That mother of his!
Teg ignored the hovering Proctors. "In answer to the questions you have not asked, I cannot explain what happened to me on Gammu. My physical and mental speed defies explanation. Given the size and energy, in one of your heartbeats I could be clear of this room and well on my way out of the ship. Ohhh..." hand upraised. "I'm still your obedient dog. I'll do what you require, but perhaps not in the way you imagine."
Odrade saw consternation in the faces of her Sisters. What have I loosed upon us?
"We can prevent any living thing from leaving this ship," she said. "You may be fast but I doubt you are faster than the fire that would engulf you should you try to leave without our permission."
"I will leave in my own good time and with your permission. How many of Burzmali's special troops do you have?"
"Almost two million." Startled out of her.
"So many!"
"He had more than twice that number with him at Lampadas when Honored Matres obliterated them."
"We shall have to be more clever than poor Burzmali. Would you leave me to discuss this with Duncan? That is why you keep us around, isn't it? Our specialty?" He aimed a smiling look at the overhead comeyes. "I'm sure you'll review our discussion thoroughly before approving."
Odrade and her Sisters exchanged glances. They shared an unspoken question: What else can we do?
As she stood, Odrade looked at Idaho. "Here's a real job for a Truthsayer-Mentat!"
When the women were gone, Teg pulled himself up onto one of the chairs and looked into the empty room visible beyond the seewall. It had been close there and he still felt his heart pumping hard from the effort. "Quite a show," he said.
"I've seen better." Extremely dry.
"What I'd like right now is a large glass of Marinete, but I doubt this body could take it."
"Bell will be waiting for Dar when she gets back to Central," Idaho said.
"To the nethermost hell with Bell! We have to defuse those Honored Matres before they find us."
"And our Bashar has just the plan."
"Damn that title!"
Idaho inhaled a sharp breath restricted by shock.
"Tell you something, Duncan!" Intense. "Once when I was arriving for an important meeting with potential enemies, I heard an aide announce me. 'The Bashar is here.' I damned near stumbled, caught by the abstraction."
"Mentat blur."
"Of course it was. But I knew the title removed me from something I did not dare lose. Bashar? I was more than that! I was Miles Teg, the name given me by my parents."
"You were on the name-chain!"
"Certainly, and I realized my name stood at a distance from something more primal. Miles Teg? No, I was more basic than that. I could hear my mother saying, 'Oh, what a beautiful baby.' So there I was with another name: 'Beautiful Baby.' "
"Did you go deeper?" Idaho found himself fascinated.
"I was caught. Name leads to name leads to name leads to nameless. When I walked into that important room, I was nameless. Did you ever risk that?"
"Once." A reluctant admission.
"We all do it at least once. But there I was. I'd been briefed. I had a reference for everyone at that table - face, name, title, plus all of the backgrounding."
"But you weren't really there."
"Oh, I could see the expectant faces measuring me, wondering, worrying. But they did not know me!"
"That gave you a feeling of great power?"
"Exactly as we were warned in Mentat school. I asked myself: 'Is this Mind at its beginning?' Don't laugh. It's a tantalizing question."
"So you went deeper?" Caught by Teg's words, Idaho ignored tugs of warning at the edge of his awareness.
"Oh, yes. And I found myself in the famous 'Hall of Mirrors' they described and warned us to flee."
"So you remembered how to get out and..."
"Remembered? You've obviously been there. Did memory get you out?"
"It helped."
"Despite the warnings, I lingered, seeing my 'self of selves' and infinite permutations. Reflections of reflections ad infinitum."
"Fascination of the 'ego core.' Damn few ever escape from that depth. You were lucky."
"I'm not sure it should be called luck. I knew there must be a First Awareness, an awakening..."
"Which discovers it is not the first."
"But I wanted a self at the root of the self!"
"Didn't the people at this meeting notice anything odd about you?"
"I found out later I sat down with a wooden expression that concealed these mental gymnastics."
"You didn't speak?"
"I was struck dumb. This was interpreted as 'the Bashar's expected reticence.' So much for reputation."
Idaho started to smile and remembered the comeyes. He saw at once how the watchdogs would interpret such revelations. Wild talent in a dangerous descendant of the Atreides! Sisters knew about the mirrors. Anyone who escaped must be suspect. What did the mirrors show him?
As though he heard the dangerous question, Teg said: " I was caught and knew it. I could visualize myself as a bedridden vegetable but I didn't care. The mirrors were everything until, like something floating up out of water, I saw my mother. She looked more or less the way she had just before she died."
Idaho inhaled a trembling breath. Didn't Teg know what he had just said for the comeyes to record?
"The Sisters will now imagine I'm at least a potential Kwisatz Haderach," Teg said. "Another Muad'Dib. Bullcrap! As you're so fond of saying, Duncan. Neither of us would risk that. We know what he created and we're not stupid!"
Idaho could not swallow. Would they accept Teg's words? He spoke the truth but still...
"She took my hand," Teg said. "I could feel it! And she led me right out of the Hall. I expected her to be with me when I felt myself seated at the table. My hand still tingled from her touch but she was gone. I knew that. I just brought myself to attention and took over. The Sisterhood had important advantages to gain there and I gained them."
"Something your mother planted in -"
"No! I saw her the same way Reverend Mothers see Other Memory. It was her way of saying: 'Why the hell are you wasting time here when there's work to do?' She has never left me, Duncan. The past never leaves any of us."
Idaho abruptly saw the purpose behind Teg's recital. Honesty and candor, indeed!
"You have Other Memory!"
"No! Except what anyone has in emergencies. The Hall of Mirrors was an emergency and it also let me see and feel the source of help. But I'm not going back there!"
Idaho accepted this. Most Mentats risked one dip into Infinity and learned the transient nature of names and titles but Teg's account was much more than a statement about Time as flow and tableau.
"I figured it was time we introduced ourselves fully to the Bene Gesserit," Teg said. "They should know how far they can trust us. There's work to do and we've wasted enough time on stupidities."
***
Spend energies on those who make you strong. Energy spent on weaklings drags you to doom. (HM rule) Bene Gesserit Commentary: Who judges?
The day of Dortujla's return did not go well for Odrade. A weapons conference with Teg and Idaho ended without decision. She had sensed the hunter's axe all during the meeting and knew this colored her reactions.
Then the afternoon session with Murbella - words, words, words. Murbella was tangled in questions of philosophy. A dead end if Odrade had ever encountered one.
Now she stood in the early evening at the westernmost edge of' Central's perimeter paving. It was one of her favorite places, but Bellonda beside her deprived Odrade of the anticipated quiet enjoyment.