Dune: House Atreides
Page 43
Anirul said, “I can feel that this daughter will be vital, a crux point.”
A loud thump sounded below, and Anirul grimaced. One of the roof sections had tumbled into the interior of the building, and the Sister workers rushed about to correct the mistake.
Mother Superior uttered a profanity.
• • •
Through herculean efforts the birthing facility was completed, on time, while Kwisatz Mother Anirul marched back and forth. Only hours before the scheduled birth, construction workers and robos put on the finishing touches. Medical equipment was brought in and connected. Glowglobes, beds, blankets . . . even a warm blaze in the archaic wood-burning fireplace Mohiam had requested.
As Anirul and Harishka inspected the job, still smelling of dust and construction materials, they paused to watch the noisy entrance of a motorized gurney bearing an enormously pregnant Gaius Helen Mohiam. She was alert and sitting up, already experiencing increased contractions. Reverend Mothers and white-smocked medical attendants escorted her in, clucking excitedly like hens.
“This was too close, Mother Superior,” Anirul said. “I don’t appreciate additional stress points in an already-complex task.”
“Agreed,” said Harishka. “The Sisters will be reprimanded for their lethargy. Though, if your designs had been less ambitious . . .” She let the thought hang in the air.
Ignoring Mother Superior, Anirul noted the trim and decoration of the room, with its intricate ivory and pearl inlays and ornate wood carvings. Perhaps she should have had them concentrate more on functionality than on extravagance. . . .
Harishka crossed her thin arms over her chest. “The design of this new facility is similar to what we had before. Was it really necessary?”
“This is not similar at all,” Anirul said. Her face flushed, and she washed the defensive tone out of her words. “The old birthing room simply wasn’t functional anymore.”
Mother Superior gave a condescending smile; she understood the need for an untainted building, with no old memories, no ghosts. “Anirul, through our Missionaria Protectiva we manipulate the superstitions of backward peoples . . . but we Sisters aren’t supposed to be superstitious ourselves.”
Anirul took the comment with good humor. “I assure you, Mother Superior, such conjecture is preposterous.”
The older woman’s almond eyes glittered. “Other Sisters are saying you thought the old birthing room had a curse on it, which caused the first child’s deformities . . . and its mysterious death.”
Anirul drew herself up straight. “This is hardly the proper time to discuss such a thing, Mother Superior.” She scanned the frantic preparations: Mohiam placed on the birthing bed, Sisters gathering warm karthan-weave towels, liquids, pads. An incubator chamber blinked with monitors on the wall. First-ranked midwives bustled around, preparing for unforeseen complications.
On her gurney, Mohiam looked entirely composed now, her thoughts turned inward, meditating. But Anirul noticed how old she appeared, as if the last shreds of youth had been drained from her.
Harishka placed a sinewy hand on Anirul’s forearm in a sudden and surprising display of closeness. “We all have our primal superstitions, but we must master them. For now, worry about nothing except this child. The Sisterhood needs a healthy daughter, with a powerful future.”
Medical personnel checked equipment and took up their positions around Mohiam, who reclined on a bed, inhaling deeply; her cheeks flushed red with exertion. Two of the midwives propped her up in the ages-old delivery position. The pregnant woman began to hum to herself, allowing only a flicker of discomfort to cross her face as she experienced increasingly severe contractions.
Standing aloof, yet sharply observant, Anirul considered what Mother Superior had just told her. Secretly, Anirul had consulted a Feng Shui master about the old birthing facility. A withered old man with Terrasian features, he was a practitioner of an ancient Zensunni philosophy which held that architecture, furniture placement, and maximum utilization of color and light all worked to promote the well-being of a facility’s inhabitants. With a sage nod, he declared that the old facility had been set up incorrectly, and showed Anirul what needed to be done. They’d had only a month before the expected delivery date, and the Kwisatz Mother had had not a moment to lose.
