But... Clairby?
Conditions of extremis said, "Cyborg him!" Was the Sisterhood that desperate? She was forced to answer in the affirmative.
There it was then - decision not entirely out of her hands, but the ready excuse at hand. Necessity dictates it.
The Butlerian Jihad had left its indelible mark on humans. Fought and won... for then. And here was another battle in that long-ago conflict.
But now, survival of the Sisterhood was in the balance. How many technical specialists remained on Chapterhouse? She knew the answer without looking. Not enough.
Odrade leaned forward and keyed for transmit. "Cyborg him," she said.
Bellonda grunted. Approval or disapproval? She would never say. This was Mother Superior's arena and welcome to it!
Who won this battle? Odrade wondered.
***
We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our population because that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz Haderach in that bag! Willfulness created Muad'Dib. Prophets make predictions come true! Will we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a culture that hates chance and begs for prophecy?
It was just after dawn when Odrade arrived at the no-ship but Murbella was up and working with a training mek when Mother Superior strode onto the practice floor.
Odrade had walked the last klick through ring orchards around the spacefield. Night's limited clouds had thinned at the approach of dawn, then dissipated to reveal a sky thick with stars.
She recognized a delicate weather shift to wrench another crop from this region but decreasing rainfall was barely enough to keep orchards and pastures alive.
As she walked, Odrade was overcome by dreariness. Winter just past had been a hard-bought silence between storms. Life was holocaust. Dusting of pollen by eager insects, fruiting and seeding that followed the flower. These orchards were a secret storm whose power lay hidden in torrential flows of life. But ohhh! the destruction. New life carried change. The Changer was coming, always different. Sandworms would bring the desert purity of ancient Dune.
The desolation of that transforming power invaded her imagination. She could picture this landscape reduced to windswept dunes, habitat for Leto II's descendants.
And the arts of Chapterhouse would undergo mutation - one civilization's myths replaced by another's.
The aura of these thoughts went with Odrade onto the practice floor and colored her mood as she watched Murbella complete a round of flashing exertion, then step back, panting.
A thin scratch reddened the back of Murbella's left hand where she had missed a move by the big mek. The automated trainer stood there in the center of the room like a golden pillar, its weapons flicking in and out - probing mandibles of an angry insect.
Murbella wore tight green leotards and her exposed skin glistened with perspiration. Even with the prominent mounding of her pregnancy, she appeared graceful. Her skin glowed with health. It came from within, Odrade decided, partly the pregnancy but something more fundamental as well. This had impressed itself on Odrade at their first encounter, a thing Lucilla had remarked after capturing Murbella and rescuing Idaho from Gammu. Health lived below the surface in her, there like a lens to focus attention on a deep freshet of vitality.
We must have her!
Murbella saw the visitor but refused to be interrupted.
Not yet, Mother Superior. My baby is due soon but this body's needs will continue.
Odrade saw then that the mek was simulating anger, a programmed response brought on by frustration of its circuitry. An extremely dangerous mode!
"Good morning, Mother Superior."
Murbella's voice came out modulated by her exertions as she dodged and twisted with that almost blinding speed she commanded.
The mek slashed and probed for her, its sensors darting and whirring in attempts to follow her movements.
Odrade sniffed. To speak at such a time amplified the peril of the mek. Risk no distractions when you played this dangerous game. Enough!
The mek's controls were in a large green wall panel to the right of the doorway. Murbella's changes could be seen in the circuits dangling wires, beamfields with memory crystals dislocated. Odrade reached up and stilled the mechanism.
Murbella turned to face her.
"Why did you change the circuitry?" Odrade demanded.
"For the anger."
"Is that what Honored Matres do?"
"As the twig is bent?" Murbella massaged her wounded hand. "But what if the twig knows how it is bent and approves?"
Odrade felt sudden excitement. "Approves? Why?"
"Because there's something... grand about it."
"You follow your adrenaline high?"
"You know it's not that!" Murbella's breathing returned to normal. She stood glaring at Odrade.
"Then what is it?"
"It's... being challenged to do more than you ever thought possible. You never suspected you could be this... this good, this expert and accomplished at anything."
Odrade concealed elation.
Mens sana in corpore sano. We have her at last!
Odrade said: "But what a price you pay!"
"Price?" Murbella sounded astonished. "As long as I have the capacity, I'm delighted to pay."
"Take what you want and pay for it?"
"It's your Bene Gesserit magic cornucopia: As I become increasingly accomplished, my ability to pay increases."
"Beware, Murbella. That cornucopia, as you call it, can become Pandora's box."
Murbella knew the allusion. She stood quite still, her attention fixed on Mother Superior. "Oh?" The sound barely escaped.
"Pandora's box releases powerful distractions that waste energies of your life. You speak glibly of being 'in the chute' and becoming a Reverend Mother but you still don't know what that means nor what we want from you."
"Then it was never our sexual abilities you wanted."
Odrade moved eight paces forward, majestically deliberate. Once Murbella got on that subject there would be no stopping her short of the usual resolution - argument cut short by Mother Superior's peremptory command.
"Sheeana easily mastered your abilities," Odrade said.
"So you will use her on that child!"
Odrade heard displeasure. It was a cultural residue. When did human sexuality begin? Sheeana, waiting now in the no-ship guard chambers, had been forced to deal with it. "I hope you recognize the source of my reluctance and why I was so secretive, Mother Superior."
"I recognize that a Fremen society filled your mind with inhibitions before we took you in hand!"
That had cleared the air between them. But how was this exchange with Murbella to be redirected? I must let it run while I seek a way out.
There would be repetition. Unresolved issues would emerge. The fact that almost every word Murbella uttered could be anticipated, that would be a trial.
"Why do you evade this tested way of dominating others now that you say you need it with Teg?" Murbella asked.
"Slaves, is that what you want?" Odrade countered.
Eyes almost closed, Murbella considered this. Did I consider the men our slaves? Perhaps. I produced in them periods of wildly unthinking abandon, a giving up to heights of ecstasy they had never dreamed possible. I was trained to give them that and, thereby, make them subject to our control.
Until Duncan did the same to me.
Odrade saw the hooding of Murbella's eyes and recognized there were things in this woman's psyche twisted in a way difficult to uncover. Wildness running where we have not followed. It was as though Murbella's original clarity had been stained indelibly and then that mark covered over and even this cover masked. There was a harshness in her that distorted thoughts and actions. Layer upon layer upon layer...