Dune

She laughed in the darkness. “Evidence! What is evidence except those things you are allowed to perceive? That’s what Law tries to control: carefully managed reality.”

Words to divert him, words to demonstrate her new Bene Gesserit powers. Her words of love fell flat.

She speaks them out of memory.

He saw this bothered Odrade almost as much as it dismayed him. Murbella did not notice either reaction.

Odrade had tried to reassure him. “Every new Reverend Mother goes through an adjustment period. Manic at times. Think of the new ground under her, Duncan!”

How can I not think of it?

“First law of bureaucracy,” Murbella told the darkness.

You do not divert me, love.

“Grow to the limits of available energy!” Her voice was indeed manic. “Use the lie that taxes solve all problems.” She turned toward him in the bed but not for love. “Honored Matres played the whole routine! Even a social security system to quiet the masses, but everything went into their own energy bank.”

“Murbella!”

“What?” Surprised at the sharpness of his tone. Didn’t he know he was talking to a Reverend Mother?

“I know all of this, Murbella. Any Mentat does.”

“Are you trying to shut me up?” Angry.

“Our job is to think like our enemy,” he said. “We do have a common enemy?”

“You’re sneering at me, Duncan.”

“Are your eyes orange?”

“Melange doesn’t allow that and you know . . . Oh.”

“The Bene Gesserit need your knowledge but you must cultivate it!” He turned on a glowglobe and found her flaring at him. Not unexpected and not really Bene Gesserit.

Hybrid.

The word leaped into his mind. Was it hybrid vigor? Did the Sisterhood expect this of Murbella? The Bene Gesserit surprised you sometimes. You found them facing you in odd corridors, eyes unwavering, faces masked in that way of theirs and, behind the masks, unusual responses brewing. That was where Teg learned to do the unexpected. But this? Idaho thought he could grow to dislike this new Murbella.

She saw this in him, naturally. He remained open to her as to no other person.

“Don’t hate me, Duncan.” No pleading but something deeply hurt behind the words.

“I’ll never hate you.” But he turned off the light.

She nestled against him almost the way she had before the Agony. Almost. The difference tore at him.

“Honored Matres see the Bene Gesserit as competitors for power,” Murbella said. “It’s not so much that men who follow my former Sisters are fanatics, but they’re made incapable of self-determination by their addiction.”

“Is that the way we are?”

“Now, Duncan.”

“You mean I could get this commodity at another store?”

She chose to assume he was talking about Honored Matre fears. “Many would abandon them if they could.” Turning toward him fiercely, she demanded a sexual response. Her abandon shocked him. As though this might be the last time she could experience such ecstasy.

Afterward, he lay exhausted.

“I hope I’m pregnant again,” she whispered. “We still need our babies.”

We need. The Bene Gesserit need. No longer “they need.”

He fell asleep to dream he was in the ship’s armory. It was a dream touched by realities. The ship remained a weapons factory as it actually had become. Odrade was talking to him in the dream armory. “I make decisions of necessity, Duncan. Little likelihood you’ll break out and run amok.”

“I am too much the Mentat for that!” How self-important his dream voice! I’m dreaming and I know I dream. Why am I in the armory with Odrade?

A list of weapons scrolled before his eyes.

Atomics. (He saw big blasters and deadly dusts.)

Lasguns. (No counting the various models.)

Bacteriologicals.

The scroll was interrupted by Odrade’s voice. “We can assume smugglers concentrate as usual on small things that bring a big price.”

“Soostones, of course.” Still self-important. I’m not that way!

“Assassination weapons,” she said. “Plans and specifications for new devices.”

“Theft of trade secrets is a big item with smugglers.” I’m insufferable!

“There are always medicines and the diseases that require them,” she said.

Where is she? I can hear her but I can’t see her. “Do Honored Matres know our universe harbors blackguards not above sowing the problem before providing the solution?” Blackguards? I never use that word.

“All things relative, Duncan. They burned Lampadas and butchered four million of our finest.”

He awoke and sat upright. Specifications for new devices! There it was in delicate detail, a way to miniaturize Holzmann generators. Two centimeters, no more. And much cheaper! How was that smuggled into my mind?