from the Honored Matre effect: ecstasy amplified until it drove out all reason and bound its victims to the source of such rewards.
Murbella went only so far in a verbal exploration of her abilities. Obvious residual fury that Idaho had addicted her with the same techniques she had been taught to use.
'Murbella blocks up when Idaho questions motives,' Bellonda said.
Yes, I've seen that.
'I could kill you and you know it!' Murbella had said.
The comeye record showed them in bed in Murbella's no-ship quarters, having just satiated their mutual addiction. Sweat glistened on bare flesh. Murbella lay with a blue towel across her forehead, green eyes staring up at the comeyes. She appeared to be looking directly at the observers. Little orange flecks in her eyes. Anger flecks from her body's residual store of the spice substitute Honored Matres employed. She was on melange now - and no adverse symptoms.
Idaho lay beside her, black hair in disarray around his face, a sharp contrast to the white pillow beneath his head. His eyes were closed but the lids flickered. Thin. He wasn't eating enough despite tempting dishes sent by Odrade's own chef. His high cheekbones were strongly defined. The face had become craggy in the years of his confinement.
Murbella's threat was backed by physical ability, Odrade knew, but it was psychologically false. Kill her lover? Not likely!
Bellonda was thinking along these same lines. 'What was she doing when she demonstrated her physical speed? We've seen that before.'
'She knows we watch.'
The comeyes showed Murbella defying post-coital fatigue to leap from bed. Moving with blurred speed (much faster than anything the Bene Gesserit had ever achieved), she kicked out with her right foot, stopping the blow only a hair's breadth from Idaho's head.
At her first movement, Idaho opened his eyes. He watched without fear, without flinching.
That blow! Fatal if it struck. You had only to see such a thing once to fear it. Murbella moved with no resort to her central cortex. Insect-like, an attack triggered by nerves at the point of muscle ignition.
'You see!' Murbella lowered her foot and glared down at him.
Idaho smiled.
Watching it, Odrade reminded herself that the Sisterhood had three of Murbella's children, all female. The Breeding Mistresses were excited. In time, Reverend Mothers born of this line might match that Honored Matre ability.
In time we probably don't have.
But Odrade shared the excitement of the Breeding Mistresses. That speed! Add that to the nerve-muscle training, the great prana-bindu resources of the Sisterhood! What that might create lay wordlessly within her.
'She did that for us, not for him,' Bellonda said.
Odrade was not sure. Murbella resented the constant watch over her but she had come to an accommodation with it. Many of her actions obviously ignored the people behind the comeyes. This record showed her returning to her place in the bed beside Idaho.
'I have restricted access to that record,' Bellonda said. 'Some acolytes are becoming troubled.'
Odrade nodded. Sexual addiction. That aspect of Honored Matre abilities created disturbing ripples in the Bene Gesserit, especially among acolytes. Very suggestive. And most of the Sisters on Chapterhouse knew the Reverend Mother Sheeana, alone among them, practiced some of these techniques in defiance of a general fear this could weaken them.
'We must not become Honored Matres!' Bell was always saying that. But Sheeana represents a significant control factor. She teaches us something about Murbella.
One afternoon, catching Murbella alone in her no-ship quarters and obviously relaxed, Odrade had tried a direct question. 'Before Idaho, were none of you ever tempted to, let us say, 'join in the fun'?'
Murbella had recoiled with angry pride. 'He caught me by accident!'
The same kind of anger she showed to Idaho's questions. Remembering this, Odrade leaned over her worktable and called up the original record.
'Look at how angry she gets,' Bellonda said. 'A hypnotrance injunction against answering such questions. I'd stake my reputation on it.'
'That'll come out in the Spice Agony,' Odrade said.
'If she ever gets to it!'
'Hypnotrance is supposed to be our secret.'
Bellonda chewed on the obvious inference: No Sister we sent out in the original Scattering ever returned.
It was written large in their minds: 'Did renegade Bene Gesserit create the Honored Matres?' Much suggested it. Then why did they resort to sexual enslavement of males? Murbella's historical prattlings did not satisfy. Everything about this went against Bene Gesserit teaching.
'We have to learn,' Bellonda insisted. 'What little we know is very disturbing.'
Odrade recognized the concern. How much of a lure was this ability? Very big, she thought. Acolytes complained that they dreamed about becoming Honored Matres. Bellonda was rightly worried.
Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections.
There was the terrible power the Honored Matres dared use. Let it be known that they had the key to blinding ecstasy and they had won half the battle. The simple clue that such a thing existed, that was the beginning of surrender. People at Murbella's level in that other Sisterhood might not understand this but the ones at the top... Was it possible they merely used this power without caring or even suspecting its deeper force? If that were the case, how were our first Scattered Ones lured into this dead end?
Earlier, Bellonda had offered her hypothesis:
Honored Matre with captive Reverend Mother taken prisoner in that first Scattering. 'Welcome, Reverend Mother. We would like you to witness a small demonstration of our powers.' Interlude of sexual demonstration followed by a display of Honored Matre physical speed. Then - withdrawal of melange and injection of the adrenaline-based substitute laced with a hypnodrug. In that hypothetical trance, the Reverend Mother was sexually imprinted.
That coupled to the selective agony of melange withdrawal (Bell suggested) might make the victim deny her origins.
Fates help us! Were the original Honored Matres all Reverend Mothers? Do we dare test this hypothesis on ourselves? What can we learn of this from that pair in the no-ship?
Two sources of information lay there under the Sisterhood's watchful eyes but the key had yet to be found.
Woman and man no longer just breeding partners, no longer a comfort and support to each other. Something new has been added. The stakes have been escalated.
In the comeye record playing at the worktable, Murbella said something that caught the Mother Superior's full attention.
'We Honored Matres did this to ourselves! Can't blame anyone else.'
'You hear that?' Bellonda demanded.
Odrade shook her head sharply, wanting all of her attention on this exchange.
'You can't say the same about me,' Idaho objected.
'That's an empty excuse,' Murbella accused. 'So you were conditioned by the Tleilaxu to snare the first Imprinter you encountered!'
'And to kill her,' Idaho corrected. 'That's what they intended.'
'But you didn't even try to kill me. Not that you could have.'
'That's when...' Idaho broke off with an involuntary glance at the recording comeyes.
'What was he about to say there?' Bellonda pounced. 'We must find out!'
But Odrade continued her silent observation of the captive pair. Murbella demonstrated a surprising insight. 'You think you caught me through some accident in which you were not involved?'
'Exactly.'
