AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But I am no ordinary person.
Sheeana lay there, absorbing the warmth, letting the intense melange seep into every pore in her body, feeling Monarch's dim consciousness merge into hers. She inhaled deeply and felt a great, cosmic sense of calm, like being in the womb of the Great Mother of the Universe.
Unexpectedly, with the unusual visitor deep in its gullet, the sandworm dove into the artificial desert and began to move through it; taking her on a strange journey. As if connected directly with Monarch's nervous system, Sheeana could see through the eyeless worm to its companions beneath the sand. Working together, the seven sandworms were forming small veins of spice in the cargo hold.
Preparing.
Sheeana lost track of time and thought again of Leto II, whose pearl of awareness was now inside this beast and all of the others in the hold. She wondered where she fit into this paranormal realm. As the God Emperor's queen? As the female part of the godhead? Or as something else entirely, an entity she could not begin to imagine?
The worms all carried secrets, and Sheeana understood how much the ghola children were like that as well. They each held a treasure greater than spice within their cells: their past memories and lives. Paul and Chani, Jessica, Yueh, Leto II. Even Thufir Hawat, Stilgar, Liet-Kynes . . . and now baby Alia. Each had a crucial role to play, but only if they could remember who they were.
She saw each image, but not in her own imagination. The sandworms knew what those lost figures contained. An urgency rushed toward her like a desert wind. Time, and with it their chances for survival, was slipping away too quickly. She envisioned a succession of the possible gholas, all primed like weapons, but blurred as to what each could do.
She could not wait for the Enemy. She had to act now.
The worm resurfaced, and after moving along the sands, it jolted to a stop. Inside, Sheeana caught her balance. Then, by constricting its membranous interior, the creature gently pushed her back out. She crawled from the mouth and tumbled onto the sands.
Dust and grit clung to the film coating her body. Monarch nudged her, like a mother bird urging a chick to go out on its own. Caught up in disorienting visions, she struggled and dropped to her knees on the dry sand. The faces of the ghola children wavered around her, dissolving into bright lights. Awaken!
She lay gasping for breath, her body and clothing drenched in spice essence. Beside Sheeana, the big worm turned, burrowed back into the shallow sand, and disappeared from view.
Reeking and reeling, Sheeana made her way back toward the cargohold doors, but she kept losing her footing and falling. She had to reach the ghola children . . . The worm had given her an important message, something that seeped into her consciousness like a wordless form of Other Memory. In moments, she was left with an overwhelming certainty of what she had to do.
You say that we must learn from the past. But I--I fear the past, for I have been there, and I have no desire to return.
--DR. WELLINGTON YUEH,
the ghola
After being scrubbed and showered to rid her of a spice reek so strong that even the Sisters who assisted her covered their mouths and noses, Sheeana slept for two days in deep and disturbing dreams.
When she finally emerged and found Duncan Idaho and Miles Teg on the navigation bridge, she made her announcement. "The gholas are all old enough. Even Leto II is the same age as when I restored the Bashar." The smell of melange was heavy on Sheeana's breath. "It's time to awaken them all."
Duncan turned his back on the observation window where he stood. "Triggering the process isn't like activating a subroutine or working through a bout of temporary amnesia. You can't just issue a memo and order it done."
"The ghola children have always known that we would demand this of them," she said. "Without their past memories, without their genius, they are of no more value to us than any other children."
The Bashar nodded slowly. "To recall a ghola's past life is an experience that destroys and recreates the psyche. There are numerous proven methods, some more painful than others, but none are easy. You can't awaken the children all at once. Each critical event must be tailored to the individual. A horrible, mind-shattering crisis." Teg's face showed echoes of pain. "You thought you were using a humane awakening method with me, Sheeana . . . when I was only a ten-year-old child."
Though Duncan, too, seemed uneasy at the prospect, he stepped down from the observation window and walked toward Sheeana. "She's right, Miles. We created those gholas for a purpose, and right now they're all like unloaded guns. We need to load our gholas--our unique weapons. The Enemy's net is stronger now, and it nearly snared us again. We all saw it. Next time, we may not be able to slip away."
"We've waited long enough." Sheeana's voice was hard, brooking no argument.
"Some gholas may be more challenging than others." Teg's eyes narrowed. "You may lose some to madness. Are you prepared for that?"
"I have gone through the Spice Agony, as have all Reverend Mothers on this ship. We survived the unbearable pain."
"I have the memories of my old life," Teg said. "Of wars and atrocities, and enduring unbearable torture. Somehow the bad details are much more vivid than the pleasant ones, but nothing is worse than the awakening."
Sheeana waved her hand. "Throughout history, men and women have had a monopoly on their own kinds of pain, each thinking theirs is the worst." She smiled grimly. "We will start with the least valuable ghola, of course. In case something goes wrong."
WELLINGTON YUEH WAS summoned to stand before the Bene Gesserits in one of the no-ship's council chambers. The gangly teenager had a pointed chin and pinched lips. Already buried within his face were hints of the familiar chiseled features and broad forehead--the despised visage that had become synonymous with the word traitor for thousands o
f years in galactic reference works.
The young man was nervous, fidgeting. Sheeana drew herself to her full height and stepped closer. He flinched at her intimidating presence, but somehow found the courage to stand where he was. "You summoned me, Reverend Mother. How may I assist?"
"By awakening your memories. Tomorrow you will be the first of our subjects to undergo the trigger."
Yueh's yellowish face paled. "But I'm not ready!"
"That is why we have given you a full day to prepare." Proctor Superior Garimi's tongue was sharp, as usual.
Although Garimi had never embraced the project, she now wanted to see its culmination. Sheeana knew what she was thinking: If the awakening process failed, Garimi intended to prevent any further gholas from being grown; if the awakening succeeded, she would insist that the program had fulfilled its goal and could be discontinued. She knew that Sheeana, still intrigued by all those cells in the Tleilaxu's nullentropy capsule, was planning further ghola experiments.
Yueh's legs were locked. He seemed close to fainting and grasped a nearby chair to steady himself. "Sisters, I don't want to have my memories back. I am not the man you think you resurrected, but a new person--my own person. The old Wellington Yueh was tormented in so many ways. Even though he was in part me, how can I forgive him for what he did?"
Garimi made a dismissive gesture. "Nevertheless, we brought you back for one purpose only. Don't expect sympathy from us. You have a task to perform."
After the proctors took the distraught young man away, Sheeana looked at Garimi and two other senior Sisters--Calissa and Elyen--who had observed the discussion. "I will use the sexual method on him, the same one that worked on the ghola of the Bashar. It is the best technique we know."
Elyen said, "Your sexual imprinting unlocked the Bashar's memories only because it precipitated a crisis in him. Teg's mother had armed him against sexual imprinting. It wasn't your technique that stirred up his past, but his sheer resistance to it."
