Chapterhouse: Dune
Chapter Twenty-Four

Bellonda was still well and truly shocked. No man, barring the damned Kwisatz Haderach himself and his Tyrant son, had ever known the particulars of this Bene Gesserit secret. Both of those monsters had felt the Agony. Two disasters! No matter that the Tyrant's Agony had worked its way inward a cell at a time to transform him into a sandworm symbiote (no more original worm, no more original human). And Muad'Dib! He dared the Agony and look what came of that!
Sheeana turned from the window and took one step toward the table, giving Odrade the curious feeling that the two women standing there had become a Janus figure: back to back but only one persona.
"Bell is confused by your promise," Sheeana said. How soft her voice.
"He could be the catalyst to pull Murbella through," Odrade said. "You tend to underestimate the power of love."
"No!" Tamalane spoke to the window in front of her. "We fear its power."
"Could be!" Bell still was scornful but that came naturally to her. The expression on her face said she remained implacably stubborn.
"Hubris," Sheeana murmured.
"What?" Bellonda whirled in her chairdog, causing it to squeak with indignation.
"We share a common failing with Scytale," Sheeana said.
"Oh?" Bellonda was gnawing at Sheeana's secret.
"We think we make history," Sheeana said. She returned to her position beside Tamalane, both of them staring out the window.
Bellonda returned her attention to Odrade. "Do you understand that?"
Odrade ignored her. Let the Mentat work it out for herself. The projector on the worktable clicked and a message was displayed. Odrade reported it. "Still not ready at the ship." She looked at those two rigid backs in front of the window.
History?
On Chapterhouse, there had been little of what Odrade liked to think of as history-making before the Honored Matres. Only the steady graduation of Reverend Mothers passing through the Agony.
Like a river.
It flowed and it went somewhere. You could stand on the bank (as Odrade sometimes thought they did here) and you could observe the flow. A map might tell you where the river went but no map could reveal more essential things. A map could never show intimate movements of the river's cargo. Where did they go? Maps had limited value in this age. A printout or projection from Archives; that was not the map they required. There had to be a better one somewhere, one attached to all of those lives. You could carry that map in your memory and have it out occasionally for a closer look.
Whatever happened to the Reverend Mother Perinte we sent out last year?
The map-in-the-mind would take over and create a "Perinte Scenario." It was really yourself on the river, of course, but this made little difference. It still was the map they needed.
We don't like it that we're caught in someone else's currents, that we don't know what may be revealed at the river's next bend. We always prefer overflight even though any commanding position must remain part of other currents. Every flow contains unpredictable things.
Odrade looked up to see her three companions watching her. Tamalane and Sheeana had turned their backs to the window.
"Honored Matres have forgotten that clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous," Odrade said. "Have we forgotten it as well?"
They continued to stare at her but they had heard. Become too conservative and you were unprepared for surprises. That was what Muad'Dib had taught them, and his Tyrant son had made the lesson forever unforgettable.
Bellonda's glum expression did not change.
In the deep recesses of Odrade's consciousness, Taraza whispered: "Careful, Dar. I was lucky. Quick to grab advantage. Just as you are. But you cannot depend on luck and that is what bothers them. Don't even expect luck. Much better to trust your water images. Let Bell have her say."
"Bell," Odrade said, "I thought you accepted Duncan."
"Within limits." Definitely accusatory.
"I think we should go out to the ship." Sheeana spoke with demanding emphasis. "This is not the place to wait. Do we fear what she may become?"
Tam and Sheeana turned toward the door simultaneously as though the same puppet master controlled their strings.
Odrade found the interruption welcome. Sheeana's question alarmed them. What could Murbella become? A catalyst, my Sisters. A catalyst.
The wind shook them when they emerged from Central and for once Odrade was thankful for tube transport. Walking could await warmer temperatures without this blustering minitempest tugging at their robes.
When they were seated in a private car, Bellonda once more took up her accusatory refrain. "Everything he does could be camouflage."
Once more, Odrade voiced the oft-repeated Bene Gesserit warning to limit their reliance on Mentats. "Logic is blind and often knows only its own past."
