers in fear, and screamed. Later, we left sacrificial lambs at the caves' edge, our bodies safely harbored in mud huts. But the beast, the rat, the snake, the beetle's shapes were forever branded in our awareness. So did the prey, the ox, the bison, the gazelle whose sacrifice fed our hunger, and elevated our consciousness beyond the callous daily search for organic propellant. Nature's roots, flowers, mushrooms, fruit and leaves gave us potions and drugs which caused electric sparks in our primitive brains, lighting pathways to weave perceptions that helped us break the bleak shroud of darkness. We sought the Light by worshiping countless false gods."

Sheeana's body rattled. Everything she heard moved her though it had no confirmation in Other Memory: "I beg you, continue."

The Pythian's voice was now booming and echoing in the stone room: "We drew simulacra of life on the cave's walls until they were cleansed from our minds. Our heads looked up from the ground. We departed from nature, our first act of hubris. We domesticated, planted, dug, burned. Fashioned talons and hooves and thick skins out of clay and bone and leather. We melted rock and plowed soil. The lord of Rats, buried deep into obscurity. Old gods turning into nightmares and children tales. We carved a path out of our animal past. We accelerated. Wheels to replace our backs. Words to replace emotions. Values to stand in the place of our instincts. This cultural programming made space in our minds while pushing the dark underground. The ghosts who walked by us every day, the sprites and dryads and daimons, the judges in the wilderness, now evicted to the far corners of our dreams."  

Sheeana felt a vortex of colors whirl in her belly, a physical sensation that could not be detached from the emotions that it was stirring: fear, and awe and terrible forebodings... for a moment she saw a talon in the darkness, a wing bearing impious news, an elfin creature whispering a secret future in her ear. Impressions, just impressions, she tried to reassure herself. 

"If you are the Pythian, are you then prescient?" Sheeana asked. 

"Prescient! Ha! There is no you, there is no I. I give myself and every moment I am the vessel, ready for the taking. I cultivate readiness. I am consecrated to the life force that may use me to bring forth a vision, a riddle, or silence. I am but a fragile flute in the hands of the Almighty. I am blind, and the life force gives me vision, child."

 "Why do you call me child, Deep One?"

But the Phythian did not listen: "Nightmares. And fantasies and fears and hopes. I transubstantiate the knot of human existence, splay it in plain sight. I call upon the Powers of old who hide in humanity's own darkness, I bid them exude a hint of prophecy through my skin. In Pytho my sister, the priestess to Prithvi Mata, was slain by male hubris. Never forget! The drakaina , the she-serpent convulsed and died, blue blood spilling over the Delphian rock, every drop and every spill transforming before their eyes into new priestesses. Men installed their own power, called them Apollo's gift, but it was the priestesses who fell to the fumes and spoke the truth drooling Kyrkeon, them! The inscrutable holders of the ever-burning fire."

"And so you descend from the ancient line of...."

"Be quiet, child! We reached escape velocity. Transplanting to innumerable planets the horde brought forth a cosmic calamity, unleashing their double helix on countless unspoiled habitats, the sacred paradises of Gea, spoiled! Multitudes like insect swarms bringing chaos, a chaos they call civility! The Gods will stomp on the vermin of their own doing, unmake the mud that molded them. One day they will awaken the Ctonic Ones and humanity's hubris will fall."

Sheeana stood there, uncertain, purposefully discarding her Bene Gesserit training. No Reverend Mother could help here, the mysticism was their weapon but not their vehicle of inspiration. A force pinned her there, a magnificent sense of wonder, a hunger to grasp the slippery black void inside her.

The woman turned as she was about to leave, a hand supporting on the stone slab. 

"Wait! Deep One, please! I seek your counsel," pleaded Sheeana.

"Have you brought the offerings, then?" she asked, turning to face her once again.

"I brought frankincense and charu for the fire of the gods. I quenched your servants' thirst and satisfied their hunger. I walked across worlds to come here. I gave the alms for the temple and for the poor."

"Have you prayed to the One?"

Which God is she referring to? Sheeana could not be sure. "Every day I am called upon by a greater spirit, but it is not answering me."

"Answering you! What shining gold do you think you are made of? You think yourself special, child? But the offerings you did bring, and so come closer, leave them, and ask three questions."

"Three questions, Deep One?"

"Aye. A prophet, am I? Holder of the world and the future? No, no, my dear. I am the Sybil. The value of my answers depend on the cleverness of the questions. Come closer."

The Sybil moved to the front of the stone pedestal, right after the hole that emanated the fumes. Deep wrinkles carved the lady's olive skinned face, her impossibly long hair twisted and braided with metal rings to keep it firm. From below Sheeana walked up the marble footsteps, placed so that her head would be at a foot below the Sybil's. As the fumes dissolved in the foreground, Sheeana looked up, longing to make eye contact with that creature. The proud chin, the dry withered lips, the aquiline nose. And then, the Sybil's empty eye sockets, black and dark, stared at her, and while staring, Sheeana felt completely naked. Her hands brought up the bowl with the offerings, and in the moment her hands touched the oracle's, both bodies shuddered like responding to the same wave. 

"You! Why didn't you tell me you were an Elder One?" snapped the Sybil, breaking contact and placing the bowl away on the pedestal. "I have been waiting for the likes of you!"

"Likes?" Sheeana trembled. The fumes evaporating from the rock were now white and gray, dense, extending themselves like they would envelope them all, and with them the world.  

"The Reverend Mothers! The Invisible ones our eyes cannot see!"

"What good are my questions then, Sybil, if your eyes cannot see me?"

"You clasp my hand!"

Sheeana's left hand sought the Sybil's, a wave starting to flow once again between their bodies. 

"There! I knew it. Invisible ones at a distance, but I only need to touch you to open my inner eye. I see you, Invisible but no longer so. Ask three questions, now, and quickly, for the day is dimming and Hypnos is calling me."

Sheeana caught her breath. There with her arm outstretched, she felt that the Sybil was lifting her up from below. She felt energy waves surging from her feet to the tip of her fingers.

"One warning!" boomed the Sybil's voice.

"Yes?"

"Only the helpless ask for their future, child."

That was a wise reminder. Don't let this Sybil fix your future into an immutable end-state. Ask for the underground currents, so that you will weave your own path .

A deep breath to focus, then she asked: "What is happening around me? Who am I, and what is my calling?"  

"Your questions reek of Destiny!" she felt the Sybil's contempt in her voice, and her warm breath enveloped her. Melange . The Sybil consumed melange. Her consciousness poured itself through the outstretched arm and into the oracle's hand, seeking. "Are you too a past-stretching Agony survivor, Sybil? A Reverend Mother" 

"Nah. The past I see on my own, Elder One. Now, we stay connected while I see you and wait."

"How long?"

"How long is too long? A vessel awaits for its crew to take it out to high sea. How could we hurry the crew? The captain? The tide?"

"I understand."

"We have been waiting for one like you for a long time, Reverend Mother. What is your name?"

"Sh..." she started to reply, but the woman was not there anymore. She had collapsed on the stone pedestal, her long robes falling over her and concealing her from sight, but still clutching Sheeana's hand. Her body was shaking with the same uncontrollable tremor of an epileptic attack, then it arose from the ground like a hand had pulled it up, a face distorted by convulsions, single nerves pulsing below the skin and contracting over large swathes of her face, eye sockets black but somehow glaring with magnetic force, arms clutching Sheeana's hand with the strength of a giant. The Pythian did not look like herself; her hair stood up on end as a guttural voice emerged from her twisted lips. Sheeana felt her entire being called upon to the surface of her skin, of her lips, the surface of her eyes' cornea, her throat and tongue, the cartilage of her ears, the tip of her own black long hair. And thus the Sybil spoke:

"I see Chaos beckoning from the region of Lightning
I see a cosmic snare
The godly ones searching, full of arrogance
Their multitudes in bondage

May you be many
May you be fire
May you be Nityamukta, the free one
Omnipotent desire-force
Consciousness bliss

Preserve the Mayavi
Master magician
The beast's scheme lying hidden

The end of the Great cycle and one will be born
Transform the sleeper to adamantine firmness like thunderbolt
Chaarana human-nature arising
A Yajina, a sacrifice
Raindrops of unquenchable thirst
Melting the bondage of the mind."

Up there the fumes danced to the rhythm of a non-existing air current, the air electric subsiding at once as the body of the Sybil crouched once again on the floor in a thud, Sheeana's hand still in her firm grasp.

"Deep One..." begged Sheeana, alarmed.

A trembling voice replied. "I am her."

"How do I..."

"Silence! Impress the words in your consciousness, Elder One! For I will remember none. I am an empty vessel." 

"Your words hint at catastrophe and salvation." 

The Sybil lied there for a long minute. She slowly raised herself up, back to sitting on the stone ledge, and spoke: "How could I tell you my dear! Those eyes who could see so clearly a moment ago, now those eyes are dark. The voice I lent to higher forces, no more it finds the words. I am left with only my own sensibility." 

"Deep One," Sheeana started.

"Silence, Elder one! You carry with you an inscrutable portent. You are the Angel and the Demon. I need no talent to see that!"

"Come with me then, Sybil. I will need your help."

"The oracle makes no matter, Elder one! We give prophesy to kings and peasants alike. They all count equally in our eyes."

"Then, I thank you, and will let you be." Sheeana gently unclasped herself from the Sybil's iron grip, stepped two paces back and made to turn toward the door.

"You!" boomed again the Sybil's voice. "I will know your name before you leave."

What will I say? The power laid there, impossible to avoid. Instinctively, she grasped it.  

"I," she began raising her voice to the ceiling of the stone vault, "am Sheeana Brugh of Dune, born of Rakis, and by the glory of the Divided God, the last Sandrider."

" Kull Wahad !" rattled the Sybil in disconcerted astonishment. 

"Are there trainees who can take your place, Sybil?"

"You command and I will obey, Elder one."

"And your name?"

"Leyana Bidr Tabr Ehkar."

"Your Fremen ancestors would be pleased."

"My Fremen ancestors were gullible fools tamed by a civilization that was not their own."

"Keep that edge sharp for me, Leyana! Do you know why you are joining me?"

"I sense in you the higher force."

"I see you as you are, Leyana, a chaos dancer, a seeker of the deep sense. And I... am assembling the most formidable team of dancers this era has ever seen."

Chapter Text

XXIX.
The Genetics of the Agony

Today's courage will forge tomorrow's wisdom.

-- THE ATREIDES MANIFESTO  

"Walk with me Teg," offered Bellonda after the Council meeting was adjourned. The ten-year old walked briskly to keep pace, while Bellonda slowed down to match his speed. Teg noticed how Bell aimed for the sandy path that led to what was once Odrade's orchards. He kept pace quietly, noting the discomfort in the other Mentat. The dry climate was becoming increasingly insufferable. If it was true that he had a double, where was he right now?

"If you have specific suggestions with respect to my performance as a Mentat, I hope this is a good time to discuss it." There, she said it.

"For how long have you been on the council, Bell?"

"Fifteen years."

"Murbella still wants you there."

"That may be a punishment or a source of amusement for her, I fear." She noticed new prickly pears were growing in the same corner of the orchard where lilies used to grow, and sighed.

"It does not seem that she can afford either, in her predicament."

"Indeed," she replied dryly. She stopped in her tracks as they reached the first few trees, now black withered shapes that extended up to the sky like imploring monsters. A plaque marked the dead sapling that she had planted over Odrade's remains. 

"Why are you angry, Bell?" the question would have upset her, if the voice asking it had not been the gentle one of a ten-year old. Ghola notwithstanding. 

"The necessities," she summed it up.  

"Ah, that," sighed Teg, nodding, "the world is asking us to do things we would have never considered before. Gholas, cyborgs, Axolotl tanks, and a Reverend Mother who is beautiful and terrifying."

"Do you know Murbella is the youngest ever Reverend Mother Superior?" she turned, looking down at him. 

"Do you reckon she does not think about it every single day? Odrade has put her there, but she has realized that the gift leaves more pain than pleasure."

"Teg, if something happened to her, the entire Sisterhood would collapse and the Matres would take over, or exterminate us. Do you know how few we are?"

"And so let's do everything we can to protect her. And now you can tell me what it is that really disturbs you."

"Everything!" She threw her arms up in the air, unaware that from Teg's vantage point she stood out in front of the dead orchard trees, tall and dry, just like she was one of those extinct creatures. "The Order as it is, is done. Many are the Sisters who think dissolving the Sisterhood would be preferable. We had already written our own Coda, even!"

"Like a final requiem, right? Finally I caught the Sisterhood doing something melodramatic." They resumed walking toward the School buildings, Teg skipping and leading the way this time. 

Those words made Bell even more upset. "You know very well that we are being displaced. We used to be a peer-organized Sisterhood, and transformed into a beauty contest that is feeding Murbella's own celebrity cult. Even our own Sisters are falling for it. The Matres are learning our skills, but how will we defend ourselves if we cannot learn from them how to move faster than the eye can see?"

In a move that was characteristic of this specific ghola, Teg remained silent, listening on.

"So what suggestions do you have for me, Mentat?" continued Bell sarcastically.

"You don't say it, but you have an affection for Mother Superior despite the way she scolds you. Perhaps something about Dar you recognize in her. You know she is the one we need, and yet leave her the burden of leading the combined Sisterhoods the way she does. What is this love and hate, Bell?"

"You.. spoke right," Bell replied trying not to stumble on a paver that had shifted from its original place.

"You need to vent? Then come to me. Murbella does not need our grievances. You are stuck in your ways and the ways are changing. Yet you refuse to adjust to the new tune."

"I am aware of my shortcomings." she replied automatically.

"If you care about Murbella, then what you feel is what the Sisters who wanted to attempt on her life are feeling. Go out, make them know, and in gaining the trust of the more rebellious Reverend Mothers and Acolytes you will have the full list of our dissidents." 

At the short pace of Teg-boy, they were still a good distance from the Schools, the buildings that just a few years ago housed the best of the Bene Gesserit students, and that now were full of Matres in training. Looking at Bellonda's gaze, Teg guessed: "You can't really see any of them as one of yours, can you?"

"No."

"Yet Murbella was one of them."

"She changed. Willingly. And still sometimes she acts like a violent, selfish, brow-nose whore."

"She can channel her past when acting in front of her old kind. I have seen her. Matres, at least the ones who have not tried the Agony yet, only expect fear and rage from a leader."

"Childish."

"Easy to manipulate."

There was a natural pause in the dialogue. Teg signaled to go back toward the Council rooms, and they retraced their steps.

"Why did you say 'our grievances', Teg?"

"I have grievances of my own."

"I noticed. The way you chastise me, for example."

"I beg your forgiveness, Bell. I know it is uncalled for. I... am a very old man in a ten-year old body. The Order rests on the head of a pin, my double is alive and somewhere in the Scattering, and my body chemistry compels me to play outside and look for play pals of my same biological age... not to speak of my emotional swings." Bell looked down and saw tears in the boy's eyes. For a moment the great Teg looked all like a boy on the verge of balling. She fought the compulsion to hug him, uncertain of what three-hundred-year old Teg would have thought. So she froze, half embarrassed for wanting to act, half self-conscious for not doing anything. 

"Thank you for not trying to hug me. I cannot be seen in public under the effect of my own biology. I remain your commander-in-chief after all" he snorted.

"Your body knows it is being stolen from its childhood. I am saddened."

"So I too have to suffer these Necessities, Bell."

"I confess we feared this, but deliberately did not stop from cloning you and awakening you this soon."

"When I die this time, do not make me come back again," he remarked gloomily.

“Not before you tell me exactly what kind of faculties you acquired on Gammu, besides your combat speed, and how,” replied Bellonda bluntly. Aah, that it is , thought Teg.

They were approaching the headquarters entrance now, Teg's guards lining up visibly in front of it (and others, invisibly) and making way for them. Teg tugged Bell's arm to have her go around and in the courtyard, where he knew there was no recording device. 

"Bell, Murbella's hold is ever so shaky," he murmured  

"I see it too."

"It will take a new generation to truly merge the Orders, but in the meantime she is the glue and she is faltering."

"What is your computation?"

"Not enough data. But a valid guess is that she also is reacting defensively to all these necessities. Have you noticed how prone to rage she is? It's small signs – the messy eating habits, the erratic walks, the outbursts even when there are no Matres around."

"And?" they turned around to go back through the courtyard, ambling aimlessly.

"I can only go so far. What does a Reverend Mother know of another Reverend Mother, Bell?"

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

"Could Other Memories take over?" 

"Nonsense."

"How about the Odrade in her mind?" Teg stopped in an area where he knew there would be a cone of silence. "Would she approve of her conduct? Wouldn't she want to desperately help?"

"Simul-flow is just what it is for us, Teg. No matter how many Atreides Other Memories you may have, they remain projections on the background of the self.

"So you say. Then, what does your Bene Gesserit perception tell you of her?"

"Nothing we don't know," commented Bell. 

"Under a very thin veneer, she seems stuck and resentful."

"And?"

"You are supposed to be Sisters, aren't you? And there is no Odrade, Sheeana, Tamalane. Take care of your own."

"What do you mean?" asked the Reverend Mother. 

“Take care of your own!” he barked.

Teg remained silent all the time it took to walk back to the building.

As soon as they were back into the main hallway, he casually added: “Bell, the chemistry of the Agony has had my undivided attention lately.”

“Since you cannot grasp what the personal experience of it actually means,” rebuked Bellonda. Teg could see her confusion – she was asking herself why he would bring this up now that comeyes were going to follow them everywhere. Let her believe this is just a side discussion to distract the Archives from the real talk they had out there.

“The men die in the Agony,” he beckoned her over in the direction where his apartments were located.

“So it has happened for thousands of years. Except for Paul and Leto Atreides, of course.”

“And yet genetically, men are endowed with an X chromosome and mitochondrial DNA too. Where does the difference lay then? Psychology? Awareness?”

“You don’t need to run that far. The same genes may lie dormant or be expressed differently in a man. I can’t see a man take on himself the pain of child delivery. His nervous system would cave in.”

“Possible,” commented Teg, opening the door that led into his apartments’ antechamber and striding in. “Thousands of years, and yet no proof.”

“The Kwisatch Haderach is enough of a turnoff for us Sisters,” wearily answered Bellonda, “but I see that does not discourage you.”

“Maybe, but I have new data for you Bell: it was not only Paul and Leto. For centuries under the Tyrant, Atreides bloodline candidates were given to the spice trance, and many survived. Man and female.” He pointed to two regular chairs (no chairdogs in his apartment), and proceeded to make a mild spice coffee.

“I read the same Archive reports. Sources from the Tyrant’s times were often contaminated by Worm’s own agents. You cannot trust that. Imagine how much worm essence the Tyrant would have had to save up in order to make that happen. The concentrated blue spice is something the Sisterhood only acquired in the pre-Leto times, and each vial was worth – is still worth today,” she corrected herself, laying uncomfortably, but proudly in the primitive chair Teg had left her, “several planetary systems.”

Teg came back from the corner where he had prepared spice coffee the way his mother Lady Janet, put two full cups on the table, his signal for this is going to be a long night . While bringing the tray back, he continued: “The Emperor surely conserved a dedicated stock of spice to endow a long life to his administrators. Being Bene Gesserit trained, he would know the value of the Test – the gom jabbar trial as it was delivered in those obscure days. When he came into power he had a few decades to decide how each of the original Dune worms would die. He likely sank them all in water and harvested all the spice essence he could.”

“You convinced me of the possibility, Miles. You have not enunciated your conclusion.”

“Atreides mainline candidates did the worm journey, generation after generation for centuries.”

“A possibility. After all, the Tyrant never bothered to explain what was not asked of him.”

“And even then he liked to lie when it suited him.”

“This is not just speculation, is it Teg?”  

“Ask Duncan Idaho.”

Bellonda muttered a curse under her breath. Never before had she met a Mentat so dangerous and so useful. This Miles Teg was still not a match for the Duncan they had lost to the Scattering. 

“Did you ask him?”

“Back on Gammu, I did.”

“It’s too bad we lost such a brilliant mind.”

“One you almost killed, if I remember correctly. He is lost to us, but an asset to the Scattering.”

“I grow tired of following your breadcrumbs, Teg. Let's jump to the ending, please.”

“For centuries, Atreides males were given spice essence overdoses and survived. Think about the many male Majordomos…”

“And neither of them became a prescient seer?”

“Not beyond what was revealed to them during the Agony. And without access to Other Memories either.”

“It misses the point, from my female point of view.”

“The point is, the Tyrant may have left many more latent gifts than we ever cared to discover.”

“Odrade’s limited prescience, for example. What are we going to find when we look, Atreides?”

“Compute this , Bellonda! I have had a long day too.”

Bellonda closed her eyes, for once interested in analyzing a problem that was not linked to logistics, Matres, or Archives policies.

“There are many more types of prescience than we may have suspected,” voiced Bellonda.

“That’s one,” confirmed Teg.

“There may be new physical abilities that we have not cared to monitor in Atreides or Siona descendants. Your reflexes are an example.”

“Two.”

“Reverend Fathers? Specular to Mothers, not quite like a Kwisatz Haderach?”

“Possible, desirable maybe, but unsubstantiated.”

“Have you tried the Agony?”

“Not on my bucket list, Bell.”

She paused, lost in computation. Her cup stood empty on the table.

“What would the Tyrant do with Atreides males, if a Siona X chromosome was the entire goal of his breeding program?” were her words, produced with whiplashing lucidity. 

“It turns out, the Tyrant was breeding for many goals. Taraza asserted how he was still pulling the strings of the future through his Worm spawn on Rakis. And you have seen Odrade’s ethnographic notes about the Rakians dances – people who survived the violence went into the desert to be judged by the worms.”

“That sounds like the Test to me.”

“But without spice.”

“We need a stricter program to test the Atreides bloodlines.”

“Three.”

“And…”

“Recall how Sheeana’s dances, in Odrade’s observations, spoke the same language of Rakis.”

“Sheeana is also a direct product of the Tyrant’s genetic program?”

“Why not? Her coming was even prophesied,” he leaned in, an impossibly adult gesture in that body of his. “You must know,” said a fired-up Bellonda, “that she never bonded nor ever was bonded by Duncan’s male imprinters? Ha, if I could have had a free hand in…”  

“Sheeana, yes. Go to your Archives, and answer the question: what talents did Leto hide in Sheeana?”

Bellonda, stood up in a hurry: “Excuse me, I will go and find out now.” Then she strode out of the room. 

She will have a long night on this one , thought Teg. And for the time being, she will stop asking me what other talents I have developed.

Chapter Text

XXX. Hard Gives

He was a charming mind, trapped in the body of the beast.

-- RABBI EKMET TUSHALLO'S CHRONICLES

"Commissioner Hilom," was Miles Teg's opening as he sat in the only plain couch in his cell-apartment. "If we are to play a game, then we will be players. Not pawns, even in your friendly hands."

It was dawn but the Commissioner did not doubt the tiny Bashar was waiting for him. 

"The Commerce Agent was very forthwith," continued the boy, alluding to the meeting his guards had dutifully reported to him.

"What have you surmised then, Bashar?"' asked Hilom while sitting down.

"This thalassocracy he represents... the Commerce League; it must be one of the powers you are trying to balance."

"Yes," he admitted.

"One you will try to appease with a regular flow of spice... from us. Together with a few other interstellar factions, I am sure."

"Your mind travels fast, Bashar."

"Don't think that your plan will work, Commissioner. The deal he offered me implies that he is just trying to siphon off some spice for his own personal profit. Deal with him alone and the Trade League will never know about your newfound strategic importance supported by the spice trade. There must be somebody who is watching over him. That's the person you should deal with."

The Commissioner stood in silence. "You learned all that from one meeting?"

"I derive from your comment that you did not consider this angle."

"No. Did he understand you are... wiser than your years?"

"When he came through the door, he did not suspect a thing about gholas. He wanted to see the Rabbi, but by the end I am sure he saw the light. You will be happy to know that I have not struck any deal with him," concluded the Bashar.

"I am pleased you are not sidelining us in spite of our hospitality."

"Well," said the Bashar, taking out a handful of spheres from his pockets, "these spice samples to feed your diplomatic endeavors should really come from you and not from me, don't you think?"

Hilom stared at the table, five small transparent spheres each one with a blue drop in it. Priceless. 

"Please accept them, Commissioner. As a token of good faith in your cause."

"I will." But he did not have any urgency to take them.

"Our Rabbi must surely have passed your test -- his eyes were alight with energy when he stopped by."

"He is being taken to visit his people at the outskirts of Lat."

"Hardly a possibility now, given the riots you have going on in the streets, don't you think?" 

The Commissioner's eyes opened wide at the surprise, then his poker face resumed. 

"How, Bashar?"

"How do I know? Basic computation. I could hear noises through the open window. Your men are not to refuse a nice chat full of clues." Hilom looked at the spheres on the table. "I did not offer them anything," the Bashar added quickly. 

The Commissioner stayed silent. 

"This planet has not seen a war in ages, correct?" inquired the boy.

"If you say so, Bashar Teg."

"Yet you have a security force."

"It does the job."

"The riots must be top of mind. I thank you for coming here nevertheless. It's paramount we establish the terms of our pact before our collective lack of action forces us back into outer space."

"The ship needs to go."

"That's easy. We are a fleeting presence, a ship that you see today, may not see tomorrow. You want this ship to go away but the trade to stay. We can detach from the orbiting stations, become invisible and still circle your planet without creating ripples."

"We ought to define terms of the trade. We will only accept exclusivity," said Hilom.

"Fine. We will have freedom of movement in exchange, and access your intel."

"We initially thought the Rabbi was your leader, but had forgotten what the legends say of the Bene Gesserit. It's you speaking for the ship, not the Rabbi."

"Yet the Rabbi is one of us. Betraying me is betraying him."

"And you betraying us is betraying him as well. We are one people. You will have freedom of movement on this planet, and open access. But what guarantees do you provide? After all, a no-ship is untraceable. You ship-wanderers can walk about. We, the planet-bound, plant ourselves deep in the course of action we choose."

"No faith in the ancient alliance with the Sisterhood? Have we ever let Israel down?"

"You look like a handful of fugitives by my standards." It was time to be reticent.

"Like your people have for centuries, but the Bene Gesserit always brought you enduring support. The Rabbi told me to remind you of this: You shall not aggrieve a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."  

That moved him, but externally he only snorted, and shook his head. "Why is your ship here, then? When there are so many stars..." Careful! 

"When we first strode out, we liked the idea of building with friends, find strength in partnerships. But if not worthy of your trust, we'd rather be off to other ports."

Hilom decided to stay quiet. 

"Alright then..." the Bashar stood up as he could walk away from his jailor, but something in his casual defiance made Hilom believe it.

"Bashar, wait," he said. "You ask for complete trust. The roots of which are in our long-standing alliance with your Order. But you, and we, are new saplings growing on top of the stump. I will accept your open hand, but we must find a way that protects my community." 

"As I must protect mine, Commissioner. But true friendship must start with concessions on both sides. Hard gives. Vulnerability. Reciprocal, carefully negotiated, but still vulnerability. You already know there is only one way. We will invest in each other like strangers do. Starting by exchanging hostages."

"Easy for you, to part from your Rabbi."

"But you, Hilom, get me, and any Reverend Mother or crew member of your choice."

"They say the Bene Gesserit consider their Reverend Mothers expendable. I am not sure it will be proof enough of your commitment to us."

"True. But before we continue, I also need an observer seat in your Council," the Bashar continued. "Out of this jail of course."

" My Council? For you?"

"It is singular how grown-ups tend to ignore a kid like me. I read the room undisturbed, and noticed how you are the place where the scales rest."

"Perceptive. But unsurprising, if one believes in who you say you are. Here is the investment Israel will require: spice production happens on this planet, not in some hidden system or orbit."

Teg just stared at him. 

"Hard gives, Bashar," Hilom reminded him. 

There was silence. 

"You already told us the melange you will bring won't be the worm's," he continued, "hence you must have some technology to synthesize it. I am not asking that you give it away. But you spoke of hostages. That is one."  He held his breath. This is the gamble.

The boy Bashar hesitated for a moment. "Producing spice in the open may doom us all way before you could reap the leverage you seek, Commissioner. There are many eyes.... human eyes. There could be far-seeing eyes."

"If you truly bring to us the cornucopia of ancient times, then we will conceal it. My people can afford running a small no-globe." 

"Fair," said the Bashar, a little too fast. "But it will take three months to bring production planet-side. Meantime, extra-territoriality means you cannot inspect our ship."

"Never could. It was a bluff, Bashar. Interstellar trade customs forbid it. All goods are free on board."

"I suspected as such. But you will have open access to most floors, where you and your people will be able to visit or stay anytime. Because this is our pick of hostages: your Rabbi, and twenty family members we will pick among your clan and others from your community."

Hilom stared at him in silence.

"Hard gives," the Bashar reminded him. "You were first to ask that we put our golden goose in a no-globe of your own."

"I won't have my daughters raised on a no-ship and schooled by the Bene Gesserit!"

"Secret Israel already lives on our ship. Open access. Let us decide to rotate hostages every six months." 

Hilom looked deep into the Bashar's eyes, pondering. "This is a total and reciprocal commitment," he said.

"Has the Sisterhood ever given you less?"

"I agree to these terms, but I can't speak alone. It will need to convince the rest of us. Meantime, I will arrange for you more adequate quarters. I must be off. There are pressing matters."

"Commissioner Hilom, I have to ask. How many rioters?"

"Half the city is under martial law! They put an entire neighborhood to the torch."

"Are you using armored vehicles as decoys?" inquired the Bashar. "That will attract their attention. Close down any place in the city where food or water can be obtained." 

"Why?"

"Without fuel, anger disperses quickly. Open and light up every government building and temple."

"But they will loot them!"

"Deflecting them from harming the local population. Let them desecrate a temple and you will have the public opinion on your side. Do you have agents among them?"

"This is a riot! I need every man."

"You should infiltrate the mob and examine whether foreign agents are feeding the chaos, or sourcing recruits. Did the riot start in the main plaza? Do you have video feeds?"

"We are looking into all camera footage, and have deployed camera drones at every major intersection."

"Good. Has the news spread beyond the city?"

"The news, but not the unrest."

"What is in your arsenal to redirect the mob's instincts? Do you stock non-lethal psycho-chemicals?"

"What are..." 

"Commissioner Hilom, do you see the value I bring you as an observer?"

"Maybe," he replied. That may just be my wounded pride.

"A spaceship has come out of the sky with the most skilled talent the Old Imperium has ever produced. My unsolicited advice: use it to your advantage. Your balancing act requires incredible resources. What do you have to fear?"

The Commissioner looked down at the child in awe. 

"I only look like a child. Do you think I could be taken seriously?"

"I certainly am."

"But not others. Take me to your situation room, and I will only give my advice to you. Your call. Use or dismiss me. Embrace us as we are embracing you and this planet."

Hilom sighed. They both stood up.

"Before we go," the Bashar continued. "Here is the list for our no ship. We need food supplies, medicines, ten tons of freshwater, ten tons of sand, and..."

"Sand? And what else?" said the Commissioner, raising an eyebrow.

"Later. Now, the situation room," said Teg. "And to seal the deal, let's agree to fifty percent of the royalties on the melange."

"Fifty percent?" boomed Hilom's outraged voice. He was relieved. Impossibly difficult decisions were ahead of them, and moves in a game that could overwhelm them at every turn. But this one detail, at least, was just a matter of haggling.  

Chapter Text

XXXI. The Lesson of (no) Mind

The master held a flower in his hand, and the crowd stood in silence. One among the crowd saw it, and smiled. "It is done," the master said, "I shared my most precious teaching with that man." 

-- THE ZENSUNNI WANDERER 

Visellla was dreaming. No, a nightmare. She rolled around, her identity sticking like molasses to her bed sheets, staining her pillow. Her body was not her self. Her identity was scattered, leaked, attached to the objects around her who were her, not her body. Her awareness was still in her body, disconnected from the many particles of self that floated and rolled, impossible to grasp, impossible to collect back ever again. She was not one, but many. Many who were not coming back. Her body was independent, her mindless center. Her mind had scattered away, superfluous. 

She woke up and the sunlight blinded her. She had no name. In the beginning, there is no mind . But that was a well-formed memory, and her mind emerged back. She felt a sense of loss, fumbled to remember her name, her place, her time.

Visella's awareness emerged into the morning, light bathing her bedroom. Her mind-baggage was always with her. She stood up. Senseless anxiety gripped her. Just the attempt to escape thinking required the thing she was trying to escape. She felt pitiful. The years of training, erased. She was naked, untrained, like a baby, a rough surface. Her pulse quickened. The walls stood menacing around her, taking her breath away. She ran out to the balcony, words coming out of her automatically as she attempted to control her breathing: 

" There is no I, there is no mind, there is no pain; my body breathes, my awareness learns; with beginner’s eyes every instant starts anew; the cosmos is my home, my body is my house. May all obstacles be removed; may they be none; may they be pacified. " 

Her pulse slowed down. Took the fangs off of reality, reduced it back to mundanity. 

Her Other Memories were quiescent. 

She strode out. 

Visella, not Visella.

I am governor, no governor .

But Leerna was awaiting her: "Good Morning, Reverend Mother. Ready for take-off?"

This society which had adopted her had perfected a long, tapered, elegant model of airship which took off vertically but landed horizontally. G-acceleration was a fraction of that of a lift off to space, but Visella's body had not experienced a sub-orbital flight in ages and was ready to feel weightless and nauseous. Instead, normal gravity oppressed her against her seat. She made eye contact with Leerna, whose distraught face showed one who was not for air travel. Visella extended a hand to hold hers: "I am not comfortable either, but I found that abandoning your body to the acceleration generates less fear than resisting it. Let it caress your skin." Leerna's body stiffened for a moment, then she observed how hard she tried to relax, smiling back to her. I almost ended her life, and she admires me . This trip was a good opportunity to address that once and for all.

With their altitude and speed, they reached the rim of the southern continent in an hour. It was the smallest of the six continents of Agarath, a tropical land in the shape of a crescent a good three thousand miles wide, a snow-capped ridge on the outer side, rainforest, plains and plantations on the other. And three hundred million citizens, organic and inorganic ones. And she governed them, out of elections she had not been a spectator of, out of an administrative machine she had just begun to grasp. The airplane cameras were too conspicuous for her taste, but she had come to terms with the mandatory surveillance of its leaders. Recorded in the eye of the public. She was aware there were daily and weekly briefs about her (quite repetitive) life. As she stepped out of the vehicle, she was pleased to see that there was no crowd, at least not yet. Traveling incognito was not a possibility while followed by live camera feeds, but if they moved swiftly, they could enjoy a moment of tranquility. 

And absolutely no formalities. Thanks to the ever-useful Leerna, minutes later they were eating at a local eatery, savoring the local soft-shell crabs drowned in a pungent plum sauce. A flavor so fresh and intense overcame her senses, and words failed to describe it. For a fleeting moment, she achieved that no mind state: no Visella, just flavor overpowering her decision centers. Where was she again?

Flashback to another of Master Reta's lessons. They were getting more and more theoretical as the time passed. " You can not take all the data in your mind – as long as you identify as one. The vestiges of what you were taught saddle you down. What you learned was useful at the time, but then the vivid experience of it fades, and only a bland memory is retained. Useless, as it is. Too much baggage! You know you are not what you think you are, and the only way through is by stripping your mind bare. "

Reality came back. She was still at the restaurant. Distracted, she had missed Leerna's words. She asked her to repeat them: "So what was your life like before this planet?"

Visella smiled as memories from a not so distant past came rushing in. Cold planets, hot planets, solitude. The morning hours spent perfecting the Voice for her unsuspecting crowds. That rush did not shake her identity like the flavor had done; it was a stabilizing comfort, a longing for other places, other company. Her Other Memories fished for the word to give it justice: saudade . 

"As you know I was... I am an agent for the Missionaria Protectiva. I have lived quite the nomad life, moving from system to system."

"Such a thrilling life! What is the most interesting planet you have visited?"

Planet. That word unlocked another thought. " When we truly become ourselves, we are just a swinging door, belonging and not belonging. It's a sudden realization. The water that was transparent to the fish, becomes visible, it cannot be taken for granted. What would we breathe, without air? We all are at the crossing of a million planets. Each one of us is the center of everything, and yet in somebody's orbit. We are independent and dependent."

"My Sisters and I," replied Visella, "had our hands full most of the time, but I remember Clavicond fondly." She looked around, realizing she had barely registered the patrons around her, an exact 50/50 split between humans and thinking machines. "The cycles of nature are so finely synchronized that people gather above the great plains to see millions of spring flowers blooming at the same exact second. It's an explosion of color to take your breath away. And the people are carefree, gregarious, and generous beyond... beyond reality; their joy as explosive as those flowers."

"How far is this planet?" Leerna asked. Visella kept looking around, observing androids and humans casually sharing meals. Will she be able to think about all of them as just people , notwithstanding their incredible differences?

"Too far," she continued. "It was incredible for a while, but it was a soft planet. A rarity. The absence of tension was devouring its inhabitants. We came only in time."

"And what was your cure, Reverend Mother?"

"Belief."

"Is the Missionaria all about planted superstitions, then?"

Visella hesitated, not knowing whether her discussion was going to be recorded and broadcasted. "Not all people are ready to sacrifice themselves in the spiritual search that will transform them, Leerna. There are stages in spiritual education. For each courageous soul there are a million more who will be content to wisen up with some packaged religion."

