Heretics of Dune (Page 24)

"We will wait upon Taraza's pleasure."

Arising, Odrade went through a swift toilet and donned her best black robe. She strode then to the east window of the penthouse common room and looked out in the direction of the spacefield. Many moving lights cast a glow on the dusty sky there. She activated all of the room's glowglobes to soften the exterior view. The globes became reflected golden starbursts on the thick armor-plaz of the windows. The dusky surface also reflected a dim outline of her own features, showing the fatigue lines clearly.

I knew she would come, Odrade thought.

Even as she thought this, the Rakian sun came over the dust-blurred horizon like a child's orange ball thrust into view. Immediately, there was the heat-bounce that so many observers of Rakis had mentioned. Odrade turned away from the view and saw the hall door open.

Taraza entered with a rustle of robes. A hand closed the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone. The Mother Superior advanced on Odrade, black hood up and the cowl framing her face. It was not a reassuring sight.

Recognizing the disturbance in Odrade, Taraza played on it. "Well, Dar, I think we finally meet as strangers."

The effect of Taraza's words startled Odrade. She correctly interpreted the threat but fear left her, spilling out as though it were water poured from a jug. For the first time in her life, Odrade recognized the precise moment of crossing a dividing line. This was a line whose existence she thought few of her Sisters suspected. As she crossed it, she realized that she had always known it was there: a place where she could enter the void and float free. She no longer was vulnerable. She could be killed but she could not be defeated.

"So it's not Dar and Tar anymore," Odrade said.

Taraza heard the clear, uninhibited tone of Odrade's voice and interpreted this as confidence. "Perhaps it never was Dar and Tar," she said, her voice icy. "I see that you think you have been extremely clever."

The battle has been joined, Odrade thought. But I do not stand in the path of her attack.

Odrade said: "The alternatives to alliance with the Tleilaxu could not be accepted. Especially when I recognized what it was you truly sought for us."

Taraza felt suddenly weary. It had been a long trip despite the space-folding leaps of her no-ship. The flesh always knew when it had been twisted out of its familiar rhythms. She chose a soft divan and sat down, sighing in the luxurious comfort.

Odrade recognized the Mother Superior's fatigue and felt immediate sympathy. They were suddenly two Reverend Mothers with common problems.

Taraza obviously sensed this. She patted the cushion beside her and waited for Odrade to be seated.

"We must preserve the Sisterhood," Taraza said. "That is the only important thing."

"Of course."

Taraza fixed her gaze searchingly on Odrade's familiar features. Yes, Odrade, too, is weary. "You have been here, intimately touching the people and the problem," Taraza said. "I want... no, Dar, I need your views."

"The Tleilaxu give the appearance of full cooperation," Odrade said, "but there is dissembling in this. I have begun to ask myself some extremely disturbing questions."

"Such as?"

"What if the axlotl tanks are not... tanks?"

"What do you mean?"

"Waff reveals the kinds of behavior you see when a family tries to conceal a deformed child or a mad uncle. I swear to you, he is embarrassed when we begin to touch on the tanks."

"But what could they possibly...

"Surrogate mothers."

"But they would have to be..." Taraza fell silent, shocked by the possibilities this question opened.

"Who has ever seen a Tleilaxu female?" Odrade asked.

Taraza's mind was filled with objections: "But the precise chemical control, the need to limit variables..." She threw her hood back and shook her hair free. "You are correct: we must question everything. This, though... this is monstrous."

"He is still not telling the full truth about our ghola."

"What does he say?"

"No more than what I have already reported: a variation on the original Duncan Idaho and meeting all of the prana-bindu requirements we specified."

"That does not explain why they killed or tried to kill our previous purchases."

"He swears the holy oath of the Great Belief that they acted out of shame because the eleven previous gholas did not live up to expectations."

"How could they know? Does he suggest they have spies among..."

"He swears not. I taxed him with this and he said that a successful ghola would be sure to create a visible disturbance among us."

"What visible disturbance? What is he..."

"He will not say. He returns each time to the claim that they have met their contractual obligations. Where is the ghola, Tar?"

"What... oh. On Gammu."

"I hear rumors of..."

