interesting. 'A problem that cannot be resolved by rational means.' The words had produced a subtle effect on him. He had seemed to rise out of some place within himself, a questioning look in his eyes. Gods preserve us all! Is Waff a secret Zensunni?
No matter the dangers, this had to be explored. Odrade must be armed with every possible advantage on Rakis.
'Perhaps we have done all we can for now,' Taraza said. 'There is time to complete our bargain. God alone in His infinite mercy has given us infinite universes where anything may happen.'
Waff clapped his hands once without thinking. 'The gift of surprises is the greatest gift of all!' he said.
Not just Zensunni, Taraza thought. Sufi also. Sufi! She began to readjust her perspective on the Tleilaxu. How long have they been holding this close to their breasts?
'Time does not count itself,' Taraza said, probing. 'One has only to look at any circle.'
'Suns are circles,' Waff said. 'Each universe is a circle.' He held his breath waiting for her response.
'Circles are enclosures,' Taraza said, picking the proper response out of her Other Memories. 'Whatever encloses and limits must expose itself to the infinite.'
Waff raised his hands to show her his palms then dropped his arms into his lap. His shoulders lost some of their tense upward thrust. 'Why did you not say these things at the beginning?' he asked.
I must exercise great care, Taraza cautioned herself. The admissions in Waff's words and manner required careful review.
'What has passed between us reveals nothing unless we speak more openly,' she said. 'Even then, we would only be using words.'
Waff studied her face, trying to read in that Bene Gesserit mask some confirmation of the things implied by her words and manner. She was powindah, he reminded himself. The powindah could never be trusted... but if she shared the Great Belief...
'Did God not send His Prophet to Rakis, there to test us and teach us?' he asked.
Taraza delved deep into her Other Memories. A Prophet on Rakis? Muad'dib? No... that did not square with either Sufi or Zensunni beliefs in...
The Tyrant! She closed her mouth into a grim line. 'What one cannot control one must accept,' she said.
'For surely that is God's doing,' Waff replied.
Taraza had seen and heard enough. The Missionaria Protectiva had immersed her in every known religion. Other Memories reinforced this knowledge and filled it out. She felt a great need to get herself safely away from this room. Odrade must be alerted!
'May I make a suggestion?' Taraza asked.
Waff nodded politely.
'Perhaps there is here the substance of a greater bond between us than we imagined,' she said. 'I offer you the hospitality of our Keep on Rakis and the services of our commander there.'
'An Atreides?' he asked.
'No,' Taraza lied. 'But I will, of course, alert our Breeding Mistresses to your needs.'
'And I will assemble the things you require in payment,' he said. 'Why will the bargain be completed on Rakis?'
'Is that not the proper place?' she asked. 'Who could be false in the home of the Prophet?'
Waff sat back in his chair, his arms relaxed in his lap. Taraza certainly knew the proper responses. It was a revelation he had never expected.
Taraza stood. 'Each of us listens to God personally,' she said.
And together in the kehl, he thought. He looked up at her, reminding himself that she was powindah. None of them could be trusted. Caution! This woman was, after all, a Bene Gesserit witch. They were known to create religions for their own ends. Powindah!
Taraza went to the hatch, opened it and gave her security signal. She turned once more toward Waff who still sat in his chair. He has not penetrated our true design, she thought. The ones we send to him must be chosen with extreme care. He must never suspect that he is part of our bait.
His elfin features composed, Waff stared back at her.
How bland he looked, Taraza thought. But he could be trapped! An alliance between Sisterhood and Tleilaxu offered new attractions. But on our terms!
'Until Rakis,' she said.
What social inheritances went outward with the Scattering? We know those times intimately. We know both the mental and physical settings. The Lost Ones took with them a consciousness confined mostly to manpower and hardware. There was a desperate need for room to expand driven by the myth of Freedom. Most had not learned the deeper lesson of the Tyrant, that violence builds its own limits. The Scattering was wild and random movement interpreted as growth (expansion). It was goaded by a profound fear (often unconscious) of stagnation and death.
- The Scattering: Bene Gesserit Analysis (Archives)
Odrade lay full length on her side along the ledge of the bow window, her cheek lightly touching the warm plaz through which she could see the Great Square of Keen. Her back was supported by a red cushion, which smelled of melange as did many things here on Rakis. Behind her lay three rooms, small but efficient and well removed from both Temple and Bene Gesserit Keep. This removal had been a requirement of the Sisterhood's agreement with the priests.
'Sheeana must be guarded more securely,' Odrade had insisted.
'She cannot become the ward of only the Sisterhood!' Tuek had objected.
'Nor of the priests,' Odrade countered.
Six stories below Odrade's bow window vantage, an enormous bazaar spread out in loosely organized confusion, almost filling the Great Square. The silvered yellow light of a lowering sun washed the scene with brilliance, picking out the bright colors of canopies, drawing long shadows across the uneven ground. There was a dusty radiance about the light where scattered clumps of people milled about patched umbrellas and the jumbled alignments of wares.
The Great Square was not actually square. It stretched out around the bazaar a full kilometer across from Odrade's window and easily twice that distance to the left and right - a giant rectangle of packed earth and old stones, which had been churned into bitter dust by daytime shoppers braving the heat in hopes of gaining a bargain then.
As evening advanced, a different sense of activity unfolded beneath Odrade - more people arriving, a quickening and more frenetic pulse to the movement.
Odrade tipped her head to peer down sharply at the ground near her building. Some of the merchants directly beneath her window had wandered off to their nearby quarters. They would return soon, after a meal and short siesta, ready to make full use of those more valuable hours when people in the open could breathe air that did not burn their throats.
Sheeana was overdue, Odrade noted. The priests dared not delay much longer. They would be working frantically now, firing questions at Sheeana, admonishing her to remember that she was God's own emissary to His Church. Reminding Sheeana of many contrived allegiances that Odrade would have to ferret out and make humorous before dispatching such trivia into proper perspective.
Odrade arched her back and went through a silent minute of tiny exercises to relieve tensions. She admitted to a certain sympathy for Sheeana. The girl's thoughts would be chaos right now. Sheeana knew little or nothing about what to expect once she came fully under a Reverend Mother's tutelage. There was little doubt that the young mind was cluttered with myths and other misinformation.
As my mind was, Odrade thought.
She could not avoid remembrance at a moment such as this. Her immediate task was clear: exorcism, not only for Sheeana but for herself.
She thought the haunting thoughts of a Reverend Mother in her memories: Odrade, age five, the comfortable house on Gamma. The road outside the house is lined with what pass for middle-echelon mansions in the planet's seacoast cities - low one-story buildings on wide avenues. The houses reach far down to an outcurving sea frontage
