Hunters of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  After having been bullied for so long, he was pleased to see someone weaker than himself for a change, and shouted officiously to the low-caste slig farmer, “You! Identify yourself.” Uxtal doubted if the filth-smeared worker could provide any useful information, but Elder Burah had taught him that all information was useful, especially in unfamiliar surroundings.

  “I am Gaxhar. I’ve never heard an accent like yours.” The farmer limped over to the fence and looked at Uxtal’s formal high-caste uniform, which was, thankfully, much cleaner than the slig farmer’s. “I thought all the Masters were dead.”

  “I’m not a Master, not technically.” Struggling to maintain his haughty position of authority, Uxtal added sternly, “But I am still your superior. Keep your sligs away from this side of the property. I cannot afford to have my important laboratory contaminated. Your sligs carry flies and disease.”

  “I wash them down every day, but I will keep them away from the fences.” In their pen, the wide, sluglike animals rolled over each other, slithering and squealing.

  At a loss for anything else to say, Uxtal gave a weak-sounding and unnecessary warning. “You had better watch yourself around the Honored Matres. I am safe because of my special knowledge, but they might turn on a mere farmer in an instant and tear you to pieces.”

  Gaxhar made a snort that was halfway between a laugh and a cough. “The old Masters were no kinder to me than the Honored Matres are. I’ve just gone from one cruel overlord to another.”

  A groundtruck rumbled up to the sligs. With a dump mechanism, it released a load of wet, reeking garbage. The hungry creatures swarmed to the putrid feast, while the farmer crossed his arms over his scrawny chest. “Honored Matres send the body parts of high-caste men for my sligs to eat. They think the flesh of my superiors makes the slig meat taste sweeter.” The barest hint of a disrespectful sneer was quickly hidden by the man’s generally blank expression. “Perhaps I will see you again.”

  What did he mean? That Uxtal would be dumped here, too, when the whores were finished with him? Or was it just innocuous conversation? Uxtal frowned, unable to take his eyes from the sligs crawling over the body parts, chewing them efficiently with their multiple mouths.

  Finally, his two Honored Matre escorts came to fetch him. “You may enter your laboratory now. We have destroyed the door.”

  There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

  —from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the

  PRINCESS IRULAN

  R

  inya’s been gone for a month now. I miss her terribly.” Walking beside Janess toward the acolytes’ bungalows, Murbella could see her struggling to mask the anguish on her face.

  Despite the feelings in her own heart, the Mother Commander maintained a distant expression. “Do not make me lose another daughter, or another potential Reverend Mother. When the time comes, you must be certain you are prepared for the Agony. Do not let your pride rush you.”

  Janess nodded stoically. She would not speak ill of her lost twin, but she and Murbella both knew that Rinya had not been as confident as she had claimed. Instead, she had covered her doubts with a veneer of false bravado. And that had killed her.

  A Bene Gesserit had to hide her emotions, to drive away any vestiges of distracting love. Once, Murbella herself had been trapped by love, tangled and weakened by her bond with Duncan Idaho. Losing him had not freed her, and the thought of him still out there in the void, unimaginably far away, gave her a constant ache.

  Despite their stated position, the Sisterhood had long known that love could not be eliminated completely. Like ancient priests and nuns from some long-obsolete religion, Bene Gesserits were supposed to give up love entirely for a greater cause. But in the long run, it never worked to discard everything in order to protect against one perceived weakness. One could not save humans by forcing them to surrender their humanity.

  By remaining in close contact with the twins and observing their training, even revealing the identities of their parents, Murbella had broken the Sisterhood’s tradition. Most daughters taken into Bene Gesserit schools were told to reach their potential “without the distractions of family ties.” The Mother Commander did keep herself separate and aloof from the two younger daughters, Tanidia and Gianne, however. But she had lost Rinya and refused to cut herself off from Janess.

  Now, following a training session in combined Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre fighting skills, the two of them made their way across the Keep’s west garden, heading toward where Janess and her fellow acolytes lived. The girl still wore her rumpled and sweat-stained white combat suit.

