Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert
Love of chaos, indeed!
Spider Queen smiled and led the way onto the balcony.
As she emerged, Odrade once more was stopped by what she saw. A decoration on the parapet to her left. A life-size figure shaped from an almost ethereal substance, all feathery planes and curved surfaces.
When she squinted at the figure, Odrade saw it was intended to represent a human. Male or female? In some positions male, and in some female. Planes and curves responded to vagrant breezes. Thin, almost invisible wires (looked to be shigawire) suspended it from a delicately curving tube anchored in a translucent mound. The lower extremities of the figure almost touched the pebbled surface of the supporting base.
Odrade stared, captivated.
Why does it remind me of Sheeana's "The Void"?
When the wind moved it, the whole creation appeared to dance, relapsing sometimes into a graceful walk, then a slow pirouette and sweeping turns with outstretched leg.
"It is called 'Ballet Master,'" Dama said. "In some winds it will kick its feet high. I have seen it running as gracefully as a marathoner. Sometimes it is just ugly little motions, arms jerking as though they held weapons. Beautiful and ugly--it is all the same. I think the artist misnamed it. 'Being Unknown' would have been better."
Beautiful and ugly--all the same. Being Unknown.
That was a terrible thing about Sheena's creation. Odrade felt a cold wash of fear. "Who was the artist?"
"I've no idea. One of my predecessors took it from a planet we were destroying. Why does it interest you?"
It's the wild thing no one can govern. But she said: "I presume we're both seeking a basis for understanding, trying to find similarities between us."
This brought the orange glare. "You may try to understand us but we have no need to understand you."
"Both of us come from societies of women."
"It is dangerous to think of us as your offshoots!"
But Murbella's evidence says you are. Formed in the Scattering by Fish Speakers and Reverend Mothers in extremis.
All ingenuous and fooling nobody, Odrade asked: "Why is that dangerous?"
Dama's laugh conveyed no amusement. Vindictive.
Odrade experienced an abrupt new assessment of danger. More than a Bene Gesserit probe-and-review was demanded here. These women were accustomed to killing when angered. A reflex. Dama had said as much when speaking to her aide, and Dama had just signaled there were limits to her tolerance.
Yet, in her own way, she is trying to bargain. She displays her mechanical marvels, her powers, her wealth. No offer of alliance. Be willing servants, witches, our slaves, and we will forgive much. To gain the last of the Million Planets? More than that, certainly, but an interesting number.
With a new caution, Odrade reformed her approach. Reverend Mothers too easily fell into an adaptive pattern. I am, of course, quite different from you but I will unbend for the sake of accord. That would not do with Honored Matres. They would accept nothing to suggest they were not in absolute control. It was a statement of Dama's superiority over her Sisters that she allowed Odrade so much latitude.
Once more, Dama spoke in her imperious manner.
Odrade listened. How odd that Spider Queen thought one of the most attractive things the Bene Gesserit could provide was immunity from new diseases.
Was that the form of attack that drove them here?
Her sincerity was naive. None of this tiresome periodic checking to see if you had acquired secret inhabitants in your flesh. Sometimes not so secret. Sometimes disgustingly perilous. But the Bene Gesserit could end all that and would be suitably rewarded.
How pleasant.
Still that vindictive tone in every word. Odrade caught herself in this thought: Vindictive? That did not catch the proper flavor. Something carried at a deeper level.
Unconsciously jealous of what you lost when you broke away from us!
This was another pattern and it had been stylized!
Honored Matres fell back on repetitious mannerisms.
Mannerisms we abandoned long ago.
This was more than refusal to recognize Bene Gesserit origins. This was garbage disposal.
Drop your discards wherever they lose your interest. Underlings take out the garbage. She is more concerned with the next thing she wants to consume than she is with fouling her own nest.
The Honored Matre flaw was larger than suspected. Much more deadly to themselves and all they controlled. And they could not face it because, to them, it was not there.
Never existed.
Dama remained an untouchable paradox. No question of alliance entered her mind. She would seem to dance up to it but only to test her enemy.
I was right after all to unleash Teg.
Logno came out of the workroom with a tray on which stood two spindly glasses almost filled with golden liquid. Dama took one, sniffed it, and sipped with a pleased expression.
What is that vicious glitter in Logno's eyes?
"Try some of this wine," Dama said, gesturing to Odrade. "It's from a planet I'm sure you've never heard of but where we have concentrated the required elements to produce the perfect golden grape for the perfect golden wine."
Odrade was caught by this long association of humans with their precious ancient drink. The god Bacchus. Berries fermented on the bush or in tribal containers.
"It is not poisoned," Dama said as Odrade hesitated. "I assure you. We kill where it suits our needs but we are not crass. We reserve our more blatant deadliness for the masses. I do not mistake you for one of the masses."
