Hunters Of Dune Page 15

T

  he fat Reverend Mother and the feral Honored Matre stood stiffly together, as far apart as they thought they could without being too obvious. Even an observer without specialized Bene Gesserit training would have noticed their dislike for each other.

  "You two will have to work together." Murbella's voice allowed for no argument. "I have decided that we must devote more of our efforts to the desert belt. Never forget that melange is the key. We will call in outside researchers to set up observation bases out in the deepest worm territories. Maybe we can find a few old experts who actually visited Rakis before it was destroyed."

  "Our melange stockpiles are still significant," Bellonda pointed out.

  "And the sandtrout seem to be destroying all fertile land," Doria added. "The flow of spice is secure."

  "Nothing is ever secure! Complacency can be a worse threat than the rebel Honored Matres themselves--or the Outside Enemy," Murbella said. "To oppose either adversary, we must have the absolute cooperation of the Spacing Guild. We need their immense ships, fully armed to transport us to and from anywhere we choose. We can use the Guild and CHOAM as carrot and stick to force planets, governments, and independent military systems to follow our lead. For that, our most effective tool is melange. With no other source, they will have to come to us for spice."

  "Or they can fly other ships from the Scattering," Bellonda said.

  Doria snorted. "The Guild would never stoop to that."

  With a sideways glance at her rival and partner, Bellonda added, "Because we only let the Guild obtain small amounts of spice from us, they also pay exorbitant prices for black-market melange from other stockpiles. Once we force them to exhaust their spice supplies, we will bring the Guild to its knees, and they will do whatever we ask of them."

  Bellonda nodded. "The Guild is probably desperate already. When Administrator Gorus and the Navigator Edrik came here three years ago, they were nearly frantic. We have kept them on a tight leash since then."

  "They could well be on the verge of irrational action," Doria warned.

  "The spice must flow, but only on our terms." Murbella turned to the women. "I have a new assignment for you two. When we offer our generous forgiveness in exchange for Guild cooperation in the coming war, we'll need to be extravagant in our payment. Doria and Bellonda, I place you in charge of managing the arid zone, the spice extraction process, and the new sandworms."

  Bellonda looked shocked. "Mother Commander, could I not serve you better here, as your advisor--and guardian?"

  "No, you could not. As a Mentat you have shown great skill in handling details, and Doria has the edge to push where it is needed. Make sure our sandworms produce spice in the quantities we--and the Guild--will need. From now on, the deserts of Chapterhouse are your responsibility."

  AFTER THE UNLIKELY pair left for the desert, Murbella went to see the old Archives Mother Accadia, still seeking essential answers.

  In a large and airy wing of Chapterhouse Keep, the ancient librarian had arranged numerous tables and booths where thousands of Reverend Mothers toiled. Under normal circumstances, the Keep's archives would have been a quiet place for study and meditation, but Accadia had taken on a special mission that gave the New Sisterhood a wealth of unexpected hope.

  The Bene Gesserit library world of Lampadas had been among the many planetary casualties from Honored Matre depredations. Knowing their imminent fate, the doomed women had Shared among each other, distilling the experience and knowledge of an entire population into only a few representatives. Eventually, all of those memories, and the entire library of Lampadas, had been placed in the mind of the wild Reverend Mother Rebecca, who had managed to Share again with many others, thus saving the memories of all those people.

  Accadia's grand new scheme was to re-create the lost Lampadas library. She gathered Reverend Mothers who had obtained the knowledge and experiences of the Lampadas horde. The ones who were Mentats were able to remember word for word everything those previous lives had read and learned.

  The archives wing was a drone of conversation and background noise, women sitting before shigawire spool recorders and dictating from memory, reading aloud page after page of rare books that their experiences recalled. Other women sat with their eyes closed, sketching on crystal sheets the diagrams and designs that were locked away in memory. Murbella watched volume after volume being re-created before her eyes. Each woman had a specific assignment, to reduce the likelihood of duplicating efforts.

  Accadia seemed content as she greeted her visitor. "Welcome, Mother Commander. With great effort, we are managing to undo more and more losses."

