Heretics of Dune (Page 156)

The dance is her language, Taraza thought. Odrade is correct. Seeing it, we will learn it.

Waff had something of a withdrawn look this morning. It was difficult to determine if his eyes were looking outward or inward.

With Waff was Tulushan, a darkly handsome Rakian, the priesthood’s chosen representative at today’s "holy event." Taraza, meeting him at the demonstration dance, had found it extraordinary how Tulushan never needed to say "but," and yet the word was always there in everything he uttered. A perfect bureaucrat. He rightly expected to go far but those expectations would soon encounter their ultimate surprise. She felt no pity for him at this knowledge. Tulushan was a soft-faced youth of too few standards for such a position of trust. There was more to him than met the eye, of course. And less.

Waff moved to one side in the garden, leaving Odrade and Sheeana with Tulushan.

The young priest was expendable, naturally. That explained much about why he had been chosen for this venture. It told her that she had achieved the proper level of potential violence. Taraza did not think, though, that any of the priestly factions would dare harm Sheeana.

We will stay close to Sheeana.

They had spent a busy week since the demonstration of the whores’ sexual accomplishments. A very disturbing week, when it came to that. Odrade had been kept busy with Sheeana. Taraza would have preferred Lucilla for this educational chore but you made do with what was available and Odrade obviously was the best available on Rakis for such teaching.

Taraza looked back toward the desert. They were waiting for the ‘thopters from Keen with their cargoes of Very Important Observers. The VIOs were not yet late but crowding it as such people always did.

Sheeana seemed to be taking the sexual education well, although Taraza’s estimation of the Sisterhood’s available teaching males on Rakis was not high. Her first night here, Taraza had called in one of the servant males. Afterward, she had judged it too much trouble for the little joy and forgetfulness it provided. Besides, what was there to forget? To forget was to allow a weakness.

Never forget!

That’s what the whores did, though. They traded in forgetfulness. And they had not the least awareness of the Tyrant’s continuing viselike hold on human destiny nor of the need to break that hold.

Taraza had listened secretly to the previous day’s session between Sheeana and Odrade.

What was I listening for?

Young girl and teacher had been out here in the roof garden, facing each other on two benches, a portable Ixian damper hiding their words from anyone who did not have the coded translator. The suspensor-buoyed damper hovered over the two like a strange umbrella, a black disc projecting distortions that hid the precise movements of lips and the sounds of voices.

To Taraza, standing within the long meeting room, the tiny translator in her left ear, the lesson had occurred like an equally distorted memory.

When I was taught these things, we had not seen what the whores of the Scattering could do.

"Why do we say it’s the complexity of sex?" Sheeana asked. "The man you sent last night kept saying that."

"Many believe they understand it, Sheeana. Perhaps no one has ever understood it, because such words require more of the mind than they do of the flesh."

"Why must I not use any of the things we saw the Face Dancers do?"

"Sheeana, complexity hides within complexity. Great deeds and foul ones have been done at the goading of sexual forces. We speak of ‘sexual strength’ and ‘sexual energies’ and such things as ‘the overmounting urge of desire.’ I don’t deny that such things are observable. But what we are looking at here is a force so powerful that it can destroy you and everything you hold worthwhile."

"That’s what I’m trying to understand. What is it the whores are doing wrong?"

"They ignore the species at its work, Sheeana. I think you can already sense this. The Tyrant certainly knew about it. What was his Golden Path but a vision of sexual forces at work recreating humankind endlessly?"

"And the whores don’t create?"

"They mostly try to control their worlds with this force."

"They seem to be doing that."

"Ahhh, but what counterforces do they call forth?"

"I don’t understand."

"You know about Voice and how it can control some people?"

"But not control everybody."

"Exactly. A civilization subjected to Voice over a long period develops ways of adapting to this force, preventing manipulation by those who use Voice."

"So there are people who know how to resist the whores?"

"We see unmistakable signs of it. And that is one of the reasons we are here on Rakis."

"Will the whores come here?"

"I’m afraid so. They want to control the core of the Old Empire because they see us as an easy conquest."

"Aren’t you afraid they’ll win?"

"They won’t win, Sheeana. Depend on it. But they are good for us."

"How is that?"

Sheeana’s tone echoed Taraza’s own shock at hearing such words from Odrade. How much did Odrade suspect? In the next instant, Taraza understood and she wondered if the lesson was equally understandable to the young girl.

"The core is static, Sheeana. We have been almost at a standstill for thousands of years. Life and movement are ‘out there’ with the people of the Scattering who resist the whores. Whatever we do, we must make that resistance even stronger."

The sound of approaching ‘thopters broke Taraza from her reverie of remembrance. The VIOs were arriving from Keen. Still at some distance, but the sound carried far in the clear air.

Odrade’s teaching method was a good one, Taraza had to admit as she scanned the sky for a first glimpse of the ‘thopters. Apparently they were coming in low and from the other side of the building. That was the wrong direction but perhaps they had taken the VIOs on a short excursion over the remains of the Tyrant’s wall. Many people were curious about the place where Odrade had found the spice hoard.