Tamalane chimed in with unexpected support. "You are getting paranoid, Bell!"
Sheeana spoke more softly. "I've heard you say, Bell, that logic is good for playing pyramid chess but often too slow for needs of survival. "
Bellonda sat in glowering silence, only a faint hissing rumble of their tube passage intruding on the quiet.
Wounds must not be taken into the ship.
Odrade matched her tone to Sheeana's: "Bell, dear Bell. We do not have time to consider all ramifications of our plight. We no longer can say, 'If this happens, then that must surely follow, and in such a case, our moves must be so and so and so...' "
Bellonda actually chuckled. "Oh, my! The ordinary mind is such a clutter. And I must not demand what we all need and cannot have - sufficient time for every plan."
It was Bellonda-Mentat speaking, telling them she knew she was flawed by pride in her ordinary mind. What a badly organized, untidy place that was. Imagine what the non-Mentat puts up with, imposing so little order. She reached across the aisle and patted Odrade's shoulder.
"It's all right, Dar. I'll behave."
What would an outsider think, seeing that exchange? Odrade wondered. All four of them acting in concert for the needs of one Sister.
For the needs of Murbella's Agony, as well.
People saw only the outside of this Reverend Mother mask they wore.
When we must (which is most of the time these days) we function at astonishing levels of competence. No pride in that; a simple fact. But let us relax and we hear gibberish at the edges as ordinary folk do. Ours merely has more volume. We live our lives in little congeries like anyone else. Rooms of the mind, rooms of the body.
Bellonda had composed herself, hands clasped in her lap. She knew what Odrade planned and kept it to herself. It was a trust that went beyond Mentat Projection into something more basically human. Projection was a marvelously adaptable tool but a tool nonetheless. Ultimately, all tools depended on the ones who used them. Odrade was at a loss how to show her thanks without reducing trust.
I must walk my tightrope in silence.
She sensed the chasm beneath her, the nightmare image conjured by these reflections. The unseen hunter with an axe was closer. Odrade wanted to turn and identify the stalker but resisted. I will not make Muad'Dib's mistake! The prescient warning she had first sensed on Dune in the ruins of Sietch Tabr would not be exorcised until she ended or the Sisterhood ended. Did I create this terrible threat by my fears? Surely not! Still, she felt she had stared at Time in that ancient Fremen stronghold as though all past and all future were frozen into a tableau that could not be changed. I must break free of you utterly, Muad'Dib!
Their arrival at the Landing Flat pulled her from these fearful musings.
Murbella waited in rooms Proctors had prepared. At the center was a small amphitheater about seven meters along its enclosing back wall. Padded benches were stepped upward in a steep arc, seating for no more than twenty observers. Proctors had left her without explanation on the lowest bench staring at a suspensor-buoyed table. Straps hung over the sides to confine whoever lay on it.
Me.
An astonishing series of rooms, she thought. She had never before been permitted into this part of the ship. She felt exposed here, even more so than she had under open sky. The smaller rooms through which they had brought her to this amphitheater were clearly designed for medical emergencies: resuscitation equipment, sanitary odors, antiseptics.
Her removal to this room had been peremptory, none of her questions answered. Proctors had taken her from an advanced acolyte class in prana-bindu exercises. They said only: "Mother Superior's orders."
The quality of her guardian Proctors told her much. Gentle but firm. They were here to prevent flight and to make sure she went where ordered. I won't try to escape!
Where was Duncan?
Odrade had promised he would be with her for the Agony. Did his absence mean this was not to be her ultimate trial? Or had they concealed him behind some secret wall through which he could see and not be seen?
I want him at my side!
Didn't they know how to rule her? Certainly they did!
Threaten to deprive me of this man. That's all it takes to hold me and satisfy me. Satisfy! What a useless word. Complete me. That's better. I am less when we're apart. He knows it, too, damn him.
Murbella smiled. How does he know it? Because he is completed in the same way.
How could this be love? She felt no weakening from the tugs of desire. Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres alike said love weakened. She felt strengthened by Duncan. Even his small attentions were strengthening. When he brought her a steaming cup of stimtea in the morning, it was better coming from his hands. Perhaps we have something more than love.
