"They don't oppose the current but seem only to move across it, making it work for them, using the back eddies."

"Oyyy!"

"Ancient sailing masters understood this quite well, Rabbi. The Sisterhood has what amounts to current charts telling them places to avoid and where to make their greatest efforts."

Again, he waved the scroll. "This is no current chart."

"You misinterpret, Rabbi. They know the fallacies about overwhelming machines." She glanced at the laboring machinery. "They see us in currents machinery cannot breast."

"These little wisdoms. I do not know, daughter. Meddling in politics, I accept. But in holy matters . . ."

"A leveling drift, Rabbi. Mass influence on brilliant innovators who move out of the pack and produce new things. Even when the new helps us, the drift catches the innovator."

"Who is to say what helps, Rebecca?"

"I merely tell what they believe. They see taxation as evidence of the drift, taking away free energy that might create more new things. A sensitized person detects it, they say."

"And these . . . these Honored Matres?"

"They fit the pattern. Power-closed government intent on making all potential challengers ineffectual. Screen out the bright ones. Blunt intelligence."

A tiny beeping sound came from the machinery area. Joshua was past them before they could stand. He bent over the screen that revealed events on the surface.

"They are back," he said. "See! They dig in the ashes directly above us."

"Have they found us?" The Rabbi sounded almost relieved.

Joshua watched the screen.

Rebecca placed her head beside his, studying the diggers-ten men with that dreaming look in their eyes of those who had been bonded to Honored Matres.

"They only dig at random," Rebecca said, straightening.

"You're sure?" Joshua stood and looked into her face, seeking secret confirmation.

Any Bene Gesserit could see it.

"Look for yourself." She gestured at the screen. "They are leaving. They go to the sligsty now."

"Where they belong," the Rabbi muttered.





Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

-DARWI ODRADE

Mother Superior did not just board an outgoing lighter and transfer to any convenient no-ship. There were plans, arrangements, strategies-contingencies on contingencies.

It took eight hectic days. Timing with Teg had to be precise. Consultations with Murbella ate up hours. Murbella had to know what she faced.

Discover their Achilles' heel, Murbella, and you have it all. Stay on the observation ship when Teg attacks but watch carefully.

Odrade took detailed advice from all who could help. Then came the vital-signs implant with encrypting to transmit her secret observations. A no-ship and long-range lighter had to be refitted, crew chosen by Teg.

Bellonda muttered and growled until Odrade intervened.

"You are distracting me! Is that your intent? Weaken me?" It was late morning four days before departure and they were temporarily alone in the workroom. Weather clear but unseasonably cold and air an ochre tinge from a dust storm that had blown across Central in the night.

"Convocation was a mistake!" Bellonda needed her parting shot.

Odrade found herself snapping back at Bellonda, who had become a bit too caustic. "Necessary!"

"To you, maybe! Saying goodbye to your family. Now, you leave us here taking in each other's laundry."

"Did you just come up here to complain about the Convocation?"

"I don't like your latest comments on Honored Matres! You should have consulted us before spreading-"

"They're parasites, Bell! It's time we made that clear: a known weakness. And what does a body do when afflicted by parasites?" Odrade delivered this with a broad grin.

"Dar, when you assume this . . . this pseudo-humorous pose, I would like to throttle you!"

"Would you smile as you did it, Bell?"

"Damn you, Dar! One of these days . . ."

"We don't have many more days together, Bell, and that's what's eating you. Answer my question."

"Answer it yourself!"

"The body welcomes periodic delousing. Even addicts dream of freedom."

"Ahhhhh." A Mentat peered from Bellonda's eyes. "You think addiction to Honored Matres could be made painful?"

"In spite of your dreadful inability at humor, you still can function."

A cruel smile flexed Bellonda's mouth.

"I've managed to amuse you," Odrade said.

"Let me discuss this with Tam. She has a better head for strategy. Although . . . Sharing softened her."

When Bellonda had gone, Odrade leaned back and laughed quietly. Softened! "Don't go soft tomorrow, Dar, when you Share." The Mentat stumbles on logic and misses the heart. She sees the process and worries about failure. What do we do if . . . We open windows, Bell, and let in common sense. Even hilarity. Puts more serious matters in perspective. Poor Bell, my flawed Sister. Always something to occupy your nervousness.

Odrade left Central on departure morning much entangled in her thinking-an introspective mood, worried by what she had learned Sharing with Murbella and Sheeana.

I'm being self-indulgent.

That offered no relief. Her thoughts were framed by Other Memory and almost cynical fatalism.

Queen bees swarming?

That had been suggested of Honored Matres.

But Sheeana? And Tam approves?

This carried more in it than a Scattering.

I cannot follow into your wild place, Sheeana. My task is to produce order. I cannot risk what you have dared. There are different kinds of artistry. Yours repels me.

Absorbing lifetimes of Murbella's Other Memory helped. Murbella's knowledge was a powerful leverage on Honored Matres but full of disturbing nuances.