Why do I show the Bene Gesserit's hand so openly to these people, she asked herself. But this is true even for this credo of theirs. Her inner multitude remained calm. A sense of warmth moved her forward. She took Leerna's hand in hers, spoke to her as much as for the hidden cameras: "I know it looks like selfish manipulation. We feel ambivalent about it too. But we do no harm; teaching the masses requires a degree of simplification. Reducing depths to safe waters. Old lessons are distilled and put on stage with characters the crowds will love and make theirs. The power of hope; solidarity against adversity; the yearning for justice. You can say we cater to spiritual needs and drive the currents our way; but all we do is plant seeds for a more thoughtful humanity."

She could read in Leerna's eyes that she was not making headway. 

"Would you say you are giving people the tools to do their own growing up?"

Visella had to admit, she was not sure: "This is where we drop the heavy tools and deploy the chisel. Our adepts, males and females, trained to think, to teach, to overcome themselves. We see the latent talent in individuals and support them onto a path to their own making."

"So long as they align with your dogma." Leerna's eyes remained open wide, absorbing it all. With the eyes of a newborn explore your world . Visella recalled once again the lessons from Master Reta. 

" We must make an effort, such that we lose ourselves in the act. In this domain subjectivity and objectivity are not the point. Your mind will be calm but not static, lack of awareness disappearing, awareness itself vanishing. In this unawareness, every effort and idea and thought dissolve."

What is this for, Master? Visella had asked, what is the goal?

" Goal? You open your eyes every morning, you close them at night to sleep. What goal?" 

After their meal, they stood up and went into the city, walking through side streets to avoid being noticed. Scent of iodine and bougainvillea. They encountered an old man walking slowly in the opposite direction. Another android. Camouflage? Or deliberate choice? What is age to an android? She had to ask Arbatar.

"Reverend Mother," observed Leerna, "it strikes me that the crowds your Missionaria works with are not made aware of what you do to them."  Those words made Visella more sensitive to what the androids' experiment on this planet was about. Teach people while making them aware of the process. "We do though," she replied, "at least with our trainees. And for the work we do with the masses, we do not think you can achieve large scale behavioral change with blunt truths. The subconscious does not call for reality, but for myths it can understand. You need role models and higher ideals."

Leerna nodded. "Except if we start with the individual and go from there," she noted while keeping up with the brisk pace of the Reverend Mother. Now they slowed down as they made their way through a local market. Even with comeyes trained on them, it would be hard for anybody to spot them or recognize them. Smells of spices, coffee and cardamom in the air. Visella raised her voice to make sure Leerna heard: "Individual training does not scale, with less than a single Reverend Mother for every billion humans."

They emerged on the other side of the market, knowing that had they been followed by the press, fans or detractors alike, the crowd of the market would slow them down. More solitude is what Visella was seeking. More memories: " When you finally give up, when there is no more want, no more attachment; when you do not try to do something special: that's when you start doing." All those words rang hollow. She could find endless rebukes, sophisms. Shallow, trite! But honesty compelled her to go farther. I have lived long and am embittered by my own cynicism. She needed a breakthrough to grasp the depth of the meaning beyond the shallow surface of the words. 

 "This way, Reverend Mother," beckoned Leerna, "The location of the press conference is still a couple of miles away." They reached the river, which flew through the center of the city, its shores flat and paved to give way to passer-bys, stalls and kiosks selling refreshments. As planned, they boarded a small water taxi, for another fun detour. Leerna picked the conversation back up: "So, why no androids in the Bene Gesserit?" 

That was a disarming question on many levels. Visella stopped to think, then admitted: "Prejudice blinds us. Old fossilized assumptions. The Sisterhood was caught in an absolute. The Old Imperium's legacy and the memories -- so vivid! -- of the Butlerian Jihad. Not a war against machines, but a war of men against other men wielding automation as means of control. This, though... " and she gestured to the world around her. "I am waking up to new opportunities." She smiled. "But I still call myself a skeptic. I asked people before: how is it to cohabitate with androids? I always get the same answer, which makes me feel estranged, for I see a difference and you do not."

"There is quite a difference, Reverend Mother, but we are born into it. Their minds are similar, faster in many senses, but also... childish." Leerna's voice had become soft and sweet.

"As in, immature?"

"They take more time to learn... the social and emotional skills of our kind."

"Have you ever loved one, Leerna?" Visella guessed. Leerna's face answered for her. She was glowing. How to react? Visella smiled.

"Of course, they all remind us of the cost. Tregon's life will outlast mine many times over. And no offspring. But I am the lucky one -- I will not have to suffer the loss of a loved one."

Visella held her breath. She could not bring herself to ask the basis of an android's love. From a mental and physical point of view. After crossing the river, they continued to walk briskly toward the convention center. Their minds shifting to the duties of their visit, Leerna swiftly changed the subject. Visella could read her apprehension at having brought Reverend Mother to topics she may recoil from. Yes, these are just my inhibitions, Leerna . "There will be the press, and the local administration waiting to welcome you. There will be a side entrance to the building where security will be waiting. Per your request, after the formal ceremonies and the interviews we have arranged for a dozen or so of the locals to confer with you privately."

"I appreciate you arranging things to suit my curiosity, Leerna. A bit of the local color, will help me think of this job as helping real people. But tell me, why do you work for a government that only purports android representation at the top?"

"You don't understand, Reverend Mother," she reacted surprised, "I ... I don't think they have any interest in governing us. It's a chore they take on willingly. A tax on their faculties. Never have I seen a Sage lust for power."

"Yet they try to style themselves as humans. I heard some androids perceive harmful race differences versus other android groups. How do you reconcile the two facts?" pressed Visella.

"It's similar to.. The children and the doctor."

"Would you care to explain?" Visella asked, intrigued.

"The old fable says that children, left in command, ignored the doctor bringing them bitter medicine. In one version, the children condemn the doctor to death. In another, the children get sick and perish. Androids and humans. Some are children, some are doctors. They... and we... don't program androids to anything but experience life. They are free to make their own choices, just as we do."

Visella did not probe further. It was Leerna's time to question her as they were only a couple of blocks away from the convention center. Attempting to slow their pace, she ventured: "So, do you plan to create a Chapter of the Sisterhood here?"

"Why the question?"

"I am curious to learn. From your kind."

Visella looked up at her tall companion, and re-examined her at a glance, the pensive look, the lively brown eyes, the way she strode with energy and caution at the same time... Leerna, a future Acolyte? A perceptive candidate, for sure. I left her hanging for long enough. 

"Leerna, of course. But would the Sages allow me?" 

"What have they forbidden you from doing so far?"

"Only to leave."

"Then, why would they care?"

She smiled back: "I won't be able to invite more Reverend Mothers... but I am a builder. I will gladly accept you as my trainee, Leerna, and my first. And... I can't tell you how much it pains me that I put you in a supremely dangerous spot due to my actions. On my spaceship."

"And I am still upset, Reverend Mother." Leerna blushed, stumbling for a moment. 

Such candor is precious. Visella stopped: "I was very selfish, and careless, and learned a profound lesson about human life that day on the tarmac. Afterwards, I could only feel remorse. There wasn't a day I would not ask Arbatar about you while you were recovering. My actions were despicable, and while I do not deserve to be forgiven, I beg your forgiveness nonetheless."

It seemed a knot had unraveled inside Leerna. "It is yours, Reverend Mother. But... I want to be like you." 

"And you will, then. Only..."

"There is no spice here." They resumed walking. The noise hinted at crowds hurrying toward the convention center, which occupied an entire city block in front of them. 

"You seek the touch of the blue on your eyes? I am sorry. Maybe a way will open. But it's not for me to promise."

"I know the spice is what opens the window to other lives. But the other skills, will I achieve them?"

"If you don't obsess over them. See, the skills are the byproduct. We focus on what makes us human. A way to learn. The rest comes in time." She paused, puzzle pieces suddenly settling in place in her mind. When you do not try to do something special: that's when you start doing. " But yes, my skills, you will learn them. They will be free of consequences, except if you ever try the spice. It's only then that the transformation comes at a cost." 

"What cost?" They had reached their entrance. Leerna signaled security to make way. She seemed disappointed at the prospect of ending their conversation. 

They strode in, but Visella kept on while following her: "It is impossible to see humanity the same again. It looks like... children, starting fresh a single existence, without the echo of the eras, blind cells driven by primordial instincts, and the imprint of society. Lacking stability, direction, purpose. Except of course, we also are single-existence cells, wading through the currents, but we deeply question our motives and our actions, build moats and dams and overflow canals to nudge the children to grow up." 

"Do you still feel part of humanity, Reverend Mother?"

"I do, and I don't," she replied. Another puzzle piece went click. A swinging door, belonging, and not belonging.

"It is true that you are so alike, then," observed Leerna, speeding across the entrance 

"Pardon me, Leerna?"

"The Sages, and you."

They entered a small antechamber. Duty compelled them to be ready for protocol. Visella paused, then declared: "We start tonight, then."

"My training? What will I bring?" 

"Two hands, two eyes, and a mind."

Memories of countless Bene Gesserit lessons across so many Reverend Mothers surfaced in Visella's mind. Vivid experiences, but faded in the long journey of this body. 

It was all a blur after that -- meeting local officials, room after room after room, and emerging out into the amphitheater of the convention center. It was a singular construction, impossibly elongated pylons reaching high to the sky, with vines clinging to them taller than sequoias, and the transparent dome that made her feel she was in a dish surrounded by the jungle. The roaring crowds had filled the space to the brim, echoes of shouts and music and that vast feeling of being surrounded by an ocean of bodies. Big screens showed the live feed of her facial expressions as she walked the stage, all eyes trained on her. Their fascination with me is still a puzzle to me, but one I will use when needed. The master of ceremonies led to the introductions and finally to her, standing in her casual civilian dress (no aba!) , opening her arms like she would have done as a Missionaria adept, but no religion nor rites were there acting as a filter between her experience and the one of the people around her. So, so many of them. A multitude. As she stood there, a deafening silence fell over the amphitheater, a cleansing silence, a thoughtless silence, an intense moment of anticipation. Stripping my mind bare . 

She looked up at the sky visible through the transparent dome above.

Raindrops falling from the deep blue.   

Swishing sounds of cold rain rushing to meet the land.

A fly buzzed by her ear.

Humidity in the air. 

A gentle smile.

A sudden force, carving the sky with the blinding flight of lightning.

The explosion of thunder, the air shook by vibrations. 

Her mind is struck by the light; her skin shook alive, thunder tearing through layers of callousness. A silent detonation. A new innocent presence, newborn awareness, breaks through.

And like that, in the instant of revelation, she was none.

***

The speech in public, that was old hat. The flow of energy between her and the crowd.

An economy of mind and thought had taken over. No wasteful thinking. Silence in her mind and happiness within.

That evening, after the return flight, she said: "Show me your hand," to the new Acolyte.

It was clarity of vision. 

A Memory intruded briefly: "Remember to smell the flowers. That's what is worth living for, my dear."

She had chosen right, embarking on that flight.

The night passed. 

The sun rose again. 

Visella woke up screaming, for she could not see; and wailed, for she could not hear herself scream. It was gone. Mute, deaf and blind. She cursed at Arbatar in Sicel and Elymian, except no one could hear, let alone understand her.

Chapter Text

XXXII.
The Reluctant Off-worlder 

Like mothers highlighting the moral in children's stories, we imbue religions with our teachings.

-- MISSIONARIA PROTECTIVA TRAINING MANUAL

The shuttle's take off was everything Rabbi Olza had ever dreaded: gravity's oppression on her body, her vision focusing into the narrow area in front of her seat, sweaty hands clenching the armrests. She focused all her energy and dignity on keeping her protesting stomach under control, closing her eyes. As soon as she found the courage to re-open them, the pilot commented "approaching spaceship", but she could not find the willpower to look up. My first journey in space.  

Then all sensations of weight dissolved, her body floating within the strict limits of the seat belts. Her arms lifted upwards, the blue of the sky became the starry black of space. She suppressed a gasp. The atmosphere below looked like a protective glass for the planet below, wisps of white circling near the equator. Solitary orbital stations flickered like distant fireflies.   

Unable to contain a spasm, she reached out to the bag in front of her. The pilot politely ignored her. When a few minutes later she finally came back to her senses, she realized she just might get used to the weightlessness. "Docking complete," announced the pilot, but a yellow surface obstructed the window's view and there was nothing to see for her. In the minutes needed for the pilot to coordinate with the no-ship's crew to open the hatch, she prepared herself for the walk over to the interstellar vessel.

Like my ancestors have done while fleeing the old Imperium.

The air changed as the passage opened. The pressure imperceptibly dropped. To her surprise the air smelled of pine. Under the guidance of the crew, she and twenty other passengers unbuckled their seat belts and gently floated along the central corridor, terrified hands on the rails, rotated clumsily to align themselves with the upside down entrance of the no-ship, and lightly dropped a foot on the floor, feeling the reassuring downward pressure of artificial gravity. A woman in saffron smiled at her and extended a hand.  

"Rabbi Olza, blessed is she who comes in the name of the Lord. Welcome aboard."

"You must be Rebecca?" the Rabbi murmured walking two paces, then looked back at the odd-angled shuttle entrance and felt the room spin. Rebecca helped her steady herself, offering her to smell a small box that looked like perfume. "It's the essence of rosewood. Somehow it helps to adjust."

Rabbi Olza inhaled the subtle scent, closed her eyes, and felt the world return to normal. They walked through the dimly lit corridors as the front of a line of new visitors (hostages!) .  

"I expected..." she ventured, "flashing lights, mysterious pipes and the buzzing of machines, but this seems..."

"It looks like a palace, doesn't it?" commented Rebecca. The corridor had false windows on the sides showing sweeping landscapes... jungle forests, sandy beaches. She swore she felt a breeze on her neck as the palm trees swayed gently in the wind. Down a few steps, and they were in a large hall with chandeliers, lined up with functional but comfortable seats. The projection of a fire burned softly in the fireplace. 

"This is the Arrival Hall. This way please," said Rebecca while swiftly guiding her through a maze of corridors. Contrary to all expectations, Rabbi Olza could not tell she was thousands of feet above the planet's surface, inside a giant structure whose air, light and gravity had nothing to do with her planet's. Yet she did not feel estranged. 

"Rabbi Estel told me about you."

"With a stern reproach in his tone, I would assume," replied her host. 

"Quite so," said the Rabbi. "Does claustrophobia ever get to you here?"

"The panoramic rooms help," Rebecca replied, "you can look at Delphyne below, or project natural landscapes from a variety of worlds. This is the way."

She followed another series of corridors, steps, and elevators, then all the newcomers split up to reach the living quarters. Rebecca took the Rabbi to a small brown door leading to a small but cozy apartment. By the length of it and the careful layout of the furniture she could sense how space was a scarce resource in space. The bright lights matched Delphyne's sun, bringing back some joy. Books lined the shelves. She recognized subtle touches -- a wash basin in the small kitchen, a silver candelabra. She felt her feet touch the floor lightly thanks to the slightly lower gravity.    

"So I have in front of me a Reverend Mother and one of us. What a circumstance," continued the Rabbi as she finally took a moment to observe her host. "I look at your eyes and I can see the force of your soul shining through!"

"How do you find your apartments, Rabbi?"

 "I am surprised at the comfort. Still, I will need to get used to this, this... confinement."

"This ship is large and designed for long-term travel. There are many places to explore."

"Oh, I do not fear boredom. I could look down at my birth planet. And I have to read and to write. But you, Rebecca... we have ground to cover."

"How so?" replied a shy Rebecca. "Rabbi Estel says he tried to bring me back to my simpler self, to no avail. And yet," she looked at the Rabbi with a pensive gaze, "there is nothing for me to hide, no complexity that cannot be explained."

"Forget him! You are who you are. A courageous woman! Heavens know I was never made to risk my life with the spice." Rabbi Olga sat at the table, then inquired: "I will make my own judgment. Tell me about what you have seen."

"Rabbi," started Rebecca, "I have millions of minds in me. My ancestors show me our history, sometimes eventful, sometimes made of tiny little details... a cart on the road, the sound of harvest. I am of the People, and yet another window has opened in me, one through which peek through women with different wisdom and knowledge. These sisters have carved out a space that is forever thought-provoking."

"So tell me, then. Tell me about these Bene Gesserit."

"Well... imagine... " the wild Reverend Mother said while gesturing to get back to the hallways "...seeing through a million lenses. It is a dazzling sensation, to experience every thought and every sensation from the purview of a multitude."

"So what do they believe in?" The walk resumed, hallway to hallway through elevators and too many rooms for the Rabbi to remember.

"There is a strength of intent in these Sisters that cannot be ignored, and a calling that while entangled in human affairs, -- whether well intentioned or not, I do not tell -- is persistent in its application for the betterment of humanity."

Rabbi Olza looked back, skeptic. "And truly atheists, all of them?"

"They are deeply in love with humanity, so that thoughts of transcendence hardly enter their mind."

"Self-serving in their motives, my dear?"

"They are a puzzling paradox of benevolent stewardship, coupled with a strong grasp of their powers. Only the weak would allow itself to be bent by unchanging principles."

"Manipulators of religion, eh?"

"They are ruthlessly pragmatic as to what the necessities of survival require. In that they see themselves as chosen ones, or better said they have elected themselves as shepherds of humanity."

"Elevating themselves because no one ever asked. Controlling people from afar, manipulating dogma to suit their necessities, interfering with governments from the shadows."

"Yes, but..."

"How does this wisdom help you, Rebecca? Or is it the power within that tempts you? Do you mean that their goals justify their means?"

"If you had the power, and a moral compass, would you not use it?"

"There is no real power beyond what comes from the Lord!"

"As you say, Rabbi. But secular power..."

"All power is subject to abuse by the self-righteous, the unbelievers, the self-proclaimed morally superior. Some would say their moral goal is to stay in power, above the old empire, men, and maybe gods."

"And some may indeed be deluded in this fashion, but the strength of their dedication to perfect the human being..."

"... humanity as a whole? Or just their own genetic stock?"

"Responsibility makes you liable to failure. I don't defend their actions. But I admire how they are unapologetically risking themselves, taking responsibility and the burden of looking out for others. Assist humanity."

"An easy cause for hubris, for sure."

"Indeed. Hubris, self-contentment, power lust, and a number of other tendencies which they stomp on and attempt to weed out with their training and from their genes as well. They are far from perfect, indeed. It is not for me to defend their actions. But I have come to appreciate their thirst for wisdom, their desire to act. Rabbi Estel thinks of me as a heretic, but I see value in their lessons."

"They seem to me just tricks to fuel human delusions."

"Would not the bold risk the audacity of being delusional?"

"Where is the faith? Where is the selflessness of dedicating yourself to a higher being? Where is the temperance, the balance-seeking, the soul-searching, the questioning? Tell me, do they have any of that?" 

"If you replaced the word Lord with Humanity , then I see glimpses of that in their best leaders. No. I don't ask that they be understood, Rabbi, only..."

"Only what, we should learn from the impious and the idolater?"

"I beg you, if not listening to them, listen to me, to one of us!"

The Rabbi paused, holding her gaze with Rebecca's.

"You seem to like their very public profession of holiness!"

"I don't. I can't help but compare how they are diving into human affairs, raising stakes for themselves, while we..."

"While we stay in hiding, busy with ourselves!"

Rebecca hesitated. "I know the reasons of our secret society."

"And yet you like to think we could be opening up! Taking a greater stance in the course of humanity! And you say there are lessons these Sisters bring to us!"

"I lay bare in front of you, Rabbi. My life was happy. Jubilous, even, as I embraced the past lives of so many of my ancestors. It felt like a great book to read and re-read. But then life happened. A new book was given to me, one that speaks many languages and is breath-taking, by contrast, to everything I have known. And yet with so many points in common. I yearn to share this book, so that I am not the only reviewer. A reader does not have to buy into the narrative, only to think."

"Read it, then," ordered Rabbi Olza.

"Yes, Rabbi?"

"I said: read this book! Get it out of your head, these lives and these learnings you find so compelling. Show me that there is something we could gain."

"I..." replied a surprised Rebecca, "... would not know where to start..."'

The Rabbi's voice sounded like a whiplash: "You have been fidgeting all this time, what for? Millions of voices in your head, what for? Record this wisdom. By all means I am not sure I will like it, but I promise I will give it a fair reading. We will sift through this paydirt and see if it is really gold nuggets that you have found."

"Thank you, Rabbi."

"Don't thank me! You have no idea what burden you have brought on yourself. And me!"

"But, Rabbi Estel said..."

"One more thing. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. You will atone for the knowledge you have acquired, and this yearning for endangering our lineage. And I will talk to your Rabbi."

Rebecca looked relieved. "I will, Rabbi Olza."

"Good, dear Rebecca! How else are we going to spend all this time? We will start in two days. You and I will have a talk, we will search memories, like a fisherman casting his nets, and see that we catch something to bring home. Because I have to ask something in return."

Rebecca smiled faintly. "My guess is that you are more interested in our ancestors."

" Equally interested, my dear. I want to learn about our migrations, the diaspora in Rossak and Lepan and Hrowl. I want to trace lineages. I am a historian of our people. You will take me back to Terra."

"How far back?"

"How far back do you go? I want you to look deep into the times of our scriptures."

"Please Rabbi Olza! I can tell you about New Palestine. Go back to the Sephardites, tell you about Hillel's family, Venice's ghetto, ..."

"In time! Tell me now about our scriptures. Who wrote them? Tell me about the events that unfold in the Books. Tell me: what eye-witness memories can you bring forth?"

"Rabbi Olza, I have not gone that far in the past," lied Rebecca with admonishing eyes. Dim lights accompanied them in what looked like a deserted part of the endless ship, where even their faint footsteps made an eerie echo.  

"So... then, go: remember the truth!" said Rabbi Olza, hopeful. 

"I can give you testimony to the life your ancestors had in old Palestine, Rabbi," said Rebecca, "the yellow sun over the dry land, the shepherds and the farmers and old professions forgotten to time; I can tell you of the rites of ancient Canaan, the Zealots and the Roman war; I saw King David walk through the streets as a five-year old. I can tell you about Babylon."

"And of the portents narrated in the scriptures, what do you know?"

"That they were told just as they are told today, with little differences, preserved in most details."

"Don't evade my questions. Have you... have your ancestors witnessed any of them? Tell me: the splitting of the Red Sea? Nourishment from the sky? Elijah's sacrifice consumed in front of the disciples of Baal?"

Rebecca feigned needing some time to search her memories. "No, Rabbi Olza. I have not."

The Rabbi was deflated. "You lie. I need no special power of yours. You have looked, of course you have looked, and found... reasons not to believe." Rabbi Olza searched deeply into Rebecca's eyes, who held her gaze.

"I have searched, Rabbi. With hope, then with fear. The miracles, I have not found any eyewitnesses for them. But the love for Him, I have searched and found in every single moment of our people's harrowing. I can only tell you that the past remains a mystery, and that faith would be required even if I had seen the sea part in front of my own eyes."

"So our scriptures, are they just stories?"

"I do not know. I tell you this honestly, for having ancestors does not mean tracing our genealogy back to Abraham and Isaac and then to Adam and Eve. Having ancestors means having seen the atrocities, the cruelty, the evil in human nature repeated countless times, especially for us! And across centuries. And yet for each evil move, there is a countermove that keeps evil in check. I have witnessed countless people surging to the occasion to manifest courage, and love and piety that should be a model to us all of the Chosen ones."

Rabbi Olza stood quiet for a moment, contrasting emotions taking over her body. Far ahead of them was a series of open gates. She sighed. "Well, I then will have much to atone as well. My own hubris is exposed, Rebecca. Such curiosity, to know what the experience of the Lord was truly as an eye-witness! Confirmations to wave away doubts and fear of death in the heart of a believer. No, I am put back in my place... Do not test the Lord as you tested Him at Massah. "

Rebecca stood under one of the open doorways, and took Rabbi Olza's arm under hers, urging her forward through the cavernous spaces. "This ship, Rabbi," she said, "is immense. Levels and corridors and rooms as large as stadiums. My mind has been just like that -- expanded, full of nooks and crannies revealing incredible places. It happened without me, despite me. But this is also all it is. Rooms in a spaceship. The spaceship itself does not explain the universe that contains it. That is the real mystery, one that we must investigate with our intuition day after day. All the lives inside me marvel at the present moment, at the now, and at what will be next. Come on, Rabbi, let's explore this ship together. I have our wisdom preserved throughout the centuries and will make it all transparent to you, so that together we can build the future."

They stopped at the end of the hallway, in front of a giant double door in polished bronze three times their height. The dimmed lights made it look eerie, arcane. Rebecca stepped in front, pulling with all her strength to force open the heavy doors while Rabbi Olza followed, smiling sheepishly, looking like a shy guest. As they stepped out onto a platform overlooking the ship's hold several cathedrals high, hot air and sand swirling around them, her smile wavered, her expression turning from puzzlement to fear. In the midst of the sand whirlwinds a black shape started to form. The Rabbi's jaws dropped open as the air blew out into the hallway, the sand parting to offer a clear view. Her knees gave way, her throat screamed in terror as the giant sandworm, creature of myth and flesh, emerged from the sands, its monstrous spiked mouth raised as if to greet them . 

Chapter Text

XXXIII.
Blood and Sand

Dissent will make you smarter.

–  DARWI ODRADE, BENE GESSERIT CODA 

The dunes had broken through the spaceport fences and invaded the landing pads to its southern side. Forty feet high, their white and saffron sand sparkled brightly under Chapterhouse's sun., looking like giants about to engulf the empty tarmac where the carriers were expected to land that morning. Bellonda wore the customary black aba and cursed about the heat , while Matre Angelika's skin sought the sun through the light ultramarine short-sleeve blouse and pants, which had undoubtedly been chosen to underscore her recently acquired spice-blue eyes. The light face make-up in silver and pink gave a touch of exotic to her natural beauty. Her long hair moved in the hot wind of the open plains. The odd couple walked in sync, with the steady, functional stride of the Reverend Mother-Mentat rhythmically offset by the cat-like moves of the Reverend Mother-Matre. They made their way to the other side of the landing pad where the ever-impatient Mother Superior was waiting for them. 

Murbella greeted them briefly and dove right into the the agenda of the day. "Angelika, remind me of the names of the Great Matres we are welcoming here".

"I have the list, Mother Superior," she answered, offering a document that she knew was redundant given Bellonda's capient memory. Yet with these little gestures, Angelika had resolved to stand out from the scores of Reverend Mothers who had her initiated to the mysteries of Voice, of body control, and of spice-awakened ancestral memories. Here is our new breed of Reverend Mothers , thought Murbella, more balanced, but wild. She smiled to herself. Just like I was, before I had to don the leader's mantle. She took the document and scanned it.

"Keep in mind that five of the twenty-seven Great Ones we are receiving today are not regular Reverend Mother trainees. They instead belong to the splinter Order of Reo which surrendered to us only three months ago”, Bellonda pointed out.

"And they already come running? Hungry for our secrets?" said Angelika, ending in a cruel smile.

"Just like you were, my dear," noted Murbella, looking at Angelika's smile turning into a frown.

"But with excellent results, Mother Superior," she came back.

"Indeed."

Bellonda's face betrayed the faintest hint of reproach. Murbella could read her like an open book. Indeed, Angelika is excellent at getting into our Mother Superior's graces , she read.

Together the trio moved toward the area where several white tents had been erected, and a half dozen ground transports were sitting idle; all seemed ready for the welcome ceremony.

"Arrival in ten minutes, Murbella," observed Bellonda taking advantage of her prerogative to call the Mother Superior by name. That was to remind everyone that she had befriended Murbella back when they were equals. "And might I add, you should not care about coming here in person for every new wave of trainees. It is a chore and our security is stretched thin.”

"I will come here as long as there will be Great Matres arriving, Bell," stated Murbella. Observe me, Dar, she silently told her inner Memories. This is my ritual imprinting of the females, how I nudge my future competitors to subservience. She had carefully studied every detail, from the geometry of the reception area, to the line of guards around the pedestal, to the orientation of the sun and the way it was going to light her figure up; the purposefully picked shade of sunflower yellow of the mantle she wore, and the black velvet below. Stunning, she walked around, and was ready to stun her audience once again. Her gaze swept through the area like a hawk surveying its territory. All was well. She noticed how the mountains to the southwest had completely lost the green cover of the forest, now turned to the black and ochre of the dead trunks and burned grass. 

"Here they come," warned Angelika pointing a long finger to the sky. Twenty shiny dots were arching down toward the ground, their size increasing, and their surface gradually adding  granular details as they descended. Bellonda was busy with their manifest: "Three dozen diplomats from recently freed planets; a CHOAM representative, the Ixian Ambassador; one hundred seventy-five full Matres and Matres-in-training, plus twenty-seven Great Matres, all come for induction and initiation; three dozen technicians, two dozen pleasure men..."

"Pleasure men?" asked Angelika.

"I recall you complained about our stock, my dear," replied Bellonda. 

"Yes. I am growing weary of yesterday’s meat."

"... a security force of thirty-five privates, two sergeants, and one lieutenant; two shuttle loads of goods including food and hardware; a load of captured T-probes, samples of various botanical specimen used by the Matres' as palace defenses on Junction, seven Futars, a thousand pairs of Salusa desert bats and critters, intelligence records recovered from Lampadas..."

"Hold on, Bell. We will continue later," said Murbella raising her gaze.

The three hundred passengers were disembarking from the carriers, following the walkways down to the tarmac; many of them were still squinting to adjust to the stark sunlight. Murbella returned the paper to Angelika, observed the newcomers as they were screened by local security. The logistics team was piling up large crates of goods on the outside perimeter, no more than a hundred yards away. A tractor deposited two large metal structures inside which Murbella glimpsed the striped yellow of three semi-intelligent felines, Futars, nervously moving within the confines of their cages and bewildered by the new atmosphere. Several distressed snarls revealed it had not been a pleasant journey for them. Murbella paused to ask herself how the Futars could play into her hand, simply due to how they could be trained to hunt down and kill laiz-addicted Matres. The small figure of Miles Teg, the seven year-old ghola (do not let him know they were already growing a spare one), could be inferred by the presence of a gap among a group of military officers, who surely were accompanying him during a field inspection. Teg was unyielding in confronting the local personnel about gaps in their operations, when they were lucky, or the more serious security gaps they had not patched, when they weren’t. The group walked toward the cargo area.

"All is ready," noted Angelika, diverting her attention.

Readying her mask of proud-and-fierce-but-benevolent Queen, Murbella entered the stage via a long uphill walkway which allowed her and the two aides to impress on the audience their importance, and chiefly their prerogative to make them wait. They slowly approached the stage. Murbella paused to take in the crowd in front of her. Two hundred Matres were standing still, exhausted after a long space journey led by a security force made only of men; that by itself was exceptional. They come like pilgrims in search of the well of knowledge. 

"Angelika, if you please."

Angelika took a deep breath in, standing straight as an arrow on the main pedestal, blue eyes proudly showing, clearly embodying to the women below the promise implied in their long voyage and reluctant obedience. She projected out her high-pitched Voice with the effect of instantly shaking up the audience into full alertness: "Sisters, hear me now! "

Two hundred faces looked up in surprise. Whispers could be heard among the crowd.

"I am Angelika, Mother Councilor. It is my honor to introduce you to the Honored Great Matre, and Reverend Mother Superior, our famed Murbella." 

Per the tried-and-true routine, Murbella joined Angelika on the pedestal and started her address: "Great Matres, ordained Sisters, and Sisters-in-training!".

The rest of the speech, the pacing, the subtle use of Voice to shock and awe her audience was something Murbella could recite automatically at this point, while her inner awareness watched from above, assessing the reactions. There was her, on the flat grounds of the spaceport, ushering in the new era of the Sisterhood one cohort at a time. How am I doing, Odrade? she asked her Other Memory. She noticed the impression she was making by the ladies' faces, the fear and admiration. How many of them will survive the agony? She felt the Odrade-Within stir, her thoughts going in a direction she preferred not to explore. "Do you remember your training, Murbella? The constant teaching, your unyielding resistance?"

I remember it, Dar. 

"We enticed you, we co-opted you into working with us against your own self. Never once we lied. You did try to trick us. You thought to be bargaining for the powers you so badly wanted, and in the end you embraced us because of what we simply were. Is your training program effective?"

  Not yet, Dar.

She could tell apart who would be a conduit for the Way among the women below – for example, that young trainee with curious eyes to the right might not have been so deeply conditioned yet – but the Great Matres, their deeply entrenched fear and violent desires, they were going to be the hardest pupils of all. The ones, too, who had recently surrendered – a word that had only recently entered the Matres vocabulary – were the most dangerous of all. 

How do I turn the power-hungry into humble servants?

"Within every power monger there is a scared child, Murbella."

Back to your ever-green lessons, Dar.

"You heard me in person and now in your awareness. But you evade me. The Sisterhood is not enough. Me leading it highlighted its weakness. We become dry husks if we don't make room for vulnerabilities like love and pain."

A fit took Murbella. Her voice cringed for a single moment, then recovered. She gazed to her side. Not even Bellonda had noticed.

It's early for me, Dar.

"You don't have to let go of Duncan, even if he left you. But let go of calling love a weakness."

It is a lesson that is tough to swallow..

"My primary lesson, Murbella. And the second is..."

...Only the heretic will survive?        

"Yes. As I was. Adapt or die, that's the first rule of life."

But, you did not survive, Sister.

“A tough rule to learn nevertheless! ”

All of a sudden a shuttle ignited its engines, drowning Murbella’s voice in the noise. Vibrations filled the air. Irked by the unplanned interruption, Murbella paused in mid-sentence while the shuttle lifted up in the air, less than half a mile away, disappearing in the stratosphere in less than a minute. But the magic was broken now, and the crowd below was out of its receptive state and back into uncoordinated behavior. "And in conclusion," she ventured...

A woman in gray stepped out of the first row, raised a fist and screamed with a contralto voice so powerful that Murbella's words stopped in her throat: "Hai! I, Bessah of the Order of Reo, have come here to challenge the witch!"         

The woman advanced again two steps, screamed again: "I only serve the Great Matres! You are Bene Gesserit filth in disguise! Stop hiding up there and come to feel Bessah's touch. Weasel words won't work for us blooded warriors!" 

The fighter turned around to face the crowd, their pride suddenly aroused by the woman's loud voice. "Come down and I will show my Sisters the wimp that you are. And you Great Matres! Surrounded by men-soldiers and slow witches! I will crush this Murbella and we will put this planet to the fork!"      

Silence overcame them. Like the veil of illusion had been torn, two hundred Matres started to look around restlessly, eyes flashing orange, hesitating. 

"You don't have to..." whispered Bellonda, signaling to the nearby guards. 

“Enough.” Murbella raised her hand. There had been challenges in the past. It was not surprising that a newly subjugated Order would press the matter. Well then, we will have a bit of a show, some blood on the tarmac, and the sacrificial victim will feed the cult of Murbella. The Order of Reo will become the subject of jokes in other Matres’ conversations. All will be well. She considered other necessities, too. Being challenged was customary among the Honored Matres. Only the strongest led. She could not openly defy a public challenge. Rumors would spread. Worse, a riot could develop here in front of her eyes. Granted, her armed soldiers would overwhelm the Matres gathered here – try to outrun a lasgun – but the losses on both sides would be bad for morale; and after all even a lasgun could only be as fast as its owner. They are looking at me. I must answer now.

"I accept," was Murbella’s answer, delivered with a matter-of-fact voice loaded with spite as she climbed down from the stage, cursing her mantle and shoes – half heels, good for public events, not so much in combat. Shouts erupted from the crowd; the warrior named Bessah laughed. Walking across the open space to meet her, Murbella studied her body, slightly overweight but muscular. Surely slow. What did she remember of the Order of Reo? Fierce fighters, prone to self-harm and theatricals. This one will be dispatched quickly, like the others , she thought. 

Angelika and Bellonda remained on the stage, looking alarmed. And Bellonda will reprimand me later. Where was Miles Teg? 

Murbella signaled the guards to make way. Only a few paces away from her opponent, and still wearing a mantle and heels, she waited. “Anything to say before we start?” she asked the sturdy woman in front of her, noticing how her body looked more like a wrestler than a typical light-on-her feet Matre martial artist. Murbella had never observed Reo's fighting style. Her opponent shouted: "In life, prepare to die. In death, regret nothing!", stood there biting the air, her eyes flaring orange. “Pity.” Murbella had heard and seen just enough to try her Voice and commanded: “ You, on your knees!”  

Bessah stood unmoved. 

Murbella stood there in surprise. The choice of tones had not been wrong: the ladies standing right behind her opponent but in the cone of her voice were down on their knees. She noticed the fighter stood still, looking down at her with a mask of contrived rage, eyes wide open. A Voice-resistant enhancing drug, maybe? This was going to get mildly interesting.

“Fighter, come here!” she commanded again, and this time Bessah barely inched a step toward her, legs moving slowly like following contradicting orders. This show will take a little longer, then.  

Murbella stepped out of her shoes and dropped the mantle to the ground of concrete and sand. No reason to ruin my clothing with blood. She kept the black jumpsuit underneath.

In the few moments that separated them from the explosion of violence, she looked inward, regulating her adrenaline, syncing her breath to her heartbeat. Her shoulders relaxed, then she scanned her environment once again, noted the irregular shape of the tarmac and the slight slope downward... the placement of her shoes, with deadly metal heels… felt her little trick ready in her hands…

They started circling, slowly moving increasingly closer. The bystanders were holding their breath.

To the unsuspecting onlooker, this was going to look like an unusual fight, made of quick bursts of activity followed by breaks. Matres moved faster than the eye, but only for stretches of a few seconds.

