“WELL, JESSICA, what have you to say for yourself?” asked the Reverend Mother.
It was near sunset at Castle Caladan on the day of Paul’s ordeal. The two women were alone in Jessica’s morning room while Paul waited in the adjoining soundproofed Meditation Chamber.
Jessica stood facing the south windows. She saw and yet did not see the evening’s banked colors across meadow and river. She heard and yet did not hear the Reverend Mother’s question.
There had been another ordeal once—so many years ago. A skinny girl with hair the color of bronze, her body tortured by the winds of puberty, had entered the study of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Proctor Superior of the Bene Gesserit school on Wallach IX. Jessica looked down at her right hand, flexed the fingers, remembering the pain, the terror, the anger.
“Poor Paul,” she whispered.
“I asked you a question, Jessica!” The old woman’s voice was snappish, demanding.
“What? Oh….” Jessica tore her attention away from the past, faced the Reverend Mother, who sat with back to the stone wall between the two west windows. “What do you want me to say?”
“What do I want you to say? What do I want you to say?” The old voice carried a tone of cruel mimicry.
“So I had a son!” Jessica flared. And she knew she was being goaded into this anger deliberately.
“You were told to bear only daughters to the Atreides.”
“It meant so much to him,” Jessica pleaded.
“And you in your pride thought you could produce the Kwisatz Haderach!”
Jessica lifted her chin. “I sensed the possibility.”
“You thought only of your Duke’s desire for a son,” the old woman snapped. “And his desires don’t figure in this. An Atreides daughter could’ve been wed to a Harkonnen heir and sealed the breach. You’ve hopelessly complicated matters. We may lose both bloodlines now.”
“You’re not infallible,” Jessica said. She braved the steady stare from the old eyes.
Presently, the old woman muttered: “What’s done is done.”
“I vowed never to regret my decision,” Jessica said.
“How noble,” the Reverend Mother sneered. “No regrets. We shall see when you’re a fugitive with a price on your head and every man’s hand turned against you to seek your life and the life of your son.”
Jessica paled. “Is there no alternative?”
“Alternative? A Bene Gesserit should ask that?”
“I ask only what you see in the future with your superior abilities.”
“I see in the future what I’ve seen in the past. You well know the pattern of our affairs, Jessica. The race knows its own mortality and fears stagnation of its heredity. It’s in the bloodstream—the urge to mingle genetic strains without plan. The Imperium, the CHOAM Company, all the Great Houses, they are but bits of flotsam in the path of the flood.”
“CHOAM,” Jessica muttered. “I suppose it’s already decided how they’ll redivide the spoils of Arrakis.”
“What is CHOAM but the weather vane of our times,” the old woman said. “The Emperor and his friends now command fifty-nine point six-five per cent of the CHOAM directorship’s votes. Certainly they smell profits, and likely as others smell those same profits his voting strength will increase. This is the pattern of history, girl.”
“That’s certainly what I need right now,” Jessica said. “A review of history.”
“Don’t be facetious, girl! You know as well as I do what forces surround us. We’ve a three-point civilization: the Imperial Household balanced against the Federated Great Houses of the Landsraad, and between them, the Guild with its damnable monopoly on interstellar transport. In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures. It’d be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
Jessica spoke bitterly: “Chips in the path of the flood—and this chip here, this is the Duke Leto, and this one’s his son, and this one’s—”
“Oh, shut up, girl. You entered this with full knowledge of the delicate edge you walked.”
“ ‘I am Bene Gesserit: I exist only to serve,’ ” Jessica quoted.
“Truth,” the old woman said. “And all we can hope for now is to prevent this from erupting into general conflagration, to salvage what we can of the key bloodlines.”
Jessica closed her eyes, feeling tears press out beneath the lids. She fought down the inner trembling, the outer trembling, the uneven breathing, the ragged pulse, the sweating of the palms. Presently, she said, “I’ll pay for my own mistake.”
“And your son will pay with you.”
“I’ll shield him as well as I’m able.”
“Shield!” the old woman snapped. “You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he’ll not grow strong enough to fulfill
Jessica turned away, looked out the window at the gathering darkness. “Is it really that terrible, this planet of Arrakis?”
“Bad enough, but not all bad. The Missionaria Protectiva has been in there and softened it up somewhat.” The Reverend Mother heaved herself to her feet, straightened a fold in her gown. “Call the boy in here. I must be leaving soon.”
“Must you?”
The old woman’s voice softened. “Jessica, girl, I wish I could stand in your place and take your sufferings. But each of us must make her own path.”
“I know.”
“You’re as dear to me as any of my own daughters, but I cannot let that interfere with duty.”
“I understand … the necessity.”
“What you did, Jessica, and why you did it—we both know. But kindness forces me to tell you there’s little chance your lad will be the Bene Gesserit Totality. You mustn’t let yourself hope too much.”
Jessica shook tears from the corners of her eyes. It was an angry gesture. “You make me feel like a little girl again—reciting my first lesson.” She forced the words out: “ ‘Humans must never submit to animals.’ ” A dry sob shook her. In a low voice, she said: “I’ve been so lonely.”
“It should be one of the tests,” the old woman said. “Humans are almost always lonely. Now summon the boy. He’s had a long, frightening day. But he’s had time to think and remember, and I must ask the other questions about these dreams of his.”
Jessica nodded, went to the door of the Meditation Chamber, opened it. “Paul, come in now, please.”
Paul emerged with a stubborn slowness. He stared at his mother as though she were a stranger. Wariness veiled his eyes when he glanced at the Reverend Mother, but this time he nodded to her, the nod one gives an equal. He heard his mother close the door behind him.
“Young man,” the old woman said, “let’s return to this dream business.”
“What do you want?”
“Do you dream every night?”
“Not dreams worth remembering. I can remember every dream, but some are worth remembering and some aren’t.”
“How do you know the difference?”
“I just know it.”
The old woman glanced at Jessica, back to Paul. “What did you dream last night? Was it worth remembering?”
“Yes.” Paul closed his eyes. “I dreamed a cavern … and water … and a girl there—very skinny with big eyes. Her eyes are all blue, no whites in them. I talk to her and tell her about you, about seeing the Reverend Mother on Caladan.” Paul opened his eyes.
“And the thing you tell this strange girl about seeing me, did it happen today?”
Paul thought about this, then: “Yes. I tell the girl you came and put a stamp of strangeness on me.”
“Stamp of strangeness,” the old woman breathed, and again she shot a glance at Jessica, returned her attention to Paul. “Tell me truly now, Paul, do you often have dreams of things that happen afterward exactly as