Dama chuckled at her own witticism. The labored friendliness was almost gross.
Odrade took the proffered glass and sipped.
"It's a thing someone devised to please us," Dama said, her attention fixed on Odrade.
The one sip was enough. Odrade's senses detected a foreign substance and she was several heartbeats identifying its purpose.
To nullify the shere protecting me from their probes.
She adjusted her metabolism to render the substance harmless, then announced what she had done.
Dama glared at Logno. "So that is why none of these things work with the witches! And you never suspected!" The rage was an almost physical force directed at the hapless aide.
"It is one of the immune systems with which we combat disease," Odrade said.
Dama hurled her glass to the tiles. She was some time regaining composure. Logno retreated slowly, holding the tray almost as a shield.
So Dama did more than sneak into power. Her Sisters consider her deadly. And so must I consider her.
"Someone will pay for this wasted effort," Dama said. Her smile was not pleasant.
Someone.
Someone made the wine. Someone made the dancing figure. Someone will pay. The identity was never important, only the pleasure or the need for retribution. Subservience.
"Do not interrupt my thoughts," Dama said. She went to the parapet and gazed at her Being Unknown, obviously recomposing her bargaining stance.
Odrade turned her attention to Logno. What was that continued watchfulness, rapt attention fixed on Dama? No longer simple fear. Logno suddenly appeared supremely dangerous.
Poison!
Odrade knew it as certainly as though the aide had shouted the word.
I am not Logno's target. Not yet. She has taken this opportunity to make her bid for power.
There was no need to look at Dama. The moment of Spider Queen's death was visible on Logno's face. Turning, Odrade confirmed it. Dama lay in a heap under Being Unknown.
"You will call me Great Honored Matre," Logno said. "And you will learn to thank me for it. She (pointing at the red heap in the balcony corner) intended to betray you and exterminate your people. I have other plans. I am not one to destroy a useful weapon at the moment of our greatest need."
Battle? There's always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere.
--The Bashar Teg
Murbella wa
There were battles all around Junction--bursts of light on darkside, gray eruptions on dayside. A major engagement directed by Teg centered on "the Citadel"--a giant mound of Guild design with a new tower near its rim. Although Odrade's vital-signs transmissions had stopped abruptly, her early reports confirmed that Great Honored Matre was in there.
The need to observe from a distance helped Murbella's sense of detachment but she felt the excitement.
Interesting times!
This ship contained precious cargo. The millions from Lampadas were being Shared and prepared for Scattering in a suite ordinarily reserved for Mother Superior. The wild Sister with her cargo of Memory dominated their priorities here.
Golden Egg for sure!
Murbella thought of the lives being risked in that suite. Preparing for the worst. No lack of volunteers and the threat in the Junction conflict minimized need for spice poison to ignite Sharings, reducing danger. Anyone on this ship could sense all-or-nothing in Odrade's gamble. Imminent threat of death was recognized. Sharing necessary!
Transformation of a Reverend Mother into sets of memories passed around at perilous cost among the Sisters no longer carried a mysterious aura for her, but Murbella still was awed by the responsibility. The courage of Rebecca ... and Lucilla! ... demanded admiration.
Millions of Memory Lives! All concentrated in what the Sisterhood called Extremis Progressiva, two by two then four by four and sixteen by sixteen, until each held all of them and any survivor could preserve the precious accumulation.
What they were doing in Mother Superior's suite had some of that flavor. The concept no longer terrified Murbella but it was not yet ordinary. Odrade's words comforted.
"Once you have fully accommodated to the bundles of Other Memory, all else falls into a perspective that is utterly familiar, as though you had known it always."
Murbella recognized that Teg was prepared to die in defense of this multiple awareness that was the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit.
Can I do less?
Teg, no longer completely an enigma, remained an object of respect. Odrade Within amplified this with reminders of his exploits, then: "I wonder how I'm doing down there? Ask."
Comcommand said, "No word. But her transmissions may have been blocked by energy shielding."
They knew who really asked the question. It was on their faces.
She has Odrade!
Murbella again focused on the battle at the Citadel.
Her own reactions surprised Murbella. Everything colored by historical disgust at repetition of war's nonsense, but still this exuberant spirit reveling in newly acquired Bene Gesserit abilities.
Honored Matre forces had good weapons down there, she noted, and Teg's heat-absorption pads were taking punishment but even as she watched, the defensive perimeter collapsed. She could hear howling as a large Idaho-designed disrupter went bouncing down a passage between tall trees, knocking out defenders right and left.
Other Memory gave her a peculiar comparison. It was like a circus. Ships landing, disgorging their human cargoes.
"In the center ring! The Spider Queen! Acts never before seen by the human eye!"
Odrade's persona produced a sense of amusement. How's this for closeness of sisterhood?
Are you dead down there, Dar? You must be. Spider Queen will blame you and be enraged.
Trees placed long afternoon shadows across Teg's lane of attack, she saw. Inviting cover. He ordered his people to go around. Ignore inviting avenues. Look for hard ways to approach and use them.
The Citadel lay in a gigantic botanical garden, strange trees and even stranger bushes mingled with prosaic plantings, all scattered around as though thrown there by a dancing child.
Murbella found the circus metaphor attractive. It gave perspective to what she witnessed.
Announcements in her mind.
Over there, dancing animals, defenders of Spider Queen, all bound to obey! And in the first ring, the main event, supervised by our Ringmaster, Miles Teg! His people do mysterious things. Here is the talent!
It had aspects of a staged battle in the Roman Circus. Murbella appreciated the allusion. It made observation richer.
Battle towers filled with armored soldiers approach. They engage. Flames cut the sky. Bodies fall.
But these were real bodies, real pains, real deaths. Bene Gesserit sensitivities forced her to regret the waste.
Is this how it was for my parents caught in the sweep?
Metaphors from Other Memory vanished. She saw Junction then as she knew Teg must see it. Bloody violence, familiar in memory and yet new. She saw attackers advancing, heard them.
Woman's voice, distinct with shock: "That bush screamed at me!"
Another voice, male: "No telling where some of this originated. That sticky stuff bums your skin."
Murbella heard action on the far side of the Citadel but it grew eerily quiet around Teg's position. She saw his troops flitting through shadows, closing in on the tower. There was Teg on Streggi's shoulders. He took a moment to stare up at the facade confronting them about half a klick away. She chose a projection that looked where he looked. Motion behind windows there.
Where were the mysterious last-ditch weapons Honored Matres were supposed to possess?
What will he do now?
Teg had lost his Command Pod to a laser hit outside the main engagement area. The pod lay on its side behind him and he sat astride Streggi's shoulders in a patch of screening bushes, some still smoldering. He had lost his comboard with the pod but retained the silvery horseshoe of his comlink, although it was crippled without the pod's amplifiers. Communications specialists crouched nearby, jittering because they had lost close contact with the action.
The battle beyond the buildings grew louder. He heard hoarse shouts, the high hissing of burners and the lower buzz of large lasguns mingled with tinny zip-zips of hand weapons. Somewhere off there to his left was a thrum-thrum he recognized as heavy armor in trouble. A scraping sound with it, metal agony. Energy system damaged in that one. It was dragging itself over the ground, probably making a mess of the gardens.
Haker, Teg's personal aide, came dodging down the lane behind the Bashar.
Streggi noticed him first and turned without warning, forcing Teg to look at the man. Haker, dark and muscular, with heavy eyebrows (sweat-dampened now) stopped directly in front of Teg and spoke before fully regaining his breath.
"We have the last pockets bottled up, Bashar."
Haker raised his voice to override the battle sounds and a buzzing squawker over his left shoulder producing low conversations, battle urgency in clipped tones.
"The far perimeter?" Teg demanded.
"Mop up in half an hour, no more. You should get out of here, Bashar. Mother Superior warned us to keep you out of needless danger."
Teg gestured at his useless pod. "Why don't I have a Communications backup?"
"A big laze got both backups in the same burn as they were coming in."
"They were together?"
Haker heard the anger. "Sir, they were..."
"No important equipment is sent in together. I'll want to know who disobeyed orders." The quiet voice from immature vocal cords carried more menace than a shout.
"Yes, Bashar." Strictly obedient and no sign from Haker that the mistake was his own.
Damn! "How soon will replacements arrive?"
"Five minutes."
"Get my reserve pod in here as fast as you can." Teg touched Streggi's neck with a knee.
Haker spoke before she could turn. "Bashar, they got the reserve, too. I've ordered another."
Teg repressed a sigh. These things happened in battle but he didn't like depending on primitive corns. "We'll set up here. Get more squawkers." They, at least, had the range.
Haker glanced at the greenery around them. "Here?"
"I don't like the look of those buildings up ahead. That tower commands this area. And they must have underground access. I would."
"There's nothing on the..."
"My memory layout doesn't include that tower. Get sonics in here to check the ground. I want our plan brought up to the minute with secure information."
Haker's squawker came alive with an override voice: "Bashar! Is the Bashar available?"
Streggi moved him next to Haker without being told. Teg took the squawker, whistling his code as he grabbed it.
"Bashar, it's a mess at the Flat. About a hundred of them tried to lift and ran into our screen. No survivors."