'Are you all right, Dar?' Tam spoke with concern.
Odrade waved her away but neither woman moved.
Things were happening in her mind that could not be blamed on the long hours and insufficient rest. This was not the first time she had felt she worked in alien surroundings. The previous night while eating a snack at this table, the surface littered with assignment orders as it was now, she had found herself just sitting and staring at uncompleted work.
Which Sisters could be spared from what posts for this terrible Scattering? How could they improve survival chances of the few sandtrout the Scattered Sisters took? What was a proper allotment of melange? Should they wait before sending more Sisters into the unknown? Wait for the possibility that Scytale could be induced to tell them how axlotl tanks produced the spice?
Odrade recalled that the alien feeling had occurred to her as she chewed on a sandwich. She had looked at it, opening it slightly. What is this thing I'm eating? Chicken liver and onions on some of the best Chapterhouse bread.
Questioning her own routines, that was part of this alien sensation.
'You look ill,' Bellonda said.
'Just fatigue,' Odrade lied. They knew she was lying but would they challenge her? 'You both must be equally tired.' Affection in her tone.
Bell was not satisfied. 'You set a bad example!'
'What? Me?' The jesting was not lost on Bell.
'You know damned well you do!'
'It's your displays of affection,' Tamalane said.
'Even for Bell.'
'I don't want your damned affection! It's wrong.'
'Only if I let it rule my decisions, Bell. Only then.'
Bellonda's voice fell to a husky whisper. 'Some think you're a dangerous romantic, Dar. You know what that could do.'
'Ally Sisters with me for other than our survival. Is that what you mean?'
'Sometimes you give me a headache, Dar!'
'It's my duty and right to give you a headache. When your head fails to ache, you become careless. Affections bother you but hates don't.'
'I know my flaw.'
You couldn't be a Reverend Mother and not know it.
The workroom once more had become a familiar place but now Odrade knew a source of her alien feelings. She was thinking of this place as part of ancient history, viewing it as she might when it was long gone. As it certainly would be if her plan succeeded. She knew what she had to do now. Time to reveal the first step.
Careful.
Yes, Tar, I'm as cautious as you were.
Tam and Bell might be old but their minds were sharp when necessity required it.
Odrade fixed her gaze on Bell. 'Patterns, Bell. It is our pattern not to offer violence for violence.' Raising a hand to stop Bell's response. 'Yes, violence builds more violence and the pendulum swings until the violent ones are shattered.'
'What are you thinking?' Tam demanded.
'Perhaps we should consider baiting the bull more strongly.'
'We dare not. Not yet.'
'But we also dare not sit here witlessly waiting for them to find us. Lampadas and our other disasters tell us what will happen when they come. When, not if'
As she spoke, Odrade sensed the chasm beneath her, the nightmare hunter with the axe ever nearer. She wanted to sink into the nightmare, turning there to identify the one who stalked them, but dared not. That had been the mistake of the Kwisatz Haderach.
You do not see that future, you create it.
Tamalane wanted to know why Odrade raised this issue. 'Have you changed your mind, Dar?'
'Our ghola-Teg is ten years old.'
'Much too young for us to attempt restoring his original memories,' Bellonda said.
'Why have we recreated Teg if not for violent uses?' Odrade asked. 'Oh, yes!' As Tam started to object. 'Teg did not always solve our problems with violence. The peaceful Bashar could deflect enemies with reasonable words.'
Tam spoke musingly. 'But Honored Matres may never negotiate.'
'Unless we can drive them to extremis.'
'I think you are proposing to move too fast,' Bellonda said. Trust Bell to reach a Mentat summation.
Odrade drew in a deep breath and looked down at her worktable. It had come at last. On that morning when she had removed the baby ghola from his obscene 'tank,' she had sensed this moment waiting for her. Even then she had known she would put this ghola into the crucible before his time. Ties of blood notwithstanding.
Reaching beneath her table, Odrade touched a call field. Her two councillors stood silently waiting. They knew she was about to say something important. One thing a Mother Superior could be sure of - her Sisters listened to her with great care, with an intensity that would have gratified someone more ego-bound than a Reverend Mother.
'Politics,' Odrade said.
That snapped them to attention! A loaded word. When you entered Bene Gesserit politics, marshaling your powers for the rise to eminence, you became a prisoner of responsibility. You saddled yourself with duties and decisions that bound you to the lives of those who depended on you. This was what really tied the Sisterhood to their Mother Superior. That one word told councillors and the watchdogs the First-Among-Equals had reached a decision.
They all heard the small scuffling sound of someone arriving outside the workroom door. Odrade touched the white plate in the near right corner of her table. The door behind her opened and Streggi stood there awaiting the Mother Superior's orders.
'Bring him,' Odrade said.
'Yes, Mother Superior.' Almost emotionless. A very promising acolyte, that Streggi.
She stepped out of sight and returned leading Miles Teg by the hand. The boy's hair was quite blond but streaked with darker lines that said the light coloration would go dark when he matured. His face was narrow, nose just beginning to show that hawkish angularity so characteristic of Atreides males. His blue eyes moved alertly taking in room and occupants with expectant curiosity.
'Wait outside, please, Streggi.'
Odrade waited for the door to close.
The boy stood looking at Odrade with no sign of impatience.
'Miles Teg, ghola,' Odrade said. 'You remember Tamalane and Bellonda, of course.'
He favored the two women with a short glance but remained silent, apparently unmoved by the intensity of their inspection.
Tamalane frowned. She had disagreed from the first with calling this child a ghola. Gholas were grown from cells of a cadaver. This was a clone, just as Scytale was a clone.
'I am going to send him into the no-ship with Duncan and Murbella,' Odrade said. 'Who better than Duncan to restore Miles to his original memories?'
'Poetic justice,' Bellonda agreed. She did not speak her objections although Odrade knew they would come out when the boy had gone. Too young!
'What does she mean, poetic justice?' Teg asked. His voice had a piping quality.
'When the Bashar was on Gammu, he restored Duncan's original memories.'
'Is it really painful?'
'Duncan found it so.'
Some decisions must be ruthless.
Odrade thought that a great barrier to accepting the fact that you could make your own decisions. Something
