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"Accept the possibility, that is all."
"I can'"
"You won't?"
"I mean what I say. I'm incapable."
"And if someone showed you how?"
Murbella stared into Odrade's eyes for a long beat, then: "I almost said that would set me free... but ..."
"Yes?"
"I could not be free while he was bound to me."
"Is that renunciation of Honored Matre ways?"
"Renunciation? Wrong word. I've merely grown beyond my former Sisters."
"Former Sisters?"
"Still my Sisters, but they're Sisters of childhood. Some I remember fondly, some I dislike intensely. Playmates in a game that no longer interests me."
"That decision satisfies you?"
"Are you satisfied, Mother Superior?"
Odrade clapped her hands with unrestrained elation. How swiftly Murbella acquired Bene Gesserit riposte!
"Satisfied? What a hellishly deady word!"
As Odrade spoke, M
urbella felt herself move as in a dream to the edge of an abyss, unable to awaken and prevent the plunge. Her stomach ached with secret emptiness and Odrade's next words came from echoing distance.
"The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. You will never be able to forget that."
As quickly as it had come, the dream sensation passed. Mother Superior's next words were cold and immediate.
"Prepare for more advanced training."
Until you meet the Agony--live or die.
Odrade lifted her gaze to the ceiling comeyes. "Send Sheeana in here. She begins at once with her new teacher."
"So you're going to do it! You're going to work on that child."
"Think of him as Bashar Teg," Odrade said. "That helps." And we're not giving you time to reconsider.
"I didn't resist Duncan and I can't argue with you."
"Don't even argue with yourself, Murbella. Pointless. Teg was my father and still I must do this."
Until that moment, Murbella had not realized the force behind Odrade's earlier statement. The Bene Gesserit is all to a Reverend Mother. Great Dur protect me! Will I be like that?
We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff.
-Darwi Odrade
Scytale noticed the excitement of guards and others when he reached the barrier at the end of his corridor. Rapid movement of people, especially this early in the day, had attracted him first and sent him to the barrier. There went that Suk doctor, Jalanto. He recognized her from the time Odrade had sent her "because you are looking ill." Another Reverend Mother to spy on me!
Ahhhh, Murbella's baby. That was why this rushing around and the Suk.
But who were all those others? Bene Gesserit robes in an abundance he had never before seen here. Not just acolytes. Reverend Mothers outnumbered the others he saw rushing about down there. They reminded him of great carrion birds. There went an acolyte at last, carrying a child on her shoulders. Very mysterious. If only I had a link to Shipsystems!
He leaned against a wall and waited but the people vanished into various hatches and doorways. Some destinations he could place with fair certainty, others remained a mystery.
By the Holy Prophet! There went Mother Superior herself! She went through a wider doorway where most of the others had gone.
Useless to ask Odrade when next he saw her. She had him in her trap now.
The Prophet is here and in powindah hands!
When no more people appeared in the corridor, Scytale returned to his quarters. The Identification monitor at his doorway flickered at his passage but he forced himself not to look at it. ID is the key. With his knowledge, this flaw in the Ixian ship's control system beckoned like a siren.
When I move, they will not give me much time.
It would be an act of desperation with ship and contents hostage. Seconds in which to succeed. Who knew what false panels might have been built, what secret hatches where those awful women could leap out at him. He dared not gamble before exhausting all other avenues. Especially now ... with the Prophet restored.
Tricky witches. What else did they change in this ship? A disquieting thought. Does my knowledge still apply?
The presence of Scytale beyond the barrier had not escaped Odrade's notice but she had other matters to concern her. Murbella's accouchement (she liked the ancient term) had come at an opportune moment. Odrade wanted a distracted Idaho with her for Sheeana's attempt at restoring the Bashar's memories. Idaho was often distracted by thoughts of Murbella. And Murbella obviously could not be with him here, not just now.
Odrade maintained prudent watchfulness in his presence. He was, after all, a Mentat.
