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"I expect others from the outside will eventually join you," Murbella said.
The little Tleilaxu was surprised by the invitation. "Of course I will stay. Thank you. My people have no other place now, not even sacred Bandalong." He smiled at Sheeana. "Perhaps at your side I can accomplish something worthwhile."
Duncan walked among the Bene Gesserit refugees. "You are gardeners laying down flagstones on our path of destiny. Many of us will return to worlds we once called home, but you will remain here."
With a warm feeling toward him, Sheeana touched Duncan's arm. Though still flesh and bone, and human, she knew he was far more than that. And his words rang true. "Thanks to you Duncan, my Sisters and I are finally home."
The worst part of going back is that the past is never exactly the way you remember it.
--PAUL ATREIDES,
Notebooks of a Ghola
Back in the Old Empire, the last Chapterhouse defenders waited, tense and alert, but nothing changed for days. The machine warships had not moved, and Bashar Janess Idaho had received no further word from the Navigator ships that had whisked the Mother Commander away. Fast scouts flitted back and forth from the hundred laststand groupings, and the situation was the same along the entire front.
Waiting. No one knew what was happening.
Janess reacted with alarm and dismay when a large swarm of ships burst out of foldspace in all sizes and configurations. Shouting into the commline, the bashar rallied all of her functional defensive craft that remained in orbit. At first she did not recognize the configurations, but then she saw that the newly arrived cluster included smaller human and thinking-machine vessels that had been towed along by the Holtzman engines of great Guildships.
"Identify yourselves!" Janess said to the unexpected armada.
On the bridge of her large battleship, returning home, Murbella smiled at Duncan. "That is your--our daughter."
He raised his eyebrows and performed quick mental calculations. "One of the twins?"
"Janess." Murbella frowned slightly. "The other one, Rinya, didn't survive the Agony. I forgot you didn't know. Tanidia, the middle one, is alive and well, assigned with the Missionaria among the refugees. But we lost Gianne, our youngest--born just before I became a Reverend Mother. She died during the Chapterhouse plague."
Duncan steadied himself. How odd to feel a blow of genuine grief to learn of the death of two children he had never met. He hadn't even known their names until now. He tried to imagine what the young women might have been like. As Kwisatz Haderach and evermind, he could do many things . . . almost anything. But he couldn't bring back his daughters.
Duncan studied Janess's features on the screen: dark hair and round face from his own genes, a petite figure, intense eyes, and a hard expression showing she would never run from a challenge. A synthesis of himself and Murbella. He activated the commline himself. "Bashar Janess Idaho, this is Duncan Idaho, your father. I am with the Mother Commander."
Murbella leaned into the field of view. "Stand down, Janess. The war is over. You have nothing to fear from us."
Janess seemed suspicious. "There are thinking-machine ships with you."
"They are my ships now," Duncan said.
The female bashar did not flinch. "How do I know you're not Face Dancers?"
Murbella answered, "Janess, when we stood against the thinking machines and discovered that Ixians and Face Dancers had deceived us, you and I were ready to throw away our lives in a final burst of glory. Don't be so eager to die now that we finally have hope."
The image of Janess stared at them from the viewing plate. Duncan was proud of his daughter's caution. He said, "We will all meet in the great hall of the Keep. A good place for us to discuss the future." He smiled wistfully. "I never actually saw the inside of the Keep when I was here. . . . I had to remain aboard the no-ship at all times."
Janess hesitated just a moment longer, then nodded curtly. "We will have guards."
Duncan already missed his no-ship comrades, but they had their own places to go now, important niches to fill. Paul and Chani would return to Arrakis, where they had always known they belonged. Jessica had chosen Caladan, and she surprised many by asking Yueh to go with her. And on Synchrony, Scytale's nullentropy capsule still contained a wealth of cells, a treasure chest of prizes.
Duncan had already decided on the first request he would make of the Tleilaxu Master. The turmoil and changes, the repercussions and adaptations would last for decades, even centuries. He would value the assistance and advice of a great man. He needed Miles Teg at his side again. . . .
As the ship descended toward the main city on Chapterhouse, Duncan knew he could never think of this world as home, despite the time he'd spent there. In his genetic incarnations he had experienced many places and known innumerable people. Duncan's developing prescience, and his mental connection to decillions of eyes spread across the cosmos and linked through the evermind's tachyon net, made the entire universe his home now.
Now you begin to understand the fascinating obligation I helped you to assume, said a familiar-sounding voice in his mind. Erasmus! I could have made it much harder on you, Kwisatz Haderach. Instead, I cooperated. This is only an echo of me, an observer. You can access me as you like. Use my knowledge like a databank. A tool. I am curious to see what you will do.
"Are you haunting me now, like a demon?"
Consider me an advisor, but my research continues. I will always be here to guide you, and I am confident you will not let me down.
"Like the witches' Other Memory, but far bigger, and more easily accessible."
You are here to serve both humans and thinking machines--and the future. It is all under your command.
Duncan laughed softly to himself at the friendly bantering between the two of them. Though Erasmus was in a subservient position, he still had a bit of humanlike pride, even if he was only an echo, and an advisor.
Entering the Keep, Duncan and Murbella marched into the echoing great hall, side by side. Watcheyes followed them, along with a pair of sentinel robots. The robots greatly disturbed the people who waited there, but in the future humans must learn to set
aside their fears and preconceptions.
Without Omnius, the thinking-machine empire continued to function but without a unified mind or mission. Duncan would direct them, but he refused to simply continue the endless cycle of enslavement. They had potential to be more than tools or puppets, more than just a destructive force. Some of the machines were merely that, but more sophisticated robots and advisory mechanisms could grow and develop into something far superior. Erasmus himself had become independent, developing a unique personality when he was isolated from the homogenizing influence of the evermind. With so many thinking machines spread across so many planets, other prominent figures would arise if given the opportunity. If guided. If Duncan allowed them.
He had to achieve a balance.
The Mother Commander's imposing chair stood high and empty in front of a segmented window that looked out on the arid, dying landscape. Janess stood to one side, welcoming Murbella to the empty seat, with nearly a hundred of the New Sisterhood's guards standing at high alert in the chamber. Though all of the insidious Face Dancers had been exposed and killed, Janess was not letting down her guard, and Duncan felt proud of his daughter.
She bowed formally. "Mother Commander, we are glad to have you back. Please, take your place."
"It is no longer only my place. Duncan, your daughter has been raised in the Bene Gesserit ways, but she also made a point of learning about you. She trained herself to become the equivalent of a Ginaz Swordmaster."
Thinking bittersweet thoughts about all he had missed, Duncan formally shook his daughter's hand and found her grip pleasingly strong. Until this moment they had been strangers who shared a bond of blood and patriotic allegiance. Their real relationship was just beginning.
Murbella had fought a long and bloody battle to combine the opposing forces of the Honored Matres and the Bene Gesserits, after which she had wrestled with the disparate groups of humanity to forge them into one whole. On an even larger scale, Duncan, through his newfound abilities, was shaping an even greater, farther reaching union.
