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We must break them and assimilate them, she thought. But first, we must be certain of our unity.
Bending down, Murbella scooped up a handful of dirt near the base of the small tree. Holding the dry soil in the palm of her hand, she lifted it to her nose and inhaled the pungent, earthy aroma. At times, she wondered if she could detect, ever so faintly, the infinitesimal scent of her mentor and friend.
"Someday I may join you here," she said aloud, looking at the struggling tree, "but not yet. First, I have important work to finish."
Your legacy, murmured Odrade-within.
"Our legacy. You inspired me to heal the factions and bring together women who were mortal enemies. I didn't expect it to be so hard, or to take so long." In her head Odrade remained silent.
Murbella walked farther from the fortresslike Keep, putting it behind her, and all of her responsibilities with it. She identified the passing rows of dying trees: apples giving way to peaches, cherries, and oranges. She decided to order an active program of planting date palms, which would survive longer in the changing climate. But did they even have years?
Climbing a nearby hill, she noted how much harder and drier the soil was. In grasslands beyond the orchards, the Sisterhood's cattle still grazed, but the pasture was sparse now, forcing the animals to range farther. She saw the flicker of a lizard running across the warm ground. Sensing danger, the tiny reptile scurried up a large stone to look back at her. Suddenly a desert hawk swooped down, snatched the creature, and carried it into the sky.
Murbella responded with a hard smile. For some time now, the desert had been approaching, killing all growing things in its path. Windblown dust painted the normally blue skies with a constant brownish haze. As the sandworms grew out in the arid belt, so did their desert, to accommodate them. An ever-expanding ecosystem.
In the encroaching desert ahead of her, and the faltering orchards behind her, Murbella saw two great Bene Gesserit dreams crashing into one another like opposing tides, a beginning absorbing an ending. Long before Sheeana brought a single aging sandworm here, the Sisterhood planted this orchard. The new plan, however, had far greater galactic importance than any symbolism represented by the orchard graveyards. Through their bold action, the Bene Gesserits had saved the sandworms and melange, before the ravages of the Honored Matres.
Wasn't that worth the loss of a few fruit trees? Melange was both a blessing and a curse. She turned and strode back to the Keep.
The conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg. A vast mass of subconscious thoughts and latent abilities lies beneath the surface.
--The Mentat Handbook
B
ack when Duncan Idaho was held prisoner at the Chapterhouse spaceport, enough deadly mines had been placed on the no-ship to destroy it three times over. Odrade and Bellonda had planted the explosives throughout the grounded no-ship, ready to be triggered should Duncan try to escape. They had assumed that the deadly mines would be a sufficient deterrent. The loyal Sisters had never dreamed that Sheeana herself and her conservative allies might deactivate those mines and steal the ship for their own purposes.
The passengers aboard the Ithaca were theoretically trustworthy, but Duncan, staunchly supported by the Bashar, insisted that these mines were simply too dangerous to leave unprotected. Only he, Teg, Sheeana, and four others had direct access to the armory.
During his routine check, Duncan unsealed the vault and viewed the wide selection of weapons. He drew reassurance from observing his options, tallying the ways that the Ithaca could fight back, should it ever become necessary. He sensed that the old man and woman had not stopped searching, though he had not encountered the shimmering net for three years now. He could not let his guard down.
He inspected rows of modified lasguns, pulse rifles, splinter guns, and projectile launchers. These weapons represented an edgy potential for violence that made him think of Honored Matres. The whores would not want distant and impersonal stunners; they preferred weapons that caused extreme damage up close, where they could see the carnage, and smile. He had already gained far too much insight into their tastes when he'd discovered the sealed torture chamber. He wondered what else the terrible women might have hidden aboard the great vessel.
For the entire time Duncan had been a prisoner aboard the grounded no-ship, these weapons had been stored here, securely locked but still within reach. Had he wanted to, he surely could have broken into the armory and stolen them. He was surprised that Odrade had underestimated him . . . or trusted him. In the end, she had given him what history called the "Atreides choice," explaining the consequences and allowing him to decide whether or not to stay with the no-ship. She trusted his loyalties. Anyone who knew him, either personally or from history, understood that Duncan Idaho and Loyalty were synonymous.