  "I can only hope that the Enemy does not obliterate Chapterhouse and render your efforts in vain."

  "Preserving knowledge is never a pointless exercise, Mother Commander."

  Murbella shook her head. "But we don't seem to have certain vital knowledge. Key elements are missing, the simplest, most straightforward information. Who or what is our Enemy? Why would they cause such appalling destruction? For that matter, who are the Honored Matres? Where did they come from, and how did they provoke such wrath?"

  "You yourself were an Honored Matre. Do your Other Memories give you no clues?"

  Murbella gritted her teeth. She had tried and tried, with no success. "I can study the course of the Bene Gesserit lines I have acquired, but not the Honored Matres. Their past is a black wall before my eyes. Each time I delve into it, I reach an impassable barrier. Either the Honored Matres do not know their own origins, or it is such a terrible secret that they have managed to block it completely."

  "I've heard that is true for all of our Honored Matres who have passed through the Spice Agony."

  "Every one." Murbella had received the same answer again and again. The origins of the Honored Matres, and of the Enemy, were no more than dim myths in their past. Honored Matres had never been reflective, pondering consequences or tracing events back to first principals. Now, it seemed they would all suffer for it.

  "You will have to find the information some other way, Mother Commander. If we discover any clues while reproducing the Lampadas library, I will inform you."

  Murbella thanked her, yet sensed that the information she needed did not lie here.

  SHORTLY BEFORE JANESS decided to undergo the Spice Agony--three years after her twin sister had failed--the Mother Commander went to her room in the acolytes' barracks.

  "I deceived myself about Rinya's chances in the ordeal." The words did not come easily to Murbella. "I never dreamed that a daughter of mine and Duncan's could possibly fail. My old Honored Matre hubris showed itself."

  "This daughter won't fail, Mother Commander," Janess said, sitting straight. "I have trained hard, and I am as ready as anyone can be. I am frightened, yes, but only enough to maintain my edge."

  "Honored Matres believe there is no place for fear," Murbella mused. "They do not consider that one can be strengthened by admitting weakness, instead of trying to hide it or bulldoze your way over it."

  " 'If you do not face your weaknesses, how do you know where to be strong?' I read that quote in the archival writings of Duncan Idaho."

  Over the years, Janess had studied the many lives of Duncan Idaho. Though she would never meet her father, she had learned much from the combat techniques of the great Swordmaster of House Atreides, classic fighting abilities that had been recorded and passed on to others.

  Setting aside the distraction of Duncan, Murbella looked down at her oldest surviving daughter. "You don't need my help. I can see it in your eyes. Tomorrow you face the Spice Agony." She rose and prepared to go. "I have been looking for someone whose loyalties and skills I can trust completely. After tomorrow, I believe you will be that person."

  No land or sea or planet is forever. Wherever we stand, we are only stewards.

  --MOTHER SUPERIOR DARWI ODRADE

  C

  arrying two passengers, the ornithopter flew over the newborn desert and rock formations, heading away from Chapterhou
se Keep. Looking back from her wide seat in the rear compartment, Bellonda watched the rings of dying crops and orchards disappear behind the dunes. From the small cabin ahead of her, Doria controlled the aircraft. The brash former Honored Matre rarely let Bellonda pilot a 'thopter, though she was certainly competent. The two spoke little during their hours of flying.

  Farther south, the barren regions continued to expand as the planet itself dried up. Over the course of nearly seventeen years, the waterhoarding sandtrout had drained the large sea, leaving a dust bowl and an ever-widening arid band. Before long, all of Chapterhouse would become another Dune.

  If any of us survives to see it, Bellonda thought. The Enemy will find us, and all our worlds, sooner or later. She was not superstitious, nor an alarmist, but the conclusion was a Mentat certainty.

  Both women wore plain black singlesuits designed for permeability and cooling. Since the assassination attempt at the gathering, Murbella had made the uniform dress code mandatory across the New Sisterhood, no longer allowing the women to flaunt their different origins. "During times of peace and prosperity, freedom and diversity are considered absolute rights," Murbella said. "With a monumental crisis facing us, however, such concepts become disruptive and self-indulgent."

