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Edrik surprised him by offering additional supplies and a small team of loyal Guild assistants to help with the labor of setting up a camp and administering the experiments. Perhaps he wanted his own people on hand to see if the Tleilaxu man succeeded again with his worms. Waff didn't mind, so long as they stayed out of the way.
Without introducing himself to the silent members of his new team, Waff directed the transfer of his armored sandworm specimens from the isolated lab, his self-erecting shelters and his equipment, everything they would need for survival on the charred world.
One of the silent, smooth-faced Guild assistants piloted the lighter. Before they reached the dead surface of Dune, the Heighliner had already drifted out of orbit. Edrik was anxious to be on his way to answer the Oracle's call, carrying its cargo of ultraspice and the tidings of new hope for all Navigators.
Waff, though, had eyes only for the blistered, lifeless landscape of the legendary world.
Bacteria are like tiny machines, notable for their effects on larger biological systems. In a similar way, humans behave as disease organisms among planetary systems, and should be studied as such.
--ERASMUS,
Laboratory Notebooks
When the virulent plague reached Chapterhouse, the first cases appeared among the male workers. Seven men were struck down so swiftly that their dying expressions showed more surprise than pain.
In the Great Hall where younger Sisters dined, the disease also spread. The virus was so insidious that the most contagious period occurred a full day before any symptoms manifested; thus, the epidemic had already sunk its claws into those most vulnerable before the New Sisterhood even knew a threat existed.
Hundreds perished within the first three days, more than a thousand by the end of the week; after ten days, the victims were beyond counting. Support staff, teachers, visitors, offworld merchants, cooks and kitchen help, even failed Reverend Mothers--all fell like stalks of wheat under the Grim Reaper's scythe.
Murbella called upon her senior advisers to develop an immediate plan, but from prior epidemics on other embattled planets they knew that precautionary measures and quarantines would do no good. The conference room doors were securely locked, because younger Sisters and acolytes could not be allowed to know the strategies being discussed here.
"Survival of the Sisterhood is our primary purpose, even as the rest of Chapterhouse dies around us." Murbella felt sickened to think of all the unprepared acolytes, spice-harvesting teams in the dune belt, transport drivers, architects and construction workers, weather planners, greenhouse gardeners, cleaners, bankers, artists, archive workers, pilots, technicians, and medical assistants. All the underpinnings of Chapterhouse itself.
Laera attempted to sound objective, but her voice cracked. "Reverend Mothers have the precise cellular control needed to fight this disease on its own battleground. We can use our bodily defenses to drive away the plague."
"In other words, anyone who hasn't gone through the Spice Agony will die," Kiria said. "Like the Honored Matres did. That was why we pursued you Bene Gesserits in the first place, to learn how to protect ourselves from the epidemic."
"Can we use the blood of Bene Gesserit survivors to create a vaccine?" Murbella asked.
Laera shook her head. "Reverend Mothers drive out disease organisms, cell by cell. There are no antibodies we can share with others."
"It is not even as simple as that," Accadia rasped. "A Reverend Mother can channel her inner biological defenses only if she has the energy to do so, and if she has the time and ability to concentrate on herself. But this plague forces us to turn our energies to tend the most unfortunate victims."
"If you make that mistake, you'll die, just like our Sheeana surrogate on Jhibraith," Kiria said with the undertone of a sneer in her voice. "We Reverend Mothers will have to take care of ourselves and no one else. The others have no chance anyway. We need to accept that."
Murbella already felt the beginnings of exhaustion, but her nervous anxiety made her pace the sealed council room. She had to think. What could be done against such a minute, lethal enemy? Only Reverend Mothers will survive. . . . She spoke firmly to her advisors, "Find every acolyte who is close to being ready for the Agony. Do we have enough Water of Life?"
"For all of them?" cried Laera.
"For every single one. Any Sister who has the slightest chance of survival. Give all of them the poison and hope they can convert it and survive the Agony. Only then will they be able to fight off the plague."
"Many will die in the attempt," warned Laera.
"Or all of them will die from the plague. Even if most of the candidates succumb to the Agony, it's an improvement." She did not wince. Her own daughter Rinya had perished that way, many years ago.
Smiling slightly with her wrinkled lips, Accadia nodded. "A Bene Gesserit would rather die from the Agony than from a sickness spread by our Enemy. It is a gesture of defiance rather than surrender."
"See that it is done."
IN THE DEATH houses she turned a deaf ear to the moans of the sick and dying. The Chapterhouse doctors had drugs and potent analgesics, and the Bene Gesserit acolytes had been taught how to block off pain. Even so, the misery of the plague was enough to break the deepest conditioning.
Murbella hated to see the Sisters unable to control their suffering. It shamed her, not for their weakness but because she had been unable to prevent this from happening in the first place.
She went to where lines of makeshift beds held young acolytes, most of them terrified, some of them determined. The room smelled of rancid cinnamon--harsh instead of pleasant. With her brow furrowed and eyes intent, the Mother Commander watched two stony-faced Reverend Mothers carry out a stretcher bearing the sheet-wrapped body of a young woman.
"Another one failed the Agony?"
The Reverend Mothers nodded. "Sixty-one today. They are dying as fast as from the plague."
"And how many successes?"
"Forty-three."
"Forty-three that will live to fight the Enemy."
Like a mother hen, Murbella walked up and down the line of beds, observing the plague-stricken Sisters, some sleeping quietly with new bodily awareness, others writhing in deep comas from which it was uncertain they would ever find their way back.
At the end of the row, a teenage girl lay with frightened eyes. She propped herself up in bed on trembling arms. She met Murbella's gaze, and even in her extreme sickness the girl's eyes glimmered. "Mother Commander," she said hoarsely.
Murbella moved closer to the young one. "What is your name?"
"Baleth."
"Are you waiting to undergo the Agony?"
"I'm waiting to die, Mother Commander. I was brought here to take the Water of Life, but before it could be
administered the symptoms of the disease manifested themselves. I'll be dead before the end of the day." She sounded very brave.
"So they will not give you the Water of Life, then? You won't even attempt the Agony?"
Baleth lowered her chin. "They say I will not survive it."
"And you believe them? Aren't you strong enough to try?"
"I am strong enough to try, Mother Commander."
"Then I'd rather you died trying, instead of giving up." As she looked down at Baleth, she was poignantly reminded of Rinya . . . eager and confident, so like Duncan. But her daughter hadn't been ready after all, and she had died on the table.
I should have delayed her. Because of my need to prove myself, I pushed Rinya. I should have waited. . . .
And Murbella's youngest daughter Gianne--what had happened to her? The Mother Commander had kept herself apart from the young woman's day-to-day activities, letting the Sisterhood raise her. But in this time of crisis, she decided to ask someone, Laera perhaps, to track her down.
Right now, Baleth seemed to show hope, looking with fervid eyes toward the Mother Commander. Murbella ordered the Suk doctors to attend to her immediately. "Time is shorter for this one than for the others."
From the doctors' skeptical expressions, Murbella could see they considered this a waste of the valuable Water of Life, but she stood firm. Baleth accepted the viscid draught, took a last look at her Mother Commander, and gulped the toxic substance. She lay back, closed her eyes, and began her fight. . . .
It did not last long. Baleth died in a valiant attempt, but Murbella could feel no guilt about it. The Sisterhood must never stop fighting.
THOUGH MELANGE WAS rare and precious, rarer still was the Water of Life.
By the fourth day of Murbella's desperate plan, it became apparent that Chapterhouse's supplies would not be sufficient. Sister after Sister consumed the poison, and many perished while struggling to convert the deadly toxin in their cells, trying to change their bodies.
