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l gathered again, the meeting was tense. In the past year, the Sisterhood had sent seven Sheeana surrogates to refugee camps in order to rally the fighters. The counterfeit Sheeanas had their work cut out for them, convincing fanatics to stand firm in the face of certain defeat.
The seemingly unstoppable Enemy warships proliferated like the heads of a hydra; no matter how many vessels the humans destroyed, more and more appeared. Given millennia to prepare for his final conquest, Omnius had left nothing to chance. The dots on the star charts showed one planet after another falling under the onslaught of thinking machines.
Murbella sat in a hard and uncomfortable seat at the end of the table; most of the others selected furry chairdogs. At the head of the table, Bashar Janess Idaho waited at attention, ready to deliver her report.
"I have news."
"Good or bad?" Murbella dreaded the answer.
"Judge for yourself."
Her daughter looked haggard, weary, and considerably older than her years. Having undergone the Spice Agony and extensive Bene Gesserit training, Janess had the ability to slow her body's changes, not for the sake of appearances, but to keep herself strong and limber. The constant fighting required it. Even so, the unending crisis was taking its toll. Murbella noticed a scar on her daughter's left cheek and a burn mark on her arm.
The female Bashar's words were unemotional, but Murbella could feel the turmoil in her clipped voice. "Even before the first Enemy battleships were seen in the Jhibraith system, the machines sent scout probes to disseminate plagues. The people of Jhibraith had already called for an evacuation, but once the first signs of disease appeared, the Guild turned their ships around and refused to come closer. One Heighliner had to be quarantined. Fortunately, the plague was contained within seven isolated frigates inside its hold. All passengers aboard those frigates died, but the rest were saved."
"What about the planet itself?" Murbella asked.
"The plague spread rapidly across all continents. As expected. The current viral strains are far worse than anything previously encountered, more deadly than even the legendary plagues during the Butlerian Jihad."
Laera skimmed a Ridulian crystal sheet in front of her. "Jhibraith has a population of three hundred twenty-eight million."
"Not anymore," said Kiria.
Janess locked her fingers together, as if to draw strength from her own grip. "One of our Sheeana surrogates was on Jhibraith. As soon as the Guild quarantined the planet, the faux Sheeana rose to her calling and spoke to crowd after crowd as the plague spread. They knew they would all die. They knew the thinking machine forces were on their way. But she convinced them that if they must die, they should die as heroes."
"But if the Guildships had already departed, how could they fight?" Kiria sounded skeptical. "By throwing pebbles?"
"Jhibraith had its own in-system frigates, cargo vessels, and transport runners, none of them equipped with Holtzman engines or no-fields. As the disease cut people down, survivors raced to create a homegrown military force that might stand against Omnius. The people had to work faster than the epidemic killed them off." She forced her lips into a cold, hard smile as she continued her report.
"Our false Sheeana was like a demon herself. I know for a fact that she went five days without sleeping, for the records show she appeared again and again at different cities and factories, rallying the citizenry, forcing them to crawl to their assembly stations if necessary. Nobody bothered with quarantines, since everyone was already infected. As people died in the factories, their bodies were dragged out to mass burial pits and huge bonfires. Others took their places at workstations.
"Even when the Enemy fleet surrounded the world, people did not pause. Then our Sheeana disappeared." Janess looked around the table, lowered her voice. "Afterward, I learned from a coded Bene Gesserit signal that our surrogate contracted the disease, and died from it."
Murbella was startled. "Died? How can that be? Any Reverend Mother knows how to fight off infection."
"That requires great concentration and significant physical resources. Our Sheeana had depleted her reserves. If she'd rested for a day or two, she might have rallied her strength and driven off the disease. But she kept going and going, using up whatever energy reserves she had. Knowing Jhibraith was doomed, that the invading machine armies would destroy her if the plague did not, Sheeana never slackened in her efforts."
Old Accadia nodded. "She had pushed the people into a fanatical fervor. No doubt she realized that if they saw her weakened and dying, they would lose their resolve. She was wise to remove herself from public view."
Janess's thin smile showed true admiration. "As soon as her symptoms began to manifest, Sheeana delivered one last grand speech, telling them she would now ascend to heaven. Then she isolated herself and died alone so that no one could see the horrific plague take its toll on her."
"A marvelous and brave story for the archival histories." Accadia pursed her withered lips. "Her sacrifice will not be forgotten."