Now as she observed the abundance of light flowing down upon Mohiam’s bed from actual windows and skylights, rather than from clusters of artificial glowglobes, Anirul assured herself she hadn’t been “superstitious.” Feng Shui was about aligning oneself properly with Nature and being intensely aware of one’s surroundings— a philosophy that was, ultimately, very much in the Bene Gesserit way of thinking.
Too much rode on this single birth. If there was a chance, even a small one, Anirul wanted no part in denying it. Using the power of her position, she had demanded a new birthing facility, built according to the Feng Shui master’s recommendations. Then she’d sent the old man away, letting the other Sisters believe he had merely been a visiting gardener.
Now she glided closer to Mohiam’s bed, looking down at her patient as the time neared. Anirul hoped the old man was right. This daughter was their last, best chance.
• • •
It happened quickly, the moment Mohiam set her mind to it.
A baby’s insistent crying filled the chamber, and Anirul lifted a perfect girl-child in the air for Mother Superior to see. Even the voices in Other Memory cheered at the victory. Everyone beamed triumphantly, delighted with the long-anticipated birth. Agitated, the child kicked and flailed.
Sisters toweled off infant and mother, giving Mohiam a long drink of juice to restore her body fluids. Anirul handed the baby to her. Still breathing hard from the exertion of the delivery, Mohiam took the girl and looked at her, allowing an uncharacteristically proud smile to cross her face.
“This child shall be named Jessica, meaning ‘wealth,’ ” Mohiam announced proudly, still panting. When other Sisters moved away, Mohiam stared at Anirul and Harishka, who stood close to her. In a directed whisper that only they could hear, she said, “I know this child is part of the Kwisatz Haderach program. The voices in Other Memory have told me. I have seen a vision, and I know the terrible future if we fail with her.”
Anirul and Mother Superior exchanged uneasy glances. In a whisper Harishka responded, looking sidelong as if hop-ing the spontaneous revelation might weaken the Kwisatz Mother’s hold over the program. “You are commanded to secrecy. Your child is to be the grandmother of the Kwisatz Haderach.”
“I suspected as much.” Mohiam sank back on her pillow to consider the immensity of this revelation. “So soon . . .”
Outside the building, clapping and cheering rang out as news of the birth passed quickly around the training areas. Balconies above the library enclaves and discussion chambers overflowed with acolytes and teachers celebrating the felicitous event, though only a handful knew the full significance of this child in the breeding program.
Gaius Helen Mohiam gave the child to the midwives, refusing to form any sort of parental bond that was forbidden by the Bene Gesserit. Though she maintained her composure, she felt drawn, bone-weary, and old. This Jessica was her tenth daughter for the Sisterhood, and she hoped her childbearing duties were now at an end. She looked at young Reverend Mother Anirul Sadow Tonkin. How could she do better than she had already done? Jessica . . . their future.
I am indeed fortunate to participate in this moment, Anirul thought as she looked down at the exhausted new mother. It struck her as odd that of all the Sisters who had worked toward this goal for thousands of years, of all those who now watched eagerly in Other Memory, she was the one to supervise the birth of Jessica. Anirul herself would guide this child through years of training toward the critically important sexual union she must have, to carry the breeding program to its penultimate step.
Wrapped in a blanket, the baby girl had finally stopped crying and lay peacefully in the sheltering warmth of its enclosed bed.
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Squinting down through the protective plaz, Anirul tried to imagine what this Jessica would look like as a grown woman. She envisioned the baby’s face elongating and thinning, and could visualize a tall lady of great beauty, with the regal features of her father Baron Harkonnen, generous lips, and smooth skin. The Baron would never meet his daughter or know her name, for this would be one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Bene Gesserit.
One day, when Jessica was of age, she would be commanded to bear a daughter, and that child must be introduced to the son of Abulurd Harkonnen, the Baron’s youngest demibrother. At the moment Abulurd and his wife had only one son, Rabban— but Anirul had set in motion a means of suggesting that they have more. This would improve the odds of one male surviving to maturity; it would also improve the gene selection, and improve the odds of good sexual timing.