  The Mother Commander kept her voice neutral, though she, too, felt the pang in her heart. “We must go on with our lives. We still have many enemies to face. Rinya would want us to.”

  Janess straightened as she walked. “Yes, she would. She believed you about the Enemy, and so do I.”

  Some Sisters doubted the Mother Commander’s urgency. Honored Matres had come running back into the Old Empire, sure that the sky was falling. But before Murbella stripped away all the foundations of the Bene Gesserit, a few of the women had demanded proof that such a terrible opponent truly existed out there. No Honored Matre had ever gone deep enough into Other Memory to remember much of her past; even Murbella could not recall their origin out in the Scattering, and could not say how they had first encountered their Enemy or what had provoked them to genocidal fury.

  Murbella couldn’t believe such blindness. Had the Honored Matres just imagined hundreds of planets eradicated by plague? Had they simply wished into existence the great Weapons used to obliterate Rakis and so many other planets?

  “We need no further evidence to know the Enemy is out there,” Murbella said curtly to her daughter, as they followed a dry, thorny hedge. “And they are now coming after us. All of us. I doubt the Enemy will make any distinctions among the factions of our New Sisterhood. Chapterhouse itself is certainly within their targeting crosshairs.”

  “If they find us,” Janess said.

  “Oh, they will find us. And they will destroy us, if we are not prepared.” She looked at the young woman, seeing so much potential in her daughter’s face. “Which is why we need as many Reverend Mothers as possible.”

  Janess had thrown herself into her studies with a determination that would have surprised even her obsessive, driven twin. Fighting with her hands and feet, spinning, rolling, dodging, the girl could strike an adversary from all sides, encircling her with speed and power.

  Earlier that day Janess had faced off against a tall, wiry girl named Caree Debrak. Caree had come in as a young student from the newly conquered Honored Matres swarming toward Chapterhouse. Harboring resentment against the Mother Commander’s daughter, Caree had used the competitive event as an excuse to vent her anger. She intended to hurt. Janess had practiced the lesson’s moves and expected to beat the girl in fair combat, but the youthful Honored Matre had unleashed a raw form of violence, breaking the rules and nearly breaking Janess’s bones. The female bashar in charge of personal combat training, Wikki Aztin, had dragged the pair apart.

  The incident troubled Murbella greatly. “You lost to Caree because the Honored Matres have no inhibitions. You must learn to match them in that, if you mean to succeed here.”

  In the past several months, Murbella had detected an ugly undertone, especially among the younger trainees. Though all were supposedly part of a united Sisterhood, they still insisted on segregating themselves, wearing colors and badges, separating into cliques clearly defined by their heritage as either Bene Gesserit or Honored Matre. Some of the more severe malcontents, disgusted with conciliation and refusing to learn or compromise, continued to disappear to their own settlements far to the north, even after the execution of Annine.

  As they approached the acolytes’ barracks, Murbella heard a clamor of angry voices through the brittle brown hedges. Rounding a turn in the garden path, they came to the commons, an expanse of wit
hered grass and gravel walkways fronting the bungalows. Normally the acolytes gathered there for games, picnics, and sporting events, though an unexpected dust storm had left a layer of grit on the benches.

  Today, most of the class was arrayed on the parched lawn as if it were a battlefield—more than fifty girls in white robes, all acolytes. The girls, divided into distinct groups of Bene Gesserits and Honored Matres, threw themselves upon each other like howling animals.

  Murbella recognized Caree Debrak amidst the combatants. The girl knocked a rival down with a hard kick to the face and then pounced upon her like a hungry predator. While the fallen acolyte thrashed and fought back, Caree grabbed her hair, stepped hard on her chest, and yanked upward with enough force to uproot a tree. The sickening snap of the girl’s neck carried even above the frenzy of the melee.