"If anyone still studies the histories after this," Kiria mumbled.
"And what of the subsequent fight on Jhibraith?" Murbella asked. "Did the people defend themselves?"
"When the Enemy came, the people fought like ancient berserkers, to the last man and woman. Nothing could stop them. They met the Enemy fleet with ship after ship flown by grandfathers, teenagers, mothers, husbands, and even criminals released from detention centers. All fought and died bravely. Their sheer ferocity drove back the machines. Even with no defined military force, the people of Jhibraith destroyed more than a thousand Enemy vessels."
Reality forced ice into Murbella's voice. "My enthusiasm is tempered by the knowledge that even after losing a thousand vessels, the thinking machines have countless others to throw against us."
"Still, if all planets fought like that, there might be a chance for humankind to survive," Janess pointed out. "The species would be preserved."
Choosing her moment to pounce, Kiria peeled crystal sheets from another set of reports, then propped an image projector in the center of the table. The chairdog shifted subtly and compliantly to accommodate her movements. "This new report shows why we can't count on all planets. We are being attacked by a rot from within, as well as the outside fleet."
Murbella frowned. "Where did you get this?"
"Sources." Wearing a smug expression, the former Honored Matre activated the projector. "While we face the thinking machines headon, a more devious opponent undermines us from within."
The image resolved to show a mob scene. "This is Belos IV, but such occurrences have been documented elsewhere. Sparked by helplessness in the face of the approaching Enemy fleet, brushfire wars and political struggles are starting on planet after planet. People are afraid. When their leaders don't tell them what they want to hear, they riot, overthrow their prime ministers, and prop others in their place. More often than not, they depose the new leaders as well."
"We know this." Murbella looked at Janess, who remained rigidly at attention at the front of the table. She wished her daughter would sit down. On the images, the citizens of Belos IV had risen up against their governor, who had advocated surrender to the oncoming thinking machines. "Obviously, the people didn't want to hear such a message. Why is this relevant?"
Kiria jabbed a sharp-nailed finger at the image. "Observe!"
When the crowd attacked the middle-aged leader, he fought remarkably well, using skills and speed rarely demonstrated by any bureaucrat. While Murbella watched, she decided the governor must have acquired some sort of special training. His combat methods were unusual and effective, but the mob far outnumbered him. They dragged him through the streets to the balcony of the governor's palace and threw him off onto the flagstones far below. As he lay still, the howling, cheering mob backed away. The images drew in closer. The dead governor shifted and paled. His face became sunken and scarecrowish, somehow unformed. A Face Dancer!
"We always suspected the new Face Dancers had question
able loyalties. They allied themselves with Honored Matres and turned against the old Tleilaxu. We found them among the rebel whores on Gammu and Tleilax, and now it appears that the threat is even worse than we suspected. Listen to the governor's words. He advocated surrender to the thinking machines. Who are the Face Dancers really working for?"
Murbella reached the obvious conclusion and dragged her sharp gaze like a serrated knife across the other Sisters. "The new Face Dancers are puppets of Omnius, and have infiltrated our populace. They are far superior to the old ones, able to resist almost any Bene Gesserit technique. We always wondered how the Lost Tleilaxu could have created them, when their skills were so inferior to those the old Masters demonstrated. It did not seem possible."
Laera said coldly, "It is possible if the thinking machines helped to create them, then sent them back among Tleilaxu returning from the Scattering."
"A first wave of scouts and infiltrators." Kiria nodded. "How far have they spread? Could there be Face Dancers among us, undetected by Truthsayers?"
Accadia scowled. "A frightening thought, if we have no way of exposing these new Face Dancers. From what I can tell, their mimicry is perfect."
"Nothing is perfect," Murbella said. "Even thinking machines have flaws."
Without humor, Kiria said, "Oh, we can identify them easily enough. Kill them, and Face Dancers revert to their blank state."
"So you suggest we simply kill everyone?"
"That's what the Enemy intends to do anyway."
Restless, Murbella stood up. She could remain here on Chapterhouse with the other anxious Sisters, receive reports for another year, listen to summaries, and plot the advance of the thinking machines on a map, as if it were some kind of war game. Meanwhile, the Ixian engineers struggled to build weapons equivalent to the Obliterators, and the Guild shipyards worked to produce thousands of ships, all of them equipped with mathematical compilers.
