the sand. Tamalane and her advisors, tuned into the priestly circuits, observed just as avidly.
Nothing even remotely suggesting a village remained on the duneswept waste where Sheeana ordered herself deposited. She used a thumper this time however. Another of Stiros' sly suggestions accompanied by careful instructions on use of the ancient means to summon the Divided God.
A worm came.
Tamalane watched on her own relay projector, thinking the worm only a middling monster. Its length she estimated at about fifty meters. Sheeana stood only about three meters in front of the gaping mouth. The huffing of the worm's interior fires was clearly audible to the observers.
'Will you tell me why you did it?' Sheeana demanded.
She did not flinch from the worm's hot breath. Sand crackled beneath the monster but she gave no sign that she heard.
'Answer me!' Sheeana commanded.
No voice came from the worm but Sheeana appeared to be listening, her head cocked to one side.
'Then go back where you came from,' Sheeana said. She waved the worm away.
Obediently, the worm backed off and returned beneath the sands.
For days, while the Sisterhood spied upon them with glee, the priests debated that sparse encounter. Sheeana could not be questioned lest she learn that she had been overheard. As before, she refused to discuss anything about her visits to the desert.
Stiros continued his sly prodding. The result was precisely what the Sisterhood expected. Without any warning, Sheeana would awaken some days and say: 'Today, I will go into the desert.'
Sometimes she used a thumper, sometimes she danced her summons. Far out on the sands beyond the sight of Keen or any other inhabited place, the worms came to her. Sheeana alone in front of a worm talked to it while others listened. Tamalane found the accumulated recordings fascinating as they passed through her hands on their way to Chapter House.
'I should hate you!'
What a turmoil that caused among the priests! Tuek wanted an open debate: 'Should all of us hate the Divided God at the same time we love Him?'
Stiros barely shut off this suggestion with the argument that God's wishes had not been made clear.
Sheeana asked one of her gigantic visitors: 'Will you let me ride you again?'
When she approached, the worm retreated and would not let her mount.
On another occasion, she asked: 'Must I stay with the priests?'
This particular worm proved to be the target of many questions, and among them:
'Where do people go when you eat them?'
'Why are people false to me?'
'Should I punish the bad priests?'
Tamalane laughed at that final question, thinking of the turmoil it would cause among Tuek's people. Her spies duly reported the dismay of the priests.
'How does He answer her?' Tuek asked. 'Has anyone heard God respond?'
'Perhaps He speaks directly into her soul,' a councillor ventured.
'That's it!' Tuek leaped at this offering. 'We must ask her what God tells her to do.'
Sheeana refused to be drawn into such discussions.
'She has a pretty fair assessment of her powers,' Tamalane reported. 'She's not going into the desert very much now despite Stiros' proddings. As we might expect, the attraction has waned. Fear and elation will carry her just so far before paling. She has, however, learned an effective command:
'Go away!'
The Sisterhood marked this as an important development. When even the Divided God obeyed, no priest or priestess was about to question her authority to issue such a command.
'The priests are building towers in the desert,' Tamalane reported. 'They want more secure places from which to observe Sheeana when she does go out there.'
The Sisterhood had anticipated this development and had even done some of its own prodding to speed up the projects.
Each tower had its own windtrap, its own maintenance staff, its own water barrier, gardens and other elements of civilization. Each was a small community spreading the established areas of Rakis farther and farther into the domain of the worms.
Pioneer villages no longer were necessary and Sheeana got the credit for this development.
'She is our priestess,' the populace said.
Tuek and his councillors spun on the point of a pin: Shaitan and Shai-hulud in one body? Stiros lived in daily fear that Tuek would announce the fact. Stiros' advisors finally rejected the suggestion that Tuek be translated. Another suggestion that Priestess Sheeana have a fatal accident was greeted with horror by all, even Stiros finding it too great a venture.
'Even if we remove this thorn, God may visit us with an even more terrible intrusion,' he said. And he warned: 'The oldest books say that a little child shall lead us.'
Stiros was only the most recent among those who looked upon Sheeana as something not quite mortal. It was observable that those around her, Cania included, had come to love Sheeana. She was so ingenuous, so bright and responsive.
Many observed that this growing affection for Sheeana extended even to Tuek.
For the people touched by this power, the Sisterhood had an immediate recognition. The Bene Gesserit knew a label for this ancient effect: expanding worship. Tamalane reported profound changes moving through Rakis as people everywhere on the planet began praying to Sheeana instead of to Shaitan or even to Shai-hulud.
'They see that Sheeana intercedes for the weakest people,' Tamalane reported. 'It is a familiar pattern. All goes as ordered. When do you send the ghola?'
The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the center of the damned thing! That's the whole point of the Scattering!
- Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new investigative probes be sent out among the Lost Ones
One of the Sisterhood's swifter lighters took Miles Teg up to the Guild Transport circling Gammu. He did not like leaving the Keep at this moment but the priorities were obvious. He also had a gut reaction about this venture. In his three centuries of experience, Teg had learned to trust his gut reactions. Matters were not going well on Gammu. Every patrol, every report of remote sensors, the accounts of Patrin's spies in the cities - everything fueled Teg's disquiet.
Mentat fashion, Teg felt the movement of forces around the Keep and within it. His ghola charge was threatened. The order for him to report aboard the Guild Transport prepared for violence, however, came from Taraza herself with an unmistakable crypto-identifier on it.
On the lighter taking him upward, Teg set himself for battle. Those preparations he could make had been made. Lucilla was warned. He felt confident about Lucilla. Schwangyu was another matter. He fully intended to discuss with Taraza a few essential changes in the Gammu Keep. First, though, he had another battle to win. Teg had not the slightest doubt that he was entering combat.
As his lighter moved in to dock, Teg looked out a port and saw the gigantic Ixian symbol within the Guild cartouche on the Transport's dark side. This was a ship the Guild had converted to Ixian mechanism, substituting machines for the traditional navigator. There would be Ixian technicians aboard to service the equipment. A genuine Guild navigator would be there, too. The Guild had never quite learned to trust a machine even while they paraded these converted Transports as a message to Tleilaxu and Rakians.
'You see: we do not absolutely require your melange!'
This was the announcement contained in that giant symbol of Ix on the spaceship's side.
Teg felt the slight lurch of the docking grapples and took a deep, quieting breath. He felt as he always did just before battle: Empty of all false dreams. This was a failure. The talking had failed and now came the contest of blood... unless he could prevail in some other way. Combat these days was seldom a massive thing but death was
