"I did not expect you to be this old," he said.
"Heh, heh, heh. We have many surprises for you, Bashar. Later, a younger Honored Matre may murmur her name to mark you. Praise Dur if that happens."
He nodded, not understanding much of what she said.
"This is also a very old building," she said. "I watched you when you came in. Does that surprise you, too?"
"No."
"This building has remained essentially unchanged for several thousand years. It is built of materials that will last much longer still."
He glanced at the table.
"Oh, not the wood. But underneath, it's polastine, polaz, and pormabat. The three P-Os are never sneered at where necessity calls for them."
Teg remained silent.
"Necessity," she said. "Do you object to any of the necessary things that have been done to you?"
"My objections don't matter," he said. What was she getting at? Studying him, of course. As he studied her.
"Do you think others have ever objected to what you did to them?"
"Undoubtedly."
"You're a natural commander, Bashar. I think you'll be very valuable to us."
"I've always thought I was most valuable to myself."
"Bashar! Look at my eyes!"
He obeyed, seeing little flecks of orange drifting in across the whites. The sense of peril was acute.
"If you ever see my eyes fully orange, beware!" she said. "You will have offended me beyond my ability to tolerate."
He nodded.
"I like it that you can command but you cannot command me! You command the muck and that is the only function we have for such as you."
"The muck?"
She waved a hand, a negligent motion. "Out there. You know them. Their curiosity is narrow gauge. No great issues ever enter their awareness."
"I thought that was what you meant."
"We work to keep it that way," she said. "Everything goes to them through a tight filter, which excludes all but that which has immediate survival value."
"No great issues," he said.
"You are offended but it doesn't matter," she said. "To those out there, a great issue is: 'Will I eat today?' 'Do I have shelter tonight that will not be invaded by attackers or vermin?' Luxury? Luxury is the possession of a drug or a member of the opposite sex who can, for a time, keep the beast at bay."
And you are the beast, he thought.
"I am taking some time with you, Bashar, because I see that you could be more valuable to us even than Muzzafar. And he is extremely valuable indeed. Even now, we are repaying him for bringing you to us in a receptive condition."
When Teg still remained silent, she chuckled. "You do not think you are receptive?"
Teg held himself quiet. Had they given him some drug in his food? He saw the flickering of doubled vision but the movements of violence had receded as the orange flecks left the Honored Matre's eyes. Her feet were to be avoided, though. They were deadly weapons.
"It's just that you think of the muck in the wrong way," she said. "Luckily, they are most self-limiting. They know this somewhere in the damps of their deepest consciousness but cannot spare the time to deal with that or anything else except the immediate scramble for survival."
"They cannot be improved?" he asked.
"They must not be improved! Oh, we see to it that self-improvement remains a great fad among them. Nothing real about it, of course."
"Another luxury they must be denied," he said.
"Not a luxury! Nonexistent! It must be occluded at all times behind a barrier that we like to call protective ignorance."
"What you don't know cannot hurt you."
"I don't like your tone, Bashar."
Again, the orange flecks danced in her eyes. The sense of violence diminished, however, as she once more chuckled. "The thing you beware of is the opposite of what-you-don't-know. We teach that new knowledge can be dangerous. You see the obvious extension: All new knowledge is non-survival!"
The door behind the Honored Matre opened and Muzzafar returned. It was a changed Muzzafar, his face flushed, his eyes bright. He stopped behind the Honored Matre's chair.
"One day, I will be able to permit you behind me this way," she said. "It is in my power to do this."
What had they done to Muzzafar? Teg wondered. The man looked almost drugged.
"You do see that I have power?" she asked.
He cleared his throat. "That's obvious."
"I am a banker, remember? We have just made a deposit with our loyal Muzzafar. Do you thank us, Muzzafar?"
"I do, Honored Matre." His voice was hoarse.
"I'm sure you understand this kind of power generally, Bashar," she said. "The Bene Gesserit trained you well. They are quite talented but not, I fear, as talented as we are."
"And I am told you are quite numerous," he said.
"Our numbers are not the key, Bashar. Power such as ours has a way of becoming channeled so that it can be controlled by small numbers."
She was like a Reverend Mother, he thought, in the way she could appear to answer without revealing much.
"In essence," she said, "power such as ours is allowed to become the substance of survival for many people. Then, the threat of withdrawal is all that's required for us to rule." She glanced over her shoulder. "Would you wish us to withdraw our favor from you Muzzafar?"
"No, Honored Matre." He was actually trembling!
"You have found a new drug," Teg said.
Her laughter was spontaneous and loud, almost raucous. "No, Bashar! We have an old one."
"And you would make an addict of me?"
"Like all the others we control, Bashar, you have a choice: death or obedience."