"Burzmali has the situation well in hand." Taraza closed her mouth tightly, hoping that was the truth. The most recent report did not fill her with confidence.

"You obviously are debating whether to have the ghola killed," Odrade said.

"Not just the ghola!"

Odrade smiled. "Then it's true that Bellonda wants me permanently eliminated."

"How did you..."

"Friendships can be a very valuable asset at times, Tar."

"You tread on dangerous ground, Reverend Mother Odrade."

"But I am not stumbling, Mother Superior Taraza. I am thinking long hard thoughts about the things Waff has revealed about those Honored Matres."

"Tell me some of your thoughts." There was implacable determination in Taraza's voice.

"Let us make no mistakes about this," Odrade said. "They have surpassed the sexual skills of our Imprinters."

"Whores!"

"Yes, they employ their skills in a way ultimately fatal to themselves and others. They have been blinded by their own power."

"Is that the extent of your long hard thoughts?"

"Tell me, Tar, why did they attack and obliterate our Keep on Gammu?"

"Obviously they were after our Idaho ghola, to capture him or kill him."

"Why would that be so important to them?"

"What are you trying to say?" Taraza demanded.

"Could the whores have been acting upon information revealed to them by the Tleilaxu? Tar, what if this secret thing Waff's people have introduced into our ghola is something that would make the ghola a male equivalent of the Honored Matres?"

Taraza put a hand to her mouth and dropped it quickly when she saw how much the gesture revealed. It was too late. No matter. They were still two Reverend Mothers together.

Odrade said: "And we have ordered Lucilla to make him irresistible to most women."

"How long have the Tleilaxu been dealing with those whores?" Taraza demanded.

Odrade shrugged. "A better question is this: How long have they been dealing with their own Lost Ones returned from the Scattering? Tleilaxu speak to Tleilaxu and many secrets could be revealed."

"A brilliant projection on your part," Taraza said. "What probability value do you attach to it?"

"You know that as well as I do. It would explain many things."

Taraza spoke bitterly. "What do you think of your alliance with the Tleilaxu now?"

"More necessary than ever. We must be on the inside. We must be where we can influence those who contend."

"Abomination!" Taraza snapped.

"What?"

"This ghola is like a recording device in human shape. They have planted him in our midst. If the Tleilaxu get their hands on him they will know many things about us."

"That would be clumsy."

"And typical of them!"

"I agree that there are other implications in our situation," Odrade said. "But such arguments only tell me that we dare not kill the ghola until we have examined him ourselves."

"That might be too late! Damn your alliance, Dar! You gave them a hold on us... and us a hold on them - and neither of us dares let go."

"Is that not the perfect alliance?"

Taraza sighed. "How soon must we give them access to our breeding records?"

"Soon. Waff is pressing the matter."

"Then, will we see their axlotl... tanks?"

"That is, of course, the lever I am using. He has given his reluctant agreement."

"Deeper and deeper into each other's pockets," Taraza growled.

Her tone all innocence, Odrade said: "A perfect alliance, just as I said."

"Damn, damn, damn," Taraza muttered. "And Teg has reawakened the ghola's original memories!"

"But has Lucilla..."

"I don't know!" Taraza turned a grim expression on Odrade and recounted the most recent reports from Gammu: Teg and his party located, the briefest of accounts about them and nothing from Lucilla; plans made to bring them out.

Her own words produced an unsettling picture in Taraza's mind. What was this ghola? They had always known the Duncan Idahos were not ordinary gholas. But now, with augmented nerve and muscle capabilities plus this unknown thing the Tleilaxu had introduced - it was like holding a burning club. You knew you might have to use the club for your own survival but the flames approached at a terrifying speed.

Odrade spoke in a musing tone: "Have you ever tried to imagine what it must be like for a ghola suddenly to awaken in renewed flesh?"

"What? What are you..."

"Realizing that your flesh was grown from the cells of a cadaver," Odrade said. "He remembers his own death."

"The Idahos were never ordinary people," Taraza said.

"The same may be said for these Tleilaxu Masters."

"What are you trying to say?"