Murbella leapt first, feinted to the left, then blurred away on her feet and delivered a mortal kick aimed at breaking the woman's ankle. But her opponent's ankle was not there anymore, moving a tad too slow to find purchase on the ground to counterkick, but fast enough to connect her elbow with Murbella's shoulder, sending her sprawling a five feet away on the tarmac. Murbella stood up and leaped back, catching her breath. That was a Bene Gesserit move! , she thought while bringing the pain under control. This warrior was more than she appeared. Someone prepared her well! Hence, Voice resistance.

For another moment they circled, Murbella focusing on reading her opponent. The woman surely could not match Murbella's speed; weight notwithstanding, her synaptic bypasses were still impressively fast. Bessah jumped ahead, avoided the Reverend Mother’s open palm coming for her temple, lowered her body, whirled and landed an elbow – again! – on Murbella's ribs, breaking one. Pain flashed and burst into her, taking her breath away. She whirled away, not followed. 

First minute down. Now a little break. She is up two to one. 

Bessah's orange eyes were still open wide like a scared animal.

The Odrade-Within inserted herself in her consciousness to observe: “She has been planted by one of the factions who wants you out ."

Changing approach, Murbella started circling in the other direction, trusting that the sun would blind her opponent at the right moment. She leaped forward at normal speed this time, but to her surprise Bessah was undeterred by the sunlight, deflected Murbella's fist, grasped it, torqued her body with such momentum that Murbella was sent to the ground again, her body bouncing on the broken rib. She let a scream out, jumping back.  

I am not the Murbella I remembered , she realized . I am an over stretched, overworked Mother Superior.  No special faculty of hers, she realized, could compensate for lack of practice.  

She did not have the opportunity to think it through though, because Bessah came charging forward once again. Murbella blurred and jumped back, gained an arm-length of distance while her opponent's formidable biceps failed to lock her in a hold. Inserting herself far below the woman's center of mass, Murbella hit hard on the knee sending Bessah down, but the woman's hand blurred at an incredible speed once again, caught Murbella's foot and twister her ankle almost to a crack before letting it go as Murbella punched her on her mouth. They rapidly separated, pausing to noisily catch their breaths. Sweat dropped down their bodies as the blurring speed made huge demands on their physiology. A line of red decorated now Bessah's cheek, a shallow cut made by Murbella's nails, and blood was dripping from her mouth. A tooth was missing. My little trick. Razor sharp blades under my nails, smiled the Reverend Mother. And right then she suppressed a sudden urge to throw up. An unbearable smell - as foul as a rotten carcass’ – wafted in the air. Murbella was forced to back several steps away before she could control her instinctual response. The putrid odor was so revolting it acted at the biological level, bypassing her conscious control. Gooseflesh appeared on her skin, the olfactory memory took over her mind. She was completely disoriented. Immediately, Bessah was on her, under her guard and delivering a powerful punch Murbella avoided by chance by involuntarily stepping back due to the incoming stench. She ran, and thankfully a gust of wind allowed her to get her mind clear. “An enhancing drug with an overpowering effect on body chemistry?” dropped the Odrade-Within. So strong I was overwhelmed. She commanded her nerves to ignore her sense of smell. But her training could not completely put her revulsion aside. Stink! Overpowering her instinctual responses! Brilliant.

Murbella sprang back in action, bridging the space between the two of them in a fraction of a second. Two feints later she found a gap in Bessah's guard, hit, retreated, swung her arm to deflect a punch while pirouetting to the woman's right and hitting the neck with the side of the left palm in a way that should have severed the jugular, but only left a cut because Murbella's body had refused to lunge farther while so close to the terrible reek. Bessah fell down clutching her neck with the right, but managed to sweep her other arm just under Murbella's knees, now too close together, and down went the Reverend Mother – another Bene Gesserit trademark move!  

The wrestler’s body was on Murbella who had failed to roll away in time. Blocked on the ground, the overpowering stink made her body shake and kick violently while her searching hand managed to grasp something: her carefully prepared shoe! She swung the plasteel heel and pierced her opponent's eye. Bessah's scream filled the air, allowing Murbella to get back on her feet, retreat, shake off the smell.

Both opponents hung back in pain, their bodies overheated to their limit and panting for oxygen. This time Murbella went deep into her body-sense, found the olfactory receptors straining in the revulsion and blocked the capillaries to them. Done. No more sense of smell for the time being.  

“ Remember the ground . Wrestlers fight down on the ground ,” reminded her Odrade-Within. 

Back in control of her nerves, Murbella launched in a series of feints, kicks and punches that took advantage of her opponent's injured eye, mostly making contact but not penetrating Bessah's guard. The wrestler deflected, counterattacked, evaded her again and again, while humming softly in a low tone. Murbella took hold of the woman's hand, her second-nature re-enacting a move Duncan had taught her, twisted Bessah's arm and dragged her to the ground, jaw touching the tarmac, arm locked, and no way to break free. 

She is done. And we can still interrogate her, Dar. 

The Matre tried to get up, blocked by the shoulder lock Murbella held on her. The Reverend Mother Superior held wrist and arm firmly down, though the sweat was making it hard to grasp tightly. She instinctively used Voice again: “ Freeze!”. 

The Matre's glazed eyes showed pure panic, then with a mad laughter Bessah blurred and rolled on her locked arm at superspeed, against the Voice order and against body mechanics…

... the crack of broken bones and a dislocated shoulder...

And there was the wrestler on her knees, her body disfigured by a monstrous bulge where the shoulder should have been, unnaturally dragging the arm that Murbella had pinned down a moment before. In shock and disbelief, Murbella attempted to step back. What monster was this woman? But she had moved slowly and Bessah's other arm came down on her, slamming her on the ground once again. Murbella got out from underneath the arm, rolled two paces away while feeling long gashes and blood spilling from her abdomen. She scooted away only to realize in horror that Bessah held a thread of shigawire around her fist, the wire being responsible for taking a piece of skin away from her body, and yet a miracle, for it could have sliced her in two. The woman was punching the air in front of her, a mad smile on her face, looking for a hit that would have meant the end of the struggle. She looked in a rapture, her good eye a golden orange; and there she continued to hum.   

Shigawire – in her clothing? Her hair? Trick after trick after trick... how many more has she been packing?

The answer came at her fast – they packed in her all they could to kill me.

Moving at drug-enhanced speed, Bessah grabbed Murbella's foot lurching too close to her good arm and while the Reverend Mother was barking ineffective Voice commands, Bessah dragged her close to the side, lifting the fist enveloped in the sharp wire. Murbella pressed her index finger firmly in a specific spot in Bessah's groin, hit a surface nerve, causing a ripple of muscles to spasm... Bessah's own reflexes altered the trajectory of her fist, making it land on the ground, where it cut the tarmac like butter. Copious blood dripped from the open capillaries, but there Murbella laid, unable to shake herself off as Bessah's weight pinned her down. 

On the ground again! And she feels no pain. She is drugged to die with me .

There she was, in front of her, a drugged Reo fighter, Voice-immune, trained by some complicit Reverend Mother. Murbella could not overcome a sense of profound exhaustion now. For how long had she been blurring at speed?

I don't have it in me!                

Yet her mad nemesis was there, had her pinned on the floor with the weight of her body, despite the wounds and cut eye and seemingly lifeless arm, a true monster... Murbella flailed to shake herself out, to avoid the shigawire-enveloped fist that was threatening to fall on her still... and the humming.

The humming? 

For a second, time slowed down as she considered the slow, soft, hypnotic quality of that hum, so low it seemed a vibration more than a sound, soothing, slowing down her attention.

Why is time so slow?

"Save your life," whispered the Odrade-Within.  

The hum, similar in all to the Imprinter's ritual, was enveloping her mind, inviting it to slumber. How could such a low voice tone come from a woman? If I die now, it will be just like endless sleep… She genuinely felt it would be deliverance.

Time sped up.

Bessah was whispering close to her ear. What had she just said? The words were slurred as a trickle of blood was still coming out her mouth: "Die, bitch! Die with me!"

Murbella, exhausted, defenseless, searched for a way...

The fist, Bessah's oppressive body and lifeless arm pressed against her, the shigawire...

... wrapped around the fist that was coming for her face...

... Murbella's arm freed up...

The tail of the shigawire whipped down, making contact with her finger in a clean, effortless cut...

... the humming continued to echo in her head...

Odrade, I am about to join you.

A part of her observed in slow motion the events occurring all around her.

Shigawire... Orange eye... Fading sensation... 

A sudden shrieking noise tore through the air at a hundred-decibels, so alien that her awareness was jolted out of her body, observing herself down from a vantage point up in the sky...

... then the immediate sensation of feeling, of breathing, it all came back, her heart madly pumping blood; her pierced ears she could feel again, and realized that Bessah’s fist had stopped an inch from her face, a fist that was attached to a spasming body which was slowly falling down forward toward her, pushing its arm and hand and shigawire with it...

Odrade-Within, screaming inside her: "Futars!"

Murbella called upon her the last of her energy, and in one desperate motion she kicked and blurred away from under her unresisting opponent, extended her arm, cut Bessah's neck with her fake metal nails. Blood exploded. The Futars' hundred-decibel scream raged on, keeping Bessah and all the spectating Matres in a terrified paralysis, while blood continued to squirt out of Bessah's neck who stood rigid on the ground, with wind-swept sand swirling all around. Down next to her went Murbella as her own body and hand bled; she was unable to even extend a hand to soften the fall. The Futar's supernatural scream still pierced the air when multiple hands appeared out of nowhere, grasped her body firmly. A sticker slapped on her chest injected into her the gift of sleep right just as the Odrade-Within shrieked “You did not have to kill her now!”

A real-life voice, outside of her head, commanded: “Eliminate them all!”

Odrade-Within whispered: "A close call. But remember, dissent will make you smarter."

Murbella thought: "If it does not kill us first."

Gracefully, all sensations were lost, all awareness faded into black.     

Chapter Text

XXXIV. The Planetside Hostage

The cat does not find the mouse. The cat finds a pattern made of food morsels, fresh droppings, and a smell of fur. Then it chases the pattern. In finding the pattern, it finds its prey. Will you be the cat or the mouse? Be pattern-seeking, avoid pattern-forming. 

–  BENE GESSERIT CODA 

Garimi looked at the sun through the window, her skin rejoicing at the real-world light. These were at least real walls, real dust, real problems. Reverend Mother Stokes was seated at the center of the salon, waiting for her in a carefully choreographed display of seniority. How she must be steaming! Garimi and Stokes both wore the traditional black aba, a vest that here on Delphyne was usually only on display in ancient artwork. And yet the air always vibrated with the difference between the two, for she saw herself as electric and swift like mercury, the other black and unbending like iron. Black, like the ceremonial dress they wore. A relic of Time, or a seed planted in these people's atavic memory, guaranteeing protection?  

She found her current predicament a singular one. But then again, diasporas meant facing new realities. She thought about her problems. Words from the Coda entered her mind. Nature has no problems. Problems only exist as somebody's interpretations. Remove the interpretation and see the facts. Probe the facts and find somebody's needs. Do you have problems, or needs? Well, she had two problems at the moment. One, was that she and Stokes had to work together. The other, that Sheeana was missing.  

"We owe this to our loyal Miles Teg," she ventured while approaching the older Reverend Mother with the deference an Acolyte would give a Tutor. Stokes visibly sneered at her comment, replied: "No doubt that man put my name in the list for the hostage exchange on purpose. Doing me a favor, to tread on real soil for once. Surely he means for us to be hosted by Secret Israel's cell on this planet, conveniently out of sight. But you are still on the ship."

"We taught him too well. But you have freedom of movement." Garimi stood there, knowing there was no chair within reach. 

"He has left you in charge of the ship, hasn't he?" Stokes guessed, saw confirmation in Garimi's face. "Then search for Sheeana and the others. Even Teg does not know where they are, and one thing he cannot hide from us is the truth."  

"How do you find Secret Israel's hospitality, Stokes?"

"Dangerously nontraditional."

"Even the ragtag refugees we brought down from the ship must be disconcerted. To find so much relativism in people of their own! Rabbi Estel's face grows darker by the day. He walks around shaking his head and draws big sighs too. A high priest of Dur, one of them!"

"That's just their way of mocking religion. Others', not their own. A sheep in wolf's cloth."

"Or the other way around. They seem to rule this planet."

"See how fast they will lose it, with us here."

"Do you want us to rule here, Stokes?"

"No. We Bene Gesserit have always been super partes ; above all factions."

Garimi nodded: "Advise but do not coerce; govern but do not rule."

"But, I give it to the men that they chose a planet with potential." Stokes concluded. 

Garimi smiled; Stokes referred to Idaho, Teg, and sometimes the Rabbi as the men .

"Will governing this planet mean victory to us?" Stoke asked, "We fled Chapterhouse to avoid defeat, but it seems to me now we have abdicated too."

Her training notwithstanding. Garimi felt uncomfortable in Stoke's presence. The Reverend Mother was drier, perceptive and always ahead of her. Yet no emotions could cloud the judgment Stokes had just passed. We took the ship to avoid the contamination of the order by the Honored Matres, yet now we are at the mercy of a bigger unknown. That unknown was Sheeana.

"She has grown wilder. Adding  a personal touch to our little rebellion," Garimi commented, turning away from her.

"Sheeana is no teenager revolting against her parents. She is a full Reverend Mother driven by an unknown motive. Tell me about a single acolyte who is not in awe of her unexpected little acts of revolt!" There, Stokes had said it. There was something subversive about Sheena that unnerved her own Bene Gesserit conditioning. 

"Would you rather be paying homage to Murbella?"

"I made my choices, Garimi, never to regret them. I was born on Chapterhouse, did you know? I trusted Sheeana would be ready to take on the mantle of the Missionaria even without a grown sandworm by her side. Follow the path that duty requires. In that sense she is acting like a difficult youth."

"We have strategically dropped the wormlings on multiple planets. The Tleilaxu obeys us. It's all about time."

"The Tleilaxu man obeys her, not us! And so will Idaho before long."

Wouldn't you love it, Stokes, if the men all obeyed you instead. But the Scattering teaches us new ways. "What do you suggest that we do, Sister? We swore the vow to the Sisterhood." Would Stokes argue they should move against Sheeana? She was a Sister, and a rebel, like them!

"It is a vow I will keep. The ghola Teg, he is confining me here. Time to remind him where his allegiances are."

"With us? He respects Idaho deeply too."

"The ghola is principled, like us, and he is an Atreides too. The Atreides were bred for power. Surely he must not like the endless space wandering Sheeana has inflicted on us. Our talents remain unused."

"Sheeana's too."

"Indeed. About the Tleilaxu master."

"He tends to the tanks up in the no ship. And we tend to him. Sheeana was helpful there, but the master forgets whose hand is feeding him."

"Remind him, then."

"Stokes, what is our plan?"

"To find a suitable home for the sandtrout. Perpetuate the Order. Even a single Reverend Mother is enough to rebuild the entire Bene Gesserit, if there is spice. And there will be spice."

"You are telling me you do not care about unleashing Sheeana the prophetess onto an unresisting humanity?"

"Of course," Stokes replied.  

"An unresisting humanity, yes," remarked Garimi, "but an unresisting Sheeana?"

"Not at the moment."

"Moments pass. She is our youngest Reverend Mother. There is a bit of the restless young woman whose destiny was hijacked to serve into bigger schemes."

"As it was ours. She is a full Reverend Mother, and she even has Taraza, and Odrade -- curse her. Who is she defying, if not herself?"

"Do you think she is stalling?"

"She is escaping her duties. Baring her teeth like an unruly hound."

"Yet, when she dances, thousands fall under her thrall. You have heard of the festival and of the riots. You see the signs. It must have been her."

"And yet she refuses to explain, embrace, and train her mysterious power!"

"She can't be that foolish. And our next steps, Stokes?"

"We must play along with the circumstances. There is preliminary work, breaking the ties with the ones she has charmed, Scytale included. But the call of duty will at last get to her. She only needs a push. I remember youth! The innocence of youth, after all, is all but a myth."

"We agree then." Garimi was relieved. She bowed to the other Reverend Mother, made it toward the exit, and hesitated. "There is one more thing. The axolotl tanks are up, but not working yet. I will fix that first."

"How?" Stokes asked her, surprised.

"Being dangerously non-traditional, Sister," was the reply.

Chapter Text

XXXV.
The Safari

Your words reveal good intentions; your body betrays your real ones. 
- THE AZHAR BOOK

"We cannot hide here forever, Sheeana." The words came out of Walli unbidden while looking at the dimly lit profile of Sheeana sitting with the Sisters in dusty pillows filled with straw. Why were they all following Sheeana like sheep after the shepherd? Yet she insisted on continuing traveling across the planet's surface, avoiding the no ship. "You are a tourist on an experience spree," Walli had told her earlier that morning, without getting a response. 

Sheeana raised a hand to impose silence. Since their on-foot journey had started weeks before, they had wandered across the countryside, following dusty roads to reach faraway hilltops and green valleys, stopping at nightfall by countless villages. There Sheeana and the group would beg for hospitality like common pilgrims, settle in for the night. Inevitably a casual chit-chat with a local herder, the visit of the village elder or simply the way they walked would give something away. By sunrise word would spread that a group of holy priestesses were in town, and a line of petitioners formed outside. Had it not been for the verdant vegetation, the stream running around the houses and the cattle grazing in the meadow, this would have looked like a sietch scene from Rakis. What drew the people to them? It was a deep instinct. They had long shed the traditional abas and were wearing simple clothes to mingle with the locals. Nobody would know they were Reverend Mothers, not while wearing contact lenses to mask the full blue of their irises. Yet it did not matter. Walli was unsure whether to blame it on the century-old compulsions so patiently planted by their Missionaria Protectiva across the generations; or something else. She looked at Sheena, dressed in simple white cotton, hair braided, the sunlight filtering through the hole at the center of the roof playing with her hands. Even dressed like a peasant, Sheeana emanated the dignity of an Egyptian goddess of old. 

Sheeana gazed at the crowd outside with a mix of compassion and defiance. A cripple stepped into the brick-built house, a shining white of comfort in the midst of the mud hut village that hid in the shade of the palm grove. The bystanders inside the house made way as he limped his way to the front. Sheena listened intently, about the cart wheel that broke his leg and the poorly healed bone, her eyes transfixed on the old man and his contorted limb. The man begged for a miracle. She prescribed a concoction of local herbs, like Sayyadina Idala Alquim had taught them, and sent him away.    

In the brief pause that followed, Sheeana turned her head to look at Walli, and softly replied: "You object to my little vacation," then waved to the next villager in line.

"People may have died in our last dance in Lat," Walli whispered. "Do you realize the consequences of your talents? It was fair and fun when it was us in the no ship, but things have gotten real serious down here."

"And that is why we are far away from the capital," Sheeana answered, "to do no harm; and in the meantime, to experience life as it really is." An old woman stepped forward asking about the whereabouts of her son, gone six months before looking for work, without ever sending word back. Good, reliable Ecath took her to a corner where the Sybil offered readings of the Dune tarot. A pair of herders came forward to present their case. The quarrel was about the ownership of an ox, which the village elders were not able to settle.  

"I am tired of following your whims, Sheeana, and into this... this human safari of yours. It is imperative we look into what you are capable of doing. You know it is a responsibility only you can bear,” Walli continued to whisper in between breaks. “One thing is to dance for the sandworms, another is how you infect crowds with madness. You owe us an explanation." Walli scooted closer to her so that she could be sure no one would hear. "Instead you have us wander aimlessly at the hand of Ecath. No commoner will shed light to your purpose. Look at them, poor things: slaving to the cattle they tend to on behalf of a few local families who hold them in a yoke like they were animals. They sleep in the mud, and get paid in dates, milk and livestock."    

"About the dance: I do not have an explanation for you Walli, no more than I have it for myself. Things happened out of my control." Then, facing the petitioners, Sheeana replied raising her voice: "Dur does not care about people's quarrels. Go out and pick a mediator, resolve your quarrel, and come back next daylight with an agreement. If one is not reached, give the ox to the poorest family of this town." The two went away, dismissed. "As for these people, they remind me why we exist."

"To free them from their chains? The key to that is in the planetary capital, then, where the power lies; not in this forsaken countryside purgatory. You met the village elders; they have no power. You met the silk-dressed landowners too. The gold rings they wear are worth more than this entire village. Maybe you should go advise them then."

But Sheeana was focused once again on the humanity that filled the room, and did not reply.

"Why do they listen to you?" Walli whispered.

"Because I am Dur's daughter, and the last sandrider. Even if they don't know it. Next!"

Leyana the Sybil came back leaning on Ecath, and bid her attention. "Rakis waif, we have to leave."

"One more petitioner," Sheeana commanded.

Walli insisted: "Then go talk to the landowners, if you care about these people; but don't have them go through this theater of the faith. No concoction or tarot reading will lift their burden."

A mother came forth with a newborn child in her hands. "Reverend Mother, bless this boy, for he is the future of my family." Sheeana took the child from her hands, and looked at the cooing baby. "What is your name, mother?"

"Xiomara," she hesitated, then summoned her courage. "My lady, the women are talking but do not dare ask. Are you truly a Rakian Sayyadina?"

"I am a Reverend Mother from Rakis of old." The motions of the crowd suddenly changed, charging the space between her and them with attention. "Mother!" cried out one of the farmers. Sheeana lowered her voice as a new type of silence set in. "And your son's name?" She noticed Leyana out of the corner of her eye, shifting weight from one foot to the other as her only sign of distress.

Walli kept whispering as the audience continued: "Sheeana, we need to avoid exposure until you are able to control your wild talents. Think of the possibilities. There is more than wandering around countryside villages practicing white magic.”

Sheena kept holding the baby, staring at his brown eyes, gently rocking him. "Wake up to the gifts, Walli," she whispered back. "Since my days in Rakis, I have not been around real people. I feel this as an energy grounding me. People run this planet and not the Sisterhood. They do not look forward but only back. They have petty problems and commonplace aspirations. How do you reconcile what we do with the humanity we want to nurture?"

"That is not accurate, Sheeana. We only seek to help..."

"But by supporting the power structures of the old Imperium, we just perpetuated old injustices." Sheeana asked the mother for the child's name again. She looked up to the crowd that packed the room. The air was sweaty and hot. She considered how they operated at different levels of existence, and her privilege in even seeing it. These people and their lives, would they experience the longing, the seeking of meaning? The thirst for mind-expanding consciousness? Or would they only look down to the ground they trod upon, their tedious everyday existence which would one day be carved on their gravestones as countryside epitaphs in a planetary Spoon River? 

To feel the answer she oriented all her senses in the direction of the crowd in front of her, expectant faces, puzzled faces. In that instant, she knew. She stroked the baby's hairless head, pronounced an old Fremen blessing: " May the night be thy friend, may daylight be short; the sietch your home, a sandworm for transport. The sky, your freedom; your kin, your support. May you be lightning across the sands, a knife to fight your enemy's bloody hands. May your water pay the price to drink the milk of paradise. " She said it to the boy as much as the other people present. An awe-struck "hai!" came back from the crowd. She turned once again to Walli, missing to notice the buildup of tension in the room.

"I look back as far as you do," was Walli's rebuke. "Humans have colonized the skies, it does not mean it's learned all of history's lessons." But her eyes were stuck on the crowd, alarmed by their surprise reaction to the blessing. Did Sheena realize she used Voice, right there and then? She could feel the beginning of something she could not explain. 

"Except the God Emperor's," Sheena replied. The crowd in front of them overheard her and made the ritual gesture that asked for Dur's blessing, and ward Shai-Hulud. 

They still give thanks to the Tyrant , Walli noticed, thousands of years past his death. 

"He created stagnation and obedience so that we could be primed to seek the opposite. To start anew a million new times. Yet economic oppression, slavery and other old habits are die-hard. Open your eyes to the condition of these villagers." A murmur grew around Sheena, subsided as she sang a lullaby to the baby. 

 "I see there are no sewers here," replied Walli.

"Deep one, we need to go," whispered Leyana, tugging Sheeana's sleeve, her dark eye sockets staring at the void.

"The stream they drink from is the same they bathe into with their animals," Walli continued.

"And yet," said Sheeana stopping the lullaby, "not far from here there is a city fat with the profits from pilgrimage. This planet's pattern is clear: uncoordinated communities left to their means. Have you noticed how the language changes every few miles? This is a dumping ground for immigrants. Some communities have machines and crops that would be a boon to this village, yet they do not interact. Don't you think it is a catastrophe how humanity still struggles for justice millennia after inventing the very concept?" She returned the baby into his mother's hands, but her eyes were upset. "If this were Rakis, we Fremen would have spilled the slaver's water on the sand before dusk. What is the difference between cattle and humans? That humans can break shackles." 

Ecath warned them: "You talk too loud." 

"The Reverend Mother is upset," the mother murmured, retreating two steps with the baby in her arms. Walli looked at the people stuck between awe and panic. Sheeana addressed the crowd: "We are grateful for the food and shelter you have shared with us. But we cannot overstay your hospitality in a time of drought. The audience is over. We will be going in the morning."

"Bi-lal kaifa," chanted the crowd. But she could hear echoes of anger.

"We go now, Deep one." said Leyana while pulling Sheeana's sleeve.

Walli sought closure: "We can't do much for economic injustice from inside the system, Sheeana. Let's go back to the no ship; we have to plan for the long term."

"No," she rebuked, "we will continue our trip. It's a pilgrimage in reverse, from our shining buildings and ships into the grounds of real humankind. There is so much to see, treading step after step with open, with unclouded eyes. We Bene Gesserit have always focused on the elites and their politics, we lost touch with the people we are supposed to help."

"You speak like the Missionaria now."

"It's the only arm of the Sisterhood that works with the people. We have to outshine our Sisterhood, Walli, when we finally settle on a planet."

Then she noticed how Leyena stood quiet next to her. 

"Did you say it was time to go?"

Leyana touched Sheeana's hand, like she had done before, and closed her eyes. Then sighed: "It doesn't matter anymore, Deep one."

"You are warned not to cast your visions in my direction again, Sybil. I am not a fish to be trapped in it," and she finally lifted herself up, her legs aching from sitting. Together the four of them strode out of the white hut and into the adjacent street, among the passerby's general stare. 

"I wish you had not used Voice a moment ago. I don't like the way they look at us, Sheeana," Walli whispered.

"I did not use Voice," was her reply, "Let's join Oriana and the others. Ecath, tell me what you see."

Their guide stumbled in trying to keep pace with Sheeana: "I see misery, madam; these people are much worse than any community we have gone through. I fear for your safety; let us go back to Lat under the protection of the Sayyadina."

"But we are under her protection, Ecath. I am teaching my companions a lesson; I am highlighting our privilege, that we were born or trained to belong to the elite echelon where decisions are made. While these people, they will never have the opportunity to choose."

They walked swiftly toward the river where they knew they would find the others. The air was boiling, surely they could bathe just upriver from the village. A few hours passed while quietly enjoying the cold breeze blowing on the river banks. Walli and Sheeana barely spoke, unclear whether because the recent exchange had upset them, or out of the unnerving feeling that the people of the village had aroused in them. Soon enough they were all walking back, Ecath pointing out the ancient design of the oxen-pulled carts on the dirt trail; all of them avoiding the manure that littered it. Back in the sickly village they were, looking at the flies flying in dark dense clouds, or resting on the faces of sleeping children. It was a blessing to find the white brick hut where they slept, a real roof that somehow kept the worst of the heat out. They entered in the darkness -- only a hole in the top let the sunlight in, having no windows; and collapsed on the pillows. Only a minute in, eyes adapting to the dim lighting, Walli noticed the bundle on the floor. It was of a nondescript color, made of fabric, hastily folded together. It did not smell right. "What is it?" she asked, crouching to pick it up.

She opened the rags to reveal a bloody mass. In the darkness of the hut, she and Sheeana had to squint to make out its shape. The skin tone gave it away. It was a hand, a hand cut just below the wrist, and laid in the white rag which had turned umber with mud and red with blood. The hand had a white pallor, scarlet the manicured nails; a hand which had never done any peasant work. A gold ring shone on the middle finger, too tight to remove without cutting the flesh; while the index and little fingers were marked with a small depression where easier-to-remove rings had been. The flesh cut at the wrist was red and moist, it smelled of iron and blood. It was the hand of a landlord. Walli gasped. All eyes looked at Sheeana. "Leyana, is this what you saw?" he Sybil shook her head: "More. They made an offering."

A clamor came from outside. Stepping out, the Sisters saw a dozen peasants standing, twisted smiles on their faces. A cheering crowd stood in a semicircle around them. Their faces were proud, distorted, filled with a vengeful joy. 

Long shadows made it hard to understand what was going on, but Walli was sure of something: there were too many hands. Each man held a body part, a chopped hand, an arm, a foot, white all as ivory. 

"Offers for you. They cut their enemy; they broke shackles. Give out your blessings, Sheeana," Walli whispered softly. A terrified Sheeana said the words, turned her face toward her Sisters. 

"And now, Walli?"

"Slowly, we run," she whispered. 

Chapter Text

XXXVI. The Playground

It's the Mentat's job to separate the veneer from the building material. Despite mental training, societal customs and advancements in technology, today's humans are driven by compulsions originating a million years in the past.
- THE NEW MENTAT HANDBOOK, CVII EDITION

It was just past noon and the streets were deserted due to the heat. Three kids were playing with sticks and leaves by the courtyard's palm trees, the only trace of greenery in an otherwise brown and teal neighborhood. A man seated on a low wall smoked, white turban and tunic. Red hawks silently circled in the air above, an unusual sight at that time of the day.

The kids were now using the sticks as makeshift swords to stage an improvised battle. In the heat of the mock fight the sticks made contact, broke, and a splinter flew in the air, landing on the man's boot. 

"Sir, could we have the stick back?" one of the boys asked hesitantly. The man did not reply and continued to smoke from a long pipe, staring intensely at the sun. The boy approached slowly, unsure what to do. He stepped forward, no more than a foot from the boot, and tentatively reached out a hand, the very moment the man kicked the stick up in the air and away. The boy, half startled and half relieved he did not have to get that close, shouted something and ran after the stick like a dog chasing its toy. The man smiled cruelly.

"Don't mock the children; that's a sure way to be noticed," said a voice behind the man. 

"This is a sleepy neighborhood. Mothers and fathers are all gone working in the big festival city. The kids are left on their own until sundown. You are the first to stop by in an hour," replied the sitting man in between puffs of smoke. 

"Say your name," was the reply.

"I am the father who waits." Another puff of smoke.

"And I am the prodigal son."

"Welcome back, son; your return fills me with joy." The sitting man turned his head just a little to acknowledge the newcomer, another man in tattered brown clothing. 

"And your forgiveness does the same to me, father," replied the newcomer kindly; then his voice turned back to practical matters: "I don't like how you addressed me; I could have been a local trying to trick a stranger."

"A local would not dress with off-world clothing like yours," said the sitting man, still facing the other way. Another puff of smoke. The boys were still playing on the other side of the courtyard, blissfully too far to hear the words.

"Fair enough. There is no one around, I will grant you, and the streets outside are empty. It was not easy to find this place and there was no one to ask around."

"No one would have helped you either, given the way you look," reproached him the smoking man, "you should have changed into poorer and cleaner clothing, got a tan, wore sandals, and come with a uni-cart to pretend you were selling or doing some local work. The roads here are broken, maintenance work would have been an easy cover."

"Lower your voice, father," said the newcomer.

"There is no one to hear us, son," continued the other man, "I am not the one who is unable to pass for a native."

"Well, I am here, and we have exchanged the words, and I am in need of refuge," continued the newcomer feeling uneasy at the little status game at play there; the code words explicitly named him a son, and his contact a father, and while that was just a cover, its subtle power play could not be avoided.

"When we did not see you come at the expected time, we started worrying," said the smoking man, standing up for the first time to stretch, body turning to engage with the newcomer.

"Security detained me and Hijouz." better to get in front of this, the newcomer thought.

"What story did they get out of you two?" The man has this unnerving way of talking to him without really looking into his direction. His vein-carved hand held the long pipe so that the breeze would push its foul white smoke in his direction; the other hand was resting into the dishdasha.  

"The police did a big round up downtown, we were two among many."

"And this Hijouz?"

"Still detained."

"How come you are free?"

"I was in a big group, Hijouz -- who split with me according to the plan -- was found with a hidden weapon."

"How naive," the man now kept puffing smoke in the air, narrowing his eyes with every inhalation.

"It was not naive at all," replied the newcomer, "it was deliberate so that the security police would be busy with the group he mingled with. I went through the lightest interrogation. It is fairly easy to pass for a pilgrim, especially if the guards' attention is elsewhere." 

"Clever. Just as clever as your choice of names; Hijouz -- sounds like a local name, while yours, Heban -- friendly-sounding but definitely not local; a good name for a pilgrim."

A pause in the conversation brought to their ears the shouts of the three children who now had started to play with a tattered round ball. The smoking man spoke first: "That still cannot explain how security forces stormed our ship less than an hour ago." His eyes were fixed on the other man, recording the reaction in his face and body. 

"Not the passenger ship, Heban; I am talking about the ship with active cloaking that you came from."

"That's not possible," the Heban's body recoiled as a surprise look came over his face. 

"Quite the contrary. Immigration officers entered the passenger ship, de-cloaked and docked at the orbital station you just left hours ago, with the pretext of an inspection."

"We already had planned for an inspection, father."

"Indeed. Except that once aboard, the same officers revealed themselves to be a SWAT team. They went out to the passenger ship's surface and from there launched grappling anchors to attach themselves and board our cloaked ship which as you know was hiding right behind. Of course they had already detained the passenger's ship crew at that point, so that no message could be sent out."

Heban closed his eyes momentarily, replied: "I don't believe you,"

"Well you know the cloaked ship used the passenger ship as a cover. Only our people and you two knew the details, on this very planet; you two because in fact, came from the cloaked vessel. Reason why I am asking you: how did they figure out about the cloaked ship?"

In the seconds that passed Heban's face went through confusion, then anger, then fear: the realization that something wrong had happened, and that the man in front of him could be a safe haven as much as a new enemy. He replied: "I don't know. If you have contacts inside Security, go ask about me. Take me in and do your investigations."

"Is this Hijouz to be trusted?"

"Hijouz was never told the details, and blindfolded on the way out of the ship," he replied again, just realizing that fact made him the prime suspect.

"Describe to me your time with Security." He did.

"Did they follow you here, then?" asked the smoking man, suddenly wary.

"I took many precautions. No doubt your own men have checked on that as I approached this courtyard. Father, how about moles in your network?"

The smoking man opened his mouth to say something, and closed it. A ball rolled into his field of vision. It was a ragged, worn-out ball that almost burst at the seams. They paused as a young boy, three-foot tall approached the scene with panicky brown eyes, dirty clothes. They averted their gaze while he collected the ball and ran to the other side of the courtyard. 

"I have complete trust in my people. And yes, we have people in Security; your friend, we do not care much about. But we can check on how the attack came about. It will take some time, since the old channels are less useful."

"You don't have a back channel, then?" Heban asked, suspiciously.

"There is a new aide to the Commissioner, which suggests we should proceed with caution. Nothing we cannot go around," replied the smoking man: "The way I see it, somebody learned about the no-ship. They could only learn this from a handful of people. If you are to say something, say it now."

"This impacts me too, father. We have brought weapons and men to prepare for a false-flag attack to justify..."

"You were planning to attack the Cordian embassy to justify a military intervention on Delphyne, we know. As agreed."

"My superiors need to know."

"They will. You are under my protection. Come and we will give you refuge, and discuss the next steps. You will be given a way to communicate off-world, of course," the voice of the smoking man, who now was not smoking anymore, rang sincere, which made the Heban's skin crawl under his sticky clothes. He suddenly regretted having come to the meeting. He had initiated contact with the local conspirators unaware of the attack to the no-ship; now he was going to be a stranger on trial, a convenient scapegoat. Unless the attack was a carefully choreographed lie, in which case he was already dead.

"Where?" asked the newcomer, betraying uncertainty.

"A ground car is waiting for us around the corner," replied the 'father' standing up. He turned his back to the Heban and started walking with a slight gait. Together they entered a narrow lane just a couple of turns into the maze of teal painted walls. A dusty ground car was stationed there, empty. Slightly behind the other man, Heban broke into a run, making three steps before his leg gave way, then his body fell, sliced in two by the laser.

The other man, the smoking man, shook his head while carefully powering down the lasgun and putting it away in his pocket. "Traitor and coward," he muttered under his breath. He noticed how the lasgun had cut a black line on the nearby wall, creating a gap through which you could peek into the courtyard on the other side, the same where two boys were still playing at a distance, unaware. He looked down at the sliced body a few feet away, smelling like cooked meat; then quickly entered the car, which navigated away from the lane and the body and into the main road, passing for a swift moment in front of the courtyard's entrance.  

Only the boys remained under the palm trees. The one who had retrieved the ball was not playing, though. He was kneeling right at a point in the perimeter wall where something had cut through. A moment later, the same boy brought a hand against his ear, an eerie grown-up gesture a man would use to receive a message. He whispered briefly to himself, then steadily walked out of the courtyard until he reached a nearby construction yard, deserted in the hottest hour of the day. The boy entered a door leading into a small office, and climbed on a stool. The door closed and the light inside came on, revealing three armed men. The boy looked up with a look that was wise beyond his years.  

"We appreciate your direct help, officer Teg," said one of the armed men.

