without most bureaucratic systems and record keeping. Except for Bellonda's Archives, of course, and every time he mentioned those, Odrade said 'Heaven guard us!' or something equivalent.
'Now he asked how do you maintain yourselves without officials and records?' He was deeply puzzled.
'A thing needs doing, we do it. Bury a Sister?' She pointed to the scene in the orchard where shovels had been brought into play and dirt was being tamped on the grave.
'That's how it's done and there's always someone around who's responsible. They know who they are.'
'Who... who takes care of this unwholesome...?'
'It's not unwholesome! It's part of our education. Failed Sisters usually supervise. Acolytes do the work.'
'Don't they... I mean, isn't this distasteful to them? Failed Sisters, you say. And acolytes. It would seem to be more of a punishment than...'
'Punishment! Come, come, Scytale. Have you only one song to sing?' She pointed at the burial party. 'After their apprenticeship, all of our people willingly accept their jobs.'
'But no... ahhh, bureaucratic...'
'We're not stupid!'
Again, he did not understand, but she responded to his silent puzzlement.
'Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.'
He had difficulty seeing the relevance. Where was she leading him?
When he remained silent, she said: 'Honored Matres have all the marks of bureaucracy. Ministers of this, Great Honored Matres of that, a powerful few at the top and many functionaries below. They already are full of adolescent hungers. Like voracious predators, they never consider how they exterminate their prey. A tight relationship: Reduce the numbers of those upon whom you feed and you bring your own structure crashing down.'
He found it difficult to believe the witches really saw Honored Matres this way and said so.
'If you survive, Scytale, you will see my words made real. Great cries of rage by those unthinking women at the necessity to retrench. Much new effort to wring the most out of their prey. Capture more of them! Squeeze them harder! It will just mean quicker extermination. Idaho says they're already in the die-back stage.'
The ghola says this? So she was using him as a Mentat! 'Where do you get such ideas? Surely this does not originate with your ghola.' Continue to believe he's yours!
'He merely confirmed our assessment. An example in Other Memory alerted us.'
'Ohh?' This thing of Other Memory bothered him. Could their claim be true? Memories from his own multiple lives were of enormous value. He asked for confirmation.
'We remembered the relationship between a food animal called a snowshoe rabbit and a predatory cat called a lynx. The cat population always grew to follow the population of the rabbits, and then overfeeding dumped the predators into famine times and severe die-back.'
'An interesting term, die-back.'
'Descriptive of what we intend for the Honored Matres.'
When their meeting ended (without anything gained for him), Scytale found himself more confused than ever. Was that truly their intent? The damnable woman! He could not be sure of anything she said.
When she returned him to his quarters in the ship, Scytale stood for a long time looking through the barrier field at the long corridor where Idaho and Murbella sometimes came on their way to their practice floor. He knew that must be where they went through a wide doorway down there. They always emerged sweating and breathing deeply.
Neither of his fellow prisoners appeared, although he loitered there for more than an hour.
She uses the ghola as a Mentat! That must mean he has access to a Shipsystems console. Surely, she would not deprive her Mentat of his data. Somehow, I must contrive it that Idaho and I meet intimately. There's always the whistling language we impress on every ghola. I must not appear too anxious. A small concession in the bargaining, perhaps. A complaint that my quarters are confining. They see how I chafe at imprisonment.
Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definition.
- Mentat Text One (decto)
They wheeled Lucilla into Great Honored Matre's presence in a tubular cage - a cage within a cage. Shigawire netting confined her to the center of the thing.
'I am Great Honored Matre,' the woman in the heavy black chair greeted her. Small woman, red-gold leotards. 'The cage is for your protection should you try to use Voice. We are immune. Our immunity takes the form of a reflex. We kill. A number of you have died that way. We know Voice and use it. Remember it when I release you from your cage.' She waved away the servants who had brought the cage. 'Go! Go!'
Lucilla looked around at the room. Windowless. Almost square. Lighted by a few silvery glowglobes. Acid- green walls. Typical interrogation setting. It was somewhere high. They had brought her cage in a nulltube shortly after dawn.
A panel behind Great Honored Matre snapped aside and a smaller cage came sliding into the room on a hidden mechanism. This cage was square and in it stood what she thought at first was a naked man until he turned and looked at her.
Futar! It had a wide face and she saw the canines.
'Want back rub,' the Futar said.
'Yes, darling. I'll rub your back later.'
'Want eat,' the Futar said. It glared at Lucilla.
'Later, darling.'
The Futar continued to study Lucilla. 'You Handler?' it asked.
'Of course she's not a Handler!'
'Want eat,' the Futar insisted.
'Later, I said! For now, you just sit there and purr for me.'
The Futar squatted in its cage and a rumbling sound issued from its throat.
'Aren't they sweet when they purr?' Great Honored Matre obviously did not expect an answer.
The presence of the Futar puzzled Lucilla. Those things were supposed to hunt and kill Honored Matres. It was caged, though.
'Where did you capture it?' Lucilla asked.
'On Gammu.' She did not see what she had revealed.
And this is junction, Lucilla thought. She had recognized it from the lighter the evening before.
The Futar stopped purring. 'Eat,' it grumbled.
Lucilla would have liked something to eat. They had not fed her in three days and she was forced to suppress hunger pangs. Small sips of water from a literjon left in the cage helped but that was almost empty. The servants who had brought her had laughed at her request for food. 'Futars like lean meat!'
It was the absence of melange that plagued her most. She had begun to feel the first withdrawal pains that morning.
I shall have to kill myself soon.
The Lampadas horde pleaded for her to endure. Be brave. What if that wild Reverend Mother fails us?
Spider Queen. That is what Odrade calls this woman.
Great Honored Matre continued to study her, hand to chin. It was a weak chin. In a face without positive features, the negative attracted the gaze.
'You will lose in the end, you know,' Great Honored Matre said.
'Whistling past the graveyard,' Lucilla said and then had to explain the expression.
There was a polite show of interest on Great Honored Matre's face. How interesting.
'Any of my aides would have killed you immediately for saying that. This is one of the reasons we are alone. I am curious why you would say such a thing?'
Lucilla glanced at the squatting Futar. 'Futars did not occur overnight. They were genetically created from wild animal stock for one purpose.'
