Chapterhouse: Dune

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?"