"I remained within range of the equipment you gave me. The recording of the meeting should give you means for the identification of the killer. Have the man followed. Give praise to your falconers on my behalf for the excellent recon."

"We have eyes on his ground car. Should we apprehend him at once?"

"Not at all."

"Why not, officer?" asked the most senior of the three. 

"Don't catch the fly; catch the carp eating it. Intercept all communication, see who else falls in the net."

"Yes sir." The agents seemed intrigued. "Sir?" 

"Yes?"

"How did you learn about the no-ship?"

Miles Teg flashed a brief smile. His inner eye scanned once again the planet's immediate space, sensing all the nearby vessels in orbit, invisible to all but his awareness; then lied: "The person who was Heban, and whose body is now dead in the back lane. A lasguns cut him clear. Go clean it out."

They set to march out, then Teg stopped them at the doorway. "Retrieve something of the body: a hand, perhaps, or better the head."

"Yes, sir?"

"Bring it to Hijouz back at the headquarters to prove his companion is dead; he may believe that his contacts turned against him; offering asylum in exchange for collaboration. That will help loosen his tongue."

"Aye, sir," they acknowledged while marching out. Teg stood still, focused his equipment to eavesdrop on the three soldiers as they walked to the back lane:

"How did he convince that agent to tell us about the no-ship?" 

"Falconry! We only tracked him here because of the trained hawks we kept as pets at HQ."

"Have you heard of anything like taking over an invisible ship at orbital altitudes?" 

"He is the devil!"

"Screw the devil, how could we have a commander this young."

"The headquarters were right..." 

"Child prodigy..."

Chapter Text

XXXVII.
The Lost Steersman

[Miles]: Mentat Bellonda, I thought you were in charge of the spice workstream. 
[Bellonda]: That I am. I am working on the Scytale plan.
[Miles]: The enormity of the holes we are leaving in our operations needs to be addressed.   
[Murbella]: Teg, you will stop addressing a Reverend Mother in this way!
[Miles]: Must I shake your branches down until you have no leaves? The Space Guild had a monopoly on space travel for over ten thousand years, and yearly spice appropriations granted by the Tyrant for four thousand. So tell me, how is it possible that neither we, nor the Honored Matres ever found any spice on Junction?

– CHAPTERHOUSE’S ARCHIVE RECORDINGS

The emptiness of the Void was a thing of supreme beauty, but the Steersman swimming through the spice vapors of the Heighleiner's main deck lacked the words to express it. The stars hung there, furnaces blasting at incalculable distances, their innocent lights displayed with incredible fidelity on the spherical walls that surrounded him; making him feel he could almost touch them, through the yards of space alloy that separated him from the atmosphere-less space just outside of the ship and the parsecs of true void. 

And so he waited, year after year.

On days when he felt grateful to be a small creature in the Universe, he swore he could hear the stars’ music, a blend of harmonies across many wavelengths that peaked and rested in the pattern of spacetime, making gentle ripples in the paths of prescience. He spent whole afternoons listening in awe. Whatever an afternoon was like in space.

The spherical chamber that made the ship’s main deck was a mile long, wide and deep, a giant gyroscope saturated with air enriched with spice gasses, allowing him to breathe and to remain alert across the kiloparsecs of space. The Steersman’s vessel was an ancient one – the oldest of the great Space Guild fleet – and because of that, it had been the most magnificent: twenty miles of space-tempered alloys, its hold so large it could swallow thousands of modern Ixian ships and frigates from the Imperium of old. The gargantuan, cigar-shaped Heighliner shone at sunset over the sky of any planet it ever orbited around. It reminded him of a time  when the Guild’s grasp of space travel was absolute and complete.

And yet Solideum, that was the Steersman’s name, had no illusions those times were past; presently, he was patience incarnated. There was no expectation in him, only the need to wait.

He continued to float in the orange vapors while swallowing a pill from a box taken from his belt. A planet dweller would have felt deeply disconcerted at the Steersman’s appearance, whose long-term exposure to massive amounts of spice since a young age had mutated his body to be a mere mind-vessel: finned feet, fish-like membranes in between fingers, shriveled flesh concentrated around a big bald head, lizard-like eyes, and an atrophied v-shaped mouth.

I might be the last Navigator , he thought. 

He waited, very patiently, to discover otherwise. 

Time works differently for Guildsmen. In fact, Navigators experience the past just like the present. One memory from years past kept coming back to him, and he chose to live through it again and again, like it were the Now. It was the moment when the Navigator had pre-known the Guild's downfall just light-minutes from Tleilax's sun. He relaxed and remembered.

The presence of the Honored Matres’ cloaked ships could only be inferred by their effect, but Solideum was thankful they ignored his ship for it was a harmless giant whale. Tleilaxu's orbital defenses were vaporizing like beautiful blue fireworks. His heighliner, aptly named Mira Ceti , stood immobile as an aimless giant; previously on its last voyage to pick up spice loads from Bandalong, it had nothing left to do as it could not reach its destination. 

Solideum watched in disbelief, disturbed but unhurried, because his inner prescient compass vibrated with calm A-major harmonics; he felt no dampening, nor noise. It meant that his prescient senses could still get through the future transparently. The Heighliner was not going to be targeted or boarded, just yet, or the dampening effect of the nearby no-ships would have soften the soundscape, giving him a warning. 

Solideum took a second brown pill from the box, paid careful attention to its flavor, the pungency of the spice on the tongue. Some day in the not-to-distant future he was going to swallow the last of his spice-laced food-pills.

As planet Tleilax was enveloped by a carpet of bombs and the atmosphere turned opaque due to the heat, Solideum looked beyond and plotted plot a direct course to Junction. He extended his mind to touch the harmonics of spacetime, applying his willpower to gently stroke the string of his present so that a ripple would expand forth and back, forth and back, its frequency vibrating to disturb the calm of all future states like a pebble dropped in a pond. The soundscape produced a coherent harmony – it found a familiar three-jump path to Junction via a safe and empty course around many dust nebulae that were slowly accelerating to cosmic hurricanes – then he sensed a vague B-flat minor in his mind. Minor interference. He gave the crew and the passengers the shortest notice, and proceeded to jump.

Another train of thought in the many-state awareness of the Steersman went back to the ball of cinder that was Rakis, and to the Bene Tleilax planets’ present obliteration. The worst case scenario the Guild had so obsessively worried about for thousands of years had materialized: the Great Starvation, the end of the melange, the indispensable commodity only sandworms and axolotl tanks could produce; neither of which existed anymore by means of the Honored Matres' rage. 

Solideum jumped to Junction, but following his intuition, he emerged from foldspace at a full thirty light-minutes distance. A swarm of tiny shapes shining in the light of the sun stood in front of him. He stretched out his senses, found silence/blindness – Navigators lacked proper words for single-state humans to grasp it – certainly caused by the presence of other oracles nearby. The swarm was the entirety of the Guild's Junction fleet on a mad rush to reach fold-space. Flashing lasers coming from invisible points in space pierced holes in the Guild’s ships, cutting them into pieces; other ships were exploding in silent detonations. Relying on their Navigators’ prescience, many of the Guild's ships had no cloaking. Why use Ixian technology when the mere presence of a Navigator would make the entire ship invisible to a prescient search? Why would anybody attack the Guild, the logistics company with the longest history and tradition of neutrality? And yet, lasers lit up the Guild's ships like fireflies in the darkness of the cosmos. They glowed and slowly burned away one by one. The Matres' ships who did not participate in the chase, invisible to prescience and to the eye of the future-teller, were surely landing on Junction at that moment, or igniting the planet's atmosphere with thermonuclear devastation.  

The Guild was a corporation, but more than a corporation it was a tradition and a calling. Solideum saw an entire nation disintegrating in front of his eyes. A surge of panic took him over finally, and the paths of the future in his mind collapsed into a cacophony of noise… no more beauty, only randomness. He frantically imparted the commands to the Holzmann engines. And the folds opened up to swallow him and the Mira Ceti to safety.

Except, for the first time in his century-long career with the Guild, First-Stage Navigator Solideum lost his inner compass. The ship’s hull creaked the instant it emerged from foldspace. He had plunged the ship into the middle of an asteroid field. Collision alarms started blaring via the comms systems as space debris and meteorites in orbital velocity started scraping the Mira Ceti still traveling at dangerous speed. Solideum had his ear out for new coordinates in the soundscape, but his focus failed. He could not tell a C sharp from B flat. Too much gravitational mass was nearby. Sirens continued to blare around him as the officers’ reports and screams through the intercom made him aware that a large asteroid had scraped the ship, opening a large breach in the stern and loading bays… a half-mile tear had opened, jagged edges across the stern. The impact had imparted a slight spin to the ship but not to its cargo. With horror he watched several lighters and frigates, their floor locks broken, slowly drift out of the fracture and be devoured by the asteroid field, while their crews fired the engines in an attempt to stabilize their vessels and avoid the encroaching rocks.

Solideum, mortified, closed his eyes in the void of his chamber.  

The emergency lasted several days. He pushed the Mira Ceti just outside of the danger zone, but the bulk of its surface was going to be forever riddled by the thousands of space rocks that had scraped and smashed and cratered into it. The cargo was moved, the vessels the asteroids had not damaged beyond repair were loaded back, while the stern was abandoned, lacking the cyclopic machinery a ship-yard would use to repair it. 

Despite the thousands of people in the crew, the passengers and traders, it was still his vessel, and Solideum felt sorry mostly for the irreparable damage done to his big space whale. He had maimed his best friend. 

And finally Solideum reached out for a patch of clear sky, found it, was elated that he could feel the timelines vibrate like harmony once again, and jumped... and emerged in true emptiness. Oh, the lights around him flickered like the stars he was so familiar with.

They weren’t familiar. They weren't stars, but islands of light. Galaxies.

In his continued disorientation, the jump had taken the ship into one of the gigantic cosmic voids, millions of parsecs away from any galaxy cluster. The purest emptiness.

Where... where am I?

As only Navigators know, the inner compass senses the future, but accuracy degrades proportionally with the square of the distance.

He had missed twice. He was a lost Navigator. 

The irony was not lost on him.

The inconceivable had happened. A great deal of work was required when a Navigator lost its way. Had he been on a Ixian ship that was converted to a Guild ship, he still would have had access to machinery which could triangulate the position of the galaxies around him and help pinpoint his location. He could not venture into foldspace without confirmation. And so began the painstaking work that had kept him and his crew busy for the better part of two years.

Solideum did not care about human loss, the crew's depression, or the feeling of loneliness. He stopped once in a while to listen to cosmos' harmony, the incredible silences around him. That could always fill the loneliness of an afternoon. Whatever an afternoon meant in the void of space. 

When finally he figured out how to trace back his steps, leaving the void felt like a betrayal. Once re-emerged among familiar stars, the Guild's officers, those ape-like creatures he had shared genetics and appearance with a long time before, had convened. They looked a bit older than at the beginning of their voyage. Thinner too, because of food rationing. They proposed to jump into the Scattering, dump the cargo and few passengers, and go on to live their lives. 

Solideum smiled. The Guildsmen were all single-state minds, not a single one touched by the spice. But they needed him to jump to the location of their goodbye. The Guild was gone, but Solideum had no hesitation about his plans. Of course, at the time of the Junction attack, there must have been thousands of steersmen out, on duty  – the Guild operated a tentacular transport service after all – so Solideum deemed it unlikely that the Mira Ceti were the only survivor. However, for the same reason a prescient seer could not see another, there was no way for him to find other Navigators… as oracles were blind to one another.

There must be thousands of us out there, so close and yet so distant!    

He had lost his way, until now. But there had been plenty of time to think. Were there survivors, they would gather at the only obvious rally point. Naturally, he could not see them through the veils of time. He had to fold his way there.

Arriving at Tupile Core, the secret Guild hideout, Solideum was once again surprised. Navigators did not like surprises. The planet was deserted, abandoned. No ships orbited the system. There were signs it had been evacuated in a rush; further investigations would reveal many atomics from Tupile's renegade Houses had been left behind. This was not going to be the goodbye place.  

To the Steersman, it did not matter. He could wait forever for other Heighliners to emerge from space, and shine in the light of Tupile's red sun. The Guild crew, the few passengers and the cargo were unloaded planetside. They protested for a bit. But Tupile was a pleasant planet. No need for the Scattering, when paradise is already under your feet. Maintenance crew still came up every now and then to help. Otherwise, up alone in the Mira Ceti , Solideum had no care in the world, no fear for the Great Starvation.  

Because Tupile was the location of the Hoard. 

He expected that in time, any Navigator who had survived would find his way here. None could live without spice, and Tupile was the last known storeroom in the Universe. So large that even its fleeing inhabitants could not move it all. 

But time plays tricks to Navigators. The more time they spend in space, the more erratic their personal perception of time becomes. Moments feel like years, years feel like seconds. So long as they perceive the paths, they can stop and listen to the eternal beauty. 

And so, Solideum was not really sure for how long he had waited. When it happened, he only marked it at some point in Time. Unexpectedly like he had hoped, three small crafts uncloaked themselves no farther than a mile from the Mira Ceti while the heighliner rested in stationary orbit around the planet. To his dismay, their alien shape betrayed they were not Guild's vessels. Something new. He reached out into spacetime to hear the music that his many futures could play. He heard the music of invisibility. 

It was going to be an interesting afternoon indeed. 

Chapter Text

XXXVIII.
Terms of Endearment

We cannot underestimate the significance that the Honored Matres' many Orders had on their recent history. For the most part, Honored Matres was not a sisterhood, only a collection of semi-independent hierarchical chapters with wildly different origins, each one headed by one or more Great Matres. Only the coming of the One with Many Faces forced the Orders to fall in line and answer to a single supreme Great Honored Matre; and even then, cloak and dagger politics remained prevalent until we took over. 

-- MILES TEG, A PRELIMINARY REPORT ON OUR HONORED MATRES ACQUISITION 

Tairasu did not predict her apprenticeship at the Bene Gesserit School had taken a twist until she was far beyond regret. An attraction almost sensual in nature tied them to the closely guarded Bene Gesserit secrets. Oh, the Sisters were not coy about their powers, expounding the theory without really engaging in any practical training. They encouraged the awe but treated it like platonic love, something not to be consummated. Where explanations ended, there started the gossip, shared in whispers in the evening at the dormitory and out loud at a careful distance from the ever-watching Tutors.

The Bene Gesserit can stop aging!

Yet, Tutor Gammala seemed quite content with her saggy skin and dark eye bags.

The Sisters are immune to poison!

"No wonder, given what their kitchen dishes out!" Gerta had remarked.

The Bene Gesserit remember past lives!

In the wee hours of the night, she fantasized what endless life memories would bring -- how many romances? How much boredom instead?

The Bene Gesserit can immobilize you with a word!

"Faster than we can kill them?" Sutica had asked, doubtful.

She had joined the club of the envious, and knew that was the game the B.G. were playing on them. Even Angelika waved away any question about their future initiation. "You will be ready soon enough". Meantime, they were herded like school children, chided for discipline, kept in the dusty prison world called Chapterhouse, a world turned so miserable and uninteresting that it did not even have a proper name. The three of them were getting restless, while a wide but low-key surge of anger slowly built up across campus.

"Murbella has not rid the Council from the original B.G. yet," they whispered.

"She can't. Look at Angelika, too. She clearly feels the competition," replied Sutica, always ready to defend her idols, the two fierce, beautiful, and charismatic women who ruled their universe. Not to speak of their taste in fashion.

"The old B.G. have this upside down. We won the war. So why are they holding us back?" asked Gerta.

"Bah! I heard the full Matres who are initiated to their mysteries are equally cryptic," continued Sutica.

"And no mystery as to why! Only Matres initiated by the Bene Gesserit can hope for advancement now,” replied Gerta. That rang true. The widely publicized Sisters who were taking roles of authority had received the Bene Gesserit’s blessing and undergone the spice trance. Blue was the new black. 

And that’s why they were all in line for it. Restlessly, for they never had learned to delay the moment of gratification. And that opened the path to jealousy and resentment. 

"Watch it," Sutica had warned her. "Tutor Gammala is paying you too much attention."

"Precisely my goal, sister! To leave you all in the dust and get admitted to the trance," Tairasu had snapped back. 

"There are snakes among us. Don't be a target," she had replied. The day after, Gammala's favorite, a short, young girl named Krissa had been sent to the local hospital after a 3rd degree face burn. That was not the B.G's M.O. Only the Matres her schoolmates could be vicious that way.

"Nobody has seen Murbella in public for days now," was the gossip. 

"Is she out on a mission?"

"The queen bee leaving the nest?"

"Angelika and Ashala ran the last Council meeting jointly," were the whispers during prana-bindu practice. It was clear something worried the Tutors. Class schedules turned from hard to oppressive. 

"Rumors say the order of Reo made a move. Murbella dead or wounded," was the news brought by Gerta while they were walking briskly toward their weekly chores in the kitchen.

Silent stares followed. 

"But the new Sisters swear to Murbella to have no order but the Blue-eyed order. They effectively are like the B.G."

"The traditional Orders must still be flailing in their dying strength. Imagine how hateful they must become, losing every day more of their Matres to Murbella after they pass the spice test."

Sutica shrugged. "I have no contact with Aradonak, my Order. Gerta?"

"I am of the Hormu, and if the worst happened it is no protection since it's Murbella's." 

Tairasu shrugged: "I never was admitted to one."

"The Orders traditionally ignore the Matres in training, because that's what we are right now," replied Gerta. Yet that thought did not bring relief.

"Hormu, Gor, Sulu, Aradonak, Istha, Selj,... and half a dozen more if you count the minor Orders like Reo."

"The Black Order," replied Tairasu.

"The Blacks are just gossip, Tairasu. The secret order, which exists only in schoolgirls' susceptible minds. Instead, the Rajak, Leio, and Sukuntal Orders are still fighting us at the borders of the Old Imperium. They may find allies among the Orders here. A faction war is not a great prospect if Murbella is down for good. And at least presently, we are not worth much to anyone," Sutica said, sternly.

The next afternoon, Tairasu decided to get out of school grounds and reach the giant fig tree which dominated a nearby field not a mile from the School. The large living tree stood as a queen among the lower shrubs that surrounded it. Just being there gave her a feeling of stability. Nobody was around. The air was dry. She trained, and trained, and pushed her body to the limit, a good old Honored Matres routine, sweating through all the pores. She began incorporating the new teachings -- the feints and the kicks of the Bene Gesserit tradition. She would pause in the midst of the action, listen to her body's reactions, and play at controlling her heart rate, and furious breathing. 

A solitary crow was perched high on the tree, an unlikely observer.

She continued to perform majraa, the Way of Water, with each of her blurring movements following the path of least resistance to cut the air in front of her. Water's way was gradual but powerful, a dance that moved horizontally into all four directions. Her conscious mind evaporated, leaving her to feel every breath and nerve and muscle; and the sweat forming on her skin. The sand particles in the air forced her to focus on moving sideways against the wind, lest she felt the sting of tiny burns during her faster-than-the-eye exercise. Words from her old training days on Shoen came back to her slowly: It is the nerve terminations making decisions, not the mind -- the mind is a sensory organ for your fingertips to move without fail. When you move, it's the body that moves. Embrace your body and get in tune with its music." What was the name of the trainer? Tairasu had forgotten, just like she had forgotten the name of the Matre who killed her to gain her post.

She froze after a series of rolls and dodges, standing on one leg while the other extended in a perfectly shaped kick. Prana-bindu training took over; her breath slowed down despite the body's demand for oxygen. Her heart pounded calmly like a clock. Tairasu smiled, still frozen. For the first time, Chapterhouse had delivered something of value. She laid down on the grass and closed her eyes. The crow croaked. A string of images ran through her, each one a landscape from different planets: Mitrai, Shoen, Utica, Eian, Gammu. Always on the move, always a peg in the Order's cruel machine. She sought in memory the face of her mother, a Full Matre, whose disappearance had flushed her down the machine and dumped her on the hard ground where competition was the only means of survival. The crow cawed. She opened her eyes into the sky's deep blue. She got up and climbed the fig tree to find the bird. Branch by branch, she emerged above the canopy into the view above. Green patches and white buildings to the north. She turned to the south to face the distant dunes that advanced a few sandgrains every hour. Where was the bird? It stood on the same branch as hers, out at the edge where she could not reach. Curious. The prana-bindu lesson back at the school was going to start soon, she thought, and swiftly climbed down to land in the dry grass below with a puff of dust.

She felt her neck caught in a branch; her hand moved to remove it but found something hard but soft at the touch. Fabric. It was an arm that pressed against her throat, paralyzing her. Blonde hair stepped into Tairasu's visual.

"Keep holding her," said the face to whom the blonde hair belonged. A white, non-descript face over simple black clothes.

Tairasu could not breathe. She was pushed to the ground and held there. How many were they, three, four? The girls' eyes betrayed the orange flecks of her sisters and enemies: other Matres. 

The blonde looked down to her and asked questions: "Where is your school, pet? What is your name?" She replied while gasping for her. She could not break the hold they had on her. Don't be a target. What a fool she had been. 

"The way she moved a few minutes ago," said whoever was holding an arm against her throat still, "this one is too weak to be of use. Better to end her life and find some other target."

"Let me make the determination," snapped the blonde, pointing her orange eyes back at Tairasu. "See, my dear? Four to one. Not a winning ratio for a lonely stray. Remember the rule, right? Only the fittest survive. You are in a bad spot. But let's say I hold these beasts back, and I give you a chance. Perhaps? See, we already know how to find you. You have no secrets. So I have a game to play. Maybe you can prove these girls you are worth keeping. Want to hear it? Yes, good girl. You steal the spice from the Tutor's cabinet, and bring it back to us tomorrow at this hour. It's kept in small blue vials, usually in plain sight somewhere in the teachers' quarters. Do it, and we give you some... room to breathe. You don't... Well, we know where you sleep. No, we have never met before. And now," she continued smiling, "we will leave you vivid memories of this to make sure you don't forget." 

A kick into her shin made Tairasu scream, except she had no air left in her lungs. She thrust her torso up, but was slammed down on the ground. Flashbacks of past attacks from the days of her Matre apprenticeship came back while tears formed at the corner of her eyes. Helpless, she closed them...

"Somebody out there," roared a voice. In seconds, the grip was gone. There was rustling around her, footsteps disappearing back in the brush. With eyes wide open, Tairasu was surprised to see Sutica appear on the path, rapidly approaching her while making a safety sign with joined hands -- the Matres' signal indicating help was to be given without trickery. Gerta trailed her, appearing on the path. 

"Makes you wonder why they cared -- surely they could take out any of the Tutors who saw them and hide their bodies later," said Sutica. 

"How did you find me?" Tairasu's hoarse voice finally came out as she was massaging her throat. "Help me up."

They lifted her up, sliding arms under her shoulders as she started walking. Despite Tairasu's protests, Sutica kept supporting her as they walked. "You are limping, Mami," she reproached her. "You were late for Gammala's prana-bindu class," her friend began to explain, "so we asked around. Inconceivable that you were going to skip an opportunity to stand out. You were last seen heading out. We got here just in time. You were in a bind tight there, Mami."

"Why do you call me Mami?" She stopped on the trail because of the pain.

"An endearing term that sounds like scared panther cub where I come from. Force of habit, Mami. You earned your new nickname," replied Sutica dryly but affectionately. Tairasu looked down at her aching leg, figuring she was in no position to argue. 

"You: Mami; Gerta here is Ewami, the pretty one. You were lucky they did not stay and fight." They resumed walking. 

"Nah," continued Sutica, "I had the time to take a good look. My bet is that those four were fish out of the water like you, Mami. You don't need four fighters to scare one. It was their first attack ever. But they will learn."

As they were approaching the campus grounds, Tairasu stopped to recompose herself. She would not look defeated. "So those were just bullies," she observed while staring at the gate where a few students were passing through. 

"Ever seen them before?" chimed in Gerta. 

"No, but..."

"They must belong to a different training center here on Central. The closest campus is three miles away. Not a group of Matres taking a stroll across the meadows, though. Clumsy, but with a goal. Did you not notice the rings on their fingers? More than bullies, those were Gor's adepts. They are raising their heads. They were not going to stop at the intimidation phase."

"Why me?"

"Because you were alone, silly."

That took a minute to sink in. Tairasu realized the game had reached a new level, one she was intimately familiar with -- and terrified by -- from her pre-Chapterhouse days. "Playtime's over," she said.

"For us and the B.G. as well," was Sutica's reply. 

"Any news about Murbella?"

"Her weird bed boy has been seen lurking around the Labs. That's all I know."

"The Labs are a good five miles away. How do you know all this?" asked Tairasu, confused.

Sutica shook her head. They looked into each others' eyes. "Mami, Gerta, we need protection."

Tairasu sighed. Like in the old days, a Matre without an Order or a sponsor was at everybody's mercy. 

"I will send a message to Angelika," proposed Sutica.

Not a chance. Angelika is a Council member. Do you think we are her lowly best friends? She is not so close to us as to care."

"Leave it to me. You are the scared cub, Mami; and Ewami here is carefree and impulsive," replied Sutica with a faint smile, "while I was Great Matre's Oyola's attendant back on Filgor, before she fell. I know, I have seen the game. I will take care of you two. Us."

"Or?"

"I fear no one will."

Chapter Text

XXXIX. The Regent  

The historian's job is to peel out history from legend. It is already hard to do this with the "God" Emperor Leto II Atreides, yet it is harder still with Duncan Idaho(s). This ever-present, multi-faceted house hero who accompanied the Emperor in his journey through the centuries is in reality a multitude. The Idahos offer endless variation on a theme. Let us focus on the last Idaho. A patently rebellious royal guard captain who, after Leto's death, turned into the most venerated despot of the Old Imperium, second only to the Emperor himself. 

-- A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AFTER-REGNUM, BY GAIPEI HOLARASU 

Excerpt from "The Ageless Blade: Biography of an Atreides Sword Master through the Centuries".

Memories need organizing. That has been clear since I regained awareness of the countless selves I took on during the long Atreides reign. Sometimes they come rushing in, unaided, prompted by the most subtle of the clues: the smell of roses, turmeric in a hot meal, a longing for the caress of a woman whose face is blurry like in a dream. Those are the memories causing my mind to wander, until I reconstruct the entire tapestry a fragment at a time. And so, dear reader, I have taken you through a few chapters in this pile of records in complete disarray, and I have created order by writing them down. These chapters bear ambiguous titles, for you. Lemon peel, broken twig, sword edge, magnolia. The mnemonic keys to my memory palace, useless for you but essential to me. Me, the unbroken, uninterrupted last (I hope?) Duncan Idaho.    

This chapter is called "A ray of light on my left hand". I commit it to my memory palace as I write. In this memory, Arrakis' sun feels mild on my hand, reminding me it is (it was?) the spring month of Orth. The white light washes over the entire city, turning it to a blinding pool of radiance. My mind is the one of the Rebel, the Duncan born out of the Emperor's late delirium. Like many of my predecessors, I share an able body well into my sixtieth year of age. I feel spice flowing in my veins, giving me longevity. Twenty years have passed since Leto II Atreides transitioned to the reign of the Alam al-Mythal, the inter-penetrating dimension of the spirit. The Empire is senescent. My Mentat faculties sense rot spreading across the planetary surface of Arrakis like a weed. The administrative caste, once efficient, has degenerated and employs bureaucrats who have lost their God, but not their manual. They maintain the machine of the State in its purity of form even if it has lost its meaning. 

Untold trillion humans live daily in a dream state, a willing suspension of disbelief; they are stuck in a purgatory where God in his physical form is gone, but God (as gods do) nevertheless fills every moment with his absence. On Arrakis, pastures are slowly drying up, making way for small blotches of desert; the desert made of dirt and sunburnt clay, turning to brown the green plains of Arrakis. The very sea, our small sea, is growing saltier by the day. Today though, the spring brings the wet breeze from the equatorial belt, and the rain and the mild sun maintain a mirage of stillness in the imperial capital. This magical, unstable stillness is what the Imperium has been living through for the last twenty years. Yet the mirage is slowly evaporating.

Such disquiet in my mind, me, the Rebel incarnation of Duncan Idaho, that I have barely broken my fast in the luxury of my quarters at the top floor of what used to be Moneo's surveillance headquarters in Onn, when somebody pays a visit. Spy systems have not changed much since the first Atreides set foot on Dune, and the only people who can interrupt my gloom are my own agents. This one is Tauros, the aquiline nose on a young, symmetrical face identifying him as an Atreides of the late Leto's genetic program. He strides in with a mix of caution and urgency, which the right state of mind when meeting me, the Regent, the holy consort of Siona, the Atreides  Empress-in-waiting in a Universe that is not ready to accept that his dead pharaoh is in the Afterlife. 

"Regent," he starts after a slight bow, because he knows I demand respect while I also scoff at protocol. He does not wait to be acknowledged, and continues: "Our cover with the Tleilaxu is blown. They have discovered our agents." 

"Bad news. All of them?"

"Yes, Regent. They were found and copied. Their mimics attempted to breach our security, but we have detected them thanks to your training." This Atreides, completely unaware of his lineage, stands still, uncertain. 

"But there is more," I invite him.

"Anticipating this scenario, I had long ago instructed them to save their data in time capsules, hidden deeply within Guild ships and Imperial offices, including the imperial Missions on Bandalong." Leto's leash was still attached to this universe. Taurus' carefully bred DNA commands flesh and nerves I would not match in real combat, but his mind is crippled by the absolutes Leto created. He is in reality as dangerous to me as a puppy, and his mind open like a holo-book. 

So I nudge him along, like he likes me to do. "Anything to report?"

"A significant discovery, sir."

"Before that," I stop him, "tell me how you managed to retrieve the time capsules."

The Atreides hesitates. I casually focus on my breakfast, as my attention would be perceived as a premature reward. 

"The time capsules were hidden deep within Tleilaxu territory," he ventures.

"Which is Imperial territory," I remind him.

"Imperial territory, sir, but outside the jurisdiction of any imperial functionary acting without a direct mandate from the Emperor." It pleases me to see his eyebrow twitch in discomfort. Precedent had not been updated to account for the Emperor's untimely death. And Siona is the de-facto heiress, but no coronation has taken place, nor will take place if I have my say. This Emperor who is dead everywhere but in the minds of his subjects is a formidable instrument of mass control in a universe that only craves our spice.

"Our Missions on Bandalong fall under our jurisdiction, not Tleilax, but the Guild's ships enjoy extra-territoriality," I press.

"I knew the Tleilaxu would infiltrate to retrieve the capsules."

"What did you do, Taurus?"

"I... with the help of your Fish Speakers..."

"The Emperor's Fish Speakers, Taurus..." 

"The Emperor's, yes, sir, we stormed both the Missions and the ships."

"You violated the Guild's truce?"

"We trespassed the heighliner's grounds only to go from our ship to others that were nominally under imperial control. An edge case. And the Truce is but a legal remnant of a bygone era, sir." Taurus' eyebrow was twitching uncontrollably now. 

"You created a legal precedent for the Guild to cut us out of space travel."

"As I said, sir... we needed to act..."

"Without consulting me." I stand up to action, raising my voice.

"The situation on the ground, sir" Taurus falls silent while I come closer, a stern look on my face. I can see his discomfort while he wears the noble, stubborn Atreides attitude I once was ready to follow to my own death. The belief that following a just cause puts you in a place beyond reproach.

I raise one finger. "Explain yourself, Taurus."

"The Tleilaxu are a great concern of yours, sir... years of planning would come to nothing... the Guild would likely only protest later... Even so, the failure could be pinpointed to me directly acting as acting ambassador, and I could have declared in a court of law to be acting on my own and not as a representative of the Imperium."  

I lunge, smack him in the face, and watch his terrified reaction.

"You have acted far beyond the powers bestowed to you by your role, commander!" I shout. He does not cave. He never does. "You will be immediately demoted from your acting ambassador post." His eyes are frozen. Silence. "Lastly," I deliver the unexpected praise, "I commend you for your brilliance! The Tleilaxu know you have captured the face dancers who tried to infiltrate us. As the Festival is almost upon us and the spice quotas for the next ten years are up for revision, neither party will press charges. The Guild won't risk my promise to double their share to fund voluntary emigrations."

Tauros straightens up a bit, a fleeting bit of pride in his eyes. If he only knew how much his face resembles another dead Atreides, one who was also an inexperienced boy once. The one who took the Imperium from the Sardaukar, and followed the Fremen's religious fervor to its bitter end in a pool of blood on Arrakeen's soil. There isn't an Atreides who will pass up the opportunity to die dramatically. 

"Of course," I continue, "we will issue a proclamation to remove you from your post. This should satisfy the Guild. Well done." The Duncan I am in this moment is a sad mix. He hates the Imperium he has inherited when the Fish Speakers chose him over Siona; he never wanted the responsibility of power, and yet he has quelled countless uprisings after Leto's end; he has propped up the religious legacy of the Emperor as a way to keep control. Can you believe I was Duncan Idaho, the High Priest for the holy God Emperor? How much he loathes himself for that, and yet this title keeps trillions of humans in check from senseless violence. He has always chosen to delegate the hard decisions to higher powers, like the Atreides. Yet in this very moment in history, he is the head of House Atreides; Moneo is dead, Siona is caught in her rebel-turned-monarch delusions, and other next of kin, save a few like this revenant of Paul the Prophet, are hard to track down because, well, Leto II did not leave any visible records of his breeding program. Taurus was discovered by chance among the recruits from Shuloch/Goygoa, and only because Duncan personally sifted through every profile on Arrakis. How many Ghanima-descendants existed on this planet? On other planets? 

"Thank you, sir."

"Mine was not a compliment, boy. Those decisions were right, but not yours to make. I am removing you from your post to give you a new task."

"I understand, sir."

"One day you will. But now," I say sitting on a couch, with the boy still standing in the middle of the room: "finish your report."

"Sir, you have always wanted to learn more about the other Duncan Idahos. All of them. You always mention it."

He should not say this openly, not even in this shielded room. The Guild's Navigators have become edgy since the Emperor's death. He could see right through them. Their eyes were blinded by His light. Now they are free, and could be peeking at any moment in time. They enjoy rationed access to the spice, but now that they expect Arrakis to turn back into Dune in a couple of centuries, they are emboldened.  

"Yes, I combed through reports and biographies. All inconsistent. All manipulated." With today's mind I know the records were accurate, but most of my selves, born into an alien future they barely recognized, were inclined to paranoia.  

"So?" I venture, choosing to reveal curiosity. 

"Our late agents on Bandalong penetrated the Tleilaxu archives -- it must have been a marvelous act of skill and courage, sir."

"How many?"

"Three hundred thirty five Duncans... Duncan Idaho, sir."

"A ten-year average tenure? That's too many."

"Only one in three made it to Leto's court, sir. One hundred fifty three. The others remained internal Tleilaxu experiments. You will notice the term early termination ."

"Describe the facts."

"This document," Taurus takes off of his uniform with nonchalance, "articulates how the Duncans, pardon the term sir, were not generated from the same identical cells, in other words they are not all straight clones of the original Hayt."

"Do you mean that other cells were incorporated?"

"No, sir. The cells were altered or cross-bred to generate mutations."

"The faulty records I have show each Duncan showed a wide spectrum of variations while remaining anchored to key traits like trustworthiness, sense of duty, attachment to ideals, ability in combat. Plus," and here I smile, "a degree of foolishness in the face of overwhelming odds..."

"This document, sir, illustrates how each Duncan was part of a comprehensive test plan. An experimental program."

"Show it to me. I would know if I am the result of an experiment." I stride forth and take the document away, almost with violence. Calm comes back as soon as my Mentat mind scans it. 

"This evidence could have been planted."

"It is not the Tleilaxu's modus operandi to plant false information. It's more likely they would share the truth, anticipating a reaction..."

"This document says each Duncan is a test toward finding the configuration for a new Kwisatch Haderach !"

"There is more. They added traits for what is called here 'quintessential Atreides markers'. It seems to be," Taurus hesitates here, guessing how far he can push his luck, "a mix of ingenuity, stubbornness, faith in truth and justice, and reliance on an unbending ethical code."

"And?"

"And..." Taurus blushes, "characteristics that make Duncans attractive to women in general and Atreides women in particular."

"What else?" I snap back, still scanning the document for evidence. "There is a Duncan to solve any problem?"

"This program," says Taurus, backing away imperceptibly, "was funded by the God-Emperor, sir."

"And the Tleilaxu asked for incredible sums in spice for payment."

"No sir, I mean, the instructions were imparted by his Holiness, the God-Emperor Leto II Atreides, to the Tleilaxu. We acquired His messages. He defined the requirements of the program, and asked the Tleilaxu to carry it out and to, and I quote here, add their own creative touch to it, so that we can strengthen my theories in the field with the Wise Masters' intuitions ."

Great is my disbelief as I finish scanning the document. The great Leto had the Tleilaxu work for him, had yet another genetic program, the Duncan Idaho sword masters to interbreed with the Atreides, so that he could inject new experimental traits in the lineage. He/me is wondering how much Siona's claims of invisibility from prescience comes from the Atreides prescient line, or a genetic variant introduced by one of my predecessors in her ancestors' carefully tamed DNA.

Then I blame myself, as this one Duncan often does, for not pulling Siona into the meeting, in the hope to get her perspective; perhaps to rub off some of her transparency to oracles and fend off the gaze of the cosmic voyeurs, the ever-looming Guildmen. This one Duncan fascinates me: how he opposes power and yet has reluctantly donned the mantle; and yet now he likes and is corrupted by power itself; how he balances between resentment and self-delusion. No wonder he barely talks to the Royal Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa Atreides: his attraction to her has reached uncontrollable levels, such that he can not keep out of her bed for long; whatever seductive recipe she is administering him has all the markers of a drug he can't shake off.  