Odrade and companions entered the amphitheater at the uppermost tier and stood a moment looking down at the figure seated below them. Murbella wore the white-trimmed long robe of a senior acolyte. She sat with elbow on knee, chin resting on fist, her attention concentrated on the table.
She knows.
"Where is Duncan?" Odrade asked.
At her words, Murbella stood and turned. The question confirmed what she had suspected.
"I'll find out," Sheeana said and left them.
Murbella waited in silence, matching Odrade stare for stare.
We must have her, Odrade thought. Never had the Bene Gesserit need been greater. What an insignificant figure Murbella was down there to carry so much in her person. The almost oval face with its widening at the brows revealed new Bene Gesserit composure. Widely set green eyes, arched brows - no squinting - no more orange. Small mouth - no more pouting.
She is ready.
Sheeana returned with Duncan at her side.
Odrade spared him a brief glance. Nervous. So Sheeana had told him. Good. That was an act of friendship. He might need friends here.
"You will sit up here and remain here unless I call you," Odrade said. "Stay with him, Sheeana."
Without being told, Tamalane flanked Duncan, one of them on each side. At a gentle gesture from Sheeana, they sat.
Bellonda beside her, Odrade descended to Murbella's level and went to the table. Oral syringes on the far side were ready to lift into position but remained empty. Odrade gestured at the syringes and nodded to Bellonda, who went out a side door in search of the Suk Reverend Mother in charge of spice essence.
Moving the table away from the back wall, Odrade began laying out straps and adjusting pads. She moved methodically, checking that everything had been provided on the small ledge beneath the table. Mouth pad to keep the Agonized One from biting her tongue. Odrade felt it to be sure it was strong. Murbella had a muscular jaw.
Murbella watched Odrade work, keeping silent, trying to make no disturbing noises.
Bellonda returned with spice essence and proceeded to fill the syringes. The poisonous essence had a pungent odor - bitter cinnamon.
Catching Odrade's attention, Murbella said, "I'm grateful that you're supervising this yourself."
"She's grateful!" Bellonda sneered, not looking up from her work.
"Leave this to me, Bell." Odrade kept her attention on Murbella.
Bellonda did not pause but something withdrawn took over her movements. Bellonda effacing herself? It never ceased to astonish Murbella how acolytes effaced themselves when they entered Mother Superior's presence. There but not there. Murbella had never quite achieved this even when she left probation and entered advanced status. Bellonda, too?
Staring hard at Murbella, Odrade said: "I know what reservations you hold in your breast, limits you place on your commitment to us. Well and good. I make no argument about that because, by and large, your reservations are very little different from those held by any of us."
Candor.
"The difference, if you would know it, is in the sense of responsibility. I am responsible for my Sisterhood... as much of it as still survives. They are a deep responsibility and one I sometimes look at with a jaundiced eye."
Bellonda sniffed.
Odrade appeared not to notice this as she continued. "The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood has gone somewhat sour since the Tyrant. Our contact with your Honored Matres has not improved matters. Honored Matres have the stench of death and decadence about them, going downhill into the great silence."
"Why do you tell me these things now?" Fear in Murbella's voice.
"Because, somehow, the worst of Honored Matre decadence did not touch you. Your spontaneous nature, perhaps. Although that has been dampened somewhat since Gammu."
"Your doing!"
"We've just taken a little wildness out of you, given you a better balance. You can live longer and healthier because of it."
"If I survive this!" Jerk of her head toward the table behind her.
"Balance is what I want you to remember, Murbella. Homeostasis. Any group choosing suicide when it has other options does so out of insanity. Homeostasis gone haywire."
When Murbella looked at the floor, Bellonda snapped: "Listen to her, fool! She's doing her best to help you."
"All right, Bell. This is between us."
When Murbella continued to stare at the floor, Odrade said: "This is Mother Superior giving you an order. Look at me!"
Murbella's head snapped up and she stared into Odrade's eyes.
It was a tactic Odrade had used infrequently but with excellent results. Acolytes could be reduced to hysteria by it and then taught how to deal with their excessive response to emotions. Murbella appeared to be more angered than fearful. Excellent! But now was a time for caution.
