details, of the placement of seated and standing women. After activating the receiving hall's sound system with a wave of her hand, Murbella spoke into a microphone that dropped on a suspensor and hovered in front of her face. 'I am unlike any leader the Sisterhood or the Honored Matres have ever had. It is not my purpose to please everyone, but instead to forge an army that has a chance—however slight—of survival. Our survival. We cannot afford the time for gradual changes.'
'Can we afford changes at all?' grumbled one Honored Matre. 'I cannot see how they have benefited us.'
'That is because you cannot see. Will you open your eyes, or congratulate yourself on your blindness?' The other woman's eyes flashed, though the orange flecks had long ago gone away from the lack of orange spice substitute.
Just behind her, a Bene Gesserit Sister arrived late. She approached along a narrow aisle, scanning the area around her as if searching for her seat. But every woman knew her assigned place. The latecomer should not be going in that direction.
Watching with peripheral vision as she spoke, Murbella gave no sign that she had noticed anything amiss. The dark-haired and high-cheekboned woman looked unfamiliar. Not someone I know.
She kept her gaze forward, internally counting the seconds as she mentally mapped the newcomer's approach. Then, without looking back, using the full reflexes wired into her from both Honored Matre and Bene Gesserit training, Murbella sprang to her feet. With breathtaking speed, she spun in the air to face the woman. Before her feet could touch the floor again, the Mother Commander bent backward, just as the attacker moved in a blur, pulling something from the pocket of her robe and slashing out in a single fluid motion. Milky white and crystalline-sharp—an ancient crysknife!
Murbella's muscular responses bypassed conscious thought. She dipped with one flattened hand, avoiding the tip of the plunging crysknife and drove upward to strike the wrist. A thin bone popped with a sound like dry wood breaking. The would-be assassin's fingers opened, and the crysknife began to fall, but so slowly it seemed to hang suspended, like a feather. When the woman raised her other arm to fend off a second blow, Murhella hit her with a smashing punch to the throat, crushing her larynx before she could cry out.
As Murbella's adversary collapsed, the crysknife clattered to the floor, its blade shattering. A dim part of Murbella's mind was pleased to see both Sisters and Honored Matres leap from their cushions, instinctively jumping up to aid the Mother Commander in case the coup attempt was more widespread. In their motions, she recognized truth, just as she had seen the lies in the motions of the would-be assassin.
Both fat Bellonda and wiry Doria pounced on the fallen woman, holding her down. Now those two worked together! Still on her feet, Murhella scanned the large room and catalogued the faces, assuring herself that there were no interlopers present and no threats.
Though the lone attacker thrashed, trying to breathe, or maybe forcing herself to die, Bellonda pressed the woman's throat, opening her air passage to keep her alive. Doria roared for a Suk doctor.
The broken crysknife lay on the floor by the writhing woman. Murhella assessed it with a glance and understood. Traditional weapon… ancient ways. The symbolism of the gesture was clear.
Murbella used Voice, hoping the injured woman was too weak to use standard defenses against the command. 'Who are you? Speak!'
With cracked and broken words rattling through her damaged throat, the woman forced out her answer. She seemed glad to do so and wildly defiant. 'I am your future. Others like me will emerge from shadows, drop from ceilings, come at you out of thin air.
One of us will get you!
'Why do you wish to kill me?' The other Bene Gesserits in the audience had fallen into an utter hush, straining to hear the attacker's words.
'Because of what you did to the Sisterhood.' The woman managed to turn her head toward Doria as a symbol of the Honored Matres. If she'd had the strength, she might have spat. 'As Mother Commander you raise the alarm about an Outside Enemy, while you welcome real enemies into our midst. Fool!'
Scowling grimly, Bellonda provided the attacker's name after ransacking her Mentat mind. 'She is Sister Osafa Chram. One of the orchard workers, a new arrival from across the planet.'
A Bene Gesserit has tried to kill me. No longer was it just the power-hungry Honored Matres who sought to seize her position of power.
'Sheeana was right to flee… and leave the rest of us to rot here!' Looking up at the Sisters, then giving a final glare at Murbella, Osafa Chram summoned the necessary courