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Odrade felt warning stillness. Reshape? Her gaze went to that odd black mound in the corner. She stared at it with a fixity that surprised her. It drank vision. She kept probing for coherence, something that spoke to her. Nothing responded, not even when she probed to her limits. And that's its purpose!
"It's called 'Void,"' Sheeana said.
"Yours?" Please, Sheeana. Say someone else did it. The one who did this has gone where I cannot follow.
"I did it one night about a week ago."
Is black plaz the only thing you reshape? "A fascinating comment on art in general."
"And not on art specific?"
"I have a problem with you, Sheeana. You alarm some Sisters." And me. There's a wild place in you we have not found. Atreides gene markers Duncan told us to seek are in your cells. What have they given you?
"Alarm my Sisters?"
"Especially when they recall that you're the youngest ever to survive the Agony."
"Except for Abominations."
"Is that what you are?"
"Mother Superior!" She has never deliberately hurt me except as a lesson.
"You went through the Agony as an act of disobedience."
"Wouldn't you say rather that I went against mature advice?" Humor sometimes distracts her.
Prester, Sheeana's acolyte aide, came to the door and rapped lightly on the wall beside it until she had their attention. "You said I was to tell you immediately when the search teams returned."
"What do they report?"
Relief in Sheeana's voice?
"Team eight wants you to look at their scans."
"They always want that!"
Sheeana spoke with forced frustration. "Do you want to look at the scans with me, Mother Superior?"
"I'll wait here."
"This won't take long."
When they had gone, Odrade went to the western window: a clear view across rooftops to the new desert. Small dunes here. Almost sunset and that dry heat so reminiscent of Dune.
What is Sheeana hiding?
A young man, hardly more than a boy, had been sunning nude on a neighboring rooftop, face-up on a sea-green mattress with a golden towel across his face. His skin was a sun-warmed gold to match towel and pubic hair. A breeze touched a comer of the towel and lifted it. One languid hand came up and restored the cover.
How can he be idle? Night worker? Probably.
Idleness was not encouraged and this was flaunting it. Odrade smiled to herself. Anyone could be excused for assuming he was a night worker. He might be depending on that specific guess. The trick would be to remain unseen by those who knew otherwise.
I will not ask. Intelligence deserves some rewards. And, after all, he could be a night worker.
She lifted her gaze. A new pattern emerging here: exotic sunsets. Narrow band of orange drawn along the horizon, bulging where the sun had just dipped below the land. Silvery blue above the orange went darker overhead. She had seen this many times on Dune. Meteorological explanations she did not care to explore. Better to let eyes absorb this transient beauty; better to permit ears and skin to feel sudden stillness descend upon this land in the quick darkness after the orange vanished.
Faintly, she saw the young man pick up mattress and towel and vanish behind a ventilator.
A sound of running in the corridor behind her. Sheeana entered almost breathless. "They found a spice mass thirty klicks northeast of us! Small but compact!"
Odrade did not dare hope. "Could it be wind accumulation?"
"Not likely. I've set a round-the-clock watch on it." Sheeana glanced at the window where Odrade stood. She has seen Trebo. Perhaps ...
"I asked you earlier, Sheeana, if you could work with Bell. It was an important question. Tam is getting very old and must be replaced soon. There must be a vote, of course."
"Me?" It was totally unexpected.
"My first choice." Imperative now. I want you close where I can keep watch on you.
"But I thought ... I mean, the Missionaria's plan ..."
"That can wait. And there must be someone else who can shepherd worms ... if that spice mass is what we hope."
"Oh? Yes ... several of our people but no one who ... Don't you want me to test whether the worms still respond to me?"
"Work on the Council should not interfere with that."
"I ... you can see I'm surprised."
"I would have said shocked. Tell me, Sheeana, what really interests you these days?"
Still probing. Trebo, serve me now! "Making sure the desert grows well." Truth! "And my sex life, of course. You saw the young man on the roof next door? Trebo, a new one Duncan sent me for polishing."
