Dune

It was a silly argument. Both of them knew it twenty words into the thing. Mother Superior could not unbend first and Bell seldom unbent for anything. Even when Odrade fell silent, Bellonda charged onward into empty ramparts. At the end, when Bellonda ran out of energy, Odrade said: “You owe me a fine dinner, Bell. See that it’s the best you can arrange.”

“Owe you . . .” Bellonda started to splutter.

“A peace offering,” Odrade said. “I want it served in my gazebo . . . my Fancy Folly.”

When Sheeana laughed, Bellonda was forced to join but with an icy edge. She knew when she had been out-faced.

“Everyone will see it and say: ‘See how confident Mother Superior is,’” Sheeana said.

“So you want it for morale!” At this point, Bellonda would have accepted almost any justification.

Odrade beamed at Sheeana. My clever little darling! Not only had Sheeana ceased teasing Bellonda, she had taken to reinforcing the older woman’s self-esteem wherever possible. Bell knew it, of course, and there remained an inevitable Bene Gesserit question: Why?

Recognizing the suspicion, Sheeana said: “We’re really arguing about Miles and Duncan. And I, for one, am sick of it.”

“If I just knew what you were really doing, Dar!” Bellonda said.

“Energy has its own patterns, Bell!”

“What do you mean?” Quite startled.

“They are going to find us, Bell. And I know how.”

Bellonda actually gaped.

“We are slaves of our habits,” Odrade said. “Slaves of energies we create. Can slaves break free? Bell, you know the problem as well as I do.”

For once, Bellonda was nonplussed.

Odrade stared at her.

Pride, that was what Odrade saw when she looked at her Sisters and their places. Dignity was only a mask. No real humility. Instead, there was this visible conformity, a true Bene Gesserit pattern that, in a society aware of the peril in patterns, sounded a warning klaxon.

Sheeana was confused. “Habits?”

“Your habits always come hunting after you. The self you construct will haunt you. A ghost wandering around in search of your body, eager to possess you. We are addicted to the self we construct. Slaves to what we have done. We are addicted to Honored Matres and they to us!”

“More of your damned romanticism!” Bellonda said.

“Yes, I’m a romantic . . . in the same way the Tyrant was. He sensitized himself to the fixed shape of his creation. I am sensitive to his prescient trap.”

But oh how close the hunter and oh how deep the pit.

Bellonda was not placated. “You said you know how they will find us.”

“They have only to recognize their own habits and they . . . Yes?” This was to an acolyte messenger emerging from a covered passage behind Bellonda.

“Mother Superior, it’s Reverend Mother Dortujla. Mother Fintil has brought her to the Landing Flat and they will be here within the hour.”

“Bring her to my workroom!” Odrade looked at Bellonda with a stare that was almost wild. “Has she said anything?”

“Mother Dortujla is ill,” the acolyte said.

Ill? What an extraordinary thing to say about a Reverend Mother.

“Reserve judgment.” It was Bellonda-Mentat speaking, Bellonda foe of romanticism and wild imagination.

“Get Tam up there as an observer,” Odrade said.

Dortujla hobbled in on a cane with Fintil and Streggi helping her. There was a firmness to Dortujla’s eyes, though, and a sense of measuring behind every look she focused on her surroundings. She had her hood thrown back revealing hair the dark mottled brown of antique ivory and when she spoke her voice conveyed a sense of fatigue.

“I have done as you ordered, Mother Superior.” As Fintil and Streggi left the room, Dortujla sat without being invited, a slingchair beside Bellonda. Brief glances at Sheeana and Tamalane on her left, then a hard stare at Odrade. “They will meet with you on Junction. They think the place is their own idea and your Spider Queen is there!”

“How soon?” Sheeana asked.

“They want one hundred Standard days counting from just about now. I can be more precise if you want.”

“Why so long?” Odrade asked.

“My opinion? They will use the time to reinforce their defenses on Junction.”

“What guarantees?” That was Tam, terse as usual.

“Dortujla, what has happened to you?” Odrade was shocked by the trembling weakness apparent in the woman.

“They conducted experiments on me. But that is not important. The arrangements are. For what it’s worth, they promise you safe passage in and out of Junction. Don’t believe it. You are allowed a small entourage of servants, no more than five. Assume they will kill everyone who accompanies you, although . . . I may have taught them the error in that.”

“They expect me to bring submission of the Bene Gesserit?” Odrade’s voice had never been colder. Dortujla’s words raised a specter of tragedy.

“That was the inducement.”

“The Sisters who went with you?” Sheeana asked.