"You have complained about the slow pacing of your education," Odrade said. "It was done with your needs foremost in our minds. Your key teachers all were chosen for steadiness, none of them impulsive. My instructions were explicit: 'Don't give you too many abilities too rapidly. Don't open a floodgate of powers that might be more than she can handle.' "
"How do you know what I can handle?" Still angry.
Odrade only smiled.
When Odrade continued silent, Murbella appeared flustered. Had she made a fool of herself before Mother Superior, before Duncan and these others? How humiliating.
Odrade reminded herself it was not good to make Murbella too conscious of her vulnerability. A bad tactic just now. No need to provoke her. She had a sharp sense of the germane, fitting herself into needs of the moment. That was the thing they feared might have its source in a motivation always to choose the path of least resistance. Let it not be that. Complete honesty now! The ultimate tool of Bene Gesserit education. The classical technique that bound acolyte to teacher.
"I will be at your side throughout your Agony. If you fail, I will grieve."
"Duncan?" Tears in her eyes.
"Any help he can give, he will be permitted to give."
Murbella looked up the rows of seats and, for a brief moment, her gaze locked with Idaho's. He lifted slightly but Tamalane's hand on his shoulder restrained him.
They may kill my beloved! Idaho thought. Must I sit here and just watch it happen? But Odrade had said he would be permitted to help. There is no stopping this now. I must trust Dar. But, gods below! She does not know the depth of my grief, if... if... He closed his eyes.
"Bell." Odrade's voice carried a sense of casting off, a knife edge in its brittleness.
Bellonda took Murbella's arm and helped her onto the table. It bounced slightly adjusting to the weight.
This is the real chute, Murbella thought.
She had only the remotest sense of straps being fastened around her, of purposeful movement beside her.
"This is the usual routine," Odrade said.
Routine? Murbella had hated the routines of becoming Bene Gesserit, all of that study, listening and reacting to Proctors. She had particularly loathed the necessity to refine reactions she had believed adequate but there could be no sloughing off under those watchful eyes.
Adequate! What a dangerous word.
This recognition had been precisely what they sought. Precisely the leverage their acolyte required.
If you loathe it, do it better. Use your loathing as guidance; home in on exactly what you need.
The fact that her teachers saw so directly into her behavior, what a marvelous thing! She wanted that ability. Oh, how she wanted it!
I must excel in this.
It was a thing any Honored Matre might envy. She saw herself abruptly with a form of doubled vision: both Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre. A daunting perception.
A hand touched her cheek, moved her head and went away.
Responsibility. I am about to learn what they mean by "a new sense of history."
The Bene Gesserit view of history fascinated her. How did they look at multiple pasts? Was it something immersed in a grander scheme? The temptation to become one of them had been overwhelming.
This is the moment when I learn.
She saw an oral syringe swing into position above her mouth. Bellonda's hand moved it.
"We carry our grail in our heads," Odrade had said. "Carry this grail gently if it comes into your possession."
The syringe touched her lips. Murbella closed her eyes but felt fingers open her mouth. Cold metal touched her teeth. Odrade's remembered voice was with her.
Avoid excesses. Overcorrect and you always have a fine mess on your hands, the necessity to make larger and larger corrections. Oscillation. Fanatics are marvelous creators of oscillation.
"Our grail. It has linearity because each Reverend Mother carries the same determination. We will perpetuate this together."
Bitter liquid gushed into her mouth. Murbella swallowed convulsively. She felt fire flow down her throat into her stomach. No pain except the burning. She wondered if this could be the extent of it. Her stomach felt merely warm now.
Slowly, so slowly she was several heartbeats recognizing it, the warmth flowed outward. When it reached the tips of her fingers she felt her body convulse. Her back arched off the padded table. Something soft but firm replaced the syringe in her mouth.
Voices. She heard them and knew people were speaking but could not distinguish words.
As she concentrated on the voices she became aware she had lost touch with her body. Somewhere, flesh writhed and there was pain but she was removed from it.