"That is a rather old choice," he agreed. What was her immediate threat? He could sense no violence. Quite the contrary. His doubled vision showed him broken glimpses of extremely sensuous overtones. Did they think they could imprint him?
She smiled at him, a knowing expression with something frigid under it.
"Will he serve us well, Muzzafar?"
"I believe so, Honored Matre."
Teg frowned in thought. There was something deeply evil about this pair. They went against every morality by which he modeled his behavior. It was well to remember that neither of them knew this strange thing that had speeded his reactions.
They seemed to be enjoying his puzzled discomfiture.
Teg took some reassurance from the realization that neither of these two really enjoyed life. He could see that in them clearly with eyes the Sisterhood had educated. The Honored Matre and Muzzafar had forgotten or, most likely, abandoned everything that supported the survival of joyous humans. He thought they probably no longer were capable of finding a real wellspring of joy in their own flesh. Theirs would have to be mostly a voyeur's existence, the eternal observer, always remembering what it had been like before they had taken the turning into whatever it was they had become. Even when they wallowed in the performance of something that once had meant gratification, they would have to reach for new extremes each time just to touch the edges of their own memories.
The Honored Matre's grin widened, showing a line of gleaming white teeth. "Look at him, Muzzafar. He has not the slightest conception of what we can do."
Teg heard this but he also saw with eyes trained by the Bene Gesserit. Not a milligram of naivete remained in either of these two. Nothing was expected to surprise them. Nothing could be truly new for them. Still, they plotted and devised, hoping that this extreme would produce the remembered thrill. They knew it would not, of course, and they expected to carry away from the experience only more burning rage out of which to fashion another attempt at the unreachable. That was how their thinking went.
Teg designed a smile for them, using all of the skills he had learned at Bene Gesserit hands. It was a smile full of compassion, of understanding and real pleasure in his own existence. He knew it for the most deadly insult he could hurl at them and he
saw it hit. Muzzafar glowered at him. The Honored Matre went from orange-eyed rage to an abrupt surprise and then, quite slowly, to dawning pleasure. She had not expected this! It was something new!
"Muzzafar," she said, the orange receding from her eyes, "bring the Honored Matre who has been chosen to mark our Bashar."
Teg, his doubled vision showing the immediate peril, understood at last. He could feel awareness of his own future spreading outward like waves as the power grew in him. The wild change in him was continuing! He felt the energy expand. With it came understanding and choices. He saw himself as the whirlwind rampaging through this building -- bodies scattered behind him (Muzzafar and the Honored Matre among them) and the whole complex looking like an abattoir when he departed.
Must I do that? he wondered.
For each one he killed, more would have to be killed. He saw the necessity of it, though, as he saw at last the Tyrant's design. The pain he could see for himself almost made him cry out but he held it back.
"Yes, bring this Honored Matre to me," he said, knowing that this would be one less for him to seek out and destroy elsewhere in the building. The room of the scanlyzer controls must be taken out first.
O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.
-Sign over Arrakeen Landing Field (Historical Records: Dar-es-Balat)
Taraza watched a snow-flutter of falling blossoms against the silvery sky of a Rakian morning. There was an opalescent sheen to the sky that, despite all of her preparatory briefings, she had not anticipated. Rakis held many surprises. The smell of mock orange was powerful here at the edge of the Dar-es-Balat roof garden, overriding all other odors.
Never believe that you have plumbed the depths of any place . . . or of any human, she reminded herself.
Conversation was ended out here but not the echoes of the spoken thoughts they had exchanged only minutes ago. All agreed, though, that it was time for action. Soon, Sheeana would "dance a worm" for them and once more demonstrate her mastery.
Waff and a new priestly representative would share this "holy event" but Taraza was sure neither of them knew the real nature of what they were about to witness. Waff bore watching, of course. He still carried that air of irritated disbelief in everything he saw or heard. It was a strange mixture with his underlying awe at being on Rakis. The catalyst was obviously his rage over the fact that fools ruled here.
Odrade returned from the meeting room and stopped beside Taraza.
"I am extremely disquieted by the reports from Gammu," Taraza said. "Do you bring something new?"
"No. Things are obviously still chaotic there."
"Tell me, Dar, what do you think we should do?"
"I keep remembering the Tyrant's words to Chenoeh: 'The Bene Gesserit are so close to what they should be, yet so far.' "
Taraza pointed at the open desert beyond the museum city's qanat. "He's still out there, Dar. I'm sure of it." Taraza turned to face Odrade. "And Sheeana speaks to him."
"He told so many lies," Odrade said.
"But he didn't lie about his own incarnation. Remember what he said. 'Every descendant part of me will carry some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless-pearls of me moving blindly in the sand, caught in an endless dream.' "
"You bank a great deal on your belief in the power of that dream," Odrade said.
