Candor.
"The difference, if you would know it, is in the sense of responsibility. I am responsible for my Sisterhood... as much of it as still survives. They are a deep responsibility and one I sometimes look at with a jaundiced eye."
Bellonda sniffed.
Odrade appeared not to notice this as she continued. "The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood has gone somewhat sour since the Tyrant. Our contact with your Honored Matres has not improved matters. Honored Matres have the stench of death and decadence about them, going downhill into the great silence."
"Why do you tell me these things now?" Fear in Murbella's voice.
"Because, somehow, the worst of Honored Matre decadence did not touch you. Your spontaneous nature, perhaps. Although that has been dampened somewhat since Gammu."
"Your doing!"
"We've just taken a little wildness out of you, given you a better balance. You can live longer and healthier because of it."
"If I survive this!" Jerk of her head toward the table behind her.
"Balance is what I want you to remember, Murbella. Homeostasis. Any group choosing suicide when it has other options does so out of insanity. Homeostasis gone haywire."
When Murbella looked at the floor, Bellonda snapped: "Listen to her, fool! She's doing her best to help you."
"All right, Bell. This is between us."
When Murbella continued to stare at the floor, Odrade said: "This is Mother Superior giving you an order. Look at me!"
Murbella's head snapped up and she stared into Odrade's eyes.
It was a tactic Odrade had used infrequently but with excellent results. Acolytes could be reduced to hysteria by it and then taught how to deal with their excessive response to emotions. Murbella appeared to be more angered than fearful. Excellent! But now was a time for caution.
"You have complained about the slow pacing of your education," Odrade said. "It was done with your needs foremost in our minds. Your key teachers all were chosen for steadiness, none of them impulsive. My instructions were explicit: 'Don't give you too many abilities too rapidly. Don't open a floodgate of powers that might be more than she can handle.' "
"How do you know what I can handle?" Still angry.
Odrade only smiled.
When Odrade continued silent, Murbella appeared flustered. Had she made a fool of herself before Mother Superior, before Duncan and these others? How humiliating.
Odrade reminded herself it was not good to make Murbella too conscious of her vulnerability. A bad tactic just now. No need to provoke her. She had a sharp sense of the germane, fitting herself into needs of the moment. That was the thing they feared might have its source in a motivation always to choose the path of least resistance. Let it not be that. Complete honesty now! The ultimate tool of Bene Gesserit education. The classical technique that bound acolyte to teacher.
"I will be at your side throughout your Agony. If you fail, I will grieve."
"Duncan?" Tears in her eyes.
"Any help he can give, he will be permitted to give."
Murbella looked up the rows of seats and, for a brief moment, her gaze locked with Idaho's. He lifted slightly but Tamalane's hand on his shoulder restrained him.
They may kill my beloved! Idaho thought. Must I sit here and just watch it happen? But Odrade had said he would be permitted to help. There is no stopping this now. I must trust Dar. But, gods below! She does not know the depth of my grief, if... if... He closed his eyes.
"Bell." Odrade's voice carried a sense of casting off, a knife edge in its brittleness.
Bellonda took Murbella's arm and helped her onto the table. It bounced slightly adjusting to the weight.
This is the real chute, Murbella thought.
She had only the remotest sense of straps being fastened around her, of purposeful movement beside her.
"This is the usual routine," Odrade said.
Routine? Murbella had hated the routines of becoming Bene Gesserit, all of that study, listening and reacting to Proctors. She had particularly loathed the necessity to refine reactions she had believed adequate but there could be no sloughing off under those watchful eyes.
Adequate! What a dangerous word.
This recognition had been precisely what they sought. Precisely the leverage their acolyte required.
If you loathe it, do it better. Use your loathing as guidance; home in on exactly what you need.
The fact that her teachers saw so directly into her behavior, what a marvelous thing! She wanted that ability. Oh, how she wanted it!
I must excel in this.
It was a thing any Honored Matre might envy. She saw herself abruptly with a form of doubled vision: both Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre. A daunting perception.
A hand touched her cheek, moved her head and went away.
Responsibility. I am about to learn what they mean by "a new sense of history."
The Bene Gesserit view of history fascinated her. How did they look at multiple pasts? Was it something immersed in a grander scheme? The temptation to become one of them had been overwhelming.
This is the moment when I learn.
She saw an oral syringe swing into position above her mouth. Bellonda's hand moved it.
"We carry our grail in our heads," Odrade had said. "Carry this grail gently if it comes into your possession."
The syringe touched her lips. Murbella closed her eyes but felt fingers open her mouth. Cold metal touched her teeth. Odrade's remembered voice was with her.
Avoid excesses. Overcorrect and you always have a fine mess on your hands, the necessity to make larger and larger corrections. Oscillation. Fanatics are marvelous creators of oscillation.
"Our grail. It has linearity because each Reverend Mother carries the same determination. We will perpetuate this together."
Bitter liquid gushed into her mouth. Murbella swallowed convulsively. She felt fire flow down her throat into her stomach. No pain except the burning. She wondered if this could be the extent of it. Her stomach felt merely warm now.
Slowly, so slowly she was several heartbeats recognizing it, the warmth flowed outward. When it reached the tips of her fingers she felt her body convulse. Her back arched off the padded table. Something soft but firm replaced the syringe in her mouth.
Voices. She heard them and knew people were speaking but could not distinguish words.
As she concentrated on the voices she became aware she had lost touch with her body. Somewhere, flesh writhed and there was pain but she was removed from it.
A hand touched a hand and clasped it firmly. She recognized Duncan's touch, and abruptly there was her body and agony. Her lungs pained when she exhaled. Not when she inhaled. Then they felt flat and never full enough. Her sense of presence in living flesh became a thin thread that wound through many presences. She sensed others all around her, far too many people for the tiny amphitheater.
Another human being floated into view. Murbella felt herself to be in a factory shuttle... in space. The shuttle was primitive. Too many manual controls. Too many blinking lights. A woman at the controls, small and untidy with the sweat of her labors. She had long brown hair and it had been bound up in a chignon from which paler strands escaped to hang around her narrow cheeks. She wore a single garment, a short dress of brilliant reds, blues, and greens.
Machinery.
There was awareness of monstrous machinery just beyond this immediate space. The woman's dress contrasted severely with the drab and dragging sense of machinery. She spoke but her lips did not move. "Listen, you! When it comes time for you to take over these controls, don't become a destroyer. I'm here to help you avoid the destroyers. Do you know that?"
Murbella tried to speak but had no voice.
"Don't try so hard, girl!" the woman said. "I hear you."