A hand touched a hand and clasped it firmly. She recognized Duncan's touch, and abruptly there was her body and agony. Her lungs pained when she exhaled. Not when she inhaled. Then they felt flat and never full enough. Her sense of presence in living flesh became a thin thread that wound through many presences. She sensed others all around her, far too many people for the tiny amphitheater.
Another human being floated into view. Murbella felt herself to be in a factory shuttle... in space. The shuttle was primitive. Too many manual controls. Too many blinking lights. A woman at the controls, small and untidy with the sweat of her labors. She had long brown hair and it had been bound up in a chignon from which paler strands escaped to hang around her narrow cheeks. She wore a single garment, a short dress of brilliant reds, blues, and greens.
Machinery.
There was awareness of monstrous machinery just beyond this immediate space. The woman's dress contrasted severely with the drab and dragging sense of machinery. She spoke but her lips did not move. "Listen, you! When it comes time for you to take over these controls, don't become a destroyer. I'm here to help you avoid the destroyers. Do you know that?"
Murbella tried to speak but had no voice.
"Don't try so hard, girl!" the woman said. "I hear you."
Murbella tried to shift her attention away from the woman.
Where is this place?
One operator, a giant warehouse... factory... everything automated... webs of feedback lines centered into this tiny space with its complex controls.
Thinking to whisper, Murbella asked: "Who are you?" and heard her own voice roar. Agony in her ears!
"Not so loud! I'm your guide of the mohalata, the one who steers you clear of the destroyers."
Dur protect me! Murbella thought. This is no place; it's me!
On that thought, the control room vanished. She was a migrant in the void, condemned never to be quiet, never to find a moment of sanctuary. Everything but her own fleeting thoughts became immaterial. She had no substance, only a wispy adherence that she recognized as consciousness.
I have constructed myself out of fog.
Other Memory came, bits and pieces of experiences she knew were not her own. Faces leered at her and demanded her attention but the woman at the shuttle controls pulled her away. Murbella recognized necessities but could not put them into coherent form.
"These are lives in your past." It was the woman at the shuttle controls but her voice had a disembodied quality and came from no discernible place.
"We are descendants of people who did nasty things," the woman said. "We don't like to admit there were barbarians in our ancestry. A Reverend Mother must admit it. We have no choice."
Murbella had the knack of only thinking her questions now. Why must I...
"The victors bred. We are their descendants. Victory often was gained at great moral price. Barbarism is not even an adequate word for some of the things our ancestors did."
Murbella felt a familiar hand on her cheek. Duncan! The touch restored agony. Oh, Duncan! You're hurting me.
Through the pain, she sensed gaps in the lives being revealed to her. Things withheld.
"Only what you're capable of accepting now," the disembodied voice said. "Others come later when you're stronger... if you survive."
Selective filter. Odrade's words. Necessity opens doors.
Persistent wailing came from the other presences. Laments: "See? See what happens when you ignore common sense?"
Agony increased. She could not escape it. Every nerve was touched with flame. She wanted to cry, to scream threats, to implore for help. Tumbling emotions accompanied the agony but she ignored them. Everything happened along a thin thread of existence. The thread could snap!
I'm dying.
The thread was stretching. It was going to break! Hopeless to resist. Muscles would not obey. There probably were no muscles remaining to her. She did not want them anyway. They were pain. It was hell and would never end... not even if the thread snapped. Flames burned along the thread, licking at her awareness.
Hands shook her shoulders. Duncan... don't. Each movement was pain beyond anything she had imagined possible. This deserved to be called the Agony.
The thread no longer was stretching. It was pulling back, compressing. It became one small thing, a sausage of such exquisite pain that nothing else existed. The sense of being became vague, translucent... transparent.
"Do you see?" the voice of her mohalata guide came from far away.
I see things.
Not exactly seeing. A distant awareness of others. Other sausages. Other Memory encased in the skins of lost lives. They extended behind her in a train whose length she could not determine. Translucent fog. It ripped apart occasionally and she glimpsed events. No... not events themselves. Memory.
"Share witness," her guide said. "You see what our ancestors have done. They debase the worst curse you can invent. Don't make excuses about necessities of the times! Just remember: There are no innocents!"
Ugly! Ugly!