Not hypnotrance. They use cellular induction, a byproduct of their damned T-probes! Unconscious compulsion! How tempting to use it for ourselves. But this is where Honored Matres are most vulnerable-enormous unconsciousness content locked in by their own decisions. Murbella's key only emphasizes its danger to us.

They arrived at the Landing Flat in the midst of a windstorm that buffeted them when they emerged from their car. Odrade had vetoed a walk through what remained of orchards and vineyards.

Leaving for the last time? The question in Bellonda's eyes as she said goodbye. In Sheeana's worried frown.

Does Mother Superior accept my decision?

Provisionally, Sheeana. Provisionally. But I have not warned Murbella. So . . . perhaps I do share Tam's judgment.

Dortujla, in the van of Odrade's party, was withdrawn.

Understandable. She has been there . . . and watched her Sisters eaten. Courage, Sister! We are not yet defeated.

Only Murbella had appeared to take this in stride but she was thinking ahead to Odrade's encounter with the Spider Queen.

Have I armed Mother Superior sufficiently? Does she know in her guts how very dangerous this will be?

Odrade pushed such thoughts aside. There were things to do on the crossing. None of them more important than gathering her energies. Honored Matres could be analyzed almost out of reality, but the actual confrontation would be played as it came-a jazz performance. She liked the idea of jazz although the music distracted her with its antique flavors and the dips into wildness. Jazz spoke about life, though. No two performances ever identical. Players reacted to what was received from the others: jazz.

Feed us with jazz.

Air and space travel did not often concern itself with weather. Bludgeon your way through transitory interferences. Depend on Weather Control to provide launch windows through storms and cloud cover. Desert planets were an exception and that would have to be entered into Chapterhouse equations before long. Many changes, including return to Fremen mortuary practices. Bodies rendered for water and potash.

Odrade spoke of this as they waited for transport up to the ship. That wide cummerbund of hot, dry land expanding around the planet's equator would begin generating dangerous winds before long. One day, there would be coreolis storms: a blast-furnace from the desert interior with speeds in hundreds of kilometers an hour. Dune had seen winds of more than seven hundred kmh. Even space lighters took notice of such force. Air travel would be subject to the constant whims of surface conditions. And frail human flesh must find whatever shelter it could.

As we always have.

The lounge at the Flat was old. Stone inside and out, their first major building material here. Spartan slingchairs and low tables of molded plaz were more recent. Economy could not be ignored even for Mother Superior.

The lighter arrived in a dusty maelstrom. No nonsense about suspensor cushioning. This would be a quick lift with uncomfortable gees but not high enough to damage flesh.

Odrade felt almost disembodied as she said her final farewells and turned Chapterhouse over to a triumvirate of Sheeana, Murbella, and Bellonda. One last word: "Don't interfere with Teg. And I don't want anything nasty happening to Duncan. Hear me, Bell?"

All of the wonderful technological things they could accomplish and they still could not keep a thick sandstorm from almost blinding them as they lifted. Odrade closed her eyes and accepted the fact that she was not to get a last low-level overview of her beloved planet. She awoke to the thump of docking. Buzzcar waiting in a corridor just beyond the lock. A humming traverse to their quarters. Tamalane, Dortujla, and the acolyte servant maintained silence, respecting Mother Superior's desire to be with her own thoughts.

The quarters, at least, were familiar, standard on Bene Gesserit ships: a small sitting-dining room in elemental plaz of uniform light green; smaller sleeping chamber with walls in the same color and a single hard cot. They knew Mother Superior's preferences. Odrade glanced into a usiform bath and toilet. Standard facilities. Adjoining quarters for Tam and Dortujla were similar. Time later to look at the ship's refittings.

All essentials had been provided. Including unobtrusive elements of psychological support: subdued colors, familiar furnishings, a setting to disturb none of her mental processes. She gave orders for departure before returning to her sitting-dining room.

Food was waiting on a low table-blue fruit, sweet and plummy, a savory yellow spread on bread tailored to her energy needs. Very good. She watched the assigned acolyte at her self-effacing work arranging Mother Superior's effects. The name evaded Odrade for a second, then: Suipol. A dark little thing with a round, calm face and manners to match. Not one of our brightest but guaranteed efficient.

It struck Odrade suddenly that these assignments had an element of callousness in them. A small entourage, not to offend Honored Matres. And keep our losses to a minimum.

"Have you unpacked all of my things, Suipol?"

"Yes, Mother Superior." Very proud of having been chosen for this important assignment. It showed in her walk as she left.

There are some things you cannot unpack for me, Suipol. I carry those in my head.

No Bene Gesserit from Chapterhouse ever left the planet without taking along a certain amount of chauvinism. Other places were never quite as beautiful, never quite as serene, never as pleasant a habitat.

But this is the Chapterhouse that was.

It was an aspect of the desert transformation she had never before viewed in quite that way. Chapterhouse was removing itself. Going away, never to return, at least not in the lifetimes of those who knew it now. It was like being abandoned by a beloved parent-disdainfully and with malice.

You are no longer important to me, child.