Chapterhouse: Dune

by Frank Herbert

  This is where my kind have been.

  That took on a peculiar patina when "my kind" were blood-related ancestors.

  Look how long we Atreides persisted on Caladan, restoring the old castle, polishing deep carvings in ancient wood. Whole teams of retainers just to keep the creaking old place at a level of barely tolerable functionalism.

  But those retainers had not thought themselves ill used. There had been a sense of privilege in their labors. Hands that polished the wood almost caressed it.

  "Old. Been with the Atreides a long time now."

  People and their artifacts. She felt tool sense as a living part of herself.

  "I'm better because of this stick in my hand ... because of this fire-sharpened spear to kill my meat ... because of this shelter against the cold... because of my stone cellar to store our winter food ... because of this swift sailing vessel ... this giant ocean liner ... this ship of metal and ceramics that carries me into space..."

  Those first human venturers into space--how little they suspected of where the voyage would extend. How isolated they were in those ancient times! Little capsules of livable atmosphere linked to cumbersome data sources by primitive transmission systems. Solitude. Loneliness. Limited opportunity for anything but surviving. Keep the air washed. Be sure of potable water. Exercise to prevent the debilitation of weightlessness. Stay active. Healthy mind in a healthy body. What was a healthy mind, anyway?

  "Mother Superior?"

  That damned Communications acolyte again!

  "Yes?"

  "Bellonda says to tell you immediately there has been a messenger from Buzzell. Strangers came and took all of the Reverend Mothers away."

  Odrade whirled. "Her entire message?"

  "No, Mother Superior. The strangers are described as commanded by a woman. The messenger says she had the look of an Honored Matre but was not wearing one of their robes."

  "Nothing from Dortujla or the others?"

  "They were not given the opportunity, Mother Superior. The messenger is a First-Stage acolyte. She came in the small no-ship following explicit orders from Dortujla."

  "Tell Bell that acolyte must not be allowed to leave. She has dangerous information. I will brief a messenger when I return. It must be a Reverend Mother. Do you have that?"

  "Of course, Mother Superior." Hurt at the suggestion of doubt.

  It was happening! Odrade contained her excitement with difficulty.

  They have taken the bait. Now ... are they on the hook?

  Dortujla did a dangerous thing depending on an acolyte that way. Knowing Dortujla, that must be an extremely reliable acolyte. Prepared to kill herself if captured. I must see this acolyte. She may be ready for the Agony. And perhaps that's a message Dortujla sends me. It would be like her.

  Bell would be incensed, of course. Foolish to depend on someone from a punishment station!

  Odrade summoned a Communications team. "Set up a link with Bellonda."

  The portable projector was not as clear as a fixed installation but Bell and her setting were recognizable.

  Sitting at my table as though she owned it. Excellent!

  Not giving Bellonda time for one of her outbursts, Odrade said: "Determine if that messenger acolyte is ready for the Agony."

  "She is." Gods below! That was terse for Bell.

  "Then see to it. Perhaps she can be our messenger."

  "Already have."

  "Is she resourceful?"

  "Very."

  What in the name of all the devils has happened to Bell? She's acting extremely odd. Not like her usual self at all. Duncan!

  "Oh, and Bell, I want Duncan to have an open link with Archives."

  "Did that this morning."

  Well, well. Contact with Duncan is having its effect.

  "I'll talk to you after I've seen Sheeana."

  "Tell Tam she was right."

  "About what?"

  "Just tell her."

  "Very well. I must say, Bell, I couldn't be more satisfied with the way you're handling matters."

  "After the way you've handled me, how could I fail?"

  Bellonda was actually smiling as they broke the connection. Odrade turned to find Tamalane standing behind her.

  "Right about what, Tam?"

  "That there's more to contacts between Idaho and Sheeana than we've suspected." Tamalane moved close to Odrade and lowered her voice. "Don't put her in my chair without discovering what they keep secret."

  "I'm aware you knew my intentions, Tam. But ... am I that transparent?"

  "In some things, Dar."

  "I'm fortunate to have you as a friend."

  "You have other supporters. When the Proctors voted, it was your creativity that worked for you. 'Inspired' is the way one of your defenders put it."

  "Then you know I'll have Sheeana on the coals quite thoroughly before I make one of my inspired decisions."

  "Of course."

  Odrade signaled Communications to remove the projector and went to wait at the edge of the glassy area.

  Creative imagination.

  She knew the mixed feelings of her associates.

  Creativity!

  Always dangerous to entrenched power. Always coming up with something new. New things could destroy the grip of authority. Even the Bene Gesserit approached creativity with misgivings. Maintaining an even keel inspired some to shunt boat-rockers aside. That was an element behind Dortujla's posting. The trouble was that creative ones tended to welcome backwaters. They called it privacy. It had taken quite a force to bring Dortujla out.

  Be well, Dortujla. Be the best bait we ever used.

  The 'thopters came then--sixteen of them, pilots showing displeasure at this added assignment after all the trouble they had been through. Moving whole communities!