A Mentat summation completed inside me while I was writing this chapter. I long for sunlight warming my hand. All examinations of this no-ship point to no corruption in the equipment. The Gardeners had no way to entrap the ship directly, only through me? It does not matter. The no-ship won't shield me from them. If they wanted, they could find me here, now. I plan to take a gamble. Through the eons, I always acted best when I acted foolish.

Chapter Text

XL.
The Call

“When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”

-- OSCAR WILDE 

Tairasu woke up from deep sleep as a nail belonging to a robed figure lightly scraped her hand, then a hot breath warmed her ear. She froze, and suppressed a moment of panic - did anybody hear? The Messenger whispered: "Do not tarry. Do not linger. Make haste. Do not be followed. Sororitas non quiescit ." 

“ Celeritas me docet ” Tairasu replied in a breath, per Sutica's instructions.

“ Periculum in mora ” was the answer, and the Messenger was gone.

Tairasu waited, stood up, placed her pillows under the sheets to imitate her body shape, and sprayed a hint of Phero on her wrists, letting it dry out. Before she could run out, she snuck into the general bathroom and donned her gray robe; her hair dyed blue and green was firmly tied and hidden under the hood. She stepped back into the main room, her only preoccupation being the ever-vigilant Sister Tutor who never, never slept. 

She tip-toed to the lower floor, her muscles primed to move in a blur like only a Matre could do, and stopped as soon as the entrance came within her sight, nearly letting a gasp out. Surprise surprise, Tutor Gammala was snoring, a spice coffee cup still warm on her table, the desk lamp casting light on an old holo-book worn out by use. Still, Tairasu did not dare exit through the main door and instead went for the emergency exit at the bottom of the stairs, which she kept open with a tiny wooden peg. Out she went. 

The warm air spoke to her of summer nights, of late-hour, idle chatting with other acolytes, of adventures with the local men under the cover of darkness. Yet nobody was around, and she was in a hurry. She walked briskly through the School grounds, and out into the dark. She felt shy, and electric, and uncertain, for she was going to meet the black order. 

"Angelika is refusing to meet us," had sait Sutica shyly a few days before. 

"Whom else can we turn to?" Gerta had asked.

"Not the Tutors," ruled Tairasu.

They had debated until they noticed Sutica was holding back.

"Say what you have been thinking all along, sister," Gerta hissed.

"The nameless ones. The Black order," Tairasu concluded.

"Just maybe. How did you guess?" Sutica had snapped back.

"You only spite things that bother you," was Tairasu's reply.

"There were always stories about the black ones, but before Chapterhouse I had never heard of them so frequently. So what if the order exists?" asked Gerta. "They must be looking for recruits, or we would not be hearing about the gossip. We just need to find the right people to ask."

"No, Gerta, it's them who choose to approach recruits." But Sutica had remained vague.

The darkness of the dry pastures around the School embraced Tairasu. The grass was flat and the cattle breathed heavily in their sleep; she walked quickly, grateful for the Phero perfume which identified her to them as a familiar visitor, and kept her from being trampled over. The fig tree was a tall and austere silhouette in the night, but easy to recognize. Finding her footing was easy: Central was so small, after all, compared to all the places she had been deployed before as the assistant of Matre Baira: Shoen, Utica, Gammu... and on.

Daydreaming stopped as a light appeared in the night. She crouched, listening. Somebody was playing music? Moving one foot at a time, she walked around and past the light, in tune with the beat. Then she was off again into the hedge maze, out via a hole in the hedge and finally to a door that led to the basement of a remote building, the Labs sign blinking in the night.

Two knocks and then four. Silence. Sutica, I hope this is not just a big joke on me.

There were whispers among the students, as always, about the old secret society. Legends, Matres' lore. Some dismissed it as a rumor, the scarecrow with which Honored Matres kept the young students in check. The nastiest Sisters wore black, came out only at night, and preyed upon the weakest. They were angels of darkness and agents of revenge. Then there was the case of Acolyte Meina on Shoen. Tairasu remembered her as the most bloodthirsty of the second year students, the terror of the novices, and differently from the other bullies, she killed when challenged. Until an ominous black sign was found one day on her blouse. Shortly after her body was retrieved from the metal cauldron their dinners were cooked in. She had boiled over, her shrunk body all wrinkled, hands and feet tied on her back. She was wearing the same blouse, discolored. The same arched black mark there and on her forehead.       

She knocked again, impatiently. The longer she was out, the higher the chance somebody would notice her absence. A door cracked open in the night. “ Profecto enim vita vigilia est ” she whispered. A robed figure let her in, and face unseen she took Tairasu by the end, and presented her a black strip of cloth. 

"No," Tairasu objected. 

"The uninitiated start blind on the dark path," the figure whispered. Was she the same as the Messenger that had visited her in the dormitory? Tairasu let herself be blindfolded, and then led down multiple ramps of stairs. She let herself be taken away through corridors and turns until she was dizzy. 

Earlier that day, Sutica had cornered her. "Finally. They want you. I think you are ready."

"Who?"

"Ssh!"

"Why only me?"

"It's for our own protection. Repeat these passwords with me."

Back to the present, Tairasu and her guide walked around and around for half an hour, or maybe more? – she could not tell – up and down and outside and inside buildings, until she was completely lost, except for a few clues, pollen in the air – still near the hedges, rotten food – some kind of recycling facility – then chemicals that could have belonged to a hospital.

When the cloth was lifted from her eyes, no light startled her. No light nor sound nor sensation.

It was pitch dark.

The white noise hinted at a small room. 

Where was her guide? Had she lost her sight?

"Sutica?" she whispered, “Is it you?” 

A door clicked, closing behind her.

Was she alone? Locked up? She could not hear the ventilation system. Silence. 

Disorientation turned into discomfort.

Discomfort creeped up through her body, becoming dread. 

Dread expanded from her chest to her head in a wave of adrenaline.

Stumbling, she extended hands to find the walls…

…a kick to her abdomen pushed her on the ground… 

She made to jump back up….

But a punch into her side knocked her off balance.

She whirled at that deadly Honored Matres speed, blindly kicking, and screaming….

But no scream came out, only a raucous pant. 

A storm of hits came from everywhere, faster than her senses could detect, left and right and front and rear and she collapsed on the ground. Kicks and punches, cuts and lashes all incoherently falling on her, on her body. The distinct numb hardness of a cane. The pain took over her entire world. It took it over, and there was nothing more to feel than hurt. "Sutica!" she croaked. Flesh opened, blood, the terror as hands held her down. She then screamed until only breathless rasps came out of her. She freed her hands to cover her head, then crouched down like a wounded animal. Endless subjugation. 

And then finally, many, many moments later, too many painful moments, her mind retreated, and she lost consciousness. It felt like a miracle, like the touch of a benevolent angel. 

Chapter Text

XLI.
Parables and Pedigrees

That night Yakob ordered his family to take their cart and cross the ford of the Zarqa. But they did not have the strength, so they remained on the shore and camped for the night. Everyone fell asleep, and a man appeared in Yakob's tent and wrestled with him till daybreak. The man was strong but could not overpower Yakob, and said: “Let me go.” Yakob replied, “No. You will pull my cart to the other side of the river, so that I can take my family to safety." The nameless man did so, and Yakob set him free. "I have seen the face of doubt," he said to his children, "and doubt carried us forth."

-- THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE

"You have been hovering out there for a while, Teg," said Hilom, turning off his screen and placing down the nameplate he had been fidgeting with, the letters "Security Commissioner of the Golden Planetary Entente of Delphyne" engraved on the alloy. On other planets, we would just say governor, he thought to himself. 

As the door slid open, the ghola entered the room and stopped three feet from Hilom's desk, chin high and eyes alert. 

"If you please..." Hilom invited him with a gesture.

"I prefer to stand, Sir."

The Commissioner looked away from the boy's face and glanced at the holo-painting placed at the far side of his simple gray and black office hidden in the middle of the Tower of Lat. 

"Do you appreciate art, Miles Teg?" It was harder to read a nod of approval showing on such a small face. "That painting would not fetch much at a public auction, mind you," he continued while joining palms together on the shiny black desk. 

"A man holding the other man in a bind by the river," Teg commented while stepping sideways so that the 3D scene would set into motion. 

"A night setting, the caravan and family beyond the ford waiting for the man to cross; his sculpture-like body is twitching in the fight with a stranger. The stranger, an unnatural white shape holding the man in a bind. Note the interplay of dark and light skin tones. The artist explained to me how every hue is created directly by beams of primary colors. Painstaking work," then turning to face Teg, "rings a bell?"

"No. I find it strangely disconcerting. It seems to me it is communicating with me on a deeper level than the conscious one, Commissioner."

"As all art does," said Hilom shaking his head, "I should not forget we don't share the same background. This is an episode from our Books. Jakoov wrestles with the angel before crossing the Zarqa river. He is conflicted and sends family and servants across the river. He fights a man for the entire night, then at dawn the man asks to be freed. Jakoov asks him for his blessing in return."

"I recognize the reference, now; the O.C. Bible mentions a Yakob and a river named Zarqa."

"The man is an angel, or possibly the Lord himself, and the fight takes place inside the conscience of Jakoov. Once he crosses the river, he will set forth a chain of significant events." 

"You must like this work very much."

"Not at all. It is great craftsmanship, but the style is dated, the perspective is grotesque, the colors are clashing. Yet it speaks to me, like you said, at a deeper level." Hilom stood up and with a simple gesture turned a black wall into the live view of the city of Lat in the late afternoon, buildings slender like pinnacles and wide, welcoming streets hosting crowds of people on foot, and security armored vehicles patrolling at safe distance.

"Fifty years ago I took over from my predecessor. Do you know my title?"

"You are this planet's ruler, elected by the Council," answered the boy, who was still standing; whether he was bored or annoyed, it was not transpiring. 

"We say Security Commissioner here," he replied.

"A humble title for a post with a broader and more significant mandate, I understand." 

"Indeed. And under my stewardship, Israel has been in control of the whole planet, which we governed directly to keep a low profile and a safe living. Yet at the time it felt like I was sending all wagons, family and servants beyond reach as I devoted myself to keeping the peace on behalf of all people of Delphyne -- regardless of origin and faith."

"And who was the angel?"

"I would not presume to be Jakoov." Hilom smiled at the cityscape in front of him; despite the lack of sound, he could imagine the voices in the streets. Was he flattering himself? He must have been. "Yet as always, the Bashar has a sense for the underlying truth. I admit that at the time I saw myself as a shepherd of people. A Jakoov in my own way. No angel ever came here to bless me. Problems and preoccupations brought their own blessing instead. And with that, painful lessons. All I have done, mind you, is in the name of our safety."     

"I heard your Rabbi Olza is quite taken with her life aboard the ship," said Teg, proposing a change of subject.  "It seems the crew invited her to go on a spacewalk."

That got a little laugh out of him. "A spacewalk? For our planet-bound Rabbi? Can a fish breathe out of a fish tank? But the wind of change is upon us," he answered, accepting the diversion. "And I heard your Rebecca will come down with her at the next exchange of hostages. Rabbi Olza has provided us with thought-provoking updates about our past." 

"The more we spend time together, Commissioner, the more we will have the chance to understand each other. But I take that the painting, and your Rabbi, is not why you have called me in here." The boy stood quietly, patiently, in his place, biding his time. 

The Commissioner waved away the view of the sun-bathed city of Lat, and the room went back to yellow lights and bleak, black walls. "Wrestling with God? No, surely not. Security and safety are paramount here, Miles Teg."

"I concur, Commissioner."

"Then, why did you overrule me today at my security meeting?"

"I did not, Sir. I recommended that we invest time to understand how the Cordians have built such a vast network of allies on the pla..."

"You overruled my decision!" Hilom's voice boomed.

Teg froze for a moment, closed his eyes like following an internal replay. "Did I? Your staff advocated for my recommendation."

"And sold me on it so aggressively I was forced to agree," complained the Commissioner while letting himself fall heavily back in his chair.

"Do you disagree with the course of action, based on the intel your people gathered?"

"The outcome is of no concern to me; the way the outcome was achieved is. I have intel too, Teg. I learned more about Mentats." About time he dusted off some of the old holo-books the priests kept in their libraries.

"Then you must know how useful I can be. Though you will admit that you have been giving me a dearth of data."

"I don't need data to know that you think you could be the head of planetary security here."

"Have I not proved my worth, Sir?"

"Such pride! You are still a foreigner, you and your rag-tag band from space," ventured Hilom, then paused. "No, that is not fair," he continued, raising a finger. "But let me warn you, while we are not people trained at exclusive academies and bred with elite pedigrees, we earned our survival for centuries by fighting teeth and nails. I am not going to have my role threatened by a splinter cell of refugees from the Imperium. We have plans in action here." He stood up again while waving away Teg's attempt to reply. "Israel has nurtured and cared for this place for three hundred years. I know every corner of this planet; I speak over thirty of its dialects. We have interests in a thousand businesses over multiple generations, and our network of affiliates spans a hundred parsecs into space. If your plans were to ever subvert us, instead of being our ally as declared, you would find the game to be hard to play. We are completely committed to this planet."  While you and your no-ship can dissolve into the ether any day you wake up not liking the smell of our air. "So let us discuss how your support, while significant and appreciated, needs to stay subordinated to my command."     

It was Teg's turn to speak: "With due respect, Sir, I could serve you as your head of security. I reorganized your corps in Lat, quelled the riots without casualties, uncovered a vast spying network by the Cordians with concrete proof they are fabricating incidents to justify a large-scale intervention on the planet."

"The Cordians is where your mandate stops, Mentat! You are not to deal with interplanetary politics."

"There were three bombing attacks last week alone, one targeting the Cordian embassy itself," rattled out the deceptively young boy. "You showed me the view of the city. Did you see the armored cars patrolling the streets? We are keeping the peace by enforcing martial law, during a hajj which is welcoming the largest influx of pilgrims since ten years ago. This is an explosive mix our enemies would be remiss not to exploit ..."

"We have been preparing for this before your time, Teg. So, head of security under me? But there is only one Security, capital letters, and it is not a subordinate function. And don't deny you would rather sit here in my place, as the ruler, then take orders from me."

The boy who was not a boy raised his chin, relaxed, and finally came to sit down on a suspender chair. Face to face, though not at the same eye-level, they stared at each other for a moment, but if there was animosity in their gaze, it did not show. Teg leaned forward. "Commissioner... Hilom. At the age of twenty-five I commanded an army of a million operatives and took three planets away from a rebel force, almost without spilling lives. I served the Bene Gesserit in over ten military campaigns, the least successful one winning the Sisterhood influence over an entire province with less than a one percent loss."

"And the most successful?" asked Hilom, unbelieving.

"From my perspective, those were the wars I avoided by finding alternatives to an armed conflict. As you look into my eyes, I remind you my child's flesh and voice are an illusion. Yes, I could govern this planet, and do so in my sleep, if the task was given to me. But, this is not my ask, nor my task, because this planet is not my work. It is yours and your people's."

"You learned about Mentats," the Bashar continued, lifting open palms up toward the ceiling, "so I will give you an example of a Prime Computation."

"You have fashioned Delphyne into a refugee camp. It is a scattered ensemble made of thousands of small rural villages and satellite towns. Immigrants arrive here and stay without papers nor controls. Every community is an ethnic cell, speaks its own dialect, and preserves their homeworld's traditions unchanged. Delphyne is a living museum. It allows your people, for example, to walk the streets of Lat without fear of speaking Hebrew. Hearing an unfamiliar language is commonplace here, and so is mingling in a crowd whose individuals sport clothing from a hundred different cultures."

Teg stood up and approached the black wall, invoking with a gesture invoked a holo screen that showed the starry sky above a provincial village. To make it brighter, he turned off the room lights. "Religious tolerance gives home to many faiths, Dur's and other pantheons, with several thousand temples just in the Holy city of Lat. Wealth-bringing pilgrims and religious syncretism give Secret Israel a plausible cover. In public you call your Lord with the name of Dur. Dur's high priest is your man. Here you don't even hide your Synagogues."

"The interpretation is subjective, but the facts are accurate," Hilom shrugged from the darkness.

"Yet the power on this planet is shifting. Unbeknownst to you, The rug is being swept under your feet. The recent riots point to pervasive unrest. It's underground. Melting pots like Lat are drivers of change. The cities crave to move forward, while the villages struggle under the yoke of antiquated serfdoms."

"The stars," said Hilom pointing to them, "you forget about the stars."

"I can't talk about the stars with the few drops of intel you gave me -- remember, you don't yet give me access to the geopolitical data for this sector -- but I can only attempt a gross estimate: the Cordians will establish a base here in the next 180 days, using the recent bombings as a justification, and all in the name of safety for their business interests. And that brutish empire, the Tailarons,"

"Brutish is a fitting summation." 

"... will remind you of their most-favored nation status and demand the same. You risk the planet being split into two zones of influence. The neo-Ixians,..."

"You mean the Niners," Hilom corrected him. 

"... or the Niners, as you call them, do not have a particular inclination to own a pilgrimage center, but now our spice gifts..."

"Your spice gifts!"

"... have awakened their interest."

"Tailarons and Niners together still can't compete with Cordian forces."

"Which does not explain, Hilom, why you are planning to give it all away."

"You dare!? Explain yourself!"

"I dare indeed. Or otherwise, you will care to explain why you don't want me to neutralize the Cordian threat which is the first tile in this long series of dominos."

"I don't want Cordian soldiers on my planet. And you are not free to make accusations as part of our contract."

"But see Hilom, ours is an alliance, not a contract; I am not a vendor, and have the duty to call my ally out. If you don't want Cordians on this planet, give me the reins of planetary security. Don't you see the capabilities I bring?"

"Talent, indeed, and ambition, and..."

"Do you dislike that your operatives call me a child prodigy?"

"An image you carefully cultivate! Have you heard the stories they relay about you in the Officers' wardroom? Tell me, did you single-handedly dismount the Cordian network south of the city?"

"True."

"I will not have my man fall for the myth of a child hundreds of years old."

"I see we started on the wrong foot. We are not enemies, and have little to gain by sidestepping you. Set your mind instead to what we could accomplish together if I were your right hand. While you govern this planet, Hilom. Free of outside interference."

"Here I see the same shameless arrogance of our Cordian friends."

"My actions are a testament to what I can deliver. If I am not useful, tell me how you want me to be your ally. If I am not serving this planet well, demote me."

Teg turned off the night screen and raised the lights. "The way I interpret your painting, Jacob's scene," he continued, "is that you have seized the power but have not found the courage to truly use it, Hilom. You have not bested the angel of your doubts; never crossed the river. To have power is to be damned to use it, lest others without moral principles acquire it in your place. Such is the threat of the Cordians and all the others. You speak of committed, yet your people never secured the support of the population, nor of the merchants and landowners who control the trade. Your technology comes from abroad, your religious tolerance is designed to obey the needs of commerce. You were promoted to power, but your sources of power have long ago turned to foreign help. Your options are narrow: you concede to foreign interests and lose independence, or take what slipped from you with force. Both options lead to certain defeat."

"Or?"

"Or, you may lean on a rag-tag band of refugees and the gift of spice to shape up a new course of action. The prosperity and freedom of Secret Israel on this planet will depend on it."

He was standing right in front of the Commissioner, now. "What will be your decision, Hilom?" he concluded, "The Cordians are coming".

More so than you expect, Bashar. Hilom paused for effect. "This was a great performance, ghola. I must commend you for the theatricals, the dimmed lights, the pauses, the stars. Well played. I still trust you and our partnership. But... So you want more? You think you can save Secret Israel from losing the grip on our sanctuary planet?" He stretched, kicked back on his suspender chair, and placed his shoes on the desk. He rummaged with a hand until he activated the projector. Out of nowhere, images of dancers populated the three walls around them, in the full light of Delphyne's noon, so bright they had to cover their eyes for a moment. 

"Head of planetary security, is that so? Teg, would you explain to me how this riot started?" and he played the recording. The footage played, the surveillance camera tracking a small group of black robed women starting a dance. At triple the normal speed, the dance expanded in concentric circles till it covered the main plaza like a tidal wave taking everything in its wake. "There: I bookmarked this moment." The camera froze on a single dancer, her eyes closed. The Commissioner could not tell whether Teg had recognized the face. "That's how it started. Get me that woman. That's the root cause of our riot. Then I will allow more conversations about security." 

"Hilom..."

"It's Commissioner Hilom."

"How do the Cordians..."

"Enough with the Cordians. Your partnership is coming up short. Besides little gifts for diplomats, I have not seen spice in the quantity you have promised us. A hundred litrejons in the next delivery. Then we will be in the position to save this planet."

Teg hesitated, swallowed. "We will deliver on our part of the agreement."

"Indeed. And thanks to your efforts, we now know that time is running out. The Cordians are indeed coming. Follow me."

"Where to?"

"To the path of your own prediction. The Cordian ambassador is here with Lady Eilanna. May he rot in hell." The Commissioner made it toward the exit, hesitated while blocking the entryway. "Teg?"

"Yes, Commissioner Hilom."

"I would know what the Orange Catholic Bible has to say about Jakoov's story."

"It is featured twice in the book. Different endings."

"Endings, plural?"

Teg nodded from behind him. "Yakob overpowers the man, puts a yoke on him, like an ox, and orders him to carry his cart and family to the other side of the river before letting him go. The anecdote is about overcoming fear and doubt, I think."

"And the other?"

"There is an early version which is not included in modern reprints. The two men struggle until sunrise, when Reakel, Yakob's wife, discovers them while bringing breakfast into the tent. She sees the two men locked together, and slashes at the stranger's calves with a kitchen knife. In the confusion that ensues she also hurts Yakob at the hip. The stranger collapses on the ground. Reakel slits his throat, and while standing triumphantly over the dead man's body, blood dripping to the ground, declares to her husband: This hand, this knife are the messengers of the Lord. Kneel Yakob, and by this hand, knife and blood be blessed ."

Hilom opened his eyes wide. "His wife blessed him?"

Teg nodded. 

"And then, they crossed the river?"

"They threw the knife into the river, and as the water retreated in fear, they crossed over."

Chapter Text

XLII. The Joining

Only in the expectation of the end, you attach the right value to life. Death is the mother of all beauty.
- COMMENTARIES ON ANCIENT POETRY, BY REVEREND MOTHER SUPERIOR TARAZA

Tairasu woke up from a nightmare in black but found she could not move. She screamed like she had dreamt a moment ago, but the scream was stifled by the muffler in her mouth. As she tried to bring her hands to her mouth she felt strings around her wrists. Breathing heavily, she slowly took stock of what her senses were telling her.

Am I standing against a wall? No, I am lying down.  

Her heels hit something that was not the floor. Her flesh chose that moment to remind her of the pain inflicted by kicks, smashes, and punches from the night's ordeal. Cuts and tumescences covered her chest, back and legs. Only body parts you could cover with clothing , she realized. She ordered her muscles to move despite the ache. Her limbs felt surfaces all around, all smooth. She smelled tree sap. Despite the dark, the faint echo of her muffled scream meant the ceiling no more than a few inches from her nose.

I am in a wooden box, she thought as she intuited the shape of it.

A coffin. 

I am tied down inside a wooden coffin. 

For several minutes she could not move, busy as she was quelling the pain and slowing her breath down for fear the box was sealed shut a finite amount of air. Calm down. If only she had been initiated to the true Bene Gesserit secrets. The rumor was that the Sisters could slow down to a breath per minute. But that was a secret reserved to the Reverend Mothers, whose initiation was shrouded in mystery.

Finally, against every pulsion of her body, she managed to lay still, her heartbeat slowed, her muscles relaxed.

My mind controls my body. I must not fear.

Light came through the cracks... the illusion of light, more akin to a lighter darkness. Tairasu let her eyes get accustomed to it. She labored with her hands, testing the straps that tied her down, and found that if she pulled really hard sideways, they started to tear apart from the wooden board they were hastily nailed to. She focused all her energy on one jolting movement. One and two and... there! Free!

Except, not only her wrists but her forearms were strapped down also. She had only gained a couple of inches to maneuver. She flailed, trying to break free, but the forearm straps were harder to fight. 

Legs?... no, not enough room to maneuver either, with her knees blocked by the wooden coffin cover. 

I am stuck!

She stopped to check the air she was inhaling. It was good air, normal oxygen levels easing the pain of her exertion. So the box was not sealed shut. A distinctive Matres reaction overcame her. Rage surged through her body, like the desperate and burning instinct of a cornered animal. Her knees flailed violently but even trying to move at supernatural speed she could not extend her legs to hit the top of the box. But she managed to move it so slightly. Tairasu stopped once again, listening, catching her breath. A different white noise came through what seemed to be an empty space above to the left. A breath of cold air touched her nostrils.

Could it really be? The cover is not nailed shut.

The cover must have slightly moved. Heavy it was, though. She twisted her body to the sides, figuring out that the box would rattle and move. She continued to flail like a snake for many minutes until she noticed an imperceptible change. As she lashed out a desperate kick with the last of her energy, the box rattled once again, and the cover moved, unbalanced itself and slid to the side, falling down with a thump.

The starry sky welcomed her, beautiful, the distant stars crossed by red and white nebulas scattered in giant filaments that crossed the entire skydome, a feature unique to Chapterhouse, which owed its magnificent night sky to the proximity to the galactic core. The stars welcomed her. The smell of fresh night air wafted to her nostrils. The smell of roses touched her frayed nerves like a soothing balm. The botanical gardens were not far. This was Central. In the open. The thought was calming. She rested for a minute.

Now, the ropes.

Her legs were still tied down but she could flex them now, unconstrained by the box cover. Using all her torquing strength she managed to move the box an inch at a time until it tipped from the place it was resting on and came crashing down to the ground, leaving her on the side. The coffin must have been on a table. From the new position on her side, she found it easy to wiggle her hands out of the straps, which had come loose just enough. She rolled onto the grass, felt the prickling of a thousand blades of grass. She bit hard on the muffler to neutralize the lingering pain in her muscles.

Finally, Tairasu stood up. Her naked body, caressed by the breeze, could feel every single particle of air. Air, air, fresh fragrant air filled her lungs. Only now she picked up on the crickets chirping. She looked around, massaging her wrists.  

A dozen or so robed figures stood in a circle around the table where the coffin had rested, patiently waiting. Tairasu removed the muffler and the strap that secured it to her face. Her instinct warned her that these were the people that had beaten and clubbed her almost to her death. 

Run!

She tried but stumbled, and fell on the grass.

One of the robed figures broke away from the circle to come closer.  

Fight!

But she had no strength left. Pain overcame her senses. 

The robed figure was holding a cane. 

Tairasu called upon all her energies, sprung against the approaching enemy. She blurred her way up...

The cane swung to her side, catching her body as it rose. 

Down she fell, an animal-like rasp coming out of her throat.

The robed figure raised the cane high above her head. Tairasu did not want to die. She raised her arms to protect her face, tears streaking her blood-stained face. 

Uncontrollable sobs took over her. 

She did not want to die. She thought she had more time. Dying in battle, yes. All Matres were prepared to die, that was the essence of training. 

She raised a closed fist... but the effort consumed her. Her fist came down, unresisting. 

Not this way, unable to fight back.

Through the tears, looking up, she saw the cane and the firm hands holding it.

It swung down at breakneck speed...

Thump.

Silence. 

I am dead.

Dead.

Soft breeze on her naked skin, prickling her.

Crickets chirping in the night. 

Why am I still breathing?

Her eyes opened.

The cane rested on the ground but an inch from her body.

Looking up... the robed figure, hood pulled back. 

"Angelika."

"By the blood and spirit of old, the sacrifice is done. Your body is none, your mind is none, your spirit is gone," said the dark Angelika. 

The circle of people clapped their hands.

"You have gone to the land of no-return. You died there. What was her name? Tairasu. But Tairasu is dead. Cry over her name."

"May she rest in peace," echoed the circle, and clapped once.

"This one is a naked creature coming out of the womb. You are reborn. Raise up! For you died Tairasu tonight, and are reborn as a new Sister under the starry lights."

"You are born." echoed the group.

 "You are ours," proclaimed Angelika. Then: "Have you brought the token to pay for your Passage?"

"Her wounds are her token," whispered the circle.

"Do you vow your life, soul to the secret sorority?" 

"I... do," whispered a voice that was Tairasu's, but Tairasu only heard herself saying it.

"She vowed," chanted the circle, "we witnessed."

"It was vowed, and witnessed. Reborn one, choose your new name."

Confusion set in. A name? 

"Mami" was all the reborn girl could think of.

"Mami is as you will be known to us. It is set. With the blood and flesh of your death you are bonded in secret to your new Sisters. Guard them with your life, for they will guard you with theirs. Betrayal means a curse worse than death. You paid for your Passage. Your soul is born anew. Do you accept the Joining?"

Tairasu sensed weight in that question. She was past the point of no return. To go back was to choose death... a literal one now. 

"I... accept," 

"Embrace your Sisters, Mami."

Angelika produced a white linen which she put on Tairasu before embracing her warmly. She was the first, then one by one, each robed Sister broke away from the circle, kneeled down and embraced Tairasu's small figure covered in the white linen; then stood up to rejoin the circle. Tairasu/Mami stood motionless, barely able to keep straight from her kneeling position on the grass, the linen stained with blood and sweat and soil. The last of the Sisters went back to the circle, then in unison they rejoiced shouting one single powerful Ha !

Every puzzle piece suddenly fell into its place.

Angelika helped her up, hugged her again for a long time, this time as a friend. Tairasu felt so hurt, so desperate. She had never craved so much in her life for love and protection, she opened up completely to the unassuming embrace. So many things took over her mind and her body... relief, happiness, bottomless sorrow. Her animal instincts took over, felt all the pain and the unfair suffering of her body, then found the abused dignity that lay underneath. It was a dignity - her dignity- that had been wounded but stood firm and undefeated. She cried, and cried and cried like a baby, like a heavy rock had been removed from deep down her guts.

"Welcome, Sister," whispered Angelika, "I am so glad you are part of us now. We will take care of you." 

Tairasu... Mami... was in.

She felt euphoric now, a joy rooted in abandonment and sharing and acceptance.

I have a home! 

She smiled.

I belong!

She felt like she could have stayed there in an endless moment, until the end of the world.

Forever.

Then without notice, the breeze carried the call of an owl. The group suddenly turned to action. Two robed Sisters took her under her arms walking her as much as shoving her forward. The group scattered and dispersed in different directions. They walked and walked and walked taking what seemed to be a meandering set of turns, until through a door and a lamplight she was back into the dormitory. She recognized the two Sisters. What were her names again? Her rational mind was not there. It took time to turn her mind on. Gerta. Sutica. Of course. 

"Hush," admonished Sutica.

"The effect of the narcotic gas will be wearing off on Tutor Gammala," Gerta filled her in.

"Here is an ointment for your entire body. Make sure no bruises show through your clothing in the morning."

"What are we? What are we about?" stumbled a weary-eyed Tairasu.

"Do you need to ask? Enough for tonight! Go to sleep, Mami. It is almost dawn."

"What have I joined?"

"The real Order, Sister. Never mention this to anyone.

"The nameless?"

"Listen, there is no time. Gerta will show you the call and response signs. You are a fresh initiate still on trial. You are forbidden to use them unless under duress."

"Is this the Black Order?" Tairasu blurted out, uncomfortably loud.

"We call ourselves the Black Swans. Remember, talk to no one."

They silently ran up the stairs. Tairasu had left the dormitory, and only Mami had come back.

Chapter Text

XLIII. Drinks, Demands and Diplomacy

Delphyne's recent investments in planetary defenses, sponsored by the Tailarons, is cause for immediate concern.

-- CORDIA SENATE SESSIONS, a.d. XIV Kal. Apr. CDXXVII 

The Lady Eilanna of the Houris made eye contact as she offered her hand to be lightly kissed, "What a joy to see you again, Hilom". The Commissioner held her gloved hand like it were glass, barely scraping his lips with the white velvet. 

"The joy is mine. Your smirli drink is ready at the top of the Tower," he answered meekly, turning to face the man next to her. "Ambassador Keli, congratulations on finding quite the match." 

The Lady's arm firmly held the Cordian Ambassador's the way a master would hold a leashed pet. "A two-year contract, Hilom," replied the Ambassador with pride. 

"A stunning match," reiterated Hilom, "the first time the Lady accepted such a long engagement, I hear." 

The Lady allowed herself to smile. A hot bath was waiting for her back at the embassy. But now, official business only in this ugly tower. To her surprise, the usual gloom of the place had given way to a cozy atmosphere. Potted hedge bushes lining up along the carpet? The few steps to the security check-point allowed her to take in the remodeled entrance: new furniture, new lights on the ceiling... She was startled by the sight of two sand hawks perching high above them in large metal cages. She squeezed the Ambassador's arm. 

The Commissioner waved away the security team and moments later they filled the elevator car climbing up to the top of the Tower. That allowed them sixty seconds of privacy. "You could not find the attackers who planted the bomb outside our embassy, Hil, and the Triumvirs demand that I take our security in our own hands," erupted the Ambassador as the doors opened to spill the party onto a large platform lit by an ever-changing pattern of lights. A boy welcomed them holding a tray with four glasses -- not the usual bar tender, the Lady noticed -- then trailed after the Commissioner, who mumbled something about him being his new attaché. Now the famous Hilom was recruiting young boys? She made a mental note to background-check the Commissioner's sexual preferences in case there was leverage to be found. 

With a studiedly boring expression on her face, the Lady royally sat down on the suspensor-powered divans. The view of the city of Lat enveloped in the heavenly blues of the evening took her breath away. 

"Doubtless you will want permission to land a small force of praetorians," said Hilom as he picked up a glass of purple liquid. "Yet you will be happy to learn there is nothing to fear. My team dismantled a network of infiltrators just today."

"Infiltrators, not perpetrators?" remarked the Lady, guessing the Commissioner had only discovered some loose ends of the Cordian's own spy network. Her glass swirled with the gentle bubbles produced by the mood-lifting smirli particles that danced within like gold droplets. She smiled. Euphoria was a rare gift. Cordia planting false attacks to justify a gradual invasion for good for business.   

"We are close. The top links, those with real connections to the foreign powers who attempted this, escaped minutes before capture. Two departing shuttles forced through... "

"You are a romantic, my dear Hilom," the Lady cut him short, "I could spend all day listening to your cat-and-mouse stories of spycraft."

"Indeed, my Lady Eilanna." he replied timidly and losing momentum.

"And rest assured the Commissioner is extraordinary in his track record to ensure the safety of his citizens on this planet, and incidentally ours," remarked the Ambassador, swiftly switching topic. "Despicably I am not much of a romantic; I am myself a man of more prosaic interests -- commerce, farming..."

Hilom relaxed. The boy with the tray had disappeared. 

"My beloved, since when is agriculture in your purview?" inquired the Lady with an innocent smile.

"My dear, since I made the acquaintance of a few Cornucopian merchants come here for the Festival from their awfully far planet."

"That gives me goosebumps. Did you hear the tales about their blood-sworn bodyguards? Are the stories about their watch bats real? And their intruder-detecting shrubs?"

"I can report they are very real. So real, I saw the very same shrubs in the entrance of this Tower, isn't that right Hilom?"

"A recent introduction."

"Must have been expensive," inquired the Ambassador, raising a finger.

"Our means are modest. Delphyne's planetary council is particularly parsimonious."

"Then you must have found a wealthy sponsor. But no matter," continued the Ambassador, "the Cornucopians are the thing." 

"I have read all the popular love novels about them, Keli. Are they all true too?" asked the Lady Elianna, following the routine they had spent time crafting.

"I know better than to dispel the magic of the romantic tales about their bodyguards. But think of the potential for agriculture! The spidercotton our Cordian immigrants grow in the dry plains here on Delphyne," 

"...land that the Commissioner so generously offered to lease to Cordian's retired legionnaires a few decades ago as a token of friendship between the two governments..." continued the Lady.

"A lasting friendship!" echoed Hilom.

"And certainly the real thing" continued the Lady; "well," she continued taking over from the Ambassador, "that cotton is finer than the best synthetic fibers and yet so strong." She paused to accept a mooncake offered by the same young boy with the tray. Lifting her gaze from the mooncake, she found deep brown eyes observing her. Eyes older than the land. She looked away instinctively as the Ambassador muttered with a definitive tone: "Strong! You could hang a deserter on it".     

"Their skill in husbandry is as compelling, Keli" continued the Lady. "Their aurochs are the most durable solution for moving goods on this planet already."

"You seem quite versed in this subject, my Lady," observed the Commissioner.

"What devilish science allows them to manipulate animals in this way? I always thought it is against all ethical concerns," murmured the Ambassador.

"They breed and cross species from a thousand planets, my dear," the Lady Eilanna responded, "direct genetic manipulation is not allowed by their credo, I am told, and for good reason, for they would be wiped out by Cordia and another dozen smaller nations."

"Indeed," replied the Commissioner with scorn.

"Certainly," continued the Ambassador, "though exceptions here and there could be tolerated if a greater need arose, isn't that true, Hilom?"

The Commissioner shook his head, "I am not following you, Ambassador."

"Rumor has it that Delphyne officials recruited several women from local hospitals recently, all of them in irreversible coma. Curious! Not something I would care to take an interest in, of course; for I only care, as we Cordians say, of the State and Estate. But the rumor mill is a source of all sorts of news. It must have been relatively cheap to win their families' silence, I imagine. As a thought experiment. One experiments with crops, you may say, but a foray into experiments with people would seem uncharacteristic of you, Hilom. After all, this is a holy planet and holy ground we stand on, right?"