Even after Odrade had gone, Sheeana wondered why those words had aroused such merriment. Mother Superior had been deflected, though.
No need even to waste her fallback position--truth: "We've been discussing the possibility that I might imprint Teg and restore the Bashar's memories that way. "
Full confession avoided. Mother Superior did not learn that I have weasled out the way to reactivate our no-ship prison and defuse the mines Bellonda put in it.
No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. If it tastes bitter, spit it out. That's what our earliest ancestors did.
--The Coda
Murbella found herself arising in the night to continue a dream although quite awake and aware of her surroundings: Duncan asleep beside her, faint ticking of machinery, the chronoprojection on the ceiling. She insisted on Duncan's presence at night lately, fearful when alone. He blamed the fourth pregnancy.
She sat on the edge of the bed. The room was ghostly in the dim light of the chrono. Dream images persisted.
Duncan grumbled and rolled toward her. An outflung arm draped itself across her legs.
She felt that this mental intrusion was not dreamstuff but it had some of those characteristics. Bene Gesserit teachings did this. Them and their damned suggestions about Scytale and ... and everything! They precipitated motion she could not control.
Tonight, she was lost in an insane world of words. The cause was clear. Bellonda that morning had learned Murbella spoke nine languages and had aimed the suspicious acolyte down a mental path called "Linguistic Heritage." But Bell's influence on this nighttime madness provided no escape.
Nightmare. She was a creature of microscopic size trapped in an enormous echoing place labeled in giant letters wherever she turned: "Data Reservoir." Animated words with grimacing jaws and fearsome tentacles surrounded her.
Predatory beasts and she was their prey!
Awake and knowing she sat on the edge of her bed with Duncan's arm on her legs, she still saw the beasts. They herded her backward. She knew she was going backward although her body did not move. They pressed her toward a terrible disaster she could not see. Her head would not turn! Not only did she see these creatures (they hid parts of her sleeping chamber) but she heard them in a cacophony of her nine languages.
They will tear me apart!
Although she could not turn, she sensed what lay behind her: more teeth and claws. Threat all around! If they cornered her, they would pounce and she was doomed.
Done for. Dead. Victim. Torture-captive. Fair game.
Despair filled her. Why would Duncan not awaken and save her? His arm was a lead weight, part of the force holding her and allowing these creatures to herd her into their bizarre trap. She trembled. Perspiration poured from her body. Awful words! They united into giant combinations. A creature with knife-fanged mouth came directly toward her and she saw more words in the gaping blackness between its jaws.
See above.
Murbella began to laugh. She had no control of it. See above. Done for. Dead. Victim ...
The laughter awakened Duncan. He sat up, activated a low glowglobe, and stared at her. How tousled he looked after their earlier sexual collision.
His expression hovered between amusement and upset at being awakened. "Why are you laughing?"
Laughter subsided
in gasps. Her sides ached. She was afraid his tentative smile would ignite a new spasm. "Oh ... oh! Duncan! Sexual collision!"
He knew this was their mutual term for the addiction that bound them but why would it make her laugh?
His puzzled expression struck her as ludicrous.
Between gasps, she said: "Two more words." And she had to clamp her mouth closed to prevent another outburst.
"What?"
His voice was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She thrust a hand at him and shook her head. "Ohhh ... ohhh ..."
"Murbella, what's wrong with you?"
She could only continue shaking her head.
He tried a tentative smile. It gentled her and she leaned against him. "No!" When his right hand wandered. "I just want to be close."
"Look what time it is." He lifted his chin toward the ceiling projection. "Almost three."
"It was so funny, Duncan."
"So tell me about it."
"When I catch my breath."
He eased her down onto her pillow. "We're like a damned old married couple. Funny stories in the middle of the night."
"No, darling, we're different."
"A question of degree, nothing else."
"Quality," she insisted.
"What was so funny?"
She recounted her nightmare and Bellonda's influence.
"Zensunni. Very ancient technique. The Sisters use it to rid you of trauma connections. Words that ignite unconscious responses."
Fear returned.
"Murbella, why are you trembling?"