  In a fragile mood, Odrade watched the 'thopters settle to the hard-glazed surface, wing fans folding back into pod sleeves--each craft like a sleeping insect.

  An insect designed in its own likeness by a mad robot.

  When they were airborne, Streggi once more seated beside Odrade, Streggi asked: "Will we see sandworms? "

  "Possibly. But there are no reports of them yet."

  Streggi sat back, disappointed by the answer but unable to lever it into another question. Truth could be upsetting at times and they had such high expectations invested in this evolutionary gamble, Odrade thought.

  Else why destroy everything we loved on Chapterhouse?

  Simulflow intruded with an image of a long-ago sign arching over a narrow entry to a pink brick building: HOSPITAL FOR INCURABLE DISEASES.

  Was that where the Sisterhood found itself? Or was it that they tolerated too many failures? Intrusive Other Memory had to have its purpose.

  Failures?

  Odrade searched it out: If it comes, we must think of Murbella as a Sister. Not that their captive Honored Matre was an incurable failure. But she was a misfit and undergoing the deep training at a very late age.

  How quiet they were all around her, everyone looking out at windswept sand--whaleback dunes giving way at times to dry wavelets. Early afternoon sun had just begun to provide sufficient sidelighting to define near vistas. Dust obscured the horizon ahead.

  Odrade curled up in her seat and slept. I've seen this before. I survived Dune.

  The stir as they came down and circled over Sheeana's Desert Watch Center awakened her.

  Desert Watch Center. We're at it again. We haven't really named it ... no more than we gave a name to this planet. Chapterhouse! What kind of a name is that? Desert Watch Center! Description, not a name. Accent on the temporary.

  As they descended, she saw confirmations of her thought. The sense of temporary housing was amplified by spartan abruptness in all junctures. No softness, no rounding of any connection. This attaches here and that goes over there. All joined by removable connectors.

  It was a bumpy landing, the pilot telling them that way: "Here you are and good riddance."

  Odrad
e went immediately to the room always set aside for her and summoned Sheeana. Temporary quarters: another spartan cubicle with hard cot. Two chairs this time. A window looked westward onto desert. The temporary nature of these rooms grated on her. Anything here could be dismantled in hours and carted away. She washed her face in the adjoining bathroom, getting the most out of movement. She had slept in a cramped position on the 'thopter and her body complained.

  Refreshed, she went out to a window, thankful that the erection crew had included this tower: ten floors, and this the ninth. Sheeana occupied the top floor, a vantage for doing what the name of the place described.

  While waiting, Odrade made necessary preparations.

  Open the mind. Shed preconceptions.

  First impressions when Sheeana arrived must be seen with naive eyes. Ears must not be prepared for a particular voice. Nose must not expect remembered odors.

  I chose this one. I, her first teacher, am susceptible to mistakes.

  Odrade turned at a sound from the doorway. Streggi.

  "Sheeana has just returned from the desert and is with her people. She asks Mother Superior to meet her in the upper quarters, which are more comfortable."

  Odrade nodded.

  Sheeana's quarters on the top floor still had that prefab look at the edges. Quick shelter ahead of the desert. A large room, six or seven times the size of the guest cubicle, but then it was both workroom and sleeping chamber. Windows on two sides--west and north. Odrade was struck by the mixture of functional and non-functional.

  Sheeana had managed to make her rooms reflect herself. A standard Bene Gesserit cot had been covered with a bright orange and umber spread. A black-on-white line drawing of a sandworm, head-on with all of its crystal teeth displayed, filled an end wall. Sheeana had drawn it, relying on Other Memory and her Dune childhood to guide her hand.

  It said something about Sheeana that she had not attempted a more ambitious rendering--full color, perhaps, and in traditional desert setting. Just the worm and a hint of sand beneath it, a tiny robed human in the foreground.

  Herself?

  Admirable restraint and a constant reminder of why she was here. A deep impression of nature.

  Nature makes no bad art?

  It was a statement too glib to accept.

  What do we mean by "nature?"

  She had seen atrocious natural wilderness: brittle trees looking as though they had been dipped in faulty green pigment and left on a tundra's edge to dry into ugly parodies. Repellent. Hard to imagine such trees having any purpose. And blindworms ... slimy yellow skins. Where was the art in them? Temporary stopping place on evolution's journey elsewhere. Did the intervention of humans always make a difference ? Sligs! The Bene Tleilax had produced something disgusting there.

  Admiring Sheeana's drawing, Odrade decided certain combinations offended particular human senses. Sligs as food were delectable. Ugly combinations touched early experiences. Experiences judged.

  Bad thing!

  Much of what we think of as ART caters to desires for reassurance. Don't offend me! I know what I can accept.

  How did this drawing reassure Sheeana?

  Sandworm: blind power guarding hidden riches. Artistry in mystic beauty.

  It was reported that Sheeana joked about her assignment. "I am shepherd to worms that may never exist."