Odrade rubbed her own forehead, taking a moment to review her thoughts. This was so difficult with someone who rejected affection, with someone who thrust outward from a core of rage. Taraza had no... no simpatico. She could not assume the flesh and senses of another except as an exercise in logic.

"A ghola's awakening must be a shattering experience," Odrade said, lowering her hand. "Only the ones with enormous mental resilience would survive."

"We assume that the Tleilaxu Masters are more than they appear to be."

"And the Duncan Idahos?"

"Of course. Why else would the Tyrant keep buying them from the Tleilaxu?"

Odrade saw that the argument was pointless. She said: "The Idahos were notoriously loyal to the Atreides and we must remember that I am Atreides."

"You think loyalty will bind this one to you?"

"Especially after Lucilla -"

"That may be too dangerous!"

Odrade sat back into a corner of the divan. Taraza wanted certainty. And the lives of the serial gholas were like melange, presenting a different taste in different surroundings. How could they be sure of their ghola?

"The Tleilaxu meddle with the forces that produced our Kwisatz Haderach," Taraza muttered.

"You think that's why they want our breeding records?"

"I don't know! Damn you, Dar! Don't you see what you've done?"

"I think I had no choice," Odrade said.

Taraza produced a cold smile. Odrade's performance remained superb but she needed to be put in her place.

"You think I would have done the same?" Taraza asked.

She still does not see what has happened to me, Odrade thought. Taraza had expected her pliant Dar to act with independence but the extent of that independence had shaken the High Council. Taraza refused to see her own hand in this.

"Customary practice," Odrade said.

The words struck Taraza like a slap in the face. Only the hard training of a Bene Gesserit lifetime prevented her from striking out violently at Odrade.

Customary practice!

How many times had Taraza herself revealed this as a source of irritation, a constant goad to her carefully capped rage? Odrade had heard it often.

Odrade quoted the Mother Superior now: "Immovable custom is dangerous. Enemies can find a pattern and use it against you."

The words were forced from Taraza: "That is a weakness, yes."

"Our enemies thought they knew our way," Odrade said. "Even you, Mother Superior, thought you knew the limits within which I would perform. I was like Bellonda. Before she even spoke, you knew what Bellonda would say."

"Have we made a mistake, not elevating you above me?" Taraza asked. She spoke from her deepest allegiance.

"No, Mother Superior. We walk a delicate path but both of us can see where we must go."

"Where is Waff now?" Taraza asked.

"Asleep and well guarded."

"Summon Sheeana. We must decide whether to abort that part of the project."

"And take our lumps?"

"As you say, Dar."

Sheeana was still sleepy and rubbing her eyes when she appeared in the common room but she obviously had taken the time to splash water on her face and dress in a clean white robe. Her hair was still damp.

Taraza and Odrade stood near an eastern window with their backs to the light.

"This is Sheeana, Mother Superior," Odrade said.

Sheeana came fully alert with an abrupt stiffening of her back. She had heard of this powerful woman, this Taraza, who ruled the Sisterhood from a distant citadel called Chapter House. Sunlight was bright in the window behind the two women, shining full into Sheeana's face, dazzling her. It left the faces of the two Reverend Mothers partly obscured, the black outlines of their figures fuzzy in the brilliance.

Acolyte instructors had prepared her against this encounter: "You stand at attention before the Mother Superior and speak respectfully. Respond only when she speaks to you."

Sheeana stood at rigid attention the way she had been told.

"I am informed that you may become one of us," Taraza said.

Both women could see the effect of this on the girl. By now, Sheeana was more fully aware of a Reverend Mother's accomplishments. The powerful beam of truth had been focused on her. She had begun to grasp at the enormous body of knowledge the Sisterhood had accumulated over the millennia. She had been told about selective memory transmission, about the workings of Other Memories, about the spice agony. And here before her stood the most powerful of all Reverend Mothers, one from whom nothing was hidden.

When Sheeana did not respond, Taraza said: "Have you nothing to say, child?"

"What is there to say, Mother Superior? You have said it all."

Taraza sent a searching glance at Odrade. "Have you any other little surprises for me, Dar?"

"I told you she was superior," Odrade said.

Taraza returned her attention to Sheeana. "Are you proud of that opinion, child?"

"It frightens me, Mother Superior."

