Chapterhouse: Dune

His words ignited in him a clear vision of Lady Jessica, lover of his long-dead Duke and mother of Muad'Dib. I loved her. She didn't love me but... The look he saw now in Murbella's eyes, he had seen Jessica look at the Duke that way: blind, unswerving love. The thing the Bene Gesserit distrusted. Jessica had been softer than Murbella. Hard to the core, though. And Odrade... she was hard at the beginning. Plasteel all the way.

Then what of the times when he had suspected her of sharing human emotions? The way she spoke of the Bashar when they learned the old man was dead on Dune.

"He was my father, you know."

Murbella dragged him out of reverie. "You may share their dream, whatever that is, but..."

"Grow up, humans!"

"What?"

"That's their dream. Start acting like adults and not like angry children in a schoolyard."

"Mama knows best?"

"Yes... I believe she does."

"Is that how you really see them? Even when you call them witches?"

"It's a good word. Witches do mysterious things."

"You don't believe it's the long and severe training plus the spice and the Agony?"

"What's belief have to do with it? Unknowns create their own mystique."

"But you don't think they trick people into doing what they want?"

"Sure they do!"

"Words as weapons, Voice, Imprinters..."

"None as beautiful as you."

"What's beauty, Duncan?"

"There're styles in beauty, sure."

"Exactly what she says. 'Styles based on procreative roots buried so deeply in our racial psyche we dare not remove them.' So they've thought of meddling there, Duncan."

"And they might dare anything?"

"She says, 'We won't distort our progeny into what we judge to be non-human.' They judge, they condemn."

He thought of the alien figures in his vision. Face Dancers. And he asked: "Like the amoral Tleilaxu? Amoral - not human."

"I can almost hear the gears whirling in Odrade's head. She and her Sisters - they watch, they listen, they tailor every response, everything calculated."

Is that what you want, my darling? He felt trapped. She was right and she was wrong. Ends justifying means? How could he justify losing Murbella?

"You think them amoral?" he asked.

It was as though she did not hear. "Always asking themselves what to say next to get the desired response."

"What response?" Couldn't she hear his pain?

"You never know until too late!" She turned and looked at him.

"Exactly like Honored Matres. Do you know how Honored Matres trapped me?"

He could not suppress awareness of how avidly the watchdogs would hang on Murbella's next words.

"I was picked off the streets after an Honored Matre sweep. I think the whole sweep was because of me. My mother was a great beauty but she was too old for them."

"A sweep?" The watchdogs would want me to ask.

"They go through an area and people disappear. No bodies, nothing. Whole families vanish. It's explained as punishment because people plot against them."

"How old were you?"

"Three... maybe four. I was playing with friends in an open place under trees. Suddenly, there was a lot of noise and shouting. We hid in a hole behind some rocks."

He was caught in a vision of this drama.

"The ground shook." Her gaze went inward with the memory. "Explosions. After a while it was quiet and we peeked out. The whole corner where my house had been was a hole."

"You were orphaned?"

"I remember my parents. He was a big, robust fellow. I think my mother was a servant somewhere. They wore uniforms for such jobs and I remember her in uniform."

"How can you be sure your parents were killed?"

"The sweep is all I know for sure but they're always the same. There was screaming and people running about. We were terrified."

"Why do you think the sweep was because of you?"

"They do that sort of thing."

They. What a victory the watchers would count in that one word.

Murbella was still deep in memory. "I think my father refused to succumb to an Honored Matre. That was always considered dangerous. Big, handsome man... strong."

"So you hate them."

"Why?" Really surprised by his question. "Without that, I would never have been an Honored Matre."

Her callousness shocked him. "So it was worth anything!"

"Love, do you resent whatever brought me to your side?"

Touche! "But don't you wish it had happened some other way?"

"It happened."

What utter fatalism. He had never suspected this in her. Was it Honored Matre conditioning or something the Bene Gesserit did?

"You were just a valuable addition to their stables."

"Right. Enticers, they called us. We recruited valuable males."

"And you did."

"I repaid their investment many times over."

"Do you realize how the Sisters will interpret this?"

"Don't make a big thing of it."

"So you're ready to work on Scytale?"

"I didn't say that. Honored Matres manipulated me without my consent. The Sisters need me and want to use me the same way. My price may be too high."

He was a moment speaking past a dry throat. "Price?"

She glared at him. "You, you're just part of my price. No working on Scytale. And more of their famous candor about why they need me!"

"Careful, love. They might tell you."