  Grinning, Caree left the corpse on the dry ground and whirled to go after another opponent. Acolytes with orange Honored Matre armbands attacked their Bene Gesserit rivals with wild abandon, punching, kicking, gouging, even using teeth to rip skin. Already, more than a dozen young women lay sprawled like bloody rags on the dry grass. Shrieks of anger, pain, and defiance welled up from undisciplined throats. This was no game, nor was it practice play.

  Appalled at the behavior, Murbella shouted, “Stop this! All of you!”

  But the acolytes, their adrenaline surging, continued to tear and scream at each other. One girl, a former Honored Matre, staggered forward, her hands hooked into claws that lashed out at any noise; her eye sockets were unseeing, bloody pits.

  Murbella saw two young Bene Gesserits knock down a thrashing Honored Matre and tear the orange band from her arm. With hard punches strong enough to shatter their victim’s sternum, the Bene Gesserit acolytes killed her.

  Caree flew feet first at the aggressive pair. She slammed into them simultaneously and sent them rolling away. A kick crushed the larynx of one, but the other ducked a follow-through blow. While her companion collapsed, gurgling and choking, the other rolled and sprang to her feet, clutching a broken chunk of rock that had been part of the landscaping.

  Guards, proctors, and Reverend Mothers came running from the Keep. Bashar Aztin led her own troops, and Murbella noticed that they all carried heavy stunner weapons. The Mother Commander shouted into the mayhem, using Voice to make her words strike the listeners like projectiles. But the din was so great that none of the acolytes seemed to hear her.

  Side by side, Janess and Murbella waded into the acolytes who were still fighting and rained blows on them, paying no attention to whether their targets wore orange bands or not. Murbella noticed her daughter increasing her intensity, pouring her entire body into fighting moves.

  Murbella tucked her own head and slammed into a gleefully victorious Caree Debrak, driving her hard to the ground. The Mother Commander could easily have landed a fatal blow, but restrained herself enough to merely knock the wind out of the girl.

  Gasping and retching, Caree rolled over and glared at Murbella and Janess. She climbed to her feet, wavering. “Didn’t you get enough from me earlier, Janess? You want more of the same?” She swung a fist.

  With obvious effort, Janess controlled herself, easily dodging but not retaliating. “ ‘There is more skill in avoiding confrontations than in engaging in them.’ That’s a Bene Gesserit axiom.”

  Caree spat. “What do I care for witches’ axioms? Do you have any thoughts of your own? Or only your mother’s, and quotes from an old book?”

  Caree barely had the words out before she lashed out with a powerful kick. Anticipating it, Janess darted to the left and came around on her opponent’s side, striking her temples with a sharp fist. The young Honored Matre went down, and Janess gave her a stunning kick in the forehead that slammed her backward.

  Finally, the skirmish petered out as more women arrived to pull the fighters apart. The whole commons was littered with the remnants of the bloody brawl. A volley of stun fire dropped several of the still-fighting acolytes together into a heap on the ground, unconscious but alive.

  Heaving great breaths, Murbella surveyed the bloody field in disgust and fury. She shouted at the young Honored Matres, “Your orange bands caused this! Why flaunt your differences instead of joining us?”

  Glancing to her side, Murbella saw Janess had taken up a stance to protect the Mother Commander. The girl might not be ready for the Spice Agony yet, but she was ready for this.

  The surviving acolytes began slinking toward their respective bungalows. Voicing her mother’s thoughts, Janess shouted at them, over the dead bodies strewn on the brown grass, “Look at all the wasted resources! If we keep this up, the Enemy won’t need to kill any of us.”

  Once a plan is conceived, it takes on a life of its own. Merely considering and constructing a scheme puts a certain stamp of inevitability upon it.

  —BASHAR MILES TEG,

  summary debriefing after the victory on Cerbol

  W

  hen she was confrontational, Garimi could be as stubborn as the most hardened old Bene Gesserit. Sheeana let the sober-faced Sister stand in the assembly chamber and vent against the proposed historical ghola project, hoping that she would lose steam before she reached her conclusion. Unfortunately, many of the Sisters in the seats behind Garimi muttered and nodded, agreeing with the points she raised.