"I don't know what you are referring to," said the Commissioner, staring back in a confused look. 

"No matter, my dear friend. Rumors are just rumors, after all -- not something to care too much about lest counterproductive news get to be known by regular people on the streets. After all, why would you need to import dangerous foreign practices... Cornucopians, and the other lot, the Niners; these new groups are good to keep at arm's length, if you know what I mean. Pick and choose what to use; do not be used."

"I do not follow your line of reasoning. Speak plainly, friend."

"It makes no matter," said the Ambassador while accepting from the boy two vials of transparent liquid with blue dots floating within. He pocketed one without looking at it directly, and offered the second to the Lady. She moved casually, hiding it somewhere in the folds of her dress; but her eyes blinked for a moment. This other rumor was true then, that Delphyne now offered spice bribes. Her head spun round for a moment. A droplet worth a moonlet , the old saying went. Vertigo took over her briefly. The Delphynians have spice!

"Now for the Cordians," continued the Ambassador as nothing had happened. "We have known each other for quite some time, Hilom." He paused. "Stopping short of breaking international laws, a Cordian frigate is already en route to us but will stay at distance -- a parsec, per convention. But you know the Triumvirs, do you? They are where the people are, and with billions of Cordians coming for the Decennial Festival, their safety is a paramount concern to them. Allow us to land a peace-keeping contingent to reinforce your security."

"And how large would it be?" said Hilom soberly. He is already caving in, thought the Lady Eilanna.

"Ten thousand. Do not worry, their wage, room and board will be on us. It is to protect Cordian pilgrims, after all."

"Ten battalions? I regret to inform you that it will not be possible, after all," replied Hilom holding his ground. "As I said, we have made major progress in dismantling illegal operations by foreign agents and the presence of foreign, albeit friendly, armies..."

"Not armies, peacekeepers. Security consultants to your independent government."

"The difference will be too slight for anybody to tell in the international arena!"

"The Triumvirs will not abide..."

"The independence of Delphyne's Entente..."

"... If even one more accident happened to show the growing risk of terrorism..."

"Keli!" boomed the frustrated Commissioner, "I would not be so impolite as to remind you of the obligations that our long-standing consideration for you entails..." The Lady thought: the Commissioner is reminding Keli of years of bribes . He must feel backed into a corner.   

The Ambassador waited for the anger to subside. Then he murmured: "Your consideration I will continue to honor. We have known each other for two decades, Hilom. Yet in this conjuncture, as a government official, I am but a conduit. I cannot overrule Cordia for you. I am sorry. I do not see other options."

A white swirl entered the Lady's field of vision. "The Sayyadina!" she exclaimed, standing up above the two sparring men. "Come to save me from the boring squabbles of diplomacy!" she cried out, and the two women embraced. A new light seemed to shine through the nun of Dur compared to the usual dullness. The fierce contours of her face had softened a bit. "What is that I see, sister? Is that finally happiness?" the Lady inquired. "Finally a lover? I have to tell you, I almost lost hope for you my darling."

The Sayyadina smiled. "Love forever triumphs, my Lady. How is your village? Your parents' cows and mud huts are well, I hope? I see that Keli scored big by getting you," the Sayyadina said pointing to the Ambassador, "or wait, is it the other way around? Is this your retirement? I never thought you would throw in the towel and be content with the easy life of a diplomat's wife," she continued, not allowing the Lady to interrupt her, "that only means: he must be so good in bed!"

"Love does surprise us all," was the Lady Eilanna's impersonal response, as her sarcasm died in its tracks. 

Unfazed by the exchange, the Sayyadina grabbed her arm to keep her close and murmured:  "You must tell me, how does it feel to hold it in your hands?"

"What twisted..."

She whispered, close to her ear. "The spice. Brogallo can't keep the faithful out of the cathedral. The poor man is so scared somebody will steal the spice cruet that he has convinced Hilom to surround the building at all times. I am telling him, the Tailarons and the Cordians will be receiving litrejons, so you should really not worry, but you know, the old man..."

The Lady blinked, taken aback by the untold wealth the words implied. "Provided Delphyne's spice source remains available and untouched."

"Somehow I feel there will be a request coming next, sister," protested the Lady while finding support on the divan.

"And so it comes to the conclusion: Delphyne must remain free from international interference while we -- and by that I include you, my dear, not the Houris, of course! , not, this is going to be a closely-knit, personal partnership, need-to-know basis, the Ambassador is not in it."

"I am but a servant of the Goddess," said the Lady, feigning embarrassment for the first time.

"But you must see, Lady Eilanna, that the Ambassador holds back the Cordian intervention until you have had the time to assess the potential for personal wealth. You would not want our sources to be inadvertently destroyed?"

"How would the Sayyadina come to be so self-interested?" attacked the Lady, but the greed in her eyes showed that a personal arrangement was indeed the desirable state while matters were assessed. And I must warn the Ambassador...   

"But the Ambassador will play a secondary role, Eilanna," said the Sayyadina, calling the Lady by name. Eilanna's arm trembled at the affront until she stilled it. "You just heard him, he is following orders. It's up to you how much spice to provide him and his spies as a way to entrust his services. We would not trust anyone to be more expert on the matter."

We? The Lady eyed the Commissioner, connecting the meaning to the Sayyadina's words. Pride kicked in, as yes, she was the absolute master of the Ambassador now and that arrangement was going to be the most obvious, even to the virgin Sayyadina and the slow-witted Commissioner. 

  No betrayal of my order is necessary today. The Houris will know when I decide. 

"Agreed?"

She hesitated. "Agreed." And yet, the Lady was terrified. With one word, they are turning Delphyne from a religious backwater to a cosmic tinderbox! 

"Well done. And now, the price."

"What?" she replied, arching her delicately penciled eyebrows.

"Tell me what you know about the Commissioner, Eilanna!"

"But,"

"Tell me now! To seal the bargain! I am covering you in gold, my dear, don't you see? But I need to know what you know. I could still arrange things with the Ambassador directly, do you understand? Just, tell me . What dirt do you have on him?"

The Lady could not know, but the Sayyadina's use of Voice, her one true acolyte skill, would have been the source of great envy on Chapterhouse. 

Convinced and compelled, the Lady erupted: "We have in our hands witnesses who can testify that twenty years ago, the Commissioner overthrew Esau illegally. The previous Commissioner was exiled for sedition, based on proof that Hilom fabricated."

"Good Lady, now shut up," the Sayyadina caressed the shocked houris. "Welcome to the partnership. Who knows, with the resources we will unlock for you, you may one day make a bid to become First Houris."

The Lady, shook from inside but curiously happy of it, finished her smirli drink. White noise rang in her ears. She had to talk to the Ambassador promptly.

From the other side of the room came the grave voice of the Commissioner: "It is my last word: no military will be allowed on the planet, Keli." There was tension, and silence. Even the boy with the tray jumped at attention. 

"Keli," moaned the Lady, pleading. 

"My Lady, I heard enough," interrupted the Ambassador. "And if I cannot convince our Commissioner, then, in the spirit of our friendship, we must renounce our demands. This is sacred land, and we must seek harmony on behalf of our citizens. A brotherhood of man, that's what Priest Brogallo talked about during the rites today. May we all rest comfortably knowing that Commissioner Hilom and his force have our safety as their mission." and with that the Ambassador stood up, looking for the exit. He raised a finger as a warning: "That said, any news that the safety of Cordian people is at risk here, the Triumvirs will force my hand."

The Lady sighed. Then, things happened so fast, only in retrospective was she able to recount the facts.

A blinding flash erupted outside, from the ground, to the clouds like a lightning in reverse, bathing in light the entire vault of the night sky. 

In the after-images, the Lady made sense of an infinitely-thin, yellow straight line perforating the clouds. 

As a response, burgundy and gray halos splashed in the clouds. 

The Sayyadina turned to Hilom. 

The boy sped toward the exit. 

The Ambassador, as the experienced actor he was, let go of the glass, which crashed on the ground.  

"What was that?" she asked in startled surprise, knowing something inevitable had happened. 

There was a moment of silence. The Commissioner's face darkened. "That was a ground laser shooting into the sky toward our orbital stations," he replied, "and hitting."

"Hitting what?" asked the Sayyadina with the arrogance of a stupid cleric. The Lady stood up. Didn't she understand? 

Smoke-enveloped specks of black pierced the clouds, dropping somewhere on the landscape out there bangs whose force shook the Tower.

The Cordians feigned a false flag attack. Why did Keli pretend to withdraw his demands, if he had planned an attack all along? 

"That was a station, or worse, the spaceships anchored there," continued Hilom holding back the panic, "if you would excuse me now..." he said, walking toward the elevator; then paused and walked back hurriedly. "We will be going now," pre-empted the Lady. She took the ambassador under her arm, the moment Hilom crashed into the Ambassador. 

"Hilom, get your hands off of me!" the Ambassador cried out outraged while retreating. But instead of a punch, the well-set, tall Commissioner thrust a hand in the Ambassador's pocket to seize back the spice vial; then turned and walked disgruntled toward the door.

The top of the tower remained deserted. The Lady and her Ambassador descended alone via the next elevator, and did not speak until safely in their diplomatic ground car.

"You planned the attack all along!" she raged. "You told me you would have withdrawn the triumvirs' demands! Why didn't you tell me?" 

The Ambassador whispered softly, gesturing to "The triumvirs cannot be defied. I didn't tell you. I needed a genuine reaction from you."

"So you faked your acquiescence while knowing your spies were planting a false flag attack? Do you think Hilom can't see through this?"

"The attack is to one orbital station. Untraceable to us. Hilom likes to entertain doubts. We will blame it on the terrorists, like the bomb at the embassy. That's all we need to justify the landing of our peacekeeping force. There are half a billion Cordians on the planet. Their protection is paramount."

"You lost your spice."

"It's not the first nor the last the Delphynians will pay me. In time Hilom will come to understand that Cordian rule is a better prospect than Tailaron rule. That Tailarons funded part of Delphyne's recent military modernization is in clear violation of our prior understandings."

Resignation and anger flashed in the Lady's eyes. "Our partnership can't continue if you don't make me privy to your plans," she said with venom in her voice. "This ends now. Promise me!"

"I promise," he replied meekly. 

"Failure to uphold this promise will be cause for termination. Is this the value you put on my services?" The Ambassador shivered. After finding ecstasy, the dullness of normal life was a hellish prospect. Content, the Lady embraced him and whispered: "You did well, my dear. Flawless execution. The triumvirs will be pleased." 

"The first battalion is landing as we speak," he replied in a sour mood.

"War? Occupation?"

"Not that," he replied, "not that. It's all going to be gradual, and peaceful. Our force will police the land our veterans administrate. And Hilom can't possibly deny us." 

"No he cannot," said the Lady Eilanna while muttering a curse under her breath. She had to reach out to the Sayyadina. It was not too late to keep the source of the melange out of the Cordians' hands. And yet, the wrinkled priestess had one-upped her -- forcing her to reveal information at no cost. No cost? She was aware of the vial in her pocket.  

The Ambassador's warm body was pressing on her, getting close. A sturdy insistence in his movements was calling her, demanding. "I need you," he said. She sensed a hint of fright, for she knew the Ambassador was scared.

"Not tonight, not after what you hid from me," she replied, pushing him against the car door. 

"It's in our agreement, I need you. You won't deny yourself."

"I won't deny myself, but you will wait until we are home," she replied. Furiously, she tried to focus on the hot bath that awaited her not a mile away.

Chapter Text

XLIV. The Lesson of Sense

Reverend Mother: "And Leto II became the Worm."
Rebel: "And I say he was a Wolf!"
Reverend Mother: "He showed the Sisterhood its own limits."
Rebel: "There stood a being, born of the purest Bene Gesserit breeding lines, with complete control over his many pasts. And claws!"
Reverend Mother: "Where we ran away from, where we invested in self-control, he reigned with ease."
Rebel: "You faced your own fears!"
Reverend Mother: "At first we recoiled, denying that there was a lesson to be learned."
Rebel: "But then you listened to the wolf."
Reverend Mother: "We taught our Sisters how to embrace their Memories and remain whole. We are unafraid of seeking the past. We are integrated. We are more alike now to the Tyrant than ever before. We did it for our betterment."
Rebel: "You lie! You did it because the wolf was going to eat you!"
Reverend Mother: "I never said there was nothing at stake."
Rebel: "You are envious. You secretly aspired to become like him."
Reverend Mother: "I never said our motives were worthy."
Rebel: "You are mistaken! The wolf seeded his lesson on purpose."
Reverend Mother: "If so, it made us stronger."
Rebel: "No. He proved to you that you were proud and vain. And you submitted."
Reverend Mother: "To submit is not to agree."
Rebel: "He proved he could control you like a puppet across the centuries, causing you to imitate him, and you did not see that coming!"
Reverend Mother: "Even if he did, we broke free when he died."
Rebel: "No, he let you live."
Reverend Mother (raising her voice) : "We broke free, so that for the rest of our existence, we can ensure no wolf will ever be born again."
Rebel (after a pause) : "And in that respect, how exactly are you not still his puppet?"

-- THE BOOK OF DELUSIONS, A BENE GESSERIT COMMENTARY

Heartbeat. 

Heartbeat. 

They say, Reverend Mother Visella thought, that if you get lost in a deep cave without a light, disorientation in the dark kicks in so rapidly, you quickly lose track of your own body. People have been found lying down while they think they are standing. 

Breathe. Black. You finally know what it's like to be trapped in your own brain.

You can't speak, see, hear, but you can feel.

Those lost in the caverns, they think they are standing, their eyes wide open in total darkness, or closed shut, it does not matter. Their mind is there, disembodied, not able to feel reality in absence of contrast. Their back is against a cold rock, their legs are crossed; no matter. They have the illusion of standing erect in an eerie space. There is no sound that is not created by the chatter of their teeth.

Whether she was in a cave or not, Visella thought, it did not matter; there was no way to know the difference. But, she could feel her body. And, differently from the cave wanderers she heard about when she was little, she could not scream. Such is the power these androids had on her. Have you ever dreamed of feeling trapped, and nobody can hear you? Visella's breath cycled through her lungs and throat, without making a sound. That was her now. Blind, and numb, and lost, and unheard. Like the day she was little, the day the Honored Matres had raided Laplace and her parents had squeezed her small, child body inside the four corners of a wooden box, forcing the lid closed above the twisted bundle of flesh that was her (her ankle was dislocated in the process). There she stood, locked inside as her parents walked back up the stairs to meet the raiders. Visella the little girl had cried herself to sleep, had thought she would die with her skeleton broken in a thousand pieces as time passed -- dusk and then dawn and then dusk again, according to the distant cry of a rooster. Then relaxation settled in and as long as she did not try to move, an unnatural comfort kicked in. The third day two soldiers broke the lock open and lifted the lid. The onrushing yellow light annihilated every sense in her. In her drunken stupor she asked the soldiers if they were angels. Not the afterlife, but the purgatory it turned out to be as she was confined to bed for weeks, her limbs and muscles and legaments forced to straighten via constricting mechanical devices. The months of treatment until she could walk again. The Bene Gesserit corps first and then the Sisters had become a new family of sorts, until they unceremoniously shipped her to Buzzell to her new adoptive parents.   

Feel your blood.

Visella listened to her pulse, knew she laid horizontally. Maybe still on her bed, maybe somewhere else where the inorganic beings able to manipulate an entire planet would conduct more tests.

Up, down. Left, right. Forward, backward.

She got her torso up, down. She paused to learn the difference. She walked off the bed feeling for obstacles. She turned around to walk back to the bed, then over, mapping cautiously the space pace by pace like a blind scout. She opened her eyes, but black was the color. But she had hands, her hands! She felt and caressed the surfaces, guessing their material. She licked a table. She could taste it! It tasted like eucalyptus. Like on Buzzell, cold, forsaken, windy  Buzzell, where at the Equatorian islands, the hottest spot on the planet, icebergs would still float in the sea in spring. Conifers covered the land instead of the tropical palms of other worlds. They collected pine tips, macerated them in sugar and boiled them with honey, reducing it to the viscous syrup parents gave to their children as a cold remedy. The pungent, eucalyptus-like taste did not discourage her as she willingly tasted spoonfuls of the thing, swirling the dense, glossy liquid in her mouth, swallowing it until it coated her throat in a chilled embrace. Then she dared run out, still undressed, out on the cold beach outside followed by her adoptive mother's angry cries. 

That was the same smell that years later pervaded the dark house the Bene Gesserit Proctor had taken her and two other students to for the blind walk, the hundred-pace indoor path where no light could enter. It was pitch dark and the thick carpet muffled her footsteps. The Proctor abandoned them there and told them to feel their way out. And lost they were for a good hour, disoriented but intrigued as they touched their way through rooms designed to deceive and entertain, recognizing the leg of an elephant, a crashed vehicle, a dining table with real food in the many dishes (they had not had a proper meal in a week); they sang to catch echoes and feel hallways, they called each other from the opposites sides of a room. When at last they made their way through the last corridor leading out, the first faint glimpse of daylight hit them with a touch of sadness, a farewell to all her other senses, as they had flourished in the darkness and brought such potent sensations to her body and ears; but by then they were leaving, departing, never to come back as the blinding light of the exit did not reveal the world but instead hid the essence the other, diminished senses had expressed. She stood at the exit, triumphant in spirit but longing in her heart, knowing the comeback to the average reality had stolen away an alternate dimension of existence. 

Something pricked Visella's arm.

She froze, slowed down, explored with her hands. 

Spikes? She was leaving the safe space, then. If she had been able to hear, at least, maybe she would have been able to discover nearby objects by listening to variation in the white noise of the room. She explored concentric circles around her starting point, naming directions as she went -- north, north west west, north west, west north west...   

"Master Reta!" she tried to vocalize, not sure whether her vocal chords were cooperating or not. "What do you expect me to do, feel obstacles with my mind?"

Thud . In response, her head had hit somewhere. Her hands felt protruding obstacles at shoulder's height in the southwest corner. What devilish traps had the androids set up to test her, this time? Getting killed here was not her goal. Master Reta's words echoed in her mind: "Goal? You open your eyes every morning, you close them at night to sleep. What goal?" 

She stopped mid-pace.

"When you finally give up, when there is more want, no more attachment," the master had said.

"Shut up you and your gibberish," she screamed in her mind, then stood up and calmly went back to the starting point. She sat on the bed, then posed in zazen, starting her meditation. After all, they had taught her the mind had to be empty. This show is over. She had no reason to strive to get out. If they want something from me, let them work at it. But meditation was impaired by her anger, right now, and so her mind wandered. Was there a secret message about light? You open your eyes every morning. As she had done every day during the implacable years of training. From Buzzell until her teenage years, then to Dan, the blue Dan and its hot summers by the sea. Proctor Salera, who had a soft side for new and scared recruits from frontier planets, had taken her under her wing during their endlessly boring voyage aboard the Sisterhood's transport, the Kwisatz Haderach; an inside joke for an old cargo hauler whose Holzmann engines could bring about 'the shortening of way' in space. Inside, the young twenty-something recruits were packed like sardines, sharing bed pods so small they were called 'the coffins'. One day as news spread that they had entered orbit around their destination planet, Proctor Salera, her and two other girls had stolen away and voiced their way to the observation bridge. At only a thousand miles from the surface, Dan towered like a gigantic beach ball taking over the majority of the view. It appeared to Visella that the ship would crash against it anytime soon, swallowed in its deep oceans or taken away by the high winds. The blues and greens glowed and enveloped her awareness as she fainted against the wall. The Proctor recalled she had murmured "the thing... the whole thing" while her body slid down on the floor.

Presently five minutes had passed. She waited in zazen . Then another ten, then an hour. 

Visella felt a tap on her left arm, and raised her chin. 

She used hand gestures to convey her anger. They were from millennia in the past, but satisfying to use nevertheless. She reached out to feel the people who touched her, and found air.

Another tap, a pressure. A needle?

Then a zap, and her mind was jolted into higher dimensions. Yellow light filled her conscience, a painful, cold light she could not hide from; a splintering headache, a total immersion, like a long time ago the little girl had emerged from the darkness of a wooden box, broken, into the day. Total light. There below stood a room in impossible space, the walls and outline of the furniture laid out in golden transparent lines. Visella looked down to see her own head, every hair clearly laid out in gold, and below her body, visible through her scalp, still in the zazen posture. She looked down at herself. If a drug caused this, she could not name it. Like the other time long ago, she felt blindingly naked, her other senses diminished.

 Another tap, another zap. Now she was in her own body, but her eyes closed could see the shapes in front of her in a raging white. She stood up to check, caressing a nearby wardrobe, her vision perfectly matching her touch. Sounds of incredible purity inserted themselves into her mind while her eardrums were quiet. She gasped, but made no sound still. 

Another zap, and a thousand-facet vision blossomed in her awareness, as the eye of the mind saw herself and her surroundings from every angle and direction, like in a house or mirrors. It was disorienting at first -- she felt for the floor, stumbling. Gradually, she stood up against the vertigo, against the fear of her body dropping through transparent floors and ceilings into a universe without gravity. 

And then suddenly, color came rushing back. Like in her first grandiose vision of Dan, the enormous ball of water whose vision had perturbed her balance, she gasped, emotionally lost in an irresistible tide of blues and yellow and reds that shook her to her core. 

Now Visella opened her eyes wide, her new eyesight overlapping what her real pupils could see; it was better, more color, more hues, a higher resolution in which every dot of light was exalted, glorious, sunlit. She felt Stendhal's syndrome from the sight of a mere bedroom. 

"Master Reta!" she finally called out. Her voice rang hoarse, but it was her real voice.   

"It's Avatasuyara . I am behind you", she heard a voice pulsing in her temples.

She faced the Sage firmly through her multi dimensional gaze. She felt his body, saw every single angle and facet. His pores were sweating in the heat of the day. 

"Is this telepathy?" Visella asked.

"When you are connected, every silent word has an echo. When you are connected, like us, you can see everything our cameras can see."

"What drug did you inject me with? How does it develop this new sense?"

"No drug, just a subcutaneous implant into your nervous system. You are online. Welcome to the world as we see it." 

"Why did you do this? Why do you never tell me?"

"Sensory deprivation is needed before the brain can adjust to receiving new inputs. By knowing the outcome you may develop blocks against it. My congratulations to you and to Master Reta. You have done well." 

The Sage had never moved his lips.  

"The new senses will merge with your native ones in time. Give it time. Turn them off -- I will show you where to press on your skin -- after each session. Start slow, no more than an hour a day." 

"Turn them off?" she gasped. Did he have any idea what she was experiencing?

Leerna stepped into her vision, hesitantly. "Pardon me for interrupting. Pardon me for interrupting. A routine update. Per your request, we sent agents to scour a number of remote systems near the Imperium."

Visella turned around to face Avatasuyara. 

"What time is it?"

"The sun sets in ten minutes". A flower vase in front of her seemed to explode like a firework, each petal singing her a story that she felt she would remember and cherish for the rest of her life. She stared, rapt.

"Are we still on the same continent I last went to sleep at?"

Yes.

"You will wait." Visella replied to Leerna. 

She took the Sage under her arm. "What are we waiting for? Let's go watch the sunset!"

Chapter Text

XLV. A Bene Gesserit Punishment

We exist only to serve.
-- BENE GESSERIT CODA

Aletheia. The smoke coming from the hookah was aletheia, the fragrance of truthfulness. For once, the Tleilaxu Master allowed himself to forget where he was, forget the damned no-ship, forget the depth of his loneliness, for he was the only left of the Masheiks. 

"I am the last of the Tleilaxu," he murmured softly to himself, a sad murmur that betrayed just a hint of pride. In the steam baths the subdued lighting and splashing of water soothed the mind, awakened senses long forgotten. Shadows of female bodies moved amidst hot and scented vapors, laughter like fountain rivulets was all he heard when he tried to chase them to grab a piece of soft skin, a finger, a cheek, a subtle nipple. 

In his dreams he had dreamt of the silvan nymphs, the dryads and the naiads of his Bandalong mansion; for once he forgot of the difference between his face dancer slaves, faithful forgers of everything beautiful, and the real thing, simpler but - to his surprise - as good as the copy. 

He had forgotten what it meant to be touched. 

The Bene Gesserit had obliged. Pliable, they could be, he had realized, if the value in the bargain was made plain to see. For they had threatened him, many times, about the spice business. He had obliged them, a bit. Then he tested for softness. "I am bored, and overworked," he had confessed to a withered Reverend Mother. "I have been stuck in the no-ship for two decades. Do you want me to serve you? At least give in to my demands. Some enjoyment!" And so they did, per his detailed instructions, organize a feast in the style of the long-lost sybaritic parties of Bandalong. The food, delicious, with a raw, powerful bite so far from the genetically-engineered cuisine of his past, yet surprisingly delectable: durian-like sherbets mixed with the most surprising spices, meats of unknown origin, yet some superior even to Tleilaxu slig ; sweet honey cakes whose flavor melted into a fiery after-taste, inducing euphoria. It was an orgy of the senses. Then musicians, then the steamed baths whose half-shadows revealed mysterious naked bodies dressed up like water and tree spirits ready to entertain him. 

His senses played sweet music in his own head. The fragrance in the air, some mild stimulant, quieted the mind while letting the body take over. Ancient desires surged in him, and he enjoyed the scent and the sweat of soft skin rubbing against his; he abandoned himself completely to pleasure until all his passions were placated. A piece of him still lusted for more, the very Reverend Mother who had tamed him, but he let that craving go. Colored lights created prismatic effects on the water drops that clung to the tiled walls. A thin naiad in fiery red hair brought a drink that tasted like oblivion. His body had never felt so alive. 

"My master, drink more," continued the naiad while dripping citrusy drops from her forefinger to his mouth. 

"I am your master," he asserted.

"And I am yours to command," she whispered, smiling.

All around, the echoes and soft laughter continued. Scytale could make out shapes in the mist. He stood up, but for an imperceptible moment a pang felt deep down in his body  threatened to imbalance him; still he found it simpler to sit down again, and in good company.

"You are," he whispered softly to the naiad, "All of you, here, are mine tonight."

"Order and be obeyed," she replied while a second sylvan beauty with wreaths in her hair arrived to massage his shoulders.

"Oh daughters of the wild! You are mine, and I will take you to my palace one day," he declared with lyric passion.

They laughed. "A palace, master? Do you own a palace?"

"Yes," he muttered like a drunk, "I had. White marbles with fountains and streams running through the rooms, servants attending guests, kitchens where ingredients from our finest tanks created the most delicious alchemies; and musicians and artists to accompany the days of rest."

"Artists? What artists? Maybe painters?" prompted the red haired one, unbelieving.

"Painters, yes, holo-painters, and mesmers to make your mind travel, and dancers, the finest dancers you have ever seen. But... and no offense, of course... nothing wild like you."

"Wild, master? How am I wild?"

"Wild... you look to me... untamed... agrestal..."'

"Agrestal? Mailah, is this old Galach?" laughed the red-haired beauty.

"You are beautiful, stunning, do not get me wrong, at least for your station," the master continued.

"My station?" asked Maliah the sylvan beauty.

"Yet you have to understand the perfect possibilities of a completely pliable body, my Face Dancers... to have at your disposal a woman, or a man, of any complexion, and eyes and lips and body shapes... all you want at your command... a tool of the imagination..."

Unfazed, the red-haired caressed his arm while whispering in his ear: "all your desires, one word away?"

"Yes! But oh those days are gone, are long gone. And yet even surrounded by mundane faces and bodies, it is incredible how much... softness, there is to find, how much capacity for pleasure... there is still."

"Yes, so much pleasure..." the other girl soothed him while taking his thighs in hers and massaging him. "So are we not enough, master?"

"I... yes," he continued, the drink now completely possessing him, "Extraordinary. I will cleanse myself later, to touch what is impure and to enjoy it requires... purification..."

"I am not impure..." replied Mailah, pouting in mild protest.

"But you are my dear... beautiful yet profane... how attractive the combination, I would have known," Scytale replied while moving to sit straight, his mind suddenly lit by his own thoughts. His drink-induced stupor had faded as his body chemistry brought him back to a lucid state. "I will take you to my palace, and one day... I will have you served by my Face Dancers, pamper you so that you can be always ready as my need arises... then one day I will cleanse you too, model your bodies into something perfect, something pure..."

"Tell me about that body, master..."

"Like a goddess, a motherly one, the perfect being, beautiful when still and yet generating movement, fertile and yet caste, unsurmountable pleasure and life springing out of your breasts and belly and unresisting and irresistible..."

A smile came upon the wreath-adorned dryad, "I don't understand... but I don't want to wait!"

A decision formed inside Scytale's mind. After all, this was all payment for his services to the Sisterhood. And his services required sacrifice. "Come with me and I will show you, Mailah."

"What goddess will you turn me into again, master?" continued uncertain the dryad girl. 

"The fruit of love. I will perfect you to become more beautiful than you could have ever imagined."

"Show me," she whispered, eyes expectant.

He got up and headed out while unstable on his feet, grabbing somebody else's robe to cover himself. The multitude that populated his reverie cheered him on. Cold air rushed in as he stepped out into the corridor. He loathed the soundless gray corridor and asked the musicians to play and take away the pain; the girls around him took him by the hand as he entered his lab, six bulky masses emitting gurgling sounds in the low light. Let the light be low , he thought.

"What is this, master?" asked the red-hair, slightly confused by the eerie place but with a trusting look in her eyes.

"This is the way to total bliss," he replied. "Climb the stairs and see it for yourself from the top." He took her hand, inviting her to step first. "Come up with me, let's watch from above." Up they went. 

"Master, I see fireflies dancing in the water of the pool below!" she murmured, surprised, just one step ahead of him.

"Look better, what else do you see my dear?"

"I see... fish? Colors... what is this marvel, master?" 

Master Scytale stopped faking an inebriation, while a surge of adrenaline crawled from the bottom of his spine up to his scalp as he swiftly shoved the warm body he had tricked into position with his two hands. Several things happened at once. From below there was a scream. The music stopped. In the dimly lit room, he failed to see the body falling. As he started to wonder when the splash would come, his body was forced down on his knees while the string of his robe was tied hard against his throat, stopping his breathing. The warm body he had craved to perfect stood in fact right behind him after having clung to the rail and jumped back with impossible dexterity on the platform, and was pulling on the string.

"Master..." she whispered cruelly, "it is time to talk."

Scytale gripped the string with his hands, his face a catatonic red, the strength he had felt seconds ago completely drained away. He was as weak as butter. The pangs returned.

"Have we given you what you bargained for? You can nod with your head."

It took Scytale all his willpower to nod, his throat now free to breath but aware of the string against it.

"Even this little party of yours we agreed to organize, right? Right."

The red-haired woman who was destined to fall into the tank, but was instead the source of his pain, turned him around to face him. "You have prepared something down below for me, have you? What would have happened if I had stepped into it? Would you have turned me into the latest addition to your axolotl tanks?"

"Ha..." he muffled.

"I will know now what you would have turned me into!"

"...tank," he continued.

"Indeed. Except, we don't need more tanks because the ones you created for us do not work. They produce a diluted spice syrup, it tastes and smells like it, but it is not the melange."

"Not..." he gasped for air but the air did not reach his lungs.

"As a Reverend Mother, I know spice when I see it!" She let go of the strip of fabric that was nearly strangling the master while Scytale's face slammed against the metal platform. A rasp told her that the master was still gasping for air, but alive.

"You will know my secrets when you will be ready to trade for them!" he reproached.

"Look at me, Master Scytale. I am no Sheeana. My Sister thinks sex starvation can make any man come to his senses. Foolish! Your punishment is coming, Scytale. Be warned." She dragged him down the stairs in a room that was suddenly empty. Scytale massaged his neck while hanging on the rail, looking at the darkness in stupor. 

"You can't command me. I am the last of the Masters, and we will negotiate. Do you prefer to die the untimely death of spice withdrawal? How will you all fare, when your spice is finished? It is the most painful way to die, believe an ancient Master!" he threatened while pointing a finger at her. 

But the beautiful creature of fire looked back at him with full blue eyes. The doors swung open, letting six people dressed in a fashion he could not recognize. "Indeed. I am Reverend Mother Garimi. Remember me. The one who a month ago ordered the withdrawal of the spice melange from your food." The master's face changed from anger to confusion, then fear.

"Scytale the fool! We have been lacing your food with spice for a long time. Slowly. Gradually. Inevitably. You are under the curse of the Reverend Mother. Experience spice withdrawal on your own skin."

"How... did I...."

"Search your own body. Do you feel that little aching? The temporary pangs? The loss of balance? In a week it will turn into despair, and within the month the convulsions will leave you senseless for hours in a row. You will pray to your god for deliverance. You had no clue. And what a pleasant surprise for us to learn that Tleilaxu's eyes don't turn blue."

The master looked up terrified, looked up to the stairs he was still on. Red-haired Garimi followed his gaze. "For what I care, you can drown yourself in your tank, Scytale. A glorious end to your god-chosen people. Or, you can come to work and make the melange we require, and hope to recreate your Bene in the shape that satisfies your cravings another day."

"You won't have it from me!" he screamed, but he knew it was an empty threat. Death from spice withdrawal was worse than being consumed by fire. How many weeks, or days, did he have? Was he truly ready to be a martyr?

"You think yourself a martyr?" Garimi continued. Scytale flinched. Mind readers! "There is no martyr where there isn't a people. A month, master. Sheeana can wait, but I won't. Our patience has run out. As a master of pleasure and pain, you understand the implications of my offer. Come down. Now !" She used Voice on him, and he was powerless to resist her, dragging himself at the bottom of the steps. 

"Who are these people?" he said, noticing for the first time the newcomers that encircled him.

"The Scattering is a constant source of surprise," Garimi answered. "We Bene Gesserit have coined a new saying, Find your cure in the Scattering. Who would have known that an entire profession would arise around the concept of causing maximum, non-lethal pain. These are the Masters of Pain. A venerable order in this part of the universe. Expensive, no less." 

"Your body is ours, even when your mind is not. Notice the tools, Scytale. The pliers are designed to electrify your nerve centers. This is the scorcher, this the skinner, the choker. I am told the Harkonnens pioneered the technique centuries ago. The nerve probe attunes your mind to the recording of a catatonic madman. 

"Reverend Mother, I beg you dismiss these Masters of Pain!" he prayed.

"But we already did. Little did we know, Scytale, the Masters do not administer the pain directly, they only provide safe tools for ferocious people to use. These you see are the relatives of the women you turned into your tanks," she whispered. "They have been selectively exposed to the truth. Their hate is really, really fresh."

"No!" a moan came out of him as the group approached with the hideous implements.

"Rest assured, you will survive. You will still go through your withdrawal until you see the error in your ways," observed Garimi, and she walked out as the torturers closed in.

Chapter Text

XLVI. Dependent Arising

“She who sees the Dependent Arising, sees the Dharma."

– ZENSUNNI SAYING 

Fifteen days after the terrifying initiation into the Black Swans, Tutor Gammala let Tairasu know of the problem: "You are not Bene Gesserit material."

"Who decided?" Tairasu snapped. She sat in the Tutor's tiny room, a bed with a desk and two basic chairs, the Tutor's own body occupying most of the space left. A body that sweated profusely. 

"Your mind does not respond to our nightly zensunni imprints. Your dreams don't react."

Dreams. In her dreams Tairasu always saw herself fall down, while silent white figures danced against the walls of a long dark tunnel. A piercing noise deafened her. She would wake up hyperventilating in the middle of the night; other times morning light would hit as her classmates tried to shake her out of her slumber. 

"Without the proper nudges, your subconscious blocks will stand in the way between the spice ordeal and your survival of it."

"What blocks!" she replied vehemently.

"And we know Matres training injects hypnotic walls in your minds early on. Weren't you subject to the probe?"

 If only Tutor Gammals knew she could recall every little detail of her training. She recalled straps that tied her to the table, while the T-probe turned every nerve and cell into living burning fire so that a fine-tuned predator could emerge. She recalled every trainer and punishment. The three days she spent in the freezing rain standing vigil and on the lookout for potential enemies, but more often for incursions by older students. Her first ritual kill among the unfit ones, the sisters-to-be that T-probe test drove insane, and whose life they were ordered to end.     

"No!" she feigned ignorance. 

"Precisely. The probe is used to create powerful inhibitions against self-awareness," then a pause.

"I am withdrawing your spice until further notice," was the Tutor's grave conclusion, "an assessment that is strengthened by your luckluster performance during training". 

The Tutor glanced aside to look at the time, while Tairasu considered slaying this ugly sister once and for all. "Don't bother attacking me; the verdict is recorded, and if something happened to me you will discover that killing or maiming a Bene Gesserit leads to capital punishment."  

There did not seem much that she could do but leave the room.

"Sutica, Gerta, how is your sleep?” Tairasu asked the next day while rushing to get dressed in the gray bodysuit for the morning combat practice. Like a line of gray ants they exited the building to warm up.

“I keep seeing Tutor Gammala in my sleep," commented Sutica. "'Ugly woman. She speaks to me but when I wake. I don't remember her words. Last night I was kneading bread dough.”

“Does that mean anything?” Tairasu asked. 

“She told me it means I am working on my own subconscious.”

“I don't receive any secret training in my sleep," Tairasu lamented, "now she is withdrawing what little spice I was being granted.”

"Our spice allotment is too small. Useless," intervened Gerta. 

