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There were battles all around Junction--bursts of light on darkside, gray eruptions on dayside. A major engagement directed by Teg centered on "the Citadel"--a giant mound of Guild design with a new tower near its rim. Although Odrade's vital-signs transmissions had stopped abruptly, her early reports confirmed that Great Honored Matre was in there.
The need to observe from a distance helped Murbella's sense of detachment but she felt the excitement.
Interesting times!
This ship contained precious cargo. The millions from Lampadas were being Shared and prepared for Scattering in a suite ordinarily reserved for Mother Superior. The wild Sister with her cargo of Memory dominated their priorities here.
Golden Egg for sure!
Murbella thought of the lives being risked in that suite. Preparing for the worst. No lack of volunteers and the threat in the Junction conflict minimized need for spice poison to ignite Sharings, reducing danger. Anyone on this ship could sense all-or-nothing in Odrade's gamble. Imminent threat of death was recognized. Sharing necessary!
Transformation of a Reverend Mother into sets of memories passed around at perilous cost among the Sisters no longer carried a mysterious aura for her, but Murbella still was awed by the responsibility. The courage of Rebecca ... and Lucilla! ... demanded admiration.
Millions of Memory Lives! All concentrated in what the Sisterhood called Extremis Progressiva, two by two then four by four and sixteen by sixteen, until each held all of them and any survivor could preserve the precious accumulation.
What they were doing in Mother Superior's suite had some of that flavor. The concept no longer terrified Murbella but it was not yet ordinary. Odrade's words comforted.
"Once you have fully accommodated to the bundles of Other Memory, all else falls into a perspective that is utterly familiar, as though you had known it always."
Murbella recognized that Teg was prepared to die in defense of this multiple awareness that was the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit.
Can I do less?
Teg, no longer completely an enigma, remained an object of respect. Odrade Within amplified this with reminders of his exploits, then: "I wonder how I'm doing down there? Ask."
Comcommand said, "No word. But her transmissions may have been blocked by energy shielding."
They knew who really asked the question. It was on their faces.
She has Odrade!
Murbella again focused on the battle at the Citadel.
Her own reactions surprised Murbella. Everything colored by historical disgust at repetition of war's nonsense, but still this exuberant spirit reveling in newly acquired Bene Gesserit abilities.
Honored Matre forces had good weapons down there, she noted, and Teg's heat-absorption pads were taking punishment but even as she watched, the defensive perimeter collapsed. She could hear howling as a large Idaho-designed disrupter went bouncing down a passage between tall trees, knocking out defenders right and left.
Other Memory gave her a peculiar comparison. It was like a circus. Ships landing, disgorging their human cargoes.
"In the center ring! The Spider Queen! Acts never before seen by the human eye!"
Odrade's persona produced a sense of amusement. How's this for closeness of sisterhood?
Are you dead down there, Dar? You must be. Spider Queen will blame you and be enraged.
Trees placed long afternoon shadows across Teg's lane of attack, she saw. Inviting cover. He ordered his people to go around. Ignore inviting avenues. Look for hard ways to approach and use them.
The Citadel lay in a gigantic botanical garden, strange trees and even stranger bushes mingled with prosaic plantings, all scattered around as though thrown there by a dancing child.
Murbella found the circus metaphor attractive. It gave perspective to what she witnessed.
Announcements in her mind.
Over there, dancing animals, defenders of Spider Queen, all bound to obey! And in the first ring, the main event, supervised by our Ringmaster, Miles Teg! His people do mysterious things. Here is the talent!
It had aspects of a staged battle in the Roman Circus. Murbella appreciated the allusion. It made observation richer.
Battle towers filled with armored soldiers approach. They engage. Flames cut the sky. Bodies fall.
But these were real bodies, real pains, real deaths. Bene Gesserit sensitivities forced her to regret the waste.
Is this how it was for my parents caught in the sweep?
Metaphors from Other Memory vanished. She saw Junction then as she knew Teg must see it. Bloody violence, familiar in memory and yet new. She saw attackers advancing, heard them.
Woman's voice, distinct with shock: "That bush screamed at me!"
Another voice, male: "No telling where some of this originated. That sticky stuff bums your skin."
Murbella heard action on the far side of the Citadel but it grew eerily quiet around Teg's position. She saw his troops flitting through shadows, closing in on the tower. There was Teg on Streggi's shoulders. He took a moment to stare up at the facade confronting them about half a klick away. She chose a projection that looked where he looked. Motion behind windows there.
Where were the mysterious last-ditch weapons Honored Matres were supposed to possess?
What will he do now?
Teg had lost his Command Pod to a laser hit outside the main engagement area. The pod lay on its side behind him and he sat astride Streggi's shoulders in a patch of screening bushes, some still smoldering. He had lost his comboard with the pod but retained the silvery horseshoe of his comlink, although it was crippled without the pod's amplifiers. Communications specialists crouched nearby, jittering because they had lost close contact with the action.
The battle beyond the buildings grew louder. He heard hoarse shouts, the high hissing of burners and the lower buzz of large lasguns mingled with tinny zip-zips of hand weapons. Somewhere off there to his left was a thrum-thrum he recognized as heavy armor in trouble. A scraping sound with it, metal agony. Energy system damaged in that one. It was dragging itself over the ground, probably making a mess of the gardens.
Haker, Teg's personal aide, came dodging down the lane behind the Bashar.
Streggi noticed him first and turned without warning, forcing Teg to look at the man. Haker, dark and muscular, with heavy eyebrows (sweat-dampened now) stopped directly in front of Teg and spoke before fully regaining his breath.
"We have the last pockets bottled up, Bashar."
Haker raised his voice to override the battle sounds and a buzzing squawker over his left shoulder producing low conversations, battle urgency in clipped tones.
"The far perimeter?" Teg demanded.
"Mop up in half an hour, no more. You should get out of here, Bashar. Mother Superior warned us to keep you out of needless danger."
Teg gestured at his useless pod. "Why don't I have a Communications backup?"
"A big laze got both backups in the same burn as they were coming in."
"They were together?"
Haker heard the anger. "Sir, they were..."
"No important equipment is sent in together. I'll want to know who disobeyed orders." The quiet voice from immature vocal cords carried more menace than a shout.
"Yes, Bashar." Strictly obedient and no sign from Haker that the mistake was his own.
Damn! "How soon will replacements arrive?"
"Five minutes."
"Get my reserve pod in here as fast as you can." Teg touched Streggi's neck with a knee.
Haker spoke before she could turn. "Bashar, they got the reserve, too. I've ordered another."
Teg repressed a sigh. These things happened in battle but he didn't like depending on primitive corns. "We'll set up here. Get more squawkers." They, at least, had the range.
>
Haker glanced at the greenery around them. "Here?"
"I don't like the look of those buildings up ahead. That tower commands this area. And they must have underground access. I would."
"There's nothing on the..."
"My memory layout doesn't include that tower. Get sonics in here to check the ground. I want our plan brought up to the minute with secure information."
Haker's squawker came alive with an override voice: "Bashar! Is the Bashar available?"
Streggi moved him next to Haker without being told. Teg took the squawker, whistling his code as he grabbed it.
"Bashar, it's a mess at the Flat. About a hundred of them tried to lift and ran into our screen. No survivors."