Still holding her face as immobile as she could, Sheeana breathed more easily. Say only the deepest truth you can sense, she reminded herself. Those warning words from a teacher carried more meaning now. She kept her eyes slightly unfocused and aimed at the floor directly in front of the two women, avoiding the worst of the brilliant sunlight. She still felt her heart beating too rapidly and knew the Reverend Mothers would detect this. Odrade had demonstrated it many times.

"Well it should frighten you," Taraza said.

Odrade asked: "Do you understand what is being said to you, Sheeana?"

"The Mother Superior wishes to know if I am fully committed to the Sisterhood," Sheeana said.

Odrade looked at Taraza and shrugged. There was no need for more discussion of this between them. That was the way of it when you were part of one family as they were in the Bene Gesserit.

Taraza continued her silent study of Sheeana. It was a heavy gaze, energy-draining for Sheeana, who knew she must remain silent and permit that scorching examination.

Odrade put down feelings of sympathy. Sheeana was like herself as a young girl, in so many ways. She had that globular intellect which expanded on all surfaces the way a balloon expanded when filled. Odrade recalled how her own teachers had been admiring of this, but wary, just the way Taraza was now wary. Odrade had recognized this wariness while even younger than Sheeana and held no doubts that Sheeana saw it here. Intellect had its uses.

"Mmmmmm," Taraza said.

Odrade heard the humming sound of the Mother Superior's internal reflections as part of a simulflow. Odrade's own memory had surged backward. The Sisters who had brought Odrade her food when she studied late had always loitered to observe her in their special way, just as Sheeana was watched and monitored at all times. Odrade had known about those special ways of observing from an early age. That was, after all, one of the great lures of the Bene Gesserit. You wanted to be capable of such esoteric abilities. Sheeana certainly possessed this desire. It was the dream of every postulant.

That such things might be possible for me!

Taraza spoke finally: "What is it you think you want from us, child?"

"The same things you thought you wanted when you were my age, Mother Superior."

Odrade suppressed a smile. Sheeana's wild sense of independence had skated close to insolence there and Taraza certainly recognized this.

"You think that is a proper use for the gift of life?" Taraza asked.

"It is the only use I know, Mother Superior."

"Your candor is appreciated but I warn you to be careful in your use of it," Taraza said.

"Yes, Mother Superior."

"You already owe us much and you will owe us more," Taraza said. "Remember that. Our gifts do not come cheaply."

Sheeana has not the vaguest appreciation of what she will pay for our gifts, Odrade thought.

The Sisterhood never let its initiates forget what they owed and must repay. You did not repay with love. Love was dangerous and Sheeana already was learning this. The gift of life? A shudder began to course through Odrade and she cleared her throat to compensate.

Am I alive? Perhaps when they took me away from Mama Sibia I died. I was alive there in that house but did I live after the Sisters removed me?

Taraza said: "You may leave us now, Sheeana."

Sheeana turned on one heel and left the room but not before Odrade saw the tight smile on the young face. Sheeana knew she had passed the Mother Superior's examination.

When the door closed behind Sheeana, Taraza said: "You mentioned her natural ability with Voice. I heard it, of course. Remarkable."

"She kept it well bridled," Odrade said. "She has learned not to try it on us."

"What do we have there, Dar?"

"Perhaps someday a Mother Superior of extraordinary abilities."

"Not too extraordinary?"

"We will have to see."

"Do you think she is capable of killing for us?"

Odrade was startled and showed it. "Now?"

"Yes, of course."

"The ghola?"

"Teg would not do it," Taraza said. "I even have doubts about Lucilla. Their reports make it clear that he is capable of forging powerful bonds of... of affinity."

"Even as I?"

"Schwangyu herself was not completely immune."

"Where is the noble purpose in such an act?" Odrade asked. "Isn't this what the Tyrant's warning has -"

"Him? He killed many times!"

"And paid for it."

"We pay for everything we take, Dar."

"Even for a life?"

"Never forget for one instant, Dar, that a Mother Superior is capable of making any necessary decision for the Sisterhood's survival!"

"So be it," Odrade said. "Take what you want and pay for it."