Now he considered the compact, sealed mines that had been meant to bring the no-ship down in a flaming collapse. A fail-safe.
"Those aren't the only ticking bombs aboard this ship." The voice startled him, and he spun about, instinctively assuming a fighting stance. Dour, curly-haired Garimi stood at the hatch. In spite of all his experience with them, Duncan was still astonished by how silently the damned witches could move.
Duncan struggled to regain his composure. "Is there another armory, a secret stash of weapons?" It was possible, he supposed, given the thousands of chambers aboard the giant ship that had never been opened or searched.
"I was speaking metaphorically. I meant those gholas from the past."
"That has already been discussed and decided." In the medical center, the first ghola from Scytale's sample cells would soon be decanted.
"Simply making a decision does not make the decision correct," Garimi said.
"You harp on it too much."
Garimi rolled her eyes. "Even you haven't seen any sign of your hunters since the day we consigned our five tortured Sisters to space. It's time for us to find a suitable world and establish a new core for the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood."
Duncan frowned. "The Oracle of Time also said the hunters were searching for us."
"Another encounter that only you experienced."
"Are you suggesting I imagined it? Or that I'm lying? Bring me any Truthsayer you like. I will prove it to you."
She grumbled. "Even so, it has been years since the Oracle purportedly warned you. We have eluded capture all this time."
Leaning against one of the shelves of weapons, Duncan gave her a cool stare. "And how do you know the Enemy isn't patient, that they won't just wait for us to make a mistake? They want this ship, or they want someone aboard it--probably me. Once these new gholas regain their knowledge and experience, they may be our greatest advantage."
"Or an unrecognized danger."
He realized he would never convince her. "I knew Paul Atreides. As the Atreides Swordmaster, I helped to raise and train that boy. I will do so again."
"He became the terrible Muad'Dib. He began a jihad that slaughtered trillions, and he turned into an emperor as corrupt as any in history before him."
"He was a good child and a good man," Duncan insisted. "And while he shaped the map of history, Paul was himself shaped by the events around him. Even so, in the end he refused to follow the path that he knew led to so much pain and ruin."
"His son Leto did not have such reservations."
"Leto II was forced into a Hobson's choice of his own. We cannot judge that decision until we know everything that was behind it. Perhaps not enough time has passed for anyone to say whether or not his choice was ultimately correct."
A storm of anger crossed Garimi's face. "It's been five thousand years since the Tyrant began his work,
fifteen hundred years since his death."
"One of his most prominent lessons was that humanity should learn to think on a truly long time scale."
Uncomfortable with allowing the Bene Gesserit woman so close to so many tempting weapons, he eased her back out into the corridor and sealed the vault door. "I was on Ix fighting the Tleilaxu for House Vernius when Paul Atreides was born in the Imperial Palace on Kaitain. I found myself embroiled in the first battles of the War of Assassins that consumed House Ecaz and Duke Leto for so many years. Lady Jessica had been summoned to Kaitain for the last months of her pregnancy because Lady Anirul suspected the potential of Paul and wanted to be present at the birth. Despite treachery and assassinations, the baby survived and was brought back to Caladan."
Garimi stepped away from the armory, still obviously disturbed. "According to the legends, Paul Muad'Dib was born on Caladan, not on Kaitain."
"Legends are just that, sometimes fraught with errors, sometimes distorted intentionally. As an infant, Paul Atreides was christened on Caladan, and he considered that planet his home, until his arrival on Dune. You Bene Gesserits wrote that history."
"And now you plan to rewrite it with what you assure us is the truth, with your precious Paul and other ghola children from the past?"
"Not rewrite it. We intend to re-create it."
Clearly dissatisfied, but seeing that any further argument would simply carry them in circles, Garimi waited to see which direction Duncan would walk. Then she turned the opposite way and stalked off.
The unknown can be a terrible thing, and is often made more monstrous by human imagination. The real Enemy, however, may be far worse than any we can possibly imagine. Do not let your guard down.
--MOTHER SUPERIOR DARWI ODRADE
