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"Do you believe us to be such utter fools?" Jessica asked.
"Indeed I do. Your Sisterhood is nothing but a bunch of damn fool old women who haven't thought beyond their precious breeding program! Ghani and I know the leverage they have. Do you think us fools?"
"Leverage?"
"They know you're a Harkonnen! It'll be in their breeding records: Jessica out of Tanidia Nerus by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. That record accidentally made public would pull your teeth to--"
"You think the Sisterhood would stoop to blackmail?"
"I know they would. Oh, they coated it sweetly. They told you to investigate the rumors about your daughter. They fed your curiosity and your fears. They invoked your sense of responsibility, made you feel guilty because you'd fled back to Caladan. And they offered you the prospect of saving your grandchildren."
Jessica could only stare at him in silence. It was as though he'd eavesdropped on the emotional meetings with her Proctors from the Sisterhood. She felt completely subdued by his words, and now began to accept the possibility that he spoke truth when he said Alia planned abduction.
"You see, grandmother, I have a difficult decision to make," he said. "Do I follow the Atreides mystique? Do I live for my subjects ... and die for them? Or do I choose another course--one which would permit me to live thousands of years?"
Jessica recoiled involuntarily. These words spoken so easily touched on a subject the Bene Gesserits made almost unthinkable. Many Reverend Mothers could choose that course ... or try it. The manipulation of internal chemistry was available to initiates of the Sisterhood. But if one did it, sooner or later all would try it. There could be no concealing such an accumulation of ageless women. They knew for a certainty that this course would lead them to destruction. Short-lived humanity would turn upon them. No--it was unthinkable.
"I don't like the trend of your thoughts," she said.
"You don't understand my thoughts," he said. "Ghani and I ..." He shook his head. "Alia had it in her grasp and threw it away."
"Are you sure of that? I've already sent word to the Sisterhood that Alia practices the unthinkable. Look at her! She's not aged a day since last I ..."
"Oh, that!" He dismissed Bene Gesserit body balance with a wave of his hand. "I'm speaking of something else--a perfection of being far beyond anything humans have ever before achieved."
Jessica remained silent, aghast at how easily he'd lifted her disclosure from her. He'd know surely that such a message represented a death sentence on Alia. And no matter how he changed the words, he could only be talking about committing the same offense. Didn't he know the peril of his words?
"You must explain," she said finally.
"How?" he asked. "Unless you understand that Time isn't what it appears, I can't even begin to explain. My father suspected it. He stood at the edge of realization, but fell back. Now it's up to Ghani and me."
"I insist that you explain," Jessica said and she fingered the poisoned needle she held beneath a fold of her robe. It was the gom jabbar, so deadly that the slightest prick of it killed within seconds. And she thought: They warned me I might have to use it. The thought sent the muscles of her arm trembling in waves and she was thankful for the concealing robe.
"Very well," he sighed. "First, as to Time: there is no difference between ten thousand years and one year; no difference between one hundred thousand years and a heartbeat. No difference. That is the first fact about Time. And the second fact: the entire universe with all of its Time is within me."
"What nonsense is this?" she demanded.
"You see? You don't understand. I will try to explain in another way, then." He raised his right hand to illustrate, moving it as he spoke. "We go forward, we come back."
"Those words explain nothing!"
"That is correct," he said. "There are things which words cannot explain. You must experience them without words. But you are not prepared for such a venture, just as when you look at me you do not see me."
"But ... I'm looking directly at you. Of course I see you!" She glared at him. His words reflected knowledge of the Zensunni Codex as she'd been taught it in the Bene Gesserit schools: play of words to confuse one's understanding of philosophy.
"Some things occur beyond your control," he said.
"How does that explain this ... this perfection which is so far beyond other human experiences?"
He nodded. "If one delays old age or death by the use of melange or by that learned adjustment of fleshly balance which you Bene Gesserits so rightly fear, such a delay invokes only an illusion of control. Whether one walks rapidly through the sietch or slowly, one traverses the sietch. And that passage of time is experienced internally."
"Why do you bandy words this way? I cut my wisdom teeth on such nonsense long before even your father was born."
"But only the teeth grew," he said.
"Words! Words!"
"Ahhh, you're very close!"
"Hah!"
"Grandmother?"
"Yes?"
He held his silence for a long space. Then: "You see? You can still respond as yourself." He smiled at her. "But you cannot see past the shadows. I am here." Again he smiled. "My father came very near to this. When he lived, he lived, but when he died, he failed to die."
"What're you saying?"
"Show me his body!"
"Do you think this Preacher ..."
"Possible, but even so, that is not his body."
"You've explained nothing," she accused.
"Just as I warned you."
"Then why ..."
"You asked. You had to be shown. Now let us return to Alia and her plan of abduction for--"
"Are you planning the unthinkable?" she demanded, holding the poisonous gom jabbar at the ready beneath her robe.
"Will you be her executioner?" he asked, his voice deceptively mild. He pointed a finger at the hand beneath her robe. "Do you think she'll permit you to use that? Or do you think I'd let you use it?"
Jessica found she could not swallow.
"In answer to your question," he said, "I do not plan the unthinkable. I am not that stupid. But I am shocked at you. You dare judge Alia. Of course she's broken the precious Bene Gesserit commandment! What'd you expect? You ran out on her, left her as queen here in all but name. All of that power! So you ran back to Caladan to nurse your wounds in Gurney's arms. Good enough. But who are you to judge Alia?"
"I tell you, I will not dis--"
"Oh, shut up!" He looked away from her in disgust. But his words had been uttered in that special Bene Gesserit way--the controlling Voice. It silenced her as though a hand had been clapped over her mouth. She thought: Who'd know how to hit me with Voice better than this one? It was a mitigating argument which eased her wounded feelings. As many times as she'd used Voice on others, she'd never expected to be susceptible to it ... not ever again ... not since the school days when ...
He turned back to her. "I'm sorry. I just happen to know how blindly you can be expected to react when--"
"Blindly? Me?" She was more outraged by this than she'd been by his exquisite use of Voice against her.
"You," he said. "Blindly. If you've any honesty left in you at all, you'll recognize your own reactions. I call your name and you say, 'Yes?' I silence your tongue. I invoke all your Bene Gesserit myths. Look inward the way you were taught. That, at least, is something you can do for your--"
"How dare you! What do you know of ..." Her voice trailed off. Of course he knew!
