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"Well, what is it?"
"The economic view behind the activities of Honored Matres--we find them quite interesting."
His words crystallized her fears. I knew it! He's selling me out!
"As you Reverend Mothers know very well, there are always gaps in economic systems."
"Yes?" Profoundly wary.
"Incomplete suppression of trade in any commodity always increases the profits of the tradesmen, especially the profits of the senior distributors." His voice was warningly hesitant. "That is the fallacy of thinking you can control unwanted narcotics by stopping them at your borders."
What was he trying to tell her? His words described elementary facts known even to acolytes. Increased profits were always used to buy safe paths past border guards, often by buying the guards themselves.
Has he bought servants of the Honoted Matres? Surely, he doesn't believe he can do that safely.
She waited while he composed his thoughts, obviously forming a presentation he believed most likely to gain her acceptance.
Why did he point her attention toward border guards? That certainly was what he had done. Guards always had a ready rationalization for betraying their superiors, of course. "If I don't, someone else will."
She dared to hope.
The Rabbi cleared his throat. It was apparent he had found the words he wanted and had placed them in order.
"I do not believe there is any way to get you off Gammu alive."
She had not expected such a blunt condemnation. "But the..."
"The information you carry, that is a different matter," he said.
So that was behind all of the focusing on borders and guards!
"You don't understand, Rabbi. My information is not just a few words and some warnings." She tapped a finger against her forehead. "In here are many precious lives, all of those irreplaceable experiences, learning so vital that--"
"Ahhh, but I do understand, dear lady. Our problem is that you do not understand."
Always these references to understanding!
"It is your honor upon which I depend at this moment," he said.
Ahhhh, the legendary honesty and trustworthiness of the Bene Gesserit when we have given our word!
"You know I will die rather than betray you," she said.
He spread his hands wide in a rather helpless gesture. "I am fully confident of that, dear lady. The question is not one of betrayal but of something we have never before revealed to your Sisterhood."
"What are you trying to tell me?" Quite peremptory, almost with Voice (which she had been warned not to try on these Jews).
"I must exact a promise from you. I must have your word that you will not turn against us because of what I am about to reveal. You must promise to accept my solution to our dilemma."
"Sight unseen?"
"Only because I ask it of you and assure you that we honor our commitment to your Sisterhood."
She glared at him, trying to see through this barrier he had erected between them. His surface reactions could be read but not the mysterious thing beneath his unexpected behavior.
The Rabbi waited for this fearsome woman to reach her decision. Reverend Mothers always made him uneasy. He knew what her decision must be and pitied her. He saw that she could read the pity in his expression. They knew so much and so little. Their powers were manifest. And their knowledge of Secret Israel so perilous!
We owe them this debt, though. She is not of the Chosen, but a debt is a debt. Honor is honor. Truth is truth.
The Bene Gesserit had preserved Secret Israel in many hours of need. And a pogrom was something his people knew without lengthy explanations. Pogrom was embedded in the psyche of Secret Israel. And thanks to the Unspeakable, the chosen people would never forget. No more than they could forgive.
Memory kept fresh in daily ritual (with periodic emphasis in communal sharings) cast a glowing halo on what the Rabbi knew he must do. And this poor woman! She, too, was trapped by memories and circumstances.
Into the cauldron! Both of us!
"You have my word," Lucilla said.
The Rabbi returned to the room's only door and opened it. An older woman in a long brown gown stood there. She stepped in at the Rabbi's beckoning gesture. Hair the color of old driftwood neatly bound in a bun at the back of her head. Face pinched in and wrinkled, dark as a dried almond. The eyes, though! Total blue! And that steely hardness within them...
"This is Rebecca, one of our people," the Rabbi said. "As I am sure you can see, she has done a dangerous thing."
"The Agony," Lucilla whispered.
"She did it long ago and she serves us well. Now, she will serve you."
Lucilla had to be certain. "Can you Share?"
"I have never done it, lady, but I know it." As Rebecca spoke, she approached Lucilla and stopped when they were almost touching.
They leaned toward each other until their foreheads made contact. Their hands went out and gripped the offered shoulders.
As their minds locked, Lucilla forced a projective thought: "This must get to my Sisters!"
"I promise, dear lady."
There could be no deception in this total mixing of minds, this ultimate candor powered by imminent and certain death or the poisonous melange essence that ancient Fremen had rightly called "the little death." Lucilla accepted Rebecca's promise. This wild Reverend Mother of the Jews committed her life to the assurance. Something else! Lucilla gasped as she saw it. The Rabbi intended to sell her to the Honored Matres. The driver of the produce carrier had been one of their agents come to confirm that there was indeed a woman of Lucilla's description at the farmhouse.
Rebecca's candor gave Lucilla no escape: "It is the only way we can save ourselves and maintain our credibility."
So that was why the Rabbi had made her think of guards and power brokers! Clever, clever. And I accept it as he knew I would.
You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string.
--The Zensunni Whip
The Reverend Mother Sheeana stood at her sculpting stand, a gray-clawed shaper covering each hand like exotic gloves. The black sensiplaz on the stand had been taking form under her hands for almost an hour. She felt herself close to the creation that sought realization, surging from a wild place within her. The intensity of the creative force made her skin tremble and she wondered that passersby in the hall to her right did not sense it. The north window of her workroom admitted gray light behind her and the western window glowed orange with a desert sunset.
Prester, Sheeana's senior assistant here at the Desert Watch Station, had paused in the doorway a few minutes ago but the entire station complement knew better than to interrupt Sheeana at this work.
Stepping back, Sheeana brushed a strand of sun-streaked brown hair from her forehead with the back of a hand. The black plaz stood in front of her like a challenge, its curves and planes almost fitted to the form
she sensed within her.
I come here to create when my fears are greatest, she thought.
This thought dampened the creative surge and she redoubled her efforts to complete the sculpture. Her shaper-clad hands dipped and swooped over the plaz and black shape followed each intrusion like a wave driven by an insane wind.
The light from the north window faded and the automatics compensated with a yellow-gray glow from the ceiling edges but it was not the same. It was not the same!
Sheeana stepped back from her work. Close ... but not close enough. She could almost touch the form within her and feel it striving for birth. But the plaz was not right. One sweeping stroke of her right hand reduced it to a black blob on the stand.
Damn!
She stripped off the shapers and dropped them to the shelf beside the sculpting stand. The horizon out the western window still carried a strip of orange. Fading fast the way she felt the fading of her creative surge.
