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God tests me sorely, he thought.
"Are the Reverend Mothers good people?" Sheeana asked. Tuek sighed. The records all confirmed that God harbored reservations about the Sisterhood. God's words had been examined carefully and submitted finally to a High Priest's interpretation. God did not let the Sisterhood threaten his Golden Path. That much was clear.
"Many of them are good," Tuek said.
"Where is the nearest Reverend Mother?" Sheeana asked.
"At the Sisterhood's Embassy here in Keen," Tuek said.
"Do you know her?"
"There are many Reverend Mothers in the Bene Gesserit Keep," he said.
"What's a Keep?"
"That's what they call their home here."
"One Reverend Mother must be in charge. Do you know that one?"
"I knew her predecessor, Tamalane, but this one is new. She has only just arrived. Her name is Odrade."
"That's a funny name."
Tuek's own thought, but he said: "One of our historians tells me it is a form of the name Atreides."
Sheeana reflected upon this. Atreides. That was the family that had brought Shaitan into being. Before the Atreides there had been only the Fremen and Shai-hulud. The Oral History, which her people preserved against all priestly prohibition, chanted the begats of the most important people on Rakis. Sheeana had heard these names many nights in her village.
"Muad'dib begat the Tyrant."
"The Tyrant begat Shaitan."
Sheeana did not feel like arguing truth with Tuek. Anyway, he looked tired today. She said merely: "Bring me this Reverend Mother Odrade."
Kipuna hid a gloating smile behind her hand.
Tuek stepped back, aghast. How could he comply with such a demand? Even the Rakian priesthood did not command the Bene Gesserit! What if the Sisterhood refused him? Could he offer a gift of melange in exchange? That might be a sign of weakness. The Reverend Mothers might bargain! No harder bargainers lived than the Sisterhood's cold-eyed Reverend Mothers. This new one, this Odrade, looked to be one of the worst.
All of these thoughts fled through Tuek's mind in an instant.
Cania intruded, giving Tuek the needed approach. "Perhaps Kipuna could convey Sheeana's invitation," Cania said.
Tuek darted a glance at the young acolyte priestess. Yes! Many suspected (Cania among them, obviously) that Kipuna spied for the Bene Gesserit. Of course, everyone on Rakis spied for someone. Tuek put on his most gracious smile as he nodded to Kipuna.
"Do you know any of the Reverend Mothers, Kipuna?"
"Some of them are known to me, My Lord High Priest," Kipuna said.
At least she still shows the proper deference!
"Excellent," Tuek said. "Would you be so kind as to start this gracious invitation from Sheeana moving up through the Sisterhood's embassy."
"I will do my poor best, My Lord High Priest."
"I'm sure you will!"
Kipuna began a prideful turn toward Sheeana, the knowledge of success growing within her. Sheeana's request had been ridiculously easy to ignite, given the techniques provided by the Sisterhood. Kipuna smiled and opened her mouth to speak. A movement at the parapet about forty meters behind Sheeana caught Kipuna's attention. Something glinted in the sunlight there. Something small and...
With a strangled cry, Kipuna grabbed up Sheeana, hurled her at the startled Tuek and shouted: "Run!" With that, Kipuna dashed toward the swiftly advancing brightness--a tiny seeker trailing a long length of shigawire.
In his younger days, Tuek had played batball. He caught Sheeana instinctively, hesitated for an instant and then recognized the danger. Whirling with the squirming, protesting girl in his arms, Tuek dashed through the open door of the stair tower. He heard the door slam behind him and Cania's rapid footsteps close on his heels.
"What is it? What is it?" Sheeana pounded her fists against Tuek's chest as she shouted.
"Hush, Sheeana! Hush!" Tuek paused on the first landing. Both a chute and suspensor-drop led from this landing into the building's core. Cania stopped beside Tuek, her panting loud in the narrow space.
"It killed Kipuna and two of your guards," Cania gasped. "Cut them up! I saw it. God preserve us!"
Tuek's mind was a maelstrom. Both the chute and the suspensor-drop system were enclosed wormholes through the tower. They could be sabotaged. The attack on the roof might be only one element in a far more complex plot.
"Put me down!" Sheeana insisted. "What's happening?"
Tuek eased her to the floor but kept one of her hands clutched in his hand. He bent over her, "Sheeana, dear, someone is trying to harm us."
Sheeana's mouth formed a silent "O," then: "They hurt Kipuna?"
Tuek looked up at the roof door. Was that an ornithopter he heard up there? Stiros! Conspirators could take three vulnerable people into the desert so easily!
Cania had regained her breath. "I hear a 'thopter," she said. "Shouldn't we be getting away from here?"
"We will go down by the stairs," Tuek said.
"But the--"
"Do as I say!"
Keeping a firm hold on Sheeana's hand, Tuek led the way down to the next landing. In addition to the chute and suspensor access, this landing had a door into a wide curving hall. Only a few short steps beyond the door lay the entrance to Sheeana's quarters, once Tuek's own quarters. Again, he hesitated.
"Something's happening on the r
oof," Cania whispered.
Tuek looked down at the fearfully silent child beside him. Her hand felt sweaty.
Yes, there was some sort of uproar on the roof--shouts, the hiss of burners, much running about. The roof door, now out of sight above them, crashed open. This decided Tuek. He flung open the door into the hallway and dashed out into the arms of a tightly grouped wedge of black-robed women. With an empty sense of defeat, Tuek recognized the woman at the point of the wedge: Odrade!
Someone plucked Sheeana away from him and hustled her back into the press of robed figures. Before Tuek or Cania could protest, hands were clapped over their mouths. Other hands pinioned them against a wall of the hallway. Some of the robed figures went through the doorway and up the stairs.
"The child is safe and that's all that's important for the moment," Odrade whispered. She looked into Tuek's eyes. "Make no outcry." The hand was removed from his mouth. Using Voice, she said: "Tell me about the roof!"
Tuek found himself complying without reservation. "A seeker towing a long shigawire. It came over the parapet. Kipuna saw it and--"
"Where is Kipuna?"
"Dead. Cania saw it." Tuek described Kipuna's brave dash toward the threat.
Kipuna dead! Odrade thought. She concealed a fiercely angry sense of loss. What a waste. There must be admiration for such a brave death, but the loss! The Sisterhood always needed such courage and devotion, but it also required the genetic wealth Kipuna had represented. It was gone, taken by these stumbling fools!
At a gesture from Odrade, the hand was removed from Cania's mouth. "Tell me what you saw," Odrade said.
"The seeker whipped the shigawire around Kipuna's neck and... " Cania shuddered.
The dull thump of an explosion reverberated above them, then silence. Odrade waved a hand. Robed women spread along the hallway, moving silently out of sight beyond the curve. Only Odrade and two others, both chill-eyed younger women with intense expressions, remained beside Tuek and Cania. Sheeana was nowhere to be seen.