It was the proper reply but it reinforced the new strength Odrade felt, this freedom to respond in her own way within a new universe. Where had such toughness originated? Was it something out of her cruel Bene Gesserit conditioning? Was it from her Atreides ancestry? She did not try to fool herself that this came from a decision never again to follow another's moral guidance rather than her own. This inner stability upon which she now stationed herself was not a pure morality. Not bravado, either. Those were never enough.

"You are very like your father," Taraza said. "Usually, it's the dam who provides most of the courage but this time I think it was the father."

"Miles Teg is admirably courageous but I think you oversimplify," Odrade said.

"Perhaps I do. But I have been right about you at every turn, Dar, even back there when we were student postulants."

She knows! Odrade thought.

"We don't need to explain it," Odrade said. And she thought: It comes from being born who I am, trained and shaped the way I was... the way we both were: Dar and Tar.

"It's something in the Atreides line that we have not fully analyzed," Taraza said.

"No genetic accidents?"

"I sometimes wonder if we've suffered any real accidents since the Tyrant," Taraza said.

"Did he stretch out back there in his citadel and look across the millennia to this very moment?"

"How far back would you reach for the roots?" Taraza asked.

Odrade said: "What really happens when a Mother Superior commands the Breeding Mistresses: 'Have that one go breed with that one'?"

Taraza produced a cold smile.

Odrade felt herself suddenly at the crest of a wave, awareness pushing all of her over into this new realm. Taraza wants my rebellion! She wants me as her opponent!

"Will you see Waff now?" Odrade asked.

"First, I want your assessment of him."

"He sees us as the ultimate tool to create the 'Tleilaxu Ascendancy.' We are God's gift to his people."

"They have been waiting a long time for this," Taraza said. "To dissemble so carefully, all of them for all of those eons!"

"They have our view of time," Odrade agreed. "That was the final thing to convince them we share their Great Belief."

"But why the clumsiness?" Taraza asked. "They are not stupid."

"It diverted our attention from how they were really using their ghola process," Odrade said. "Who could believe stupid people would do such a thing?"

"And what have they created?" Taraza asked. "Only the image of evil stupidity?"

"Act stupid long enough and you become stupid," Odrade said. "Perfect the mimicry of your Face Dancers and..."

"Whatever happens, we must punish them," Taraza said. "I see that clearly. Have him brought up here."

After Odrade had given the order and while they waited, Taraza said: "The sequencing of the ghola's education became a shambles even before they escaped from the Gammu Keep. He leaped ahead of his teachers to grasp things that were only implied and he did this at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Who knows what he has become by now?"

Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.

- Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat

Duncan followed his guide through the dawn light at a punishing clip. The man might look old but he was as springy as a gazelle and seemed incapable of tiring.

Only a few minutes ago they had put aside their night goggles. Duncan was glad to be rid of them. Everything outside the reach of the glasses had been black in the dim starlight filtering through heavy branches. There had been no world ahead of him beyond the range of the glasses. The view at both sides jerked and flowed - now a clump of yellow bushes, now two silver-bark trees, now a stone wall with a plasteel gate cut into it and guarded by the flickering blue of a burn-shield, then an arched bridge of native rock, all green and black underfoot. After that, an arched entry of polished white stone. The structures all appeared very old and expensive, maintained by costly handwork.

Duncan had no idea where he was. None of this terrain recalled his memories of the long-lost Giedi Prime days.

Dawn revealed that they were following a tree-shielded animal track up a hillside. The climb became steep. Occasional glimpses through trees on their left revealed a valley. A hanging mist stood guard over the sky, hiding the distances, enclosing them as they climbed. Their world became progressively a smaller place as it lost its connection with a larger universe.

At one brief pause, not for rest but for listening to the forest around them, Duncan studied his mist-capped surroundings. He felt dislodged, removed from a universe that possessed sky and the open features that linked it to other planets.

His disguise was simple: Tleilaxu cold-weather garments and cheek pads to make his face appear rounder. His curly black hair had been straightened by some chemical applied with heat. The hair was then bleached to a sandy blond and hidden under a dark watchcap. All of his genital hair had been shaved away. He hardly recognized himself in the mirror they held up for him.

A dirty Tleilaxu!