Mundane things without counting. A familiar voice saying: "I just want to put my feet up and collapse tonight. Don't ask me to move."
All had become part of him. They were bound into his character. Living had cemented them inextricably and he could not explain it to anyone.
Murbella spoke without looking at him. "There were many women in those lives of yours."
"I've never counted them."
"Did you love them?"
"They're dead, Murbella. All I can promise is that there are no jealous ghosts in my past."
Murbella extinguished the glowglobes. He closed his eyes and felt darkness close in as she crept into his arms. He held her tightly, knowing she needed it, but his mind rolled of its own volition.
An old memory produced a Mentat teacher's saying: "The greatest relevancy can become irrelevant in the space of a heartbeat. Mentats should look upon such moments with joy."
He felt no joy.
All of those serial lives continued within him in defiance of Mentat relevancies. A Mentat came at his universe fresh in each instant. Nothing old, nothing new, nothing set in ancient adhesives, nothing truly known. You were the net and you existed only to examine the catch.
What did not go through? How fine a mesh did I use on this lot?
That was the Mentat view. But there was no way the Tleilaxu could have included all of those ghola-Idaho cells to recreate him. There had to be gaps in their serial collection of his cells. He had identified many of those gaps.
But no gaps in my memory. I remember them all.
He was a network linked outside of Time. That is how I can see the people of that vision... the net. It was the only explanation Mentat awareness could provide and if the Sisterhood guessed, they would be terrified. No matter how many times he denied it, they would say: "Another Kwisatz Haderach! Kill him!"
So work for yourself, Mentat!
He knew he had most of the mosaic pieces but still they did not go together in that Ahh, hah! assembly of questions Mentats prized.
A game where one of the pieces can't be moved.
Excuses for extraordinary behavior.
"They want our willing participation in their dream."
Test the limits!
Humans can balance on strange surfaces.
Get in tune. Don't think. Do it.
***
The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don't fit.
As they traveled south toward the desert in the early afternoon, Odrade found the countryside disturbingly changed from her previous inspection three months earlier. She felt vindicated in having chosen ground vehicles. Views framed by the thick plaz protecting them from the dust revealed more details at this level.
Much drier.
Her immediate party rode in a relatively light car - only fifteen passengers including the driver. Suspensors and sophisticated jet drive when they were not on ground-effect. Capable of a smooth three hundred klicks an hour on the glaze. Her escort (too large, thanks to an overzealous Tamalane) followed in a bus that also carried changes of clothing, foods and drinks for wayside stops.
Streggi, seated beside Odrade and behind the driver, said: "Could we not manage a small rain here, Mother Superior?"
Odrade's lips thinned. Silence was the best answer.
They had been late starting. All of them assembled on the loading dock and were ready to leave when a message came down from Bellonda. Another disaster report requiring Mother Superior's personal attention at the last minute!
It was one of those times when Odrade felt her only possible role was that of official interpreter. Walk to the edge of the stage and tell them what it meant: "Today, Sisters, we learned that Honored Matres have obliterated four more of our planets. We are that much smaller."
Only twelve planets left (including Buzzell) and the faceless hunter with the axe is that much closer.
Odrade felt the chasm yawning beneath her.
Bellonda had been ordered to contain this latest bad news until a more appropriate moment.
Odrade looked out the window beside her. What was an appropriate moment for such news?
They had been driving south a little more than three hours, the burner-glazed roadway like a green river ahead of them. This passage led them through hillsides of cork oaks that stretched out to ridge-enclosed horizons. The oaks had been allowed to grow gnomelike in less regimented plantations than orchards. There were meandering rows up the hills. The original plantation had been laid out on existing contours, semi-terraces now obscured by long brown grass.
"We grow truffles in there," Odrade said.
Streggi had more bad news. "I am told the truffles are in trouble, Mother Superior. Not enough rain."
No more truffles? Odrade hesitated on the edge of bringing a Communications acolyte from the rear and asking Weather if this dryness could be corrected.
She glanced back at her attendants. Three rows, four people in each row, specialists to extend her observational powers and carry out orders. And look at that bus following them! One of the larger such vehicles on Chapterhouse. Thirty meters long, at least! Crammed with people! Dust whirled across and around it.
Tamalane rode back there at Odrade's orders. Mother Superior could be peppery when aroused, everyone thought. Tam had brought too many people but Odrade had discovered it too late for changes.
"Not an inspection! A damned invasion!" Follow my lead, Tam. A little political drama. Make transition easier.
She returned her attention to the driver, only male in this car. Clairby, a vinegary little transport expert. Pinched-up face, skin the color of newly turned damp earth. Odrade's favorite driver. Fast, safe, and wary of limits in his machine.
They crested a hill and cork oaks thinned out, replaced ahead by fruit orchards surrounding a community.
Beautiful in this light, Odrade thought. Low buildings of white walls and orange-tiled roofs. An arch-shaded entrance street could be seen far down the slope and, in a line behind it, the tall central structure containing regional overview offices.
The sight reassured Odrade. The community had a glowing look softened by distance and a haze rising from its ring orchards. Branches still bare up here in this winter belt but surely capable of at least one more crop.
The Sisterhood demanded a certain beauty in its surroundings, she reminded herself. A cosseting that provided support for the senses without subtracting from needs of the stomach. Comfort where possible... but not too much!
Someone behind Odrade said: " I do believe some of those trees are starting to leaf."
Odrade took a more careful look. Yes! Tiny bits of green on dark boughs. Winter had slipped here. Weather Control, struggling to make seasonal shifts, could not prevent occasional mistakes. The expanding desert was creating higher temperatures too early here: odd warming patches that caused plants to leaf or bloom just in time for an abrupt frost. Die-back of plantations was becoming much too common.
A Field Advisor had dredged up the ancient term "Indian Summer" for a report illustrated by projections of an orchard in full blossom being assaulted by snow. Odrade had felt memory stirring at the advisor's words.
Indian Summer. How appropriate!
Her councillors sharing that little view of their planet's travail recognized the metaphor of a marauding freeze coming on the heels of inappropriate warmth: an unexpected revival of warm weather, a time when raiders could plague their neighbors.
Remembering, Odrade felt the chill of the hunter's axe. How soon? She dared not seek the answer. I'm not a Kwisatz Haderach!
Without turning, Odrade spoke to Streggi. "This place, Pondrille, have you ever been here?"
"It was not my postulant center, Mother Superior, but I presume it is similar."