  Every Sister on Chapterhouse now wore a black singlesuit, without any obvious identifiers of whether she originated from the Honored Matres or Bene Gesserits. Unlike the heavy, concealing Bene Gesserit robes, the fine mesh of the formfitting fabric hid none of Bellonda's lumpy bulk.

  I look like the Baron Harkonnen, she thought. She felt an odd sort of pleasure whenever the ferally lean Doria looked at her with disgust.

  The former Honored Matre was in a foul mood because she didn't want to go on this inspection trip--especially not with Bellonda. In perverse response, the Reverend Mother made an effort to be overly cheery.

  No matter how much Bellonda tried to deny it, the two of them had similar personalities: both obstinate and fiercely loyal to their respective factions, yet grudgingly acknowledging the greater purpose of the New Sisterhood. Bellonda, always quick to notice flaws, had never hesitated to criticize Mother Superior Odrade either. Doria was similar in her own way, unafraid of pointing out faults in the Honored Matres. Both women tried to hold on to the outdated ways of their respective organizations. As the new Spice Operations Directors, she and Doria shared stewardship of the fledgling desert.

  Bellonda wiped perspiration from her brow. They were almost to the desert, and with each passing moment, the heat outside increased. She raised her voice above the drone of the 'thopter's wings. "You and I should make the best of this trip--for the good of the Sisterhood."

  "You make the best of it." Doria shouted her sarcasm. "For the good of the Sisterhood."

  Bellonda grabbed a safety strap as the ornithopter passed through turbulence. "You are mistaken if you think I agree entirely with what the Mother Commander is doing. I never thought her mongrel alliance would survive the first year, much less six."

  Scowling, Doria steadied the controls. "That does not make us in any way alike."

  Below, patches of sand and dust swirled, temporarily obscuring the ground. The dunes were encroaching on a line of already dead trees. Comparing the coordinates on a bulkhead screen with her notebook, Bellonda estimated that the desert had advanced by almost fifty kilometers in only a few months. More sand meant more territory for the growing worms, and consequently more spice. Murbella would be pleased.

  When the air currents smoothed, Bellonda spotted an interesting exposed rock formation that had previously been obscured by thick forest. On a sheer side of the rock, she saw a magnificent splash of primitive paintings in red and yellow ochre that had somehow endured the passage of time. She had heard of these ancient sites, supposedly indications of the mysterious, vanished Muadru people from millennia past, but she had never seen evidence of them before. It surprised her that the lost race had reached this obscure planet. What had drawn them all the way out here?

  Not surprisingly, Doria showed no interest whatsoever in the archaeological oddity.

  Presently the aircraft landed on a flat section of rock, near one of the first worm observatories Odrade had established. The small, blocky structure towered above them as they disembarked. When the 'thopter's canopy opened and the two stepped out onto the drifting dunes near Desert Watch Station, Bellonda felt perspiration at her temples and in the small of her back, despite the cooling properties of the black singlesuit.

  She took a long sniff. The parched landscape smelled dead with all the vegetation and soil gone. This desert band was dry enough for sandworms to grow, though it had not yet achieved the flinty, sterile cleanness of the real desert on lost Rakis.

  Taking a lift tube to the top of the station tower, Bellonda and Doria entered the reinforced observatory. In the distance they could see a small spice-harvesting operation where a mixed crew of men and women worked a vein of rust-colored sand.

  Doria used a high-powered viewing scope to gaze out over the dunes. "Wormsign!"

  Through her own scope, Bellonda watched a mound in motion just beneath the sand. Judging from the size of the moving ripple, the worm was small, only five meters or so. Farther out in the dune sea, she spotted another small sand-dweller churning in toward the spice operations. These new-generation worms did not yet have the power and ferocity to mark out their territories.

  "Larger worms will create more melange," Bellonda said. "In a few years, our specimens may pose a genuine danger to the spice crews. We may have to institute the more expensive hovering harvesters."

  Updating charts on her handheld data screen, Doria said, "Soon we will be able to export large enough quantities of spice to make ourselves rich. We can buy all the new equipment we like."

