Streggi sat back, disappointed by the answer but unable to lever it into another question. Truth could be upsetting at times and they had such high expectations invested in this evolutionary gamble, Odrade thought.
Else why destroy everything we loved on Chapterhouse?
Simulflow intruded with an image of a long-ago sign arching over a narrow entry to a pink brick building: HOSPITAL FOR INCURABLE DISEASES.
Was that where the Sisterhood found itself? Or was it that they tolerated too many failures? Intrusive Other Memory had to have its purpose.
Failures?
Odrade searched it out: If it comes, we must think of Murbella as a Sister. Not that their captive Honored Matre was an incurable failure. But she was a misfit and undergoing the deep training at a very late age.
How quiet they were all around her, everyone looking out at windswept sand - whaleback dunes giving way at times to dry wavelets. Early afternoon sun had just begun to provide sufficient sidelighting to define near vistas. Dust obscured the horizon ahead.
Odrade curled up in her seat and slept. I've seen this before. I survived Dune.
The stir as they came down and circled over Sheeana's Desert Watch Center awakened her.
Desert Watch Center. We're at it again. We haven't really named it... no more than we gave a name to this planet. Chapterhouse! What kind of a name is that? Desert Watch Center! Description, not a name. Accent on the temporary.
As they descended, she saw confirmations of her thought. The sense of temporary housing was amplified by spartan abruptness in all junctures. No softness, no rounding of any connection. This attaches here and that goes over there. All joined by removable connectors.
It was a bumpy landing, the pilot telling them that way: "Here you are and good riddance."
Odrade went immediately to the room always set aside for her and summoned Sheeana. Temporary quarters: another spartan cubicle with hard cot. Two chairs this time. A window looked westward onto desert. The temporary nature of these rooms grated on her. Anything here could be dismantled in hours and carted away. She washed her face in the adjoining bathroom, getting the most out of movement. She had slept in a cramped position on the 'thopter and her body complained.
Refreshed, she went out to a window, thankful that the erection crew had included this tower: ten floors, and this the ninth. Sheeana occupied the top floor, a vantage for doing what the name of the place described.
While waiting, Odrade made necessary preparations.
Open the mind. Shed preconceptions.
First impressions when Sheeana arrived must be seen with naive eyes. Ears must not be prepared for a particular voice. Nose must not expect remembered odors.
I chose this one. I, her first teacher, am susceptible to mistakes.
Odrade turned at a sound from the doorway. Streggi.
"Sheeana has just returned from the desert and is with her people. She asks Mother Superior to meet her in the upper quarters, which are more comfortable."
Odrade nodded.
Sheeana's quarters on the top floor still had that prefab look at the edges. Quick shelter ahead of the desert. A large room, six or seven times the size of the guest cubicle, but then it was both workroom and sleeping chamber. Windows on two sides - west and north. Odrade was struck by the mixture of functional and nonfunctional.
Sheeana had managed to make her rooms reflect herself. A standard Bene Gesserit cot had been covered with a bright orange and umber spread. A black-on-white line drawing of a sandworm, head-on with all of its crystal teeth displayed, filled an end wall. Sheeana had drawn it, relying on Other Memory and her Dune childhood to guide her hand.
It said something about Sheeana that she had not attempted a more ambitious rendering - full color, perhaps, and in traditional desert setting. Just the worm and a hint of sand beneath it, a tiny robed human in the foreground.
Herself?
Admirable restraint and a constant reminder of why she was here. A deep impression of nature.
Nature makes no bad art?
It was a statement too glib to accept.
What do we mean by "nature?"
She had seen atrocious natural wilderness: brittle trees looking as though they had been dipped in faulty green pigment and left on a tundra's edge to dry into ugly parodies. Repellent. Hard to imagine such trees having any purpose. And blindworms... slimy yellow skins. Where was the art in them? Temporary stopping place on evolution's journey elsewhere. Did the intervention of humans always make a difference? Sligs! The Bene Tleilax had produced something disgusting there.
Admiring Sheeana's drawing, Odrade decided certain combinations offended particular human senses. Sligs as food were delectable. Ugly combinations touched early experiences. Experiences judged.
Bad thing!
Much of what we think of as ART caters to desires for reassurance. Don't offend me! I know what I can accept.
How did this drawing reassure Sheeana?
Sandworm: blind power guarding hidden riches. Artistry in mystic beauty.
It was reported that Sheeana joked about her assignment. " I am shepherd to worms that may never exist."
And even if they did appear, it would be years before any achieved the size indicated by her drawing. Was it her voice from the tiny figure in front of the worm?
"This will come in time."
An odor of melange pervaded the room, stronger than usual in a Reverend Mother's quarters. Odrade passed a searching look across the furnishings: chairs, worktable, illumination from anchored glowglobes - everything placed where it would serve to advantage. But what was that oddly shaped mound of black plaz in the corner? More of Sheeana's work?
These rooms fitted Sheeana, Odrade decided. Little other than the drawing to recall her origins but the view out any window might have been from Dar-es-Balat deep in Dune's drylands.
A small rustling sound at the doorway alerted Odrade. She turned and there was Sheeana. Almost shy the way she peered around the door before entering Mother Superior's presence.
Motion as words: "So she did come to my rooms. Good. Someone might have been careless with my invitation."
Odrade's readied senses tingled with Sheeana's presence. The youngest-ever Reverend Mother. You often thought of Quiet Little Sheeana. She was not always quiet nor was she small but the label stuck. She was not even mousy, but frequently quiet like a rodent waiting at the edge of a field for the farmer to leave. Then the mouse would come darting out to glean fallen grains.
Sheeana came fully into the room and stopped less than a pace from Odrade. "We've been too long apart, Mother Superior."
Odrade's first impression was oddly jumbled.
Candor and concealment?
Sheeana stood quietly receptive.
This descendant of Siona Atreides had developed an interesting face under the Bene Gesserit patina. Maturity working on her according to both Sisterhood and Atreides designs. Marks of many decisions firmly taken. The slender, dark-skinned waif with sun-streaked brown hair had become this poised Reverend Mother. Skin still dark from long hours in the open. Hair still sun-streaked. The eyes, though - the steely total blue that said: "I have been through the Agony."
What is it I sense in her?
Sheeana saw the look on Odrade's face (Bene Gesserit naivete!) and knew this was the long-feared confrontation.
There can be no defense except my truth and I hope she stops short of a full confession!
Odrade watched her former student with exquisite care, every sense open.
Fear! What do I sense? Something when she spoke?
The steadiness of Sheeana's voice had been shaped into the powerful instrument Odrade had anticipated at their first meeting. Sheeana's original nature (a Fremen nature if there ever was one!) had been curbed and redirected. That core of vindictiveness smoothed out. Her capacity for love and hatred brought under tight reins.
Why do I get the impression she wants to hug me?
Odrade felt suddenly vulnerable.