She had found him at his console again. As she emerged from the dropchute into the access corridor to his quarters, she heard the clicking of relays and that characteristic buzzing of the comfield and knew immediately where to find him.
He revealed an odd mood when she took him into the observation room where they would monitor Sheeana and the child.
Worry about Murbella? Or about what they would presently see?
The observation room was long and narrow. Three rows of chairs faced the seewall common with the secret room where the experiment would occur. The observation area had been left in gray gloom with only two tiny glowglobes at upper corners behind the chairs.
Two Suks were present ... although Odrade worried that they might be ineffective. Jalanto, the Suk Idaho considered their best, was with Murbella.
Demonstrate our concern. It's real enough.
Slingchairs had been set up along the seewall. An emergency access hatch into the other room was near at hand.
Streggi brought the child down the outer passage where he would not see the watchers and took him into the room. It had been prepared under Murbella's directions: a bedroom, some of his own things brought from his quarters and some things from the rooms shared by Idaho and Murbella.
An animal's cave, Odrade thought. There was a shabbiness about the place that came from the deliberate disarray often found in Idaho's chambers: discarded clothing on a slingchair, sandals in a corner. The sleeping mat was one Idaho and Murbella had used. Inspecting it earlier, Odrade had noted that smell akin to saliva, an intimate sexual odor. That, too, would work unconsciously on Teg.
Here is where the wild things originate, the things we cannot suppress. What daring, to think we can control this. But we must.
As Streggi undressed the boy and left him naked on the mat, Odrade found her pulse quickening. She shifted her chair forward, noticing her Bene Gesserit companions imitate the same hitching motion.
Dear me, she thought. Are we nothing but voyeurs?
Such thoughts were necessary at this moment but she felt them demean her. She lost something in that intrusion. Extremely non-Bene Gesserit thinking. But very human!
Duncan had lapsed into a studied air of indifference, an easily recognized pretense. Too much subjectivity in his thoughts for him to function well as a Mentat. And that was precisely how she wanted him now. Participation Mystique. Orgasm as energizer. Bell had recognized it correctly.
To one of three nearby Proctors, all chosen for strength and here ostensibly as observers, Odrade said: "The ghola wants his original memories restored and fears that utterly. That's the major barrier to be sundered."
"Bullcrap!" Idaho said. "You know what we have working for us right now? His mother was one of you and she gave him the deep training. How likely is it she failed to protect him against your Imprinters?"
Odrade turned sharply toward him. Mentat? No, he was back in his immediate past, reliving and making comparisons. That reference to Imprinters, though ... Was that how the first "sexual collision" with Murbella restored memories of other ghola-lifetimes? Deep resistance against imprinting?
The Proctor Odrade had addressed chose to ignore this impertinent interruption. She had read the Archives material when Bellonda briefed her. All three of them knew they might be called on to kill the ghola-child. Did he have powers dangerous to them? The watchers would not know until (or unless) Sheeana succeeded.
To Idaho, Odrade said: "Streggi told him why he is here."
"What did she tell him?" Very peremptory with Mother Superior. The Proctors glared at him.
Odrade held her voice to deliberate mildness. "Streggi told him Sheeana would restore his memories."
"What did he say?"
"Why isn't Duncan Idaho doing it?"
"She answered him honestly?" Getting some of his own back.
"Honestly but revealing nothing. Streggi told him Sheeana had a better way. And that
you approved."
"Look at him! He isn't even moving. You haven't drugged him, have you?"
Idaho glared back at the Proctors.
"We wouldn't dare. But he is focused inward. You do recall the necessity for that, don't you?"
Idaho sank back into his chair, shoulders slumping. "Murbella keeps saying: 'He's just a child. He's just a child.' You know we had a fight over it."
"I thought your argument pertinent. The Bashar was not a child. It's the Bashar we're awakening."
He raised crossed fingers. "I hope."
She drew back, looking at the crossed fingers. "I didn't know you were superstitious, Duncan."
"I'd pray to Dur if I thought it would help."
