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"Good!" Namri said. "Your awareness has been prepared. I've sunk home the barbs. One more thing, then. Have you heard that they use imitation stillsuits in the cities of far Kadrish?"
As Namri waited, Leto quested in his mind for a hidden meaning. Imitation stillsuits? They were worn on many planets. He said: "The foppish habits of Kadrish are an old story often repeated. The wise animal blends into its surroundings."
Namri nodded slowly. Then: "The one who trapped you and brought you here will see you presently. Do not try to leave this place. It would be your death." Arising as he spoke, Namri went out into the dark passage.
For a long time after he had gone, Leto stared into the passage. He could hear sounds out there, the quiet voices of men on guard duty. Namri's story of the mirage-vision stayed with Leto. It brought up the long desert crossing to this place. It no longer mattered whether this were Jacurutu/Fondak. Namri was not a smuggler. He was something much more potent. And the game Namri played smelled of the Lady Jessica; it stank of the Bene Gesserit. Leto sensed an enclosing peril in this realization. But that dark passage where Namri had gone was the only exit from this room. And outside lay a strange sietch--beyond that, the desert. The harsh severity of that desert, its ordered chaos with mirages and endless dunes, came over Leto as part of the trap in which he was caught. He could recross that sand, but where would flight take him? The thought was like stagnant water. It would not quench his thirst.
Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises.
--LIET-KYNES THE ARRAKIS WORKBOOK
Words and movements simultaneous, Jessica reminded herself and she bent her thoughts to those necessary mental preparations for the coming encounter.
The hour was shortly after breakfast, the golden sun of Salusa Secundus just beginning to touch the far wall of the enclosed garden which she could see from her window. She had dressed herself carefully: the black hooded cloak of a Reverend Mother, but it carried the Atreides crest in gold worked into an embroidered ring around the hem and again at the cuff of each sleeve. Jessica arranged the drape of her garment carefully as she turned her back on the window, holding her left arm across her waist to present the Hawk motif of the crest.
Farad'n noted the Atreides symbols, commenting on them as he entered, but he betrayed no anger or suprise. She detected subtle humor in his voice and wondered at it. She saw that he had clad himself in the grey leotard which she had suggested. He sat on the low green divan to which she directed him, relaxing with his right arm along the back.
Why do I trust her? he wondered. This is a Bene Gesserit witch!
Jessica, reading the thought in the contrast between his relaxed body and the expression on his face, smiled and said: "You trust me because you know our bargain is a good one, and you want what I can teach you."
She saw the pinch of a scowl touch his brow, waved her left hand to calm him. "No, I don't read minds. I read the face, the body, the mannerisms, tone of voice, set of arms. Anyone can do this once they learn the Bene Gesserit Way."
"And you will teach me?"
"I'm sure you've studied the reports about us," she said. "Is there anywhere a report that we fail to deliver on a direct promise?"
"No reports, but ..."
"We survive in part by the complete confidence which people can have in our truthfulness. That has not changed."
"I find this reasonable," he said. "I'm anxious to begin."
"I'm surprised you've never asked the Bene Gesserit for a teacher," she said. "They would've leaped at the opportunity to put you in their debt."
"My mother would never listen to me when I urged her to do this," he said. "But now... ." He shrugged, an eloquent comment on Wensicia's banishment. "Shall we start?"
"It would've been better to begin this when you were much younger," Jessica said. "It'll be harder for you now, and it'll take much longer. You'll have to begin by learning patience, extreme patience. I pray you'll not find it too high a price."
"Not for the reward you offer."
She heard the sincerity, the pressure of expectations, and the touch of awe in his voice. These formed a place to begin. She said: "The art of patience, then--starting with some elementary prana-bindu exercises for the legs and arms, for your breathing. We'll leave the hands and fingers for later. Are you ready?"
She seated herself on a stool facing him.
Farad'n nodded, holding an expectant expression on his face to conceal the sudden onset of fear. Tyekanik had warned him that there must be a trick in the Lady Jessica's offer, something brewed by the Sisterhood. "You cannot believe that she has abandoned them again or that they have abandoned her." Farad'n had stopped the argument with an angry outburst for which he'd been immediately sorry. His emotional reaction had made him agree more quickly with Tyekanik's precautions. Farad'n glanced at the corners of the room, the subtle gleam of jems in the coving. All that glittered was not jems: everything in this room would be recorded and good minds would review every nuance, every word, every movement.
Jessica smiled, noting the direction of his gaze, but not revealing that she knew where his attention had wandered. She said: "To learn patience in the Bene Gesserit Way, you must begin by recognizing the essential, raw instability of our universe. We call nature--meaning this totality in all of its manifestations--the Ultimate Non-Absolute. To free your vision and permit you to recognize this conditional nature's changing ways, you will hold your two hands at arm's length in front of you. Stare at your extended hands, first the palms and then the backs. Examine the fingers, front and back. Do it."
Farad'n complied, but he felt foolish. These were his own hands. He knew them.
"Imagine your hands aging," Jessica said. "They must grow very old in your eyes. Very, very old. Notice how dry the skin ..."
"My hands don't change," he said. He already could feel the muscles of his upper arms trembling.
"Continue to stare at your hands. Make them old, as old as you can imagine. It may take time. But when you see them age, reverse the process. Make your hands young again--as young as you can make them. Strive to take them from infancy to great age at will, back and forth, back and forth."
"They don't change!" he protested. His shoulders ached.
"If you demand it of your senses, your hands will change," she said. "Concentrate upon visualizing the flow of time which you desire: infancy to age, age to infancy. It may take you hours, days, months. But it can be achieved. Reversing that change-flow will teach you to see every system as something spinning in relative stability ... only relative."
"I thought I was learning patience." She heard anger in his voice, an edge of frustration.
"And relative stability," she said. "This is the perspective which you create with your own belief, and beliefs can be manipulated by imagination. You've learned only a li
mited way of looking at the universe. Now you must make the universe your own creation. This will permit you to harness any relative stability to your own uses, to whatever uses you are capable of imagining."
"How long did you say it takes?"
"Patience," she reminded him.
A spontaneous grin touched his lips. His eyes wavered toward her.
"Look at your hands!" she snapped.
The grin vanished. His gaze jerked back to a fixated concentration upon his extended hands.
"What do I do when my arms get tired?" he asked.
"Stop talking and concentrate," she said. "If you become too tired, stop. Return to it after a few minutes of relaxation and exercise. You must persist in this until you succeed. At your present stage, this is more important than you could possibly realize. Learn this lesson or the others will not come."
Farad'n inhaled a deep breath, chewed his lips, stared at his hands. He turned them slowly: front, back, front, back... . His shoulders trembled with fatigue. Front, back... . Nothing changed.
Jessica arose, crossed to the only door.
He spoke without removing his attention from his hands. "Where are you going?"