  "The purpose of the spice is to increase the power of our New Sisterhood, not to line your pockets. What good is wealth, if none of us survives the Enemy? Given enough spice, we can build a powerful army."

  Doria shot her a hard glare. "You parrot the Mother Commander so well." Gazing through the angled windows toward the faint shadows of forests smothered beneath the sand, Doria shielded her eyes against the glare. "Such devastation. When Honored Matres did a similar thing to your planets with their Obliterators, you called it senseless destruction. Yet on your own planet, you Sisters take pride in it."

  "Transformation is often a messy business, and not everyone sees the end result as a good thing. It is a matter of perspective. And intelligence."

  Evil can be detected by its smell.

  --PAUL MUAD'DIB,

  the original

  K

  hrone received regular reports on the child Baron's progress from his many Face Dancers in Bandalong. At first he had asked for the creation of the ghola out of mere curiosity, but by the time the baby was two years old, he had developed plans to make use of it. Face Dancer plans.

  Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. What an interesting choice. Even he didn't know why the old Masters had preserved the cells of the ancient, deviously brilliant villain. But Khrone had come up with his own ideas for the ghola.

  First, though, the child must be raised and analyzed for special talents. It would be another decade or so before the latent memories of the Baron's original life could be triggered. That would be another assignment for Uxtal, if the little man could possibly keep himself from getting killed for that long.

  So many of the components in his overall scheme had interlocked over decades, even centuries. Khrone could see how those pieces fit together, like the thoughts of the Face Dancer myriad. He could discern the smaller patterns and larger ones, and during each step he played his appropriate part. No one else on the great stage of the universe--not the audience, not the directors, not his fellow cast members--knew the extent to which the Face Dancers controlled the whole operation.

  Content that all was under control in Bandalong, Khrone slipped away to Ix for his next important opportunity there. . . .

  AFTER THE PRIZED Vla
dimir Harkonnen ghola was born, hapless Uxtal's first difficult task was complete. Still, his oppression did not end.

  The simpering Lost Tleilaxu researcher had not disappointed the Face Dancers. Even more surprising, Uxtal had managed to keep himself alive among the Honored Matres for nearly three years now. He had marked off every single day on the makeshift calendar in his quarters.

  He lived in terror, and he always felt cold. He could barely sleep at night, shuddering, alert for any stalking noise, dreading the appearance of any Honored Matre who might come to make good on the threat to sexually bond him. He looked under his bed for any Face Dancers that might be hiding there.

  He was the only one of his kind still alive. All the Lost Tleilaxu elders had been replaced by Face Dancers, all the old Masters murdered outright by the Honored Matres. And he, Uxtal, was still breathing (which was more than he could say about any of those others). Even so, he was utterly miserable.

  Uxtal wished the Face Dancers would just take the diminutive Vladimir away. Why didn't they relieve him of at least one impossible burden? How long was Uxtal supposed to be responsible for the brat? What more did they want? More and more and more! One of these days he was sure to make a fatal error. He couldn't believe he had succeeded for so long.

  Uxtal wanted to shout at the Honored Matres, at any person he encountered, hoping it might be a Face Dancer in disguise. How could he do his work? But he simply kept his eyes averted and tried to put on a convincing show that he was working extremely hard. Being miserable was far preferable to being dead.

  Still alive. But how to remain that way?

  Did even the Matre Superior know how many shape-shifters lived among her people? He doubted it. Khrone probably had insidious plans of his own. Maybe if Uxtal uncovered them and exposed the Face Dancer schemes to the Honored Matres, then Hellica would be indebted to him, would reward him--

  He knew, however, that would never happen.

  Sometimes Matre Superior Hellica brought visitors into the torture laboratory, preening Honored Matres who apparently ruled other worlds that still resisted the New Sisterhood's attempts to assimilate them. Hellica sold them the orange drug that Uxtal now produced in great quantities. Over the years, he had perfected the technique of harvesting their adrenaline and catecholamine neurotransmitters, dopamine, and endorphins, a cocktail used as the precursor for the orange spice substitute.