She could hold on to none of it. Everything became reflections and ripping fog. Somewhere there was a glory that she knew she might attain.
Absence of this Agony.
That was it. How glorious that would be!
Where is that glorious condition?
Lips touched her forehead, her mouth. Duncan! She reached up. My hands are free. Her fingers slipped into remembered hair. This is real!
Agony receded. Only then did she realize that she had come through pain more terrible than words could describe. Agony? It seared the psyche and remolded her. One person entered and another emerged.
Duncan! She opened her eyes and there was his face directly above her. Do I still love him? He is here. He is an anchor to which I clung in the worst moments. But do I love him? Am I still balanced?
No answer.
Odrade spoke from somewhere out of view. "Strip those clothes off her. Towels. She's drenched. And bring her a proper robe!"
There were scurrying sounds, then Odrade once more: "Murbella, you did that the hard way, I'm glad to say."
Such elation in her voice. Why was she glad?
Where is the sense of responsibility? Where is the grail I'm supposed to feel in my head? Answer me, someone!
But the woman at the shuttle controls was gone.
Only I remain. And I remember atrocities that might make an Honored Matre quail. She glimpsed the grail then and it was not a thing but a question: How to set those balances aright?
Our household god is this thing we carry forward generation after generation: our message for humankind if it matures. The closest thing we have to a household goddess is a failed Reverend Mother - Chenoeh there in her niche.
- Darwi Odrade
Idaho thought of his Mentat abilities as a retreat now. Murbella stayed with him as frequently as their duties allowed - he with his weapons development and she recovering strength while she adjusted to her new status.
She did not lie to him. She did not try to tell him she felt no difference between them. But he sensed the pulling away, elastic being stretched to its limits.
"My Sisters have been taught not to divulge secrets of the heart. There's the danger they perceive in love. Perilous intimacies. The deepest sensitivities blunted. Do not give someone a stick with which to beat you."
She thought her words reassuring to him but he heard the inner argument. Be free! Break entangling bonds!
He saw her often these days in the throes of Other Memory. Words escaped her in the night.
"Dependencies... group soul... intersection of living awareness... Fish Speakers..."
She had no hesitation about sharing some of this. "The intersection? Anyone can sense nexus points in the natural interruptions of life. Deaths, diversions, incidental pauses between powerful events, births..."
"Birth an interruption?"
They were in his bed, even the chrono darkened... but that did not hide them from comeyes, of course. Other energies fed the Sisterhood's curiosity.
"You never thought of birth as an interruption? A Reverend Mother finds that amusing."
Amusing! Pulling away... pulling away...
Fish Speakers, that was the revelation the Bene Gesserit absorbed with fascination. They had suspected, but Murbella gave them confirmation. Fish Speaker democracy become Honored Matre autocracy. No more doubts.
"The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant. "Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy."
Idaho could hear the Tyrant in that judgment. If history had any repetitive patterns, here was one. A drumbeat of repetition. First, a Civil Service law masked in the lie that it was the only way to correct demagogic excesses and spoils systems. Then the accumulation of power in places voters could not touch. And finally, aristocracy.
"The Bene Gesserit may be the only ones ever to create the all-powerful jury," Murbella said. "Juries are not popular with legalists. Juries oppose the law. They can ignore judges."
She laughed in the darkness. "Evidence! What is evidence except those things you are allowed to perceive? That's what Law tries to control: carefully managed reality."
Words to divert him, words to demonstrate her new Bene Gesserit powers. Her words of love fell flat.
She speaks them out of memory.
He saw this bothered Odrade almost as much as it dismayed him. Murbella did not notice either reaction.
Odrade had tried to reassure him. "Every new Reverend Mother goes through an adjustment period. Manic at times. Think of the new ground under her, Duncan!"
How can I not think of it?
"First law of bureaucracy," Murbella told the darkness.
You do not divert me, love.
"Grow to the limits of available energy!" Her voice was indeed manic. "Use the lie that taxes solve all problems." She turned toward him in the bed but not for love. "Honored Matres played the whole routine! Even a social security system to quiet the masses, but everything went into their own energy bank."
"Murbella!"