  And so we give birth to even more factions, Sheeana thought with an inner sigh.

  In the no-ship’s largest meeting chamber, more than a hundred of the refugee Sisters continued their seemingly endless debate over the wisdom of creating gholas from Scytale’s mysterious cells. There seemed no room for compromise. Because they had departed from Chapterhouse to retain Bene Gesserit purity, Sheeana insisted on preserving open discourse, but the argument had already gone on for more than a month. With so much dissent, she did not want to force a vote. Not yet. At one time, we were all bound together by a common cause. . . .

  From the front row, Garimi said, “You suggest this ill-conceived scheme as if we have no other option. Even the most unschooled acolyte knows there are as many options as we choose to make.”

  Duncan Idaho’s words glided cleanly into the brief silence, though no one had called upon him. “I did not say we had no choice. I merely suggested that this may be our best choice.” He and Teg sat beside Sheeana. Who knew better the dangers, difficulties, and advantages of gholas than these two? Who understood these historical figures better than Duncan himself?

  Continuing, Duncan said, “The Tleilaxu Master offers us the means to strengthen ourselves with key figures from an arsenal of past experts and leaders. We know little about the Enemy we might face, and it would be foolish to turn our backs on any possible advantage.”

  “Advantage? These historical figures are a veritable pantheon of shame for the Bene Gesserit,” Garimi said. “Lady Jessica, Paul Muad’Dib—and, worst of all, Leto II, the Tyrant.”

  As Garimi’s voice grew shrill, one of her companions, Stuka, added firmly, “Have you forgotten your Bene Gesserit training, Duncan Idaho? Your reasoning is not logical. All of the gholas we’re talking about are relics of the past, straight out of legend. What relevance can they possibly have to our crisis now?”

  “What they lack in current relevance, they gain in perspective,” Teg pointed out. “The sheer living history in those cells is enough to make religious scholars and academics dizzy. Surely, among all of those heroes and geniuses we will find useful knowledge for any situation we might encounter. The fact that the Tleilaxu worked so hard to obtain and preserve such cells for all these centuries argues for how special they must be.”

  Reverend Mother Calissa expressed a valid concern; she had not given any hint as to the way she intended to vote. “I am worried that the Tleilaxu modified the genetics in some way—just as they tampered with Duncan. Scytale is counting on our awe. What if there is another plan at work here? Why does he really want the gholas brought back?”

  Duncan drew his gaze across the seated women. “
The Tleilaxu Master is in a vulnerable position, so he must ensure that any gholas we test are perfect. Otherwise he loses what he most wants from us. I don’t trust him, but I do trust his desperation. Scytale will do anything to get what he needs. He is dying and is frantic for a ghola of himself, so we should use that to our advantage. In our perilous situation, we dare not let our fears guide our policy.”

  “What policy?” Garimi snorted, looking around at all the Sisters. “We wander through space, going nowhere, running from an invisible threat that only Duncan Idaho can see. For most of us, the real threat was the whores from the Scattering. They took over our Sisterhood, and we exiled ourselves to save the Bene Gesserit. We need to find a place where we can establish a new Chapterhouse, a new order where we can grow strong. That is why we have begun having children, cautiously expanding our numbers.”

  “And thereby straining the Ithaca’s limited resources,” Sheeana said.

  Garimi and many of her supporters made rude noises. “This no-ship has enough supplies to keep ten times our number alive for a century. To preserve our Sisterhood, we need to increase our number and expand our gene pool, in preparation for colonizing a planet.”

  Sheeana smiled craftily. “Yet another reason to introduce the gholas.”

  Garimi rolled her eyes in disgust. From behind her, Stuka called out, “The gholas will be inhuman abominations.”

  Sheeana had known someone would say this. “I find it curious how superstitious some of you conservative women are. Like illiterate peasants! I have heard very little rational argument from you.”