  And even if they did appear, it would be years before any achieved the size indicated by her drawing. Was it her voice from the tiny figure in front of the worm?

  "This will come in time. "

  An odor of melange pervaded the room, stronger than usual in a Reverend Mother's quarters. Odrade passed a searching look across the furnishings: chairs, worktable, illumination from anchored glowglobes--everything placed where it would serve to advantage. But what was that oddly shaped mound of black plaz in the corner? More of Sheeana's work?

  These rooms fitted Sheeana, Odrade decided. Little other than the drawing to recall her origins but the view out any window might have been from Dar-es-Balat deep in Dune's drylands.

  A small rustling sound at the doorway alerted Odrade. She turned and there was Sheeana. Almost shy the way she peered around the door before entering Mother Superior's presence.

  Motion as words: "So she did come to my rooms. Good. Someone might have been careless with my invitation. "

  Odrade's readied senses tingled with Sheeana's presence. The youngest-ever Reverend Mother. You often thought of Quiet Little Sheeana. She was not always quiet nor was she small but the label stuck. She was not even mousy, but frequently quiet like a rodent waiting at the edge of a field for the farmer to leave. Then the mouse would come darting out to glean fallen grains.

  Sheeana came fully into the room and stopped less than a pace from Odrade. "We've been too long apart, Mother Superior."

  Odrade's first impression was oddly jumbled.

  Candor and concealment?

  Sheeana stood quietly receptive.

  This descendant of Siona Atreides had developed an interesting face under the Bene Gesserit patina. Maturity working on her according to both Sisterhood and Atreides designs. Marks of many decisions firmly taken. The slender, dark-skinned waif with sun-streaked brown hair had become this poised Reverend Mother. Skin still dark from long hours in the open. Hair still sun-streaked. The eyes, though--the steely total blue that said: "I have been through the Agony."

  What is it I sense in her?

  Sheeana saw the look on Odrade's face (Bene Gesserit naivete!) and knew this was the long-feared confrontation.

  There can be no defense except my truth and I hope she stops short of a full confession!

  Odrade watched her former student with exquisite care, every sense open.

  Fear! What do I sense? Something when she spoke?

  The steadiness of Sheeana's voice had been shaped into the powerful instrument Odrade had anticipated at their first meeting. Sheeana's original nature (a Fremen nature if there ever was one!) had been curbed and redirected. That core of vindictiveness smoothed out. Her capacity for love and hatred brought under tight reins.

  Why do I get the impression she wants to hug me?

  Odrade felt suddenly vulnerable.

  This woman has been inside my defenses. No way to exclude her totally ever again.

  Tamalane's judgment came to mind: "She is one of those who keeps herself to herself. Remember Sister Schwangyu? Like that one but better at it. Sheeana knows where she is going. We'll have to watch her carefully. Atreides blood, you know. "

  "I'm Atreides, too, Tam."

  "Don't think we ever forget it! You think we'd just stand idly by if Mother Superior chose to breed on her own? There are limits to our tolerance, Dar. "

  "Indeed, this visit is long overdue, Sheeana."

  Odrade's tone alerted Sheeana. She stared back suddenly with that look the Sisterhood called "BG placid," than which there probably was nothing more placid in the universe, nothing more completely a mask of what occurred behind it. This was not just a barrier, it was a nothing. Anything on this mask would be transgression. This, in itself, was betrayal. Sheeana realized it immediately and responded with laughter.

  "I knew you would come probing! The hand-talk with Duncan, right?" Please, Mother Superior! Accept this.

  "All of it, Sheeana."

  "He wants someone to rescue them if Honored Matres attack."

  "That's all?" Does she think me a complete fool?

  "No. He wants information about our intentions ... and what we're doing to meet the Honored Matre threat."

  "What have you told him?"

  "Everything I could." Truth is my only weapon. I must divert her!

  "Are you his friend at court, Sheeana?"

  "Yes!"

  "So am I."

  "But not Tam and Bell?"

  "My informants tell me Bell now tolerates him."

  "Bell? Tolerant?"

  "You misjudge her, Sheeana. It's a flaw in you." She is hiding something. What have you done, Sh
eeana?

  "Sheeana, do you think you could work with Bell?"

  "Because I tease her?" Work with Bell? What does she mean? Not Bell to head that damnable Missionaria project!

  A faint twitching lifted the corners of Odrade's mouth. Another prank? Could that be it?

  Sheeana was a prime gossip subject in Central's dining rooms. Stories of how she teased Breeding Mistresses (especially Bell) and elaborately detailed accounts of seductions fleshed out with Honored Matre comparisons from Murbella spiced more than the food. Odrade had heard snatches of the latest story only two days ago. "She said, 'I used the Let-him-misbehave method. Very effective with men who think they're leading you down the garden path.'"

  "Tease? Is that what you do, Sheeana?"

  "An appropriate word: reshape by going against the natural inclination." The instant the words were out of her mouth, Sheeana knew she had made a mistake.