Nothing more important than the Sisterhood?
They spoke of an oath, something more mysterious than the Proctor's words at the acolyte initiation.
My oath to Honored Matres was only words. An oath to the Bene Gesserit can be no more.
She remembered Bellonda growling that diplomats were chosen for ability to lie. "Would you be another diplomat, Murbella?"
It was not that oaths were made to be broken. How childish! Schoolyard threat: "If you break your word, I'll break mine! Nyaa, nyaa, nyaaaaa!"
Futile to worry about oaths. Far more important to find that place in herself where freedom lived. It was a place where something always listened.
Cupping Duncan's hand against her lips, she whispered: "They listen. Oh, how they listen."
***
Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously manmade. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognize who whispers in your ear.
The flow of time nagged at Odrade as much as did constant awareness of the hunters approaching. Years passed so quickly that days became a blur. Two months of arguments to gain approval of Sheeana as successor to Tam!
Bellonda had taken to standing day watch when Odrade was absent as she had been today, briefing a new Bene Gesserit remnant being sent Scattering. The Council continued this but with reluctance. Idaho's suggestion that it was a futile strategy had sent shock waves through the Sisterhood. Briefings now carried new defensive plans for "what you may encounter."
When Odrade entered the workroom late in the afternoon, Bellonda sat at the table. Her cheeks looked puffy and her eyes had that hard stare they got when she suppressed fatigue. With Bell here, the daily summation would include sharp comments.
"They've approved Sheeana," she said, pushing a small crystal toward Odrade. "Tam's support did it. And Murbella's new one will be born in eight days, so the Suks claim."
Bell had little faith in Suk doctors.
New one? She could be so damned impersonal about life! Odrade found her pulses quickening at the prospect.
When Murbella recovers from this birth - the Agony. She is ready.
"Duncan's extremely nervous," Bellonda said, vacating the chair.
Duncan yet! Those two are getting remarkably familiar.
Bell was not finished. "And before you ask, no word from Dortujla. "
Odrade took her seat behind the table and balanced the report crystal on her palm. Dortujla's trusted acolyte, now Reverend Mother Fintil, would not risk the no-ship journey or any of the other message devices they had prepared just to stroke a Mother Superior. No news meant the bait was still out there... or wasted.
"Have you told Sheeana she's confirmed?" Odrade asked.
" I left that for you. She's late with her daily report again. Not right for someone on the Council."
So Bell still disapproved the appointment.
Sheeana's daily messages had taken on a repetitious note. "No wormsign. Spice mass intact."
Everything upon which they pinned their hopes lay in terrible suspension. And nightmare hunters crept closer. Tensions accumulated. Explosive.
"You've seen that exchange between Duncan and Murbella enough times," Bellonda said. "Is that what Sheeana was hiding and, if so, why?"
"Teg was my father."
"Such delicacy! A Reverend Mother has qualms about imprinting the ghola of Mother Superior's father!"
"She was my personal student, Bell. She has concerns for me you could not feel. Besides, this is not just a ghola, this is a child."
"We must be certain of her!"
Odrade saw the name form on Bellonda's lips but it remained unspoken. "Jessica."
Another flawed Reverend Mother? Bell was right, they must be sure of Sheeana. My responsibility. A vision of Sheeana's black sculpture flickered in Odrade's awareness.
"Idaho's plan has some attraction, but..." Bellonda hesitated.
Odrade spoke up: "This is a very young child, growth incomplete. Pain of the usual memory restoration could approach the Agony. It might alienate him. But this..."
"Control him with an Imprinter, that part I approve. But what if it doesn't restore his memories?"
"We still have the original plan. And it did have that effect on Idaho."
"Different for him but the decision can wait. You're late for your meeting with Scytale."
Odrade hefted the crystal. "Daily summation?"
"Nothing you haven't seen too many times already." From Bell, that was almost a note of concern.
"I'll bring him back here. Have Tam waiting and you come in later on some pretext."
Scytale had become almost accustomed to these walks outside the ship and Odrade observed this in his casual manner when they emerged from her transporter south of Central.
It was more than a stroll and they both knew it but she had made these excursions regular, designing repetition to lull him. Routine. So useful on occasion.
"Kind of you to take me for these walks," Scytale said, looking up sideways. "The air is drier than I recall it. Where do we go this evening?"
How tiny his eyes when he squinted against the sun.
"To my workroom." She nodded at outbuildings of Central about half a klick north. It was cold under a cloudless spring sky and warm colors of roofs, lights coming on in her tower, beckoned with promise of relief from a chilling wind that accompanied almost every sunset these days.
With peripheral attention, Odrade watched the Tleilaxu beside her carefully. Such tension! She could feel this also in guardian Reverend Mothers and acolytes close behind them, all charged to special watchfulness by Bellonda.
We need this little monster and he knows it. And we still don't know the extent of Tleilaxu abilities! What talents has he accumulated? Why does he probe with such evident casualness for contact with his fellow prisoners?
Tleilaxu made the Idaho-ghola, she reminded herself. Did they hide secret things in him?
"I am a beggar come to your door, Mother Superior," he said in that whining elfin voice. "Our planets in ruins, my people slain. Why do we go to your quarters?"
"To bargain in more pleasant surroundings."
"Yes, it is very confining in the ship. But I do not understand why we always leave the car so far away from Central. Why do we walk?"
"I find it refreshing."
Scytale glanced around him at the plantings. "Pleasant, but quite cold, don't you think?"
Odrade glanced to the south. These southern slopes were planted to grapes, crests and colder northern faces reserved for orchards. Improved vinifera, these vineyards. Developed by Bene Gesserit gardeners. Old vines, roots "gone down to hell" where (according to ancient superstition) they stole water from burning souls. The winery was underground as were storage and aging caves. Nothing to mar a landscape of tended vines in orderly rows, plantings just far enough apart for pickers and tilling equipment.
Pleasant to him? She doubted Scytale saw anything pleasing here. He was properly nervous as she wanted him to be, asking himself: Why does she really choose to walk me through these rustic surroundings?
It galled Odrade that they dared not employ more powerful Bene Gesserit persuasives on this little man. But she agreed with advice that said if those efforts failed, they would not get a second chance. Tleilaxu had demonstrated they would die rather than give up secret (and sacred) knowledge.