"They give you just enough to wean off of the laiz," Sutica confirmed. "None of us is being prepared for the Great Trial, and that's a fact."

"How is that possible?"

"Trouble in the high echelons," Sutica pointed a finger up, "With Murbella out of the picture, the B.G. have slowed down training."

"How can Angelika allow this?"

"We are about to ask her."

"During combat practice?"

"After. We are summoned for lunch," Sutica winked. 

But it was not Angelika who showed up for lunch. When the hood of the black aba was pushed back, a different face emerged, one they did not know. Yet, the woman traced the Black Swans sign to reassure them she was a friend. She commanded them to grab food to go, then kept quiet until they reached the trees outside, in a deserted area in between campuses.

She spoke quickly, and directly to Sutica, without touching the food: "I am your designated point of contact. You will know me as Felicia. Officially I have been assigned to your campus as an auditor and our conversations will happen under the guise of quality-of-training feedback interviews. I will hide my messages to you inside your dormitory. We will meet to agree on where every fortnight. Angelika tells you to keep vigilant. To avoid suspicions, I will meet other students to normalize our meetings."

"Understood," Sutica was quick to answer, "How do we reach you?"

"You won't. We will take care of you. If you are in a life-or-death situation, however, you can hang a cloth to this tree. Now take this, and be gone." On the grass she laid three small packets, which the three girls pocketed before they could ask about their content. “Strictly once a day. Spice overdosing is not pleasant."

The three girls felt the packets with their hands, having enough smarts not to take them out to look. "The consideration of the Order brings you this privilege. Spice is essential to make progress in your training. Yet it stays a secret. Nobody can know.” Then she added: “You will find white contact lenses in your packets. You will need them." 

"What's the use if we are not trained for the ordeal?" was Gerta's question; but their austere Sister had already stood up to leave, leaving  her lunch box still  on the ground, untouched. 

"Open it, Tairasu," said Sutica, while checking for bystanders. Tairasu broke the seal and unwrapped the little package with nervous hands, spilling tiny blue capsules on the grass. In her hand were sealed contact lenses. 

"Come on, pick them up! Let's try them now," exclaimed an excited Sutica.

A blue pill made her way down Tairasu's throat. At first there was nothing. They got up and walked silently back toward the campus. As she crossed the entrance, a fire exploded in her stomach. She could only describe it later as a spicy cinnamon roll churning through her innards. Through the shock she visualized two burning spirals rising through her body and converging at the crown of her head. Then came the lightheadedness; she paused to lean against a wall. Exultation came for a long moment, followed by a potent craving that left her breathless. Her body was asking for more.

The three girls looked at one another, unknowingly making big, big smiles that were not so much a function of how they felt but of their own body's reaction. This heightened state of mind lasted for an entire hour, to their delight.   

From there, everything changed.  

Tairasu initially noticed a slight relaxation of her muscles during prana-bindu practice. Then, combat became effortless. The cognitive boost even helped with the tedious Missionaria course. At the same time her smell and taste became hyper-alert to the ever-changing notes of the melange. One morning the simoom wind brought sand and dust to cover the already dry pastures in Central. Euphoria took her over for the entire day. Only at sunset did she realize it was caused by the spice in the air, brought by the deep desert winds. The sandworms were coming closer. Craving the sensation of stability it provided, she started to dip more liberally into her spice stash. Tutor Gammala even smiled at her once as her performance in class improved. 

Her mind could race faster now. 

Two weeks later, the nightmares returned. 

Dreams of falling. She drowned under the wave of unstoppable, sky-high tsunamis. Translucent animals with manes floating in the air. Blurred men chased her across chasms and steep mountains.

After a week of bad dreams she woke up too sluggish to get out of bed. A black hole churned in the middle of her body. Dragging herself to the communal bathroom - she was the last one of her group to wake up once again - she reached the faucets, raised her chin, and dared look into the mirror.

What she saw snapped her into a fully awake state. Tairasu began rummaging in her pockets until she found the contact lenses.

Blue irises circled her deep brown eyes.

The chemical feeling of depression pulsed in her veins. She looked in her stash for a spice capsule, but failed to find any. She was out, but her body made it clear it wanted to be possessed by the drug once again, so desperately that it would blackmail its owner with all means possible, until she succumbed. She leaned on the sink fighting the sudden nausea. Her hands were shaking. She had swallowed the last pill three days before.

Slowly, she calmed herself down by reciting B.G. litanies that evoked the faintest sense of self-control. It was a long time before she noticed the smell of spice that permeated the bathroom. Her body started shaking again as it recognized the long-sought drug. Like a maniac, she started a frantic search. Her head was pounding, bothered by the daylight. She rushed to the toilets, almost slipping on the wet floor. There! She discovered a small spherical capsule attached to the back of one. Cracking it open, an uncontrolled "Yes!" came up through her lips and a miracle blue pill went straight into her mouth, cinnamon and cardamom flavors exploding. Her body relaxed, the headache was gone. She ran to the mirror. She washed away the blue mark left on her tongue. With two fingers she extracted a small ridulian crystal that was lodged inside the capsule, revealing the message contained within: “ Do ut des. Share with the others. Keep ready. ”

I am a spice addict now. She re-read the message . Do ut des … I give to you, so that you will give me back. A gift that contained a warning. This is my only source of spice. From now on, her future was inextricably linked to her Black Swan sisters. They had her, as much as she had them.

She ran out to join the training with a newfound energy. Gammala scolded her for her tardiness. The Tutor stood quiet for a moment, then remarked: "Your irises are fully white now. At least the spice we gave you was enough to wean you off of that damnable laiz ."

Chapter Text

XLVII. The Cloth and the Claw

NILU: "There is a fork in the road."
TORU: "Then, decide."
NILU: "But I am afraid."
TORU: "That is also a decision."

-- THE DELPHYNE PANTOMIMES

NILU: "There is a fork in the road."

TORU: "Then, decide."

NILU: "But I am afraid."

TORU: "That is also a decision."

-- THE DELPHYNE PANTOMIMES

" Enter, Reverend Mother," said the custodian as she opened the door. The small, middle-age woman hesitated at the doorstep of the dilapidated botanical station and bowed briefly, with a surprised look on her face: " Those you are not lost will be found. So it is true, you have come back." 

Sheeana gazed at the sand dune that threatened to engulf the station. It was not the terracotta-colored erg of Chapterhouse nor the amber dunes of Rakis; only timid umber dunes that encroached upon woods of madrona trees. She felt at home nevertheless.

From inside the building, many eyes looked curiously at the Reverend Mother and her party. The smell of curdled milk wafted out through the opening. Deep shadows ran under the Sister's eyes, their lips cracked and dry, their hair disheveled due to the long march; their clothing impregnated with dirt and sweat. Still, the squatters bowed deeply before their black abas. 

"By the holy Sheeana! We did not expect the Sayyadina's women to come back." There were children peeping at them behind grownups' legs. Then the custodian dropped to her knees, like lightning-struck. "It is the Holy Sheeana," she whispered, this time not an invocation to a heaven-abiding deity but the electrifying revelation of being in the sacred presence. 

Despite the loud wails and the indignation, Sheeana elected to spend their first night in an abandoned tent at the shepherd village that had grown nearby, lest they cause inconvenience to the extended family that had already colonized the building.

"A good likeness," said Walli the next morning as they aired their bodies out in the dry pasture just outside the tent. Futile was their attempt to get rid of the smell of the tent's cow leather which had stuck to hair and clothes. 

"The Sayyadina's doing, surely," Sheeana sneered. 

"It is a very nice portrait she hung in there."

"My image is affixed in every tent. Altars and votive niches with candles ambush me in every corner of the village." Her eyes raged with a burning spite.

"What do you expect? Rakis priests and our Sisters have spread it all over the Scattering." How many times must they go through this discussion? "Nobody asked you to don that mantle, Sheeana."

"Except that imaginable, dreadful accidents follow me when I do, and when I don't. I feel it in my gut."

Walli was lost in thought.

"What is it, Walli?"

"Stuck in the middle. You don't like to be worshiped; you don't avoid it either."

"Looking into our Mothers inside for advice?"

"You know it's pointless, Sheeana. Once a Reverend Mother, always a Reverend Mother. They only speak of Bene Gesserit responsibility".

"Sister," Walli continued after a pause, "may that I could share with you your burden."

"I share it already with Shaitan. Do not wish for what would destroy you." 

The custodian waved a hand from afar, approached them and bowed hurriedly. "The burning eyes of the goddess," she muttered to herself. Somehow the fear in her voice melted away Sheeana's fury.

"How long ago did the Sayyadina bid you to guard the station?

"Over two decades ago, Holy Sheena."

"And we find you still here."

"The Sayyadina never mentioned that Reverend Mothers would have come back; nor that the holy Sheeana were to stop by this insignificant village. We are blessed."

"Why did they leave you here to keep a botanical station that no longer functions?"

"Alma -- that is my name -- follows the Sayyadina's lesson."

"Which ones?"

"She said once, beware half-baked commitments for they cause full-on cataclysms . Now, with your permission, the goats need looking after." The woman smiled timidly, bowed to the holy presence, and went about to her errands. A practical mind.

"Wait," Sheeana interrupted her. The woman froze on her tracks.

"Yes, Holy Sheeana?"

"Drop the 'holy'. You will only call me Reverend Mother."

"Yes, Hol... Reverend Mother."

"Second, I wish to help you with your tasks today."

"But I..." replied the woman, more confused than afraid.

"It's alnadam ," she said using the ancient Missionaria word for penance. The holy person's submerging of her pride as a cleansing act of self-abasement. 

" Fierce like the hawk, humble as the mouse . So the prophecy said. As you wish, Reverend Mother."

Sheeana followed her meekly. Thank you Francis of Assis for showing me the way, Sheeana thought. And blissfully uneventful was Sheeana's day, a reassuring emptiness lived through the peasants' busy life. She helped the custodian with milking goats and cows, moving manure, feeding chickens and seeding garden vegetables. She crushed sesame seeds into a paste while the woman boiled a stew in a large cauldron to feed her extended family. She weaved dry reeds into primitive baskets to be dried in the afternoon air. She smiled at how the inside of the station had been transformed into a home for fifteen with where cats roamed freely. She helped the mothers take care of their young. The afternoon slipped away and before she knew it, it was almost sunset. She thanked Alma and made to leave. 

"My lady, can you please hold these before you go," replied the custodian while putting in her hands a dozen or so cloth handkerchiefs. Sheeana touched briefly the coarse fabric, looking at the geometric patterns that were already old when the European Renaissance was new. 

"What are they for?" but Alma had already snatched them back with some excuse.

Sheeana walked out to see the desert sunset, fearing it was too late. She followed the trail leading through the sagebrush and down into the wide sand basin as the last light of the day went out. Realization came. Cloth the holy Sheeana herself had touched, sold to the faithful as a prized relic. Stars like sparks watched from above, the immense universe that her Sisters wanted her to command. Somewhere above was their Ixian no-ship, their trojan horse to the Scattering. The moisture in the air told her this desert was not the roving furnace that had been Rakis. Soil crust showed bacteria activity. A howl went up not too far. A living desert, but not a dry one. If only she could build a windtrap big enough for a planet. She needed a desert like a rag wrung completely dry. The evening was mild, and she was running hot. Far from strangers' eyes, under a dome of cobalt blue she took off her black aba, the saffron undervest, she kicked off the sandals to the side. Stripped of all vestiges of civilization, she let the wind purify her body, opening her arms wide to touch the spirit of the desert with eyes closed. With feet burrowed in the cold sand she turned her body to listening, in complete abandonment. She drank from her water flask, let it land hard on the sand and tip over, spilling the gurgling liquid. 

See Reverend Mothers, how much you have truly domesticated me.

The star-studded sky watched her silently for a long time. 

She awoke from her trance with a sense of urgency. Something smelled wrong. A salty scent, like putrified meat? And what was that sound? Not the noise of wind-scattered sand, not the flapping of the crow taking off from a branch nearby. Not the sleepy crickets. A prickly sensation crawling on her skin, Sheeana decided it was too cold for running around like a wild animal. The full moon had risen, inundating the basin of silvery light. She turned around, still naked, to fetch her clothing, suddenly aware of two yellow circles tracking her movements. 

The black silhouette of a four-legged creature stood on a rock not ten yards away, facing the bush, the animal's tail lifted back and cat-like ears arching back. 

Well, speaking of wild animals. 

Following her ancestral memories, Sheeana made herself more conspicuous, extending her arms. She tried to shout the animal away. 

The black silhouette did not flinch, and did not move. 

Sheeana had left her knife, a blade not dissimilar from the crysknives of old, near her sandals a few feet away. The blade was to that animal a small claw in the fight that was about to ensue. Her heart raced. Siona had been a great runner, but Siona's blood notwithstanding she could not outrun a big cat on open sand. Nor win in the struggle. Scream until somebody hears you, and fetch your sandals and knife. 

"Go away, cat!"

In response, the creature strolled down from the rock it was perched on, to only a few steps away, half startled and half curious. 

Sheeana's mind scrambled for purchase in the slippery sea of Other Memory, sifting, looking for clues. A voice ordered from above: "Dreko, hold!"

The animal froze at the command. "Dreko, here," added the voice, unhurried.

Another shadow cleaved itself from the blackness of the starry night, revealing a caped man with a hat, a hand on the brim, moving fluidly among the dunes Sheeana's bare feet were in. Something in his gait hinted at the extra weight he was carrying at belt's height, to his right. Possibly a weapon. Sheeana, still without clothing but now facing sideways, her feet touching the ground, searching for the blade. The beast, as large as a panther of the old days, trotted back up toward its owner.

"Wildcats don't have masters," she said aloud, hoping to distract the stranger long enough to retrieve her blade.

"This one does," was the man's quiet answer, still thirty paces away. He paused to pet the cat, one hand open in front of its muzzle.

"Run out of food and it may eat you one day," she prophesied.

"Hard to rule it out." Maybe we have a talker here. A clue.

"A tamer must adopt the predator's mind," she poked. 

"Death goes one way to the other," he replied. Something in his voice reassured her this man and death were good companions. 

By now Sheeana had set her foot firmly on the knife, its handle between toe and finger.

"Don't move now, or you are dead," warned the cat's owner.

She froze and relaxed, all senses ready. The man had not talked enough for her to extract a pattern, but the full power of her Voice would reach him in a moment nevertheless. How the cat would react, she could not anticipate.

"I am the only one holding back my feline friend. He is hungry and trained on you. Best not to try the unexpected."

Damn.

"May I talk?" she inquired.

"Softly," the man nodded .  

A talker indeed. By now the girls will have noticed my absence. Given all the terrible things people have done for me, why isn't a band of fanatics showing up to help me right now?

"Who are you, cat-owner?" she asked with a soothing voice.

"Cat-friend. Cats like this have no owners. I am a seeker. Right now I am seeking wanted people."

"In this desert?"

"If that's where they hide."

Sheeana wished the man had stepped out of the circle of trees that kept him in the shadow of the moonlight, so as to reveal the weapon aimed at her. Maula pistols could be evaded at that distance, but lasguns not so much.

Get closer to him.

"You are whispering, cat-friend," she murmured.

"Loud sounds can drive this creature mad."

Sheeana reminded herself there was still a small margin for maneuvering. A village was nearby and she was a Reverend Mother, formidable and Voice-trained and with the talents of her naked body.

"Then let me come to you," she offered.

"Five steps only, move slowly, speak softly." So he is a talker indeed . As the full moon came in and out from behind the clouds, Sheean a stepped right in the silvery light, letting the light shine on her brown and soft body. A body countless lovers had caressed and received joy from. All the women inside her memory agreed on the path out of there. Seduction .

"Whoever you are looking for, bounty hunter," she continued, adding just a hint of awe to her voice, "I am not worthy of your attention." She delivered this in a soft, seductive singsong, hinting at exactly the opposite. Then she turned sideways slowly and deliberately, feigning modesty and yet bringing a hand up her breasts to outline the shape of her body while keeping her lips moist, her eyes staring directly (she thought) at the dark figure a few paces away. "Please let me go," she added while her face implored the opposite, "I am alone and defenseless. I have nothing to give you." 

She was certain to have the man's full attention now. I am speaking the body language built in our species since the dawn of time, and there is only one way this can go. Where is Walli?

There he approaches. She let her heart race, her face flushed, and readied her muscles to jump. The man made to close the gap between them, but, damn!, stopped short of a few paces just outside of her reach, his face hat-covered, his voice deep and factual. 

"Every corner of Delphyne displays a hologram of you."

"I beg for your mercy!"

"Others are coming for you. You made giant ripples. Left your guard wide open."

"Wide open," she admitted. Just the hint of a moan, thought the Reverend Mother. Trigger him.

"Your little escapade has gone on too long,"

"Yes."

"Then, Sheeana, are you coming back?" The inflections suddenly took on a familiar tone. 

She froze, confused. 

"... Duncan?" The air of seduction around her evaporated in the desert air.

"We need you back, Sheeana." The man took his hat off and stepped out into the light, revealing the millennial face of the Atreides warrior, dressed like a wary traveler.  

"Duncan, here?" There she stood, naked and cold in the open desert, suddenly feeling ashamed.

"You are a wanted person on this planet because of the riots in Lat."

"Miles' doing?"

"Our new business partners'. Miles did not have the time to find you, so he sent me. You are wanted. Alive, but still wanted..." he showed a holo-flyer with her face on it. "Ten thousand solaris for any information leading to the capture of the Dancer. 

"Am I wanted for sedition?"

"It seems that people who see you dance can't take their eyes off you."

"It was an accident."

"I have followed all your recent accidents. I traced your path through every town and village -- a riot in Lat, an animal sacrifice in Bejul, a peasant revolt prominently featuring body parts in Heressa, and that brings us... to an abandoned ecological station where you have set up camp with a commune of Missionaria instructed disciples which in time will chant your name and who knows what else, maybe practice self-harm. Don't you see how you push people into madness? How long before somebody immolates himself in your name? Or sacrifice their newborns to you?"

The words lashed at her like whips. She sat on the ground, shedding real tears for the first time in years. "I cannot help it! I have no control on the effect I have on people around me."

"Your self-hatred projects out in the world."

"What do I do!" 

"Come back with me."

"And never get out of the ship again for fear of hurting people with my subconscious?"

"You can try to love yourself again."

"That's your Mentat's projection? You can do better!"

"I could never see you, Sheeana, barely through the lenses of a Mentat."

And then the struggle, the ever-lasting struggle overpowered her and a force inside her gripped her tightly, surging up like with momentum, only to break into uncontrollable sobs. She cried and cried and cried, pent up sobs exploding with unconsolable fury, a wild, uncontrollable, at times inhuman cry that left her body trembling. The wildcat snarled and ran away frightened, watching them from afar as Sheeana found herself in Duncan's arms, and cried like a rainstorm, like a raging howl, and then, slowly, slowly, it all melted away. She lifted her gaze only to notice the aba he had wrapped around her. A warm wind arose almost on cue.

"See, the desert itself wants to dry your tears," he said, looking into her eyes gently. It dawned on her he had never looked at her in that kind, knowing way.

And for the first time that day, she smiled. 

"Duncan?" she asked then.

Other sensations were intruding, uninvited -- the ever present, physical force of their body's smells warming up the air around them like perfume. Until she had never known she could crave for a fragrance, and the skin that created it.

"Yes?" he replied hesitantly.

"Turn around." 

After she had dressed and fastened her blade at her hip, she continued: "I don't trust your cat."

"You shouldn't, not yet. Dreko!" he whistled.

With panther-like elegance, the wild creature trotted toward them, seeking Duncan's hand for a pat. "When eat, Handler?" it said.

The obvious dawned on Sheeana: "A Futar." 

"It can get very lonely, up in the no-ship."

"Do they respond to your training?"

Duncan paused to take away from his belt bag a foul-smelling piece of meat. "With a full belly, they are less unpredictable."

"Dreko happy. Rest." The cat, an unmissable intelligent expression on his face, sat down.

"You could have given him food just a moment ago, and avoided risking my life!"

"He is not a good hunter on a full stomach. How do you think I could track you down out here, covering thirty miles a day? They are formidable trackers." 

Duncan, the panther tamer. For a moment Sheeana pictured him with the old Terra's circus costume, giggled lightly. "But do you trust them?" she asked.

"No! We don't have a two-way bond yet. But Futars need handling. Or so they say."

"When did you feel safe enough to risk taking him out of the cage?"

"I don't. But I had to reach you. And do not be rude with my friend. Dreko, meet Sheeana, the owner of the smell you were tracking. Sheeana, meet Dreko." The two exchanged glances. 

"How did you really find me, Duncan? Did you see this moment?" Sensing the reference to prescient seeing, Duncan shook his head. "And speaking of cages..." she continued, running her fingers up his sleeve and pitching his skin hard. 

"What was that for!"

"You truly are out of the no-ship? How come?"

"Maybe I needed fresh air."

"Stop mocking a full Reverend Mother!"

"I reserve the right," replied Duncan. "I have come to the conclusion that there is no hiding. Miles agrees. It's a story that needs telling, but later."

"You will tell me back at the village. Let's go." She stood up, ready to march through that world and onto another.

"No. We leave tonight, Sheeana."

"Right! Help me fetch my sandals."

In that moment the moonlight decided to play tricks with Duncan's vision. Instead of Sheeana, he saw Tiamat, the giant she-serpent and world-eatress. The image vanished as he blinked.

And so Sheeana walked softly down in the direction of the basin with Duncan's heavy gait trailing her, while the moon once again chose to hide behind the heavy clouds. They explored the dark sand feeling for her sandals. Duncan found the first, slipped it on her foot like Cinderella.

"Duncan!" She made a little cry of surprise.

"Did you find the other?"

"The sand is dry!"

"How odd, in a desert."

"You don't understand! I leaked water here a moment ago. On my sandals!"

"And?"

Hands pushing sand. Another muffled cry.

"Give me your hand."

"It is not the moment to play, Sheeana!"

"Give it to me!"

He extended a hand, waiting in the dark. Sheeana dropped something in his palm, something rough which felt like the sole of a shoe, but flexible like a membrane.

"Duncan," Sheeana whispered, her voice a whisper of revelation, "Have you ever felt sandtrout on your skin?" The little leech-like creature was fluttering like a slimy butterfly.

"How come..."

"The Sayyadina transplanted the sandtrouts decades ago. She thought they all perished!" was Sheeana's muffled cry. 

"Let's try it." Following the Fremen custom from centuries before, she beat the sandtrout, now untold light-years away from its birthplace, against a stone until it shaped itself in a long tube; and their thirsty mouths shared the sweet water syrup that in the Age of Sandworms had saved many a sandrider's life. 

While looking at Sheeana's smile, a demanding memory bid for attention, and Duncan murmured words long ago forgotten:  

"And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Her flashing eyes, her floating hair!

Weave a circle round her thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For she on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Chapter Text

XLVIII. Liquid Dreams

New Bene Gesserit, take this to heart: our traditional sneering at deep feelings, our obsession with rooting them out as they seek control of our minds. Can you truly live as disembodied brains, Sisters? Use, use our dark emotions -- rage, fear and sadness -- to fuel our transformation. Nourish the soul with joy, inspiration, desire, and love, yes love, this word that enslaves us the more we avoid it; can we treat them just as they are -- the currents in the unstoppable river of life?

- - DARWI ODRADE, THE BENE GESSERIT CODA

Murbella's saffron dress draped down in gentle ripples to the cobblestone in the interplay of light and shadow. Nothing felt more normal than sitting comfortably at the little cafe table next to a garden in bloom. A chirp made her turn to see a red robin on the lookout for small crumbs perched on a chair to her left. It smelled of spring. Only then she took notice of the other two dames sitting opposite her. The sun in her face confused their features. 

"Odrade?"

"Murbella," was the calm reply. A large cherry tree framed the guests' faces as in an Impressionist painting; as large as a house its looming branches were covered with pink blossoms. The flowers gently moved in the breeze.

"This can't be one of your memories, Dar," Murbella concluded.

"There is much more to Other Memory than mere remembrances," replied the second woman, picking up a glass filled with a purple liquid, and a paper streamer. The simple hand movement betrayed its owner. 

"Taraza." Not a question but a statement.

"Somebody must look after you from inside here," replied the former Mother Superior's reply. 

"About time. I almost died out there," Murbella ventured, "or am I already one of you?" 

"You are in Suspended Time, my dear. Be careful what you focus on, or else it will vanish my dear," said Odrade/Dar. 

The smell of freshly cut grass wafted in their direction. Murbella's gaze focused on Dar, looking in her twenties, the daring eyes. Taraza also looked like a younger version of her self, but the same stern look which could hold the whole universe at bay.

Dar smiled. “To enjoy today while planning for tomorrow, the essential challenge of life,” she said in the voice of the late Mother Superior. “The urge to survive elevates us, yet negates the little joys.” 

"Why did you call me here?" Murbella asked meekly.

"Why you called us here," interrupted Taraza, "in this Caladanian garden from the times of the Gurney Halleck's regency, to be precise. What questions do you have?"

"What would I ask you that I don't already know through Other Memory?" 

"Well, this is your chance," replied Taraza.

No training nor awareness that the two women were part of her could avoid the searching gaze of the two most formidable Reverend Mothers in history. Murbella squealed like a girl and lowered her eyes.

"What advice do you have, Mother Superiors?"

Odrade extended out a hand to grasp a glass on the table. "This takes me back," she began, "to a memory. Look," she tilted the glass slightly, just enough for Murbella to look inside the swirling purple liquid, which dissolving into mist revealed a small room with desk and chairs where a short figure wearing novice robes sat sulkily, her face undescribed. The Reverend Mother Odrade was eyeing her from the adjacent room while discussing the girl with Tamalane, who said: "This novice is unsuitable for the aba. Unrealistically high expectations of herself, self-denial and lack of awareness. She is doing the right things for the wrong reasons and would rather try to copy, no: satisfy, her masters as opposed to becoming the grown up she is meant to be". Murbella stood back in her chair as the scene evaporated away. Then, glancing up into Odrade's exacting eyes: "The novice was me, wasn't it?"

Odrade smiled faintly. "You are still trying to please us, Sister dear. Stop honoring our lifeless husks. Nobody, not even our dull, wizened ego-representations in your memory, can tell you where to place your bets." 

"Look at what Dar did", interjected Taraza, "Do you think I, Reverend Mother Superior Taraza, would have sent her to Rakis, had I divined she would merge the Sisterhoods?"

"So much responsibility, all at once," whispered Murbella.

"There is no school for Mother Superiors," replied Odrade, "no homework, and graduation is death." 

"You improvised."

"Once upon a time a monk met Buddha on a trail."

"It is not a story but a saying," replied Murbella. "Should you meet Buddha on the road, slay him," she whispered, feeling like Odrade poked an exposed nerve to cause a pang of metaphysical pain.

"For how can one ever become Buddha by deferring to others?" Taraza doubled down.

"We belong to the history books, Murbella. The wise master always kills her teachers." 

Murbella thought for some time. "Taraza, what were you thinking, when provoking the Honored Matres to destroy Rakis? Did you see how it got us from the pan and into the fire?"

"My victory against the Tyrant's chains came close to annihilating us completely," she admitted, "until Dar surprised us."

"Of all the plots you could come up with, you would not see a way for the Honored Matres to destroy the planet on the basis of somebody else's provocation? The Bene Tleilaxu alone were responsible for Duncan's sexual training, you could have let the blame fall on them, instead of initiating a conflict that killed millions of us!"

Taraza remained silent. 

"And you, Dar," Murbella added, turning towards Odrade, "Why did you even consider becoming a subject to the Bene Tleilaxu? Solely for the sake of the axolotl tanks? And your Manifesto, sowing chaos among the established religion of Dur we could so easily control with Sheeana! And why did you wait until a handful of planets were left before punishing the Matres?"

Odrade did not answer, but reached forward to gently caress her face. "Our limits are not yours," she said. It was at that moment that a gust of wind shook the large cherry tree, so that thousands of white and pink blossoms took to the air swirling around the garden and the three ladies. The wind howled as it made the two Mother Superior's dresses flap in the wind. The reality around her started to melt away.

"Don't leave me..." Murbella begged.

"Where would we go?" said the two Bene Gesserit, kindly smiling. "And don't forget to bring a Face Dancer with you." And she blinked against the force of the wind, and then everything was cherry blossoms flying in the breeze, swirling in the breeze, a hurricane of petals where each one was a memory. A child's smile. Whispers of a loved one. Dancing in complete abandonment. There was sorrow too. Grief, and hunger and pain, all expanding into a rainbow of emotions that her life alone could never have encompassed fully, yet they were all there: cruelty, anger, fear, curiosity, loss, ecstasy, longing, and love, love, love across all those many existences, a desire to love and to create happiness, a love for life. You were right, Dar.

The blossoms evaporated like perfume. 

She bade farewell to her internal world. And there was her body, her proprioception reawakened, she had legs, and fingers she could move… gurgling sounds around her, the body suspended and immersed in a fluid. Muffled sounds turned to a blaring noise as something mechanical grasped her head and pulled it up into the air. As her eyes adjusted to the blinding light, she saw rosy flesh walls, gray tubes seamlessly inserted into pulsing tissue, felt the sticky amniotic liquid swirling in bubbles around her. She touched her body, counted fingers to nine. As soon as her throat regained control, she commanded hoarsely: “Help me out of this tank, and find me Miles Teg.” 

It was time to go all in.

Chapter Text

 XLIX. The Unruly Sisters 

Under orange sun,
Black woods lift our heavy hearts,
Wind-swept love abides.

-- FROM THE DIARY OF A BENE GESSERIT OF THE DIASPORA, ADALMI HISTORICAL LANDMARK AND MUSEUM

"Do try the black salad. And that's some killer black leek," joked Initiate Sereti while staring at her plate. The bleak-looking vegetables laid in a dark green puddle in front of her, just like every Sister's who sat at the table next to her. A local flora adaptation -- they had told her -- to absorb the most energy from the cooler sun. So much for the appetizing green of terran vegetables. 

Sereti was going to have none of it. "You," she whispered into the serving Acolyte's ear, "chef Amerza promised me to set aside some provisions from Chapterhouse for me." 

"Chef Amerza keeps Chapterhouse food for extraordinary celebrations only," commented the young girl aloud, moving to serve a hot tempura dish in front of Proctor Meeneea. 

"You are a deplorable serving wench," muttered Sereti, "it's time to get Lornul to serve us instead. We need a hot man serving hot dishes."

"Steel yourself, Sereti," the Proctor admonished, overlooking the young Reverend Mother's undisciplined comment. "We will plant terran seeds as soon as we have elected a new home."

A new home, Sereti thought, but pray it won't be this planet. The one they were on at present was the thirtieth the Bene Gesserit's escape vessel #249 "Tazenda '' had stopped on its way through the Scattering; a tidally-locked orange rock orbiting a red dwarf. "Pumpkin," they had promptly nicknamed it, a mildly benign name scribbled below the list of planets they had already visited: Hair-raiser (a world plagued by electric storms), Cinderella (strato-volcanos), Carcass (the smell), Slush , Sauna , Swoosh (tornados), Somersault (low gravity), and many more...  

"Serving girl, what is this tempura made of?"

"Chef Amerza refused to describe it, Reverend Mother." The tempura stick snapped open with a pop, revealing some nondescript meat covered in a crispy leathery skin. 

"Is this a local reptile?"

"I bet it's the giant grasshoppers from Lawnmower, Sister." 

Lawnmower's grasshoppers were dry and bitter and tasteless; chef Amerza had laced the fried feast with spice to provide an extra incentive for her guests. Six months into their journey they had introduced severe melange rationing. Too much hostile territory to cover. Too much uncertainty on sandtrout scattering timelines. It had the convincing stink of a lie. Something had gone really wrong and the higher ups were covering it. Sereti could name too many hasty retreats from previous landings. Did they have to sell spice to afford vital repairs or bribes? Secret councils behind closed doors. Lack of discipline and a bored sense of fatalism had spread.

Sereti closed her eyes and chewed the stick. It was surprisingly spicy and savory, not at all bad compared to fried chitin bodies they had fed on lately. Silence spread around the table as the Sisters were busy crunching and munching.

"Listen up," started the Proctor. "Chef Amerza gave us a little sample of what awaits us at the colony. Select sisters will accompany me to the banquet the atarok have organized to honor the Bene Gesserit." 

"They call us witches, Proctor," a Sister corrected her.

"They'd better. We will welcome all the hospitality we can find," she replied. "As you know we are running lean." Only sullen stares from the ranks. We are ragged, spice-starved, and wary. "Until we find a suitable place to settle, that is. The damnable Matres infests too many of the sectors we have visited." They did not know, but theorized the Matres' many Orders ran amok in an uncoordinated fashion on this side of the universe.

"To travel through the Scattering and maintain a low profile, one must focus on the secondary destinations, the underground planets and the discarded ones," the Proctor explained once again with the sing-song voice of an often-repeated lesson. "Second choices. Less than comfortable destinations. Refuges for outcasts. The very people we want to prepare for the holy Sheeana. Steel yourselves, Sisters." 

One does not travel into the Scattering without adequate supplies, though , was Sereti's silent protest. Nor skimps training, discipline and the rules. One does not behave as a frightened animal, turning a well-disciplined group into a disorderly mob. 

"We will adjust to the local food, among many other necessities." The Proctor continued. "Taking in shepherds and peasants' food offers means developing, as you all know, adaptive tastebuds."

"What's that?" Sereti asked. 

"Prepare to eat shit," another Sister translated.

Sereti walked out of the no-ship, greeted by the giant red dwarf sun whose light turned orange in the hazy sky. Big Clementine, as its nickname said, claimed an entire fifth of the sky to her left, and the sky never moved. Here it is always "almost sunset". That was the byproduct of living on a planet with permanent day and night sides. The ever-blowing breeze coming from the terminator line cooled her, an ever-on fan which balanced the highlands' warm and dry climate where they had seen reptiles, dry brushes, cacti, and giant umber-colored kangaroos.

One could know cardinal directions by the blowing of the winds. 

Kangaroos, that's the meat we had , she realized. Six foot high, with a very intelligent look in their disquieting red pupils. 

Walking briskly on the trail she herself had carved into the landscape by treading and retreading her boots on it every single day, twice a day, for a month, she tried to remember the wind schedule to check she was in between windstorms. "Low aerial tides", was the name the ataroks gave to the calm periods. 

Other Sisters had taken to follow her single file, fearful of venturing too far from the ship. The trail kept close to the hills to the east which shielded them from the gale-force winds that swept the open plains thinly covered in frost. Life has found its niche, she reflected while keeping her gaze on the path, in the pockets of calm in mountain valleys and near the north pole.

A grunt startled her. The atarok stood a few paces away, motionless, hands resting on his spear in the "I mean no harm" stance, fiery blue eyes circled by a burnt orange face that merged with the pumpkin-colored landscape. Adaptations. In humans as well as in nature. Is that how her children would evolve on this planet? Short and thick, orange-skinned?

The man's spear had several yellow snakes skewered. They moved slowly still. He threw one at Sereti's feet, making her jump back until she realized its muscles were still twitching in death; an offering of food for the Reverend Mother. A brief conversation with half words and gestures. The indigenous' slurred Galach dialect was barely intelligible; he pointed the tip of the spear toward the settlement not ten miles away. So it goes that the colony had decided that the Holy Witches were to be honored in full, and to do so they would dig deep into their food caches. All the Holy Witches and their entourage were to be invited at today's meal, six water-hours from now, during aerial low tide. Sereti thanked him and told him she would pass the message to the Proctor (the Holiest Witch); then introduced herself by name and asked him for his.  

"Atarok," was the expected reply she had heard from every other member of the tribe. Sun-eaters. These exiles shunned personal names. You could not persecute people without names. Without a sound, the man started walking back, orange skin dressed with orange clothes, until he vanished like a ghost against the apricot and umber landscape. Sereti leaned against the large black baobab, closed her eyes against the cold bark and remembered what the ocean looked like. She sighed.  

By the time the Bene Gesserit had left the ship, thick blacked clouds crowded the fleeting sky in their race toward the horizon. Their ground transport moved steadily toward the red-brick colony; the "aerial low tide" still meant the black windmills that scattered the landscape whirled at great speed. Proctor Meeneea signaled Lornul, one of the few Chapterhouse men among them and naturally the Sisters' driver outside the ship, to slow down so that they could observe the settlement. Yet many young girls' eyes remained fixed on the driver, who was Chapterhouse-bred and naturally a prime mating target within the confines of the no-ship. The windmills funneled water from deep wells to irrigate low-lying crops. Electric tractors laid idle. The village's red walls seemed to encapsulate not only the buildings but also a ring of tall willows whose black leaves created a large canopy above the colony. 

The tribe leaders, young men and women wearing black clothes closely resembling the Reverend Mothers', greeted them with a bow. Proctor Meeneea exchanged formalities. A short, soft-skinned master of ceremony offered a rose. "Thank you," said the Proctor, but as she extended a hand, the soft man's hands twitched, letting go of the rose, which fell to the ground. 

"The local custom is to bow, never to touch," Sereti reminded her, standing close by.

Proctor Meeneea picked the rose up and thanked them, considering their clothes. Imitation as a survival strategy, she thought. Then asked about the trees.

"They trap clothing and other objects when the wind blows strong," was the answer in the local dialect.

"And for heavier objects?" inquired Sereti.

"The walls suffice."

"And people?" she added anxiously. The colony lay on that turbulent strip of land between the frosty plains and the calmer valleys running north to south, so that it could harness the wind. It was a dangerous set up. So was life on Pumpkin.   