A vast jigsaw puzzle remained apparent to Anirul, each of its pieces a separate event in the incredible Bene Gesserit breeding program. Only a few more components needed to slip into place now, and the Kwisatz Haderach would become a reality in flesh and blood— the all-powerful male who could bridge space and time, the ultimate tool to be wielded by the Bene Gesserit.
Anirul wondered now, as she often had without daring to speak of it, if such a man could cause the Bene Gesserit to once again find genuine religious fervor, like the fanaticism of the crusading Butler family. What if he made others revere him as a god?
Imagine that, she thought. The Bene Gesserit— who used religion only to manipulate others— ensnared by their own messianic leader. She doubted that could ever happen.
Reverend Mother Anirul went out to celebrate with her Sisters.
The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.
—Ancient Fremen Wisdom
Umma Kynes, you have accomplished much,” said one-eyed Heinar as the two men sat on a rocky promontory above their sietch. The Naib treated him as an equal now, even with overblown respect. Kynes had stopped bothering to argue with the desert people every time they called him “Umma,” their word for “prophet.”
He and Heinar watched the coppery sunset spill across the sweeping dunefield of the Great Erg. Far in the distance, a fuzzy haze hung on the horizon, the last remnants of a sandstorm that had passed the previous day.
Powerful winds had washed the dunes clean, scrubbed their surfaces, recontoured the landscape. Kynes relaxed against the rough rock, sipping from a pungent cup of spice coffee.
Seeing her husband about to go above ground, outside the sietch, a pregnant Frieth had hurried after the two men as they waited to bid the sun farewell for another day. An elaborate brass coffee service sat between them on a flat stone. Frieth had brought it, along with a selection of the crunchy sesame cakes Kynes loved so well. By the time he remembered to thank her for her kind attentiveness, Frieth had already vanished like a shadow back into the caves.
After a long moment, Kynes nodded distractedly at the Naib’s comment. “Yes, I’ve accomplished much, but I still have plenty to do.” He thought of the remarkably complex plans required to complete his dream of a reborn Dune, a planetary name little known in the Imperium.
Imperium. He rarely thought of the old Emperor now— his own priorities, the emphasis of his life, had changed so greatly. Kynes could never go back to being a mere Imperial Planetologist, not after all he’d been through with these desert people.
Heinar clasped his friend’s wrist. “It is said that sunset is a time for reflection and assessment, my friend. Let us look to what we have done, rather than permit the empty gulf of the future to overwhelm us. You have been on this planet for only a little more than a year, yet already you have found a new tribe, a new wife.” Heinar smiled. “And soon you will have a new child, a son perhaps.”
Kynes returned the smile wistfully. Frieth was nearly through her gestation period. He was somewhat surprised that the pregnancy had happened at all, since he was gone so frequently. He still wasn’t certain how to react to his impending role as a first-time father. He had never thought about it before.
However, the birth would fit in neatly with the overall plan he had for this astounding planet. His child, growing up to lead the Fremen long after Kynes himself was gone, could help continue their efforts. The master plan was designed to take centuries.
As a Planetologist, he had to think in the long term, something the Fremen were not in the habit of doing— though, given their long, troubled past, they should have been accustomed to it. The desert people had an oral history going back thousands of years, tales told in the sietch describing their endless wanderings from planet to planet, a people enslaved and persecuted, until finally they had made a home here where no one else could bear to live.
The Fremen way was a conservative one, little changed from generation to generation, and these people were not used to considering the broad scope of progress. Assuming their environment could not be adapted, they remained its prisoners, rather than its masters.
Kynes hoped to change all that. He had mapped out his great plan, including rough timetables for plantings and the accumulation of water, milestones for each successive achievement. Hectare by hectare, Dune would be rescued from the wasteland.
His Fremen teams were scouring the surface, taking core samples from the Great Bled, geological specimens from the Minor Erg and the Funeral Plain— but many terraforming factors still remained unknown variables.
