It was not the same for the Honored Matres. They were, somehow, beyond depravity. They had come through it; he could see that. But now they were into something else so far beyond depravity that Teg wondered if he really wanted to know about it.
The knowledge was there, though, inescapable in his new awareness. Not one of those people would hesitate an instant before consigning an entire planet to torture if that meant personal gain. Or if the payoff were some imagined pleasure. Or if the torture produced even a few more days or hours of living.
What pleased them? What gratified? They were like semuta addicts. Whatever simulated pleasure for them, they required more of it every time.
And they know this!
How they must rage inside! Caught in such a trap! They had seen it all and none of it was enough - not good enough nor evil enough. They had entirely lost the knack of moderation.
They were dangerous, though. And perhaps he was wrong about one thing: Perhaps they no longer remembered what it had been like before the awful transformation of that strange tart-smelling stimulant that painted orange in their eyes. Memories of memories could become distorted. Every Mentat was sensitized to this flaw in himself.
'There's the worm!'
It was the communications officer.
Teg swiveled in his chair and looked at the projection, a miniature holo of the exterior to the southwest. The worm with its two tiny dots of human passengers was a distant sliver of wriggling movement.
'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 that she had little time. The whores would be sure to assemble forces for the total destruction of Gammu - just to kill that one ghola.
So much had depended on Teg.
She saw the Bashar there in her own assemblage of Other Memories: the father she had never really known.
I didn't know him at the end, either.
It could be weakening to dig into those memories, but she could not escape the demands of that luring reservoir.
Odrade thought of the Tyrant's words: 'The terrible field of my past! Answers leap up like a frightened flock blackening the sky of my inescapable memories.'
Odrade held herself like a swimmer balanced just below the water's surface.
I most likely will be replaced, Odrade thought. I may even be reviled. Bellonda certainly was not giving easy agreement to the new state of command. No matter. Survival of the Sisterhood was all that should concern any of them.