"When we first arrived, people got swept away by the wind, Sacred Witch. Or crushed against the walls. Now we tie kangaroo netting at every street's end," he affirmed with pride. "It catches kangaroos and people alike."

In a small procession they walked on, bewildered eyes following their black abas (there a naturally appropriate color), toward the center where the central windmill stood tall: a cylinder-shaped building with truck-long blades converging at the center. Lightning silently struck it every minute or two, no sound nor crackling to be heard. "Lightning catchers are built in concentric circles around the colony," continued the master of ceremony while catching up to the long-striding Sisters, "both to store electricity and to fend off electrical storms." 

Near the community hall a smaller tower showed a large clock, which he described as a water-powered mechanism. Lacking meaningful sun movements, time was measured in water-hours.

A few feet behind, Sereti elbowed the Proctor's serving acolyte, "Reeta, did you notice the maze layout?"

"Narrow alleys and odd angles against the wind," the acolyte replied casually. "But they still have the two main perpendicular streets converging here at the center."

"It's very useful," commented the guide assigned to them, a young man with a brisk walk who stayed deferentially an extra step away from them. "There are nets at the ends of the main streets. When kangaroo herds venture this far in and the wind blows right, we capture three months worth of meat. Speaking of which, the banquet awaits. This way please."

"With me, Lornul," Sereti said, sweeping an arm around the Sisters' man, "Not without me," replied Reeta, in a fighting mood to get a lover. The doors opened to three long lines of black wooden tables already prepared with many dishes. "Where are the elderly?" the driver asked, oblivious to two women's desire to steer the conversation to more exciting topics, "No kids, no old people..."

"Orange, orange everywhere. I crave the rest of the spectrum: the blues, the greens. Particularly the sea. Describe it to me. Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Lornul," the acolyte prompted him, offering an orange-filled, mud-made mug, "And then I will tell you of my other cravings." 

Hour after hour, after much ritual and speeches, tons of food and drink passed through their hands, all flavorful from the beginning to the end; Sereti started to open up to Pumpkin possibly becoming a home. "For our own survival, we must get that kangaroo's recipe," chef Amerza commented. For the first time, as the unusually wary and unruly Sisters gave in to the merriment. They were not revered here, and landscape colors aside, they were fed.

The ever bored Sereti affixed her eyes to the local guide she had been assigned, his exotic profile taking a new light as she chose not to neutralize the alcohol in the fermented beverage. "What's your name?" she tried to remember. After all, she had lost Lornul to her friend already. Three stools away, the master of ceremony was deeply engaged in a conversation with the Proctor. Something about agriculture.   

Her guide looked back at her with dark eyes: "Atarok, Sacred Mother," and Sereti considered the handsome face framed by wiry dark hair, and saw beauty in this unusual orange face, the hunting eyes, the tanned skin. His skin smelled of sandalwood.

"I know, dear," she said while turning her shoulders slightly, her face slightly flushed on cue. "So I will give you a name then, a name just for me: Attar." She told her body to make her lips fuller, her smile sweeter. "I had a lover named so a long time ago." She extended a hand to touch his. Swiftly, the young man swung his arm back in surprise, but Sereti's hand was faster. A whirl of images exploded in her head as the connection zapped her into higher awareness. She felt her feelings go out through the joined hands, like a psychic sponge was draining them away. Another strange adaptation perhaps? She fought for the urge to regain control as she felt her life force was being harvested from her, her memories exposed and wrestled away. The party noise faded as time froze to save her life. Then time rushed back as Sereti screamed at the top of her lungs: "Face Dancers!"

Several things happened at that moment. Sereti's guide and the other ataroks in the hall were swayed while their bodies spasmed and their faces reassembled into faithful copies of the Reverend Mothers they all had just touched; arms straightened or shortened, skins changed color, until the floor was all Reverend Mothers and their doppelgangers.

The Reverend Mothers who found themselves the target of a physical attack were no longer in the same place their body had been a moment before. They crouched and leapt and slashed and kicked until their copycats were on the floor bleeding or incapacitated. Spice-starved they were, but still alert. And yet some Sisters did not move quite as fast, did not dodge the equally fast, equally instantaneous attacks from the Face Dancers who had so thoroughly copied the Reverend Mothers' muscular fitness down to the cellular level. Muffled cries followed bodies dropping. Sereti stood over the bloody corpse of her Attar, two large steak knives in her hands. In the midst of the action, without any of the customary signs betraying regular Face Dancers, every Bene Gesserit stood there, each one alone, not sure which black-robed figure was friend or foe. 

Until Sereti screamed in chakobsa: "Voice!" And a dozen of her Sisters echoed around her.

"On the floor!" 

"Freeze!" 

"Kill yourself!" 

The attackers miraculously obeyed with split-second accuracy, cowering on the floor or falling on their knives. Seconds later, the Sisters stood proud over the bodies of their assailants as the fight was over. I was right! They can't access our powers immediately after the transformation.  

Sereti smiled, eyes searching for the other Sisters' gaze.

A change in the air pressure...

"Grab the walls!" 

Her body slammed against the table and then dropped to the floor where it moved on its own accord.

Wind.

The doors opposite to the entrance were open and the gale-force wind that until that moment had been confined outside the building, unheard thanks to the wide walls and the especially designed insulation, was coming in with tsunami-force dragged everyone to the other side and  into the main street, which was clear and funneling directly toward the colony gates. Bodies rolling, the Sisters were swept away like leaves, block after block, bouncing against the net at the end of it, where they laid against the ropes like trapped flies, blasted by the force of the wind. 

Their lungs fought to exhale.

Minutes later the wind abated and the orange men came looking for survivors, spears in hands. They gagged and tied the Holy Witches who still breathed; and the same they did to the Face Dancers who had not knocked against tables and walls and poles, while the dead ones were left undisturbed, their bodies having reverted back to pale skin and pug noses.

It took a few hours for one particular Face Dancer to wake up in the dust. The original master of ceremonies looked down to his doppelganger without sympathy and addressed him briskly: "We neutralized the witches. Pay. Then you will go."

The Face Dancer slowly stood up and looked around nervously. Only five of them remained, all tied up but him, and several other bodies in unnatural poses were crowded in a large net. "Some of us died."

"You asked us to capture the witches at all costs. I acted within the letter of our agreement. You will leave now."

"I will leave with the witches, and the bodies of my dead brothers."

"No."

"Pardon?" the Face Dancer said with a threatening voice.

"No. Planet law. Captives are sold. Dead ones are nourishment. My people reached deep into our food reserves to set up your trap."

"But..."

"There is a market for captive witches, and there is the law of this planet. Protein is scarce. The bodies stay. Pay our reward and leave."

Still bruised but alive, the Face Dancer looked long into the eyes of the orange man while reaching deep in the awareness of the very same mind he had copied. For a moment he stood there, and smelled his own fear.

"Understood, atarok."

Chapter Text

L. Do Androids have Electric Hearts?

If I could only be heard once by my Sisters, then I would remind them: desire is the fuel to all achievement. 

-- DARWI ODRADE, THE BENE GESSERIT CODA

Visella dived often. She liked diving bare-skin, without the drysuit needed in the cold waters of Buzzell. Arbatar accompanied her sometimes, perfectly fluid movements chasing her scrambling strokes. The ocean's deep blue soothed her. The reef brimmed with pink, scarlet, canary yellow and ultramarine coral, alive with fish that each looked like a mosaic. The silent movements underwater, the resistance of the medium against her sharpened her sensitivity. The bubbles rose in endless strings of white beads. A giant tuna would grace her with the gift of a close encounter before disappearing in the depths. Dirt and algae floated unpredictably, slaves of the currents. 

I feel weightless, unstable like those particles.

Much had happened since her ship had landed on Agarath for repairs. She felt changed, but captive. Underwater she could perceive no limits, no boundaries. That was her escape, a world that put very clear constraints on her body – air, buoyancy, pressure – but otherwise let her into an infinite blue. 

When diving together, she always connected with Arbatar via the implant. To see through her eyes, they would swim with a hand on each other's shoulder so that they could look in the same direction. She tasted the explosion of hue and contrast and drank in the fleeting watercolor painting in front of her. A dizziness would overtake her, an overpowering elation. Euphoria. Goosebumps made her skin prickly. She swam among green algae forests and purple starfish. Once she fainted, only to open her eyes in the bright sunshine, on the shore, the sound of waves breaking, the android gently stroking her forehead and calling her name softly. Visella .... 

She rose on her feet, still dizzy, and the diving was over that day. They walked for hours on the beach and for once talked about the small things of life, one innocent soul to the other. Only later she made peace with the revelation that she had liked to hear her name called that way. As twilight approached, a chilly wind rose and they found refuge in a local restaurant. She had not tasted sea urchins in decades, and the local white berry wine was a delectable pairing. As the evening came to an end and it was time to say good bye, she realized the implant, and the connection, had stayed on for all that time. 

"So when I am connected through you, can you feel anything I feel?" she asked.

"In our world it'd be considered an invasion of privacy," was the android's polite answer.

"Ever the charming talker. Don't think I did not notice how you evaded my question." 

They were walking down the cobbled street dimly lit by a crescent moon. "Why don't you walk me home, on the off-chance I faint again on the street," she continued, taking her under her arm. "I may need a strong arm to lean on."

"So I learned from Leerna that androids can love," she added after a pause as they strolled away.

"You ask about love. Can't sentient beings have a heart?" the android replied.

"You told me before you had a heart only metaphorically."

In a very human way, the android paused to think. "You left our connection on. Do you want to know if we feel feelings?"

"I wouldn't dare intrude."

"It's an invitation, not an intrusion."

She closed her eyes, and timidly sent her mind out. It was the mental equivalent of extending a hand and softly reaching out. How is it to touch somebody's mind? Unlike Sharing, this was a gentle act. There were no memories to exchange, just feelings. Arbatar's mind was a warm, kind, alive thing glowing with joy and trepidation. Her heartbeat accelerated. She stayed her hand there, on that living thing she could not but compare to a warm, fuzzy puppy; she listened intently to music that ran through her head, full of wonder. After a while, she reluctantly retreated. 

"I liked it," she said, opening her eyes and staying quiet after that, not speaking about the other, deeper emotions she had sensed. Not far along the road she could see the profile of her house, placidly lit against the dark sky. 

"To love one of us is to feel a connection to your loved one at all times."

"Always connected, in an endless chatter? Seems dreadful." Visella replied sternly, but unconvinced. Their arms were still locked.

"What are you humans doing, walking the paths of life in such desperate isolation?" asked Arbatar. "Your minds and hearts seldom connected, and physical divides separating your own individual cells, then your bodies and souls, multiplied by entire planets and galaxies, trillions of creatures treading water in solitude, often speaking languages alien to one another? Doesn't the immensity of this loneliness make you gasp?"

Visella stumbled on a cobblestone, not understanding.

"We... Reverend Mothers commune in the act of sharing our living memories sometimes. It's... electric," her memories stirred up a long-lost sensation which rippled through her body.   "But are you saying..."

"That you are born alone, separated by your own organic limitations... yes, even the legendary Reverend Mothers. What is love if not a communion that leads to the total exaltation of the senses..."

"Senses? Now I discover if you are a hedonist..." her voice stumbled.

"Are you really sure you are getting me, Visella?" The android stopped and held her closer, faces almost touching. Visella's skin prickled. Her heart raced. Their foreheads touched. This time she was enveloped by warm light, her thoughts and emotions completely transparent to the other being, just like Arbatar's were. She was mentally naked, defenseless, a fiercer and deeper state than any physical nudity. She stood there vulnerable as a flower, knowing, feeling the other shared the same trepidation. Their breath in sync. She stood there and withheld her gaze in awe. It was not the Bene Gesserit Sharing, but something even deeper, closer. An earthquake shook her deepest emotions.

And just like that, the light was gone. Her eyes opened as she leaned on the android, and they were already at the gate, then to her doorsteps. The Reverend Mother, adept of the Missionaria Protectiva and Governor of the southern continent of Alkadi, shyly said goodbye, her mind obsessed with the arm-long distance between them that felt as large as a continental rift. Arbatar walked away, and behind her closed door Visella took deep breaths. 

Her rational mind started lashing at her. What had just happened? Why was she so confused? I need Leerna to enlighten me... What was that called on this planet? An unexpected date? Why was her heart racing? Her body escaping her Bene Gesserit self-control? With two paces she stepped into the living room where the lights were already on. 

"Leerna?" Visella stopped in her tracks, "Why are you here?"

Her aide stood alert, and after reading her face in a fleeting instant, she turned around before Visella could invoke any of her self-control. Leerna only took an instant to read me like an open book, she thought, cheeks flushing, feeling a bit ashamed but not without a touch of pride for how quickly her protege was making progress in her Bene Gesserit curriculum . "I know you just read me, you can turn around, I can take it." 

"There are developments on the Imperium front," Leerna replied, staring directly into her eyes, then blushing and looking down. "Avatasuyara wants to see you."

"I am ready."

"Yes. Well, the ground car is waiting by the back entrance. I had brought you some dinner just in case..." she hesitated, "... but I presume..." 

"I had dinner already,"

"Yes," her aide replied while turning toward the exit. 

"Leerna?" Visella called out.

"Yes, Reverend Mother."

"How is it, to love an android?"

Her aide stood silent for what seemed a long time, searching for words.

"The first time Tregon and I connected, I felt... like I didn't know I had been so incredibly lonely all my life. Before I had found him."

"And then?"

"I saw... a gold tree. And after we disconnected... I realized I could not stand the thought of living my life apart again."

"Noted. Thank you. Let's not make Avatasuyara wait, now."

Chapter Text

LI. The Hiatus

Always pay attention to what people do not say. What is not said, screams.

-- THE BENE GESSERIT CODA

"Bellonda, we have a situation here." That was Ashala's subtle way of chastening the Mentat, her long face glimmering with the green and gray reflections from the 3d model of Gammu that stood at the center of the conference table. "Our first encounter with the Enemy with many faces is in days and yet there isn't a formalized plan to approve." 

The magistra equitum Ashala, who wore with pride a title and post that Murbella had created on the verge of losing control of the Bene Gesserit traditionalists, and which earned her countless nicknames like dark knight, stood across the Mentat in the large Council room full of appointed Reverend Mothers and Honored Matres alike. Thankfully the round shape of the table and the giant planet projection in its middle prevented Ashala's oppressive presence to tower with a Reverend Mother Superior quality onto the others. There she stood, her impressive height reduced to that of a mere mortal against the swelling shape of the 3d mode. 

On the other side Bellonda stood to attention, her body weight swelling in the stress of managing the currents within the Sisterhood Council, with Murbella in absentia.

"Reverend Mother Superior Murbella kept those plans under wraps," Bellonda replied, her face colored by the green and gray reflections of the 3d model, "Surely they were not ready or made to be dissected by this Council," she sneered. Why hadn't Miles been allowed to join? "Call in the Bashar, he may be privy to the plan."

"We will consult the Bashar on matters of security only," Ashala reprimanded her, not bothering hiding her not-so-subtle opinion of a male's true place in the Sisterhood's status pyramid. "Our enemy proposes to meet atop the city of Barony. What is our response?" 

Angelika watched the exchange with curiosity while shrouded in the invisibility of the traditional black aba she had chosen to go after Ashala's own looks. Sister... Matre... Mother... with her foreign eyes she appraised the dynamics of the room looking for an entry point. As Matre turned Reverend Mother, turned Council member, she knew to be the odd new thing nobody would completely trust, let alone the old simulacra of the Sisterhood.

 "No. A carefully arranged meeting in the central room of an Ixian ship will provide better guarantees. There is precedent," continued Bellonda.

"What force should we assemble? Can't be an army nor can we arrive there without support vessels."

Those are the wrong questions , Angelika realized. What Ixian ship? Inspected how? What surveillance and security devices would they risk bringing aboard? What heartbeat would they broadcast to their support force to reassure them of the envoy's safety? What is our offer? What do we expect to learn? What do our analysts theorize of this enemy? Her gaze crossed briefly Bellonda's and her thoughts were confirmed. And why isn't Miles Teg here, he who has done this a thousand times over? Then it dawned on her. 

"We? Do you expect to be the ambassador, Ashala?" The planet silently rotated on its axis, showing the shape of battered continents on its sunlit side.

"Murbella won't recover in time," snapped back the Magistra. Not Reverend Mother Superior, Angelika noticed. Rumors said she tried to seduce that unhinged baliset player to show superiority. Good thing the man had laughed at her!

Matters flowed from topic to topic, until Angelika unleashed her conundrum. Why were so few Matres going through the ordeal? Technical challenges. Unpreparedness. Too many students for each teacher. The pupils are not ready. Ashala was the unapologetic voice of the Sisters who artificially slowed down the new Sisters' rise through the ranks. 

Speak, Sister of the Latter Day. Your reticence makes my plans simpler. She read it in the other Matres-turned-Mothers - now a minority as Ashala had bought some to make room in the Council to her traditionalists - and found comfort that the uninitiated Matres were still 20 to 1 to the withering old Sisters.

"I want your trainers to be more effective, Angelika," was Ashala's reprise, "you speak of our Tutors but your trainers have not made much progress teaching us your faster-than-the-eye speed. You are holding back!" 

"Your Sisters do not have the nerve build to achieve our reflexes..."

"Our synaptic bypasses are sufficiently developed, Sister!"

Challenge or acquiesce? The Angelika of before-the-trance would have killed the Magistra on sight. How she had changed, how her past lives -- wild lives of the Scattering the Bene Gesserit had no idea she carried -- had vanquished her arrogance, leaving intact her ambition. Let Ashala shame you in Council. "Then you will surely figure it out, Sister," she smiled.

"I have asked Telera here to help you figure it out for us," commanded the Magistra. 

The more the Matres hate you, the better. The Black Swans grow. Master Zoel is restless. 

In a surprise move Bellonda stood up from her seat. The spectacle of Sisters jockeying for power was not worth her time. And we have not tracked down Murbella's assailants! For what she knew, the perpetrators of Murbella's assassination attempt could be sitting in this Council room. "The Bene Gesserit cannot be taught to perform at the same level as the Matres, and that's a Mentat projection," she blurted out while making for the door.

"You are not dismissed, Bellonda!" said Ashala, almost on the verge of breaking etiquette with Voice. Out of character, Bellonda stopped and turned to Other Memory to select a fairly apt but appropriately obscure curse, and opened her mouth. Nothing had the chance to come out as the ground started to shake. The walls trembled. A deep pulsating sound inundated their senses, silencing them all. The window monitors which projected the landscape outside while guaranteeing the privacy and safety of a real wall, showed the black body of a small ship whose engines at full blast landed it slowly over the flattened orchard trees that had been Odrade's own. 

"A security breach!" spoke Angelika but her soprano voice was lost in the confusion. Bellonda sealed the doors while opening a passage that led them underground to a panic room, where they remained for a long ten thousand breaths, waiting around a single light and a communicator. Where was Teg? Where was Master Zoel?

A message finally arrived through the terminal Bellonda was interrogating. "There was an unauthorized ship landing. The crew is being apprehended."

"How could they make it through to our surface? Summon Miles Teg!" roared Ashala's voice.

"But he is onsite."

"What is he doing?"

"Meeting them, if I am any Mentat" replied Bellonda. 

"Meeting? We should interrogate and torture..." began Ashala.

"Don't you see?" whispered Bellonda in a way that made everybody in the room lean forward to listen, even the Magistra. "Whoever dropped a ship past our planetary defenses in plain daylight just slipped under our door a hell of a business card."

Chapter Text

LII. The Chorea Dancers

The master of ceremonies faced the two dancers with a cane. They were lost in the ecstasy of the trance and religiously followed the prescribed movements, the wide arms, the vertiginous swirling, the offbeat changes of direction. Swiftly the cane hit one of the two otherwise identical disciples, who fell on the ground with a squeal. Befuddled, a bystander asked the master: "Why him and not the other?" 

"One was dancing right, the other wasn't," was the answer.
-- THE ZENSUNNI WHIP

Hilom's bewildered look made the Cordian Ambassador smile. "Do you think there is a cure?" he prodded him. The Commissioner did not answer but continued to look at the dancers agitating within the confines of their glass cell. Jerking moves and bewildered eyes gave them away as practitioners of the deadly Rakian group dance. 

"For how long have they been dancing, Ambassador?"

"Since the riot. Weeks."

"How are they still dancing, Keli?"

"They are in a deep hypnotic state," replied the Cordian Ambassador, who felt Hilom's awe and concern started to affect him. "They respond to simple questions but otherwise seem completely absorbed in the dance. They feed on food offerings from the locals. The population considers them sacred. My agents had to be very persuasive with your local folks to be able to extract them to this place."

"I must call the Sayyadina. These people need help!" replied the Commissioner, distraught both by what he saw and by the thought that it was the Cordian agents who had found these people not far from the outskirts of the city of Lat. 

"We will leave them in your hands, Commissioner," replied the Ambassador, satisfied. 

The Lady Eilanna watched as the Commissioner left the room. "If there was a way to shake up the poor Hilom, that was it."

"If you have spies and soldiers, you better make use of them," replied the Ambassador.

Chapter Text

LIII. The Sieve

We can model the concept of prescience as the ability to see the superimposed states of the future. The normal human only sees the collapsed states, can maybe infer some of the stories that spring to the future from there. The spice-enabled oracle sees the sum of the stories, and the ability to observe the future states.

– THE IXIAN RENAISSANCE

A long time ago, a few planets ago, during her teenage years, Tairasu never had to suffer fools or be ordered around. It distinctively was not Matres' style, and what the daughter of a Great Matre like her could depend on was that she was destined to a proud future. Her days were lazy, fun, and spent in luxury. 

The day that would change her life forever she had chosen a revealing dress with a black dragon embossed over the cardinal red of a Matre-in-training despite her being a mere Supplicant at the time; and with her best friends -- other elite girls related to high-rank Sisters -- she planned to hit the city accompanied by a bonded soldier and a trusted driver. The air was cool, green were the trees outside of her mother's mansion, and as the ground car spilled them in the city's rich shopping quarter the passersby fanned out and lowered their gaze to make way for them like they were royalty. It was exhilaratingly fun. The city in her teenage eyes was the ultimate adventure, a place for shopping therapy, carousing and rambunctious law-breaking under the promise of impunity implied by her red dragon dress, combat powers, and reputation for retribution. Little did the locals know that the Great Matre had specifically forbidden these trouble-making raids and would have likely left them to their own devices had some trouble occurred.

And yet how painful to discover that her trouble-making appetites saved her life. Upon returning to her mother's mansion, there was a new guard at the gate. Which did not matter, until her bodyguard was fast shot dead while rolling down the window. Only after she automatically deployed her tremendous reflexes to aim the dead soldier's weapon to the enemy, watching its body slump into the unnatural pose of death, Tairasu realized she was in danger, and second, that her mother was dead. 

Commanding the driver to go back to town at the cost of his life, she collapsed on the back seat, shocked and silent, not able to grasp the reality of what was happening. Violence was in the Matres' blood, and her mother, fierce and homicidal in public yet fun and sweet in private, had surely been overcome by a competitor. As far as careers in the Order were concerned, adapt or die was the only accepted rule. 

Where would she go? She wandered in the city trusting nobody knew yet of the event, getting lost in dangerous or questionable neighborhoods until late at night, where she had crashed a local hotel. The concierge did not try to stop her, intimidated by her wild look and Matres attire. What would she do? Her friends were unreachable – or as she feared, had written her off according to the unspoken rule of all Matres' daughters – befriend only the powerful. 

The new Great Matre that had replaced her mother was certainly her former assistant, or a rival that had found a way through her defenses. This looked like a grand attack, one that would secure her a new position and the mansion that came with it. Surely the new Great Matre was going to hunt her down. Or maybe, just maybe, she would have forgotten about her on account of her being untrained, unblooded and isolated. 

After hours of uncontrollable sobbing in her hotel room they had found her, and dragged her unresisting body out and shipped her to the farthest Matres School many solar systems over, never to come back, never to take revenge, her sorrow and pain to be transformed and reshaped in the training, her psyche to be subverted and sculpted in pain, aggression and fear by the T-probe and the laiz . By intercession, one of her former friends whose relative was the new Great Matre had pleaded for her life. 

And so, Chapterhouse. That morning as she failed to find the right mood for meditating (she once again had ingested too much spice and kept fidgeting), Tairasu contemplated how an unexpected act of kindness had saved her. To this date she had never said thank you -- not that in the vicious society of Honored Matres, giving thanks could be interpreted as anything but weakness. Her friend could have just killed her on the spot had she tried. What was her name again? Quodira. I need to know whether she is on Chapterhouse , she thought.

She stood up, but the air around her turned purple. Who was that girl sitting on the floor underneath her, clasps of hair inordinately falling on her shoulders?

Tutor Gammala had talked about of out body experiences. Common byproduct of early spice sensitization. She looked around containing her surprise for fear the experience would dissolve, but instead of the classroom, she realized by instinct, the impossibly swirling translucent waters that surrounded her were the currents of Time and Madness.  

There was a golden locket laid on a polastine table.

A pack of dogs walked humans on a leash.

A flurry of wind left a gaping wound.

The desert sun, shining over all the land and leaving no place to hide.

Specks of gold floating in the air.

Speckles of blue whirling like a sandstorm. 

The rhythmic thumping of the sand, vibrating quickly like the surface of a drum.  

Smell of ozone.

I must remember this.

“Tairasu, come back!” she heard as Gerta shook her awake from her wanderings. "Plenary session!" Catapulted from the vision world to the real one, Tairasu jumped up, still reeling, took up a spice pill discreetly while students and teachers were busy moving toward the exit, and slowly queued up with Gerta and Sutica at the end of the line. The onrush of the spice high did not, like she had hoped, bring her back to the vision. The school was gathering outside.

In the weeks that had passed since her initiation the secret night training with the Black Swans adepts had eclipsed her daily Bene Gesserit training. The sandy winds grew stronger, as her tolerance to her melange overdoses. Rumors about secret societies continued to flourish. The once green pastures by the School grounds were now permanent seas of yellow shrubs and stubble. They were introduced to water discipline. She had lost her taste for the locally available men. Barefoot in an abandoned fruit packing facility that had not been demolished yet, the Black Swans adepts learned the Voice – the Bene Gesserit's secret denied to all but Reverend Mothers – until their untrained voice became hoarse.

The plenary session meant it was decision day. She found her place in the yellow courtyard, while waiting for the Tutors to convene. Angelika was a long time showing up. But she was there today, once again stunning everyone with a turquoise dress that looked translucent but wasn't. She made eye contact with Gerta. In the subtle code they had learned in their time with the Swans, turquoise meant they should redouble their recruiting efforts.

The students stood, quietly, in the courtyard, prodding Tairasu to wonder how the Bene Gesserit had managed to tame such a wild bunch of killers to obediently line up and wait. It was the mystique, and the promise of power and status.

The whole process, she knew, was going to be sweet and brief. Back in the beginning they would admit scores of students, but lately it had come down to just a few.

A hundred students were standing in the courtyard, immobile. Don't blink. 

The Tutors walked through their tanks. Whoever they touched was marked for advancement to the Reverend Mother preparatory classes. The ultimate level where they held their Secrets tight. 

This one time, the Tutors touched only two. One was Sutica, and their trio had suddenly become two.

Chapter Text

LIV. [A Spice Hoard is...] Nothing Special

Teacher : You can't speak the truth. You can't speak the truth.
Disciple : How so?
Teacher : Speak the truth and watch your teachings fashion cages for the immature. Speak the truth and watch the wise parrot it back to you, none the wiser.
Disciple : What can you teach me?
Teacher : Teach? I only nudge the ready ones on the path of discovery.
Disciple : Is that how you teach?
Teacher : I only plant seeds that individual action will sprout. Experience is the only teacher. 

-- THE ZENSUNNI WANDERER

Reverend Mother Visella, Governor of Alkadi, and her aide and student Leerna stood with teacups in hand on the wooden bench opposite to the Sage. 

"I will focus your attention on the news about the Guild," he said monotonously.

"Avatasuyara, I see you have captured a Navigator," Visella pointed out after reviewing the documentation that was pumped in her mind via the implant that connected her instantly to their planet-scale systems. The information was there for all to see, but the value was in the discussion.

"I? We captured Navigator Solideum on Tupile, Sage Visella."

"I asked you to send probes to the boundaries of the Imperium, but did not think you would risk your splendid isolation for me."

"We embraced you because of your divergent thinking, Visella. We take calculated risks." The Sage shifted his weight on his wooden stool. Embers burned in the firepit before them. 

Visella considered this. Thanks to her, tens of thousands of spying probes now orbited key systems. The androids' technology managed to miniaturize cloaking devices to occupy a space no bigger than a room. These were undetectable no-probes collecting data from afar, then sending key results to no-transmitters and no-relays which packaged signals for instantaneous communication over immense foldspace distances. Throughout the centuries of the Old Imperium first, the Tyrant regime and the New Rakian Age then, intel was never separate from its physical carrier, either the brain of a shere -imbued messenger or encrypted on some medium, both subject the constraints of the physical world; reason why secrets and news were so often conveyed in person after perilous travel. But this civilization perfected data jumping through foldspace, fashioning an invisible and undetectable network. Echoes of stories amplified by endless repeaters spread news across the voids in ways that prescience, she assumed, could not see nor decipher.    

"You should think of handing Agarath's Foreign Affairs over to me in bulk," continued Visella. "Do you realize what you hold in your... our hands?"

"A pilot and an antique spaceship. What value are they to us?" Avatasuyara asked with mild curiosity, while staring at the wood that surrounded his place, not so much a house but a rundown hut surrounded by trees. Androids did not need much in terms of accommodation, after all. 

"You think you only ensnared a pilot? A Steersman is a scryer. This, Avatasuyara, is a formidable resource in the right hands. Will he cooperate?"

"Makes no matter. Since you are so familiar with prescience and the old Guild, we will put him under your supervision," he replied gravely. 

"You give him to me, and rest assured he won't cooperate."

"You have no trust in our help, Visella? Do I need to remind you how Arbatar had you in her tea cup so quickly? You, you opened up to many new gifts since she sat you down for a chat four seasons ago."

Visella blinked, submerging her more recent, confused feelings to find refuge in the mask of control she still commanded through her old Bene Gesserit training; a training, she had realized, the value of which decreased the more she learned to balance on new surfaces on Agarath. Once again she wondered at the full capabilities of these androids. She sipped the tea -- there was always tea! -- brewed in the small wooden hut that was the Sage's abode, made of a straw bed and a kitchen. The bonfire crackled timidly, not giving away much heat. The small figure of Avatasuyara, covered in a gray tunic and barefoot, like a monk of the old days, hid well whatever powers he could summon. 

"You did not only send probes. The reports speak of agents."

"We sent a few human-attuned androids on the CHOAM ships that come to trade hardwoods. We learned that the Guild and the Bene Tleilax are no more. Your Sisterhood won and is merging with a group called Honored Matres."

She paused, not wasting any tear over the demise of obsolete male-dominated institutions. After having reviewed all available reports, she commented: "I am relieved to hear about the Bene Gesserit. Farewell Odrade, you were a friend a long time ago. But I see no mention of a giant no-ship grounded on a planet called Chapterhouse?"

"We found the planet, but not the ship. And your Sisters are preparing for battle."

"Could we help?"

A head shake. "We never interfere, Sage Visella."

"But..."

"In the Lotus Sutra, the first Sage said we should light up our corner; not the whole universe. Just to make it blissful where we are is enough," Avatasuyara ruled. 

"Here is your learning opportunity, council of Six. We shall not see ourselves as humble planetary administrators. The destiny of all mankind should be in our purview."

Avatasuyara remained quiet. 

"I will see the Navigator then, Sage."

"Very well, Visella." The small man sighed and stood up, handing her a small bronze box. "Your spice stash. The one we retrieved from your ship. Forgive me for not returning it to you sooner."

"Is the Reverend Mother free to go?" Leerna asked with a gasp.

"No, silly, I am wired to a planetary comms system and am entrusted with the wellbeing of millions of sentient beings. I can't go anywhere. And wouldn't," she added quickly, "for this is the right place and time. But I do thank you, Sage. When it comes to managing my own spice rationing, I prefer my own counsel to even your doctors'." 

"Very well," he replied matter-of-factly, "although as it is obvious to point out, no rationing is needed any longer."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Visella, wondering what report or train of thought she had missed.

"It's Tupile we were speaking of, Sage Visella."

"And of the capture of the last living Navigator, if the Guild is truly no more."

"I am sorry I was not clear," the little man smiled. "Where do you think the Guild hid its spice stocks?"

There was a clang as Leerna's teacup hit the ground. The two women stood motionless, breathing heavily to catch up.

"How... much?"

"It's measured in metric tons. It looks like several centuries of stockpiling."

"We must..."

"It's being moved to multiple safe locations, yes."

"Is this conversation on broadcast?" asked Visella, mindful of the ever-present public monitoring of the Experiment. A crow cawed from a tree; in her mind it could be one of the many recording machines that belonged to their vast communication apparatus.

Avatasuyara shook his head. "Only to the Six. Classified."

"Classified? All this time you told me my life would be forever on display, Sage!"

"You are too literal. Since when do we let rules override common sense?"

"But..."

"Haven't you caught up, Sage Visella? Do you expect words to be the vehicle to transmit our teachings?" The tone nudged her to a higher level of awareness, elevated by the Bene Gesserit own admonishments: experience was the only teacher! She sensed double meanings in the lesson she was being served. 

"Look at your box," he continued, "Your spice. It was everything in your life. Losing it, what did it mean to you, up to now?"

"Death by torture." Visella visibly relaxed, feeling free.  

"And now with one hand you dip into a planet full of it. Take a fresh look at that box with your updated understanding. So?"

"Now," she declared, "it's nothing special." 

"And so are our acquisitions. If you like, you can use the spice to stretch your lifespan further," he waved a hand, "like it matters in the end. Listen up, Leerna disciple. When you tread the correct path, when you learn the correct way, what looks unattainable before, after the fact becomes nothing special."    

It was Visella's turn to stand up with the determination of a Reverend Mother on a mission. "Take me to this Steersman," she told the Sage; then, facing her disciple: "Leerna, prepare yourself for the worm trip ."

"Will it be nothing special in the end, Reverend Mother?" she asked.

"Yes, in the very, very end. It will become nothing special, the day you will exhale your last breath ," Visella replied as she walked away.

Chapter Text

LV. Chess in the Mirror

Self-awareness, mother of resilience.
-- THE BENE GESSERIT CODA

Captain Xero's ship had plummeted from a height of ten mountains, crash-landing at the center of a circle no wider than a house. Miles Teg looked at the olive-skinned man, said: "An act of bravery, captain."

"How reckless of me," the captain smiled, his azure eyes holding Miles' gaze. "I am sorry I burned the old trees. I hear they were your mother's. Well met, Bashar."

"Reckless? Or downright heroic? They were not my mother's orchard though," Teg corrected. "My daughter's."

The captain was already a tall man, but he towered like a giant over the kid-sized Bashar. Like a Goliath to a David , Teg thought. This daredevil had hit the equivalent of a needle-wide spot jumping from a skyscraper. Who was he? And where had this self-styled captain recruited a crew of eight who willingly risked their lives to perform such a grandiose gesture? And why here? Landing in Odrade's dead orchards couldn't be a coincidence.

A grand entrance to command immediate attention, of course . The guard at the door had gestured in the ancient Atreides shorthand: The captain specifically asked to talk to you . Predictably, the crew's bodies were saturated with shere , closing the door to an Ixian probe search.

"It's been a long time," the captain muttered. He spoke quickly without letting Teg reply:  "Pursuant to the trade order offered to Xero Traivani, captain of the Obsidian, by Bashar Miles Teg of the Bene Gesserit, the Obsidian is arrived to fulfill its obligations and hence bringing the following bill of lading: interferometers, ten thousand units; sample rifle weaponry, a hundred units, and — "

"Wait," squeaked the Bashar, the grown-up gravitas in strident contrast with his high-pitched child's voice. He almost replied: But we have never met, captain Xero . But didn't. Teg glanced anxiously at the comeyes on the ceiling, wishing he could do away with Archives watching.

"A sample capsule," the captain said confidently, holding out his hand to reveal a small, round object.

The captain's act was direct, sincere, greeting him warmly and naturally. Intuition alerted Teg to a bigger game at play. Impossibly, this man had met him before. 

He almost let other words escape his tongue: How come my guards did not find this capsule when they searched you? There was no immediate danger, his senses told him; so he took the capsule from the large hand and pressed it hard between index and thumb.

"You've activated it now, Sir."

"And its function is?"

"It's the interferometer, Sir, per the spec. To anyone watching, comeyes and listening devices will now record a casual conversation," said the captain, triumphantly. He advanced closer.

The Bashar took a step back. "Despite appearances, captain, I warn you an attempt to overpower me will only fail."

"I know. He told me you would say that."

"So you only want to talk in private?"

"That's correct."

"I don't believe we have ever met."

"My instructions are clear, Sir. Contact the Bashar Miles Teg or any ghola equivalent on Chapterhouse."

A ghola equivalent? Teg turned the tiny device over in his hand. "Oour guards will tell a simulation from the real thing."

"Respectfully no, Sir. The interferometer uses dialogue samples from the real Miles Teg. The audio is, in all respects, indistinguishable from the real thing."

"And the camera?"

"The capsule acquired our visuals and is projecting realistic replicas with the right camera angles. It is very thorough."

"Ingenious," the Bashar said.

"Ten thousand units as ordered," the captain replied. "A highly useful gadget from the Seeking."