Pieces fell into place daily. When he expressed a desire for better maps of the planet’s surface, he was astonished to learn that the Fremen already had detailed topographical charts, even climatic surveys. “Why is it that I couldn’t get these before?” Kynes said. “I was the Imperial Planetologist, and the maps I received from satellite cartography were woefully inaccurate.”
Old Heinar had smiled at him, squinting his one eye. “We pay a substantial bribe to the Spacing Guild to keep them from watching us too closely. The cost is high, but the Fremen are free— and the Harkonnens remain in the dark, along with the rest of the Imperium.”
Kynes was astonished at first, then simply pleased, to have much of the geographical information he needed. Immediately he dispatched traders to deal with smugglers and obtain genetically engineered seeds of vigorous desert plants. He had to design and build an entire ecosystem from scratch.
In large council meetings, the Fremen asked their new “prophet” what the next step might be, how long each process would take, when Dune would become green and lush. Kynes had tallied up his estimates and calmly looked down at the number. In the manner of a teacher answering a child who has asked an absurdly simple question, Kynes shrugged and told them, “It will take anywhere from three hundred to five hundred years. Maybe a little more.”
Some of the Fremen bit back groans of despair, while the rest listened stoically to the Umma, and then set about doing what he asked. Three hundred to five hundred years. Long-term thinking, beyond their personal lifetimes. The Fremen had to alter their ways.
Seeing a vision from God, the would-be assassin Uliet had sacrificed himself for this man. From that moment on, the Fremen had been fully convinced of Kynes’s divine inspiration. He had only to point, and any Fremen in the sietch would do as he bid.
The feeling of power might have been abused by any other person. But Pardot Kynes simply took it in stride and continued his work. He envisioned the future in terms of eons and worlds, not in terms of individuals or small plots of land.
Now, as the sun vanished below the sands in a brassy symphony of color, Kynes drained the last drops of his spice coffee, then wiped a forearm across his sandy beard. Despite what Heinar had said, he found it difficult to reflect patiently on the past year . . . the demands of the labors for centuries to come seemed so much more significant, so much more demanding of his attention.
“Heinar, how many Fremen are there?” he asked, staring across the serene open desert. He’d heard tales of many other sietches, had seen isolated Fre
men in the Harkonnen towns and villages . . . but they seemed like the ghosts of an endangered species. “How many in the whole world?”
“Do you wish us to count our numbers, Umma Kynes?” Heinar asked, not in disbelief, simply clarifying an order.
“I need to know your population if I’m to project our terraforming activities. I must understand just how many workers we have available.”
Heinar stood up. “It shall be done. We shall number our sietches, and tally the people in them. I will send sandriders and distrans bats to all the communities, and we shall have an accounting for you soon.”
“Thank you.” Kynes picked up his cup, but before he could gather the dishes himself, Frieth rushed out of the cave shadows— she must have been waiting there for them to finish— and gathered up the pieces of the coffee service. Her pregnancy hadn’t slowed her down at all.
The first Fremen census, Kynes thought. A momentous occasion.
• • •
Bright-eyed and eager, Stilgar came to Kynes’s cavern quarters the next morning. “We are packing for your long journey, Umma Kynes. Far to the south. We have important things to show you.”
Since his recovery from the Harkonnen knife wound, Stilgar had become one of Kynes’s most devoted followers. He seemed to draw status from his relationship with the Planetologist, his brother-in-law. Stilgar served not for himself, though, but for the greater good of the Fremen.
“How long will the journey be?” Kynes inquired. “And where are we going?”
The young man’s grin sparkled, a broad display of white. “A surprise! This is something you must see, or you may not believe. Think of it as a gift from us to you.”
Curious, Kynes looked over at his work alcove. He would bring along his notes to document this journey. “But how long will it take?”
“Twenty thumpers,” Stilgar answered in the terminology of the deep desert, then called over his shoulder as he left, “Far to the south.”