"We must recover the Tyrant's design! All of it!"
Odrade sighed but did not speak.
"Never underestimate the power of an idea," Taraza said. "The Atreides were ever philosophers in their governance. Philosophy is always dangerous because it promotes the creation of new ideas."
Still, Odrade did not respond.
"The worm carries it all within him, Dar! All of the forces he set in motion are still in him."
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Tar?"
"I am punishing you, Dar. Just as the Tyrant is still punishing us."
"For not being what we should be? Ahh, here come Sheeana and the others."
"The worm's language, Dar. That is the important thing."
"If you say so, Mother Superior."
Taraza sent an angry stare at Odrade, who moved forward to greet the newcomers. There was a disturbing gloom in Odrade.
The presence of Sheeana, though, restored Taraza's sense of purpose. An alert little thing, Sheeana. Very good material. Sheeana had demonstrated her dance the previous night, performing in the great museum room against a tapestry background, an exotic dance against an exotic spice-fiber hanging with its image of desert and worms. She appeared to be almost a part of the hanging, a figure projected forward from the stylized dunes and their elaborately detailed coursing worms. Taraza recalled how Sheeana's brown hair had been thrown outward by the whirling movements of the dance, swinging in a fuzzy arc. Sidelighting accented the reddish glints in her hair. Her eyes had been closed but it was not a face in repose. Excitement betrayed itself in the passionate set of her wide mouth, the flaring of her nostrils, the forward thrust of her chin. Her motions had conveyed an inner sophistication that belied her youth.
The dance is her language, Taraza thought. Odrade is correct. Seeing it, we will learn it.
Waff had something of a withdrawn look this morning. It was difficult to determine if his eyes were looking outward or inward.
With Waff was Tulushan, a darkly handsome Rakian, the priesthood's chosen representative at today's "holy event." Taraza, meeting him at the demonstration dance, had found it extraordinary how Tulushan never needed to say "but," and yet the word was always there in everything he uttered. A perfect bureaucrat. He rightly expected to go far but those expectations would soon encounter their ultimate surprise. She felt no pity for him at this knowledge. Tulushan was a soft-faced youth of too few standards for such a position of trust. There was more to him than met the eye, of course. And less.
Waff moved to one side in the garden, leaving Odrade and Sheeana with Tulushan.
The young priest was expendable, naturally. That explained much about why he had been chosen for this venture. It told her that she had achieved the proper level of potential violence. Taraza did not think, though, that any of the priestly factions would dare harm Sheeana.
We will stay close to Sheeana.
They had spent a busy week since the demonstration of the whores' sexual accomplishments. A very disturbing week, when it came to that. Odrade had been kept busy with Sheeana. Taraza would have preferred Lucilla for this educational chore but you made do with what was available and Odrade obviously was the best available on Rakis for such teaching.
Taraza looked back toward the desert. They were waiting for the 'thopters from Keen with their cargoes of Very Important Observers. The VIOs were not yet late but crowding it as such people always did.
Sheeana seemed to be taking the sexual education well, although Taraza's estimation of the Sisterhood's available teaching males on Rakis was not high. Her first night here, Taraza had called in one of the servant males. Afterward, she had judged it too much trouble for the little joy and forgetfulness it provided. Besides, what was there to forget? To forget was to allow a weakness.
Never forget!
That's what the whores did, though. They traded in forgetfulness. And they had not the least awareness of the Tyrant's continuing viselike hold on human destiny nor of the need to break that hold.
Taraza had listened secretly to the previous day's session between Sheeana and Odrade.
What was I listening for?
Young girl and teacher had been out here in the roof garden, facing each other on two benches, a portable Ixian damper hiding their words from anyone who did not have the coded translator. The suspensor-buoyed damper hovered over the two like a strange umbrella, a black disc projecting distortions that hid the precise movements of lips and the sounds of voices.
To Taraza, standing within the long meeting room, the tiny translator in her left ear, the lesson had occurred like an equally distorted memo
ry.
When I was taught these things, we had not seen what the whores of the Scattering could do.
"Why do we say it's the complexity of sex?" Sheeana asked. "The man you sent last night kept saying that."
"Many believe they understand it, Sheeana. Perhaps no one has ever understood it, because such words require more of the mind than they do of the flesh."
"Why must I not use any of the things we saw the Face Dancers do?"
"Sheeana, complexity hides within complexity. Great deeds and foul ones have been done at the goading of sexual forces. We speak of 'sexual strength' and 'sexual energies' and such things as 'the overmounting urge of desire.' I don't deny that such things are observable. But what we are looking at here is a force so powerful that it can destroy you and everything you hold worthwhile."
Frank Herbert - Dune Book 5 - Heretics of Dune Page 54