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Fates help us! Were the original Honored Matres all Reverend Mothers? Do we
dare test this hypothesis on ourselves? What can we learn of this from that
pair in the no-ship?
Two sources of information lay there under the Sisterhood's watchful eyes but
the key had yet to be found.
Woman and man no longer just breeding partners, no longer a comfort and support
to each other. Something new has been added. The stakes have been escalated.
In the comeye record playing at the worktable, Murbella said something that
caught the Mother Superior's full attention.
"We Honored Matres did this to ourselves! Can't blame anyone else."
"You hear that?" Bellonda demanded.
Odrade shook her head sharply, wanting all of her attention on this exchange.
"You can't say the same about me," Idaho objected.
"That's an empty excuse," Murbella accused. "So you were conditioned by the
Tleilaxu to snare the first Imprinter you encountered!"
"And to kill her," Idaho corrected. "That's what they intended."
"But you didn't even try to kill me. Not that you could have."
"That's when . . ." Idaho broke off with an involuntary glance at the recording
comeyes.
"What was he about to say there?" Bellonda pounced. "We must find out!"
But Odrade continued her silent observation of the captive pair. Murbella
demonstrated a surprising insight. "You think you caught me through some
accident in which you were not involved?"
"Exactly."
"But I see something in you that accepted all of it! You didn't just go along
with your conditioning. You performed to your limits."
An inward look filmed Idaho's eyes. He tipped his head back, stretching his
chest muscles.
"That's a Mentat expression!" Bellonda accused.
All of Odrade's analysts suggested this but they had yet to wrest an admission
from Idaho. If he was a Mentat, why withhold that information?
Because of the other things implied by such abilities. He fears us and rightly
so.
Murbella spoke with a sneer. "You improvised and improved on what the Tleilaxu
did to you. There was something in you that made no complaint whatsoever!"
"That's how she deals with her own guilt feelings," Bellonda said. "She has to
believe it's true or Idaho would not have been able to trap her."
Odrade pursed her lips. The projection showed Idaho amused. "Perhaps it was
the same for both of us."
"You can't blame the Tleilaxu and I can't blame the Honored Matres."
Tamalane entered the workroom and sank into her chairdog beside Bellonda. " I
see it has your interest, too." She gestured at the projected figures.
Odrade shut down the projector.
"I've been inspecting our axlotl tanks," Tamalane said. "That damned Scytale
has withheld vital information."
"There's no flaw in our first ghola, is there?" Bellonda demanded.
"Nothing our Suks can find."
Odrade spoke in a mild tone: "Scytale has to keep some bargaining chips."
Both sides shared a fantasy: Scytale was paying the Bene Gesserit for rescue
from the Honored Matres and sanctuary on Chapterhouse. But every Reverend
Mother who studied him knew something else drove the last Tleilaxu Master.
Clever, clever, the Bene Tleilax. Far more clever than we suspected. And they
have dirtied us with their axlotl tanks. The very word "tank" -- another of
their deceptions. We pictured containers of warmed amniotic fluid, each tank
the focus of complex machinery to duplicate (in a subtle, discrete and
controllable way) the workings of the womb. The tank is there all right! But
look at what it contains.
The Tleilaxu solution was direct: Use the original. Nature already had worked
it out over the eons. All the Bene Tleilax need do was add their own control
system, their own way of replicating information stored in the cell.
"The Language of God," Scytale called it. Language of Shaitan was more
appropriate.
Feedback. The cell directed its own womb. That was more or less what a
fertilized ovum did anyway. The Tleilaxu merely refined it.
A sigh escaped Odrade, bringing sharp glances from her companions. Does Mother
Superior have new troubles?
Scytale's revelations trouble me. And what those revelations have done to us.
Oh, how we recoiled from the "debasement." Then, rationalizations. And we knew
they were rationalizations! "If there is no other way. If this produces the
gholas we need so desperately. Volunteers probably can be found." Were found!
Volunteers!
"You're woolgathering!" Tamalane grumbled. She glanced at Bellonda, started to
say something and thought better of it.
Bellonda's face went soft-bland, a frequent accompaniment to her darker moods.
Her voice came out little more than a guttural whisper. "I strongly urge that
we eliminate Idaho. And as for that Tleilaxu monster . . ."
"Why do you make such a suggestion with a euphemism?" Tamalane demanded.
"Kill him then! And the Tleilaxu should be subjected to every persuasion we --"
"Stop it, both of you!" Odrade ordered.
She pressed both palms briefly against her forehead and, staring at the bow
window, saw icy rain out there. Weather Control was making more mistakes. You
couldn't blame them, but there was nothing humans hated more than the
unpredictable. "We want it natural!" Whatever that means.
When such thoughts came over her, Odrade longed for an existence confined to the
order that pleased her: an occasional walk in the orchards. She enjoyed them
in all seasons. A quiet evening with friends, the give and take of probing
conversations with those for whom she felt warmth. Affection? Yes. The Mother
Superior dared much -- even love of companions. And good meals with drinks
chosen for their enhancement of flavors. She wanted that, too. How fine it was
to play upon the palate. And later . . . yes, later -- a warm bed with a gentle
companion sensitive to her needs as she was sensitive to his.
Most of this could not be, of course. Responsibilities! What an enormous word.
How it burned.
"I'm getting hungry," Odrade said. "Shall I order lunch served here?"
Bellonda and Tamalane stared at her. "It's only half past eleven," Tamalane
complained.
"Yes or no?" Odrade insisted.
Bellonda and Tamalane exchanged a private look. "As you wish," Bellonda said.
There was a saying in the Bene Gesserit (Odrade knew) that the Sisterhood ran
smoother when Mother Superior's stomach was satisfied. That had just tipped the
scales.
Odrade keyed the intercom to her private kitchen. "Lunch for three, Duana.
Something special. You choose."
Lunch, when it came, featured a dish Odrade especially enjoyed, a veal
casserole. Duana displayed a delicate touch with herbs, a bit of rosemary in
the veal, the vegetables not overcooked. Superb.
Odrade savored every bite. The other two plodded through the meal, spoon-to-
mouth, spoon-to-mouth.
Is this one of the reasons I am Mother Superior and they are not?
While an acolyte cleared away the remains of lunch, Odrade turned to one of her
favorite questions: "What is the gossip in the common rooms and among the
acolytes?"
She remembered in her own acolyte days how she had hung on the words of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]