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"Bring Odrade in here alone when they arrive," he said. "Sheeana -- that's the
young girl -- will remain behind to help herd that worm into the hold. It will
obey her. Be sure Burzmali is standing ready nearby. We won't have much time
for the transfer of command."
When Odrade entered the command station she was still breathing hard and exuding
the smells of the desert, a compound of melange, flint, and human perspiration.
Teg sat in his chair apparently resting. His eyes remained closed.
Odrade thought she had caught the Bashar in an uncharacteristic attitude of
repose, almost pensive. He opened his eyes then and she saw the change about
which Lucilla had only been able to blurt a small warning -- along with a few
hasty words about the ghola's transformation. What was it that had happened to
Teg? He was almost posing for her, daring her to see it in him. The chin was
firm and held slightly upthrust in his normal attitude of observation. The
narrow face with its webwork of age lines had lost none of its alertness. The
long, thin nose so characteristic of the Corrinos and Atreides in his ancestry
had grown a bit longer with advancing years. But the gray hair remained thick
and that small peak at the forehead centered the observing gaze . . .
On his eyes!
"How did you know to meet us here?" Odrade demanded. "We had no idea where the
worm was taking us."
"There are very few inhabited places here in the meridian desert," he said.
"Gambler's choice. This seemed likely."
Gambler's choice? She knew the Mentat phrase but had never understood it.
Teg lifted himself from his chair. "Take this ship and go to the place you know
best," he said.
Chapter House? She almost said it but thought of the others around her, these
military strangers Teg had assembled. Who were they? Lucilla's brief
explanation did not satisfy.
"We change Taraza's design somewhat," Teg said. "The ghola does not stay. He
must go with you."
She understood. They would need Duncan Idaho's new talents to counter the
whores. He was no longer merely bait for the destruction of Rakis.
"He will not be able to leave the no-ship's concealment, of course," Teg said.
She nodded. Duncan was not shielded from prescient searchers . . . such as the
Guild navigators.
"Bashar!" It was the communications officer. "We've been bleeped by a
satellite!"
"All right, you ground hogs!" Teg shouted. "Everybody outside! Get Burzmali
in here."
A hatch at the rear of the station flew open. Burzmali lunged through.
"Bashar, what are we --"
"No time! Take over!" Teg lifted himself from his command chair and waved for
Burzmali to take it. "Odrade here will tell you where to go." On an impulse
that he knew was partly vindictive, Teg grasped Odrade's left arm, leaned close,
and kissed her cheek. "Do what you must, daughter," he whispered. "That worm
in the hold may soon be the only one in the universe."
Odrade saw it then: Teg knew Taraza's complete design and intended to carry out
his Mother Superior's orders to the very end.
"Do what you must." That said it all.
We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized
relationship between consciousness and matter, which provides a more penetrating
insight into the workings of prescience. The oracle shapes a projected inner
universe to produce new external probabilities out of forces that are not
understood. There is no need to understand these forces before using them to
shape the physical universe. Ancient metal workers had no need to understand
the molecular and submolecular complexities of their steel, bronze, copper,
gold, and tin. They invented mystical powers to describe the unknown while they
continued to operate their forges and wield their hammers.
-Mother Superior Taraza, Argument in Council
The ancient structure in which the Sisterhood secreted its Chapter House, its
Archives, and the offices of its most sacrosanct leadership did not just make
sounds in the night. The noises were more like signals. Odrade had learned to
read those signals over her many years here. That particular sound there, that
strained creaking was a wooden beam in the floor not replaced in some eight
hundred years. It contracted in the night to produce those sounds.
She had Taraza's memories to expand on such signals. The memories were not
fully integrated; there had been very little time. Here at night in Taraza's
old working room, Odrade used a few available moments to continue the
integration.
Dar and Tar, one at last.
That was a quite identifiable Taraza comment.
To haunt the Other Memories was to exist on several planes simultaneously, some
of them very deep, but Taraza remained near the surface. Odrade allowed herself
to sink farther into the multiple existences. Presently, she recognized a self
who was currently breathing but remote while others demanded that she plunge
into the all-enfolding visions, everything complete with smells, touches,
emotions -- all of the originals held intact within her own awareness.
It is unsettling to dream another's dreams.
Taraza again.
Taraza who had played such a dangerous game with the future of the entire
Sisterhood hanging in the balance! How carefully she had timed the leaking of
word to the whores that the Tleilaxu had built dangerous abilities into the
ghola. And the attack on the Gammu Keep confirmed that the information had
reached its source. The brutal nature of that attack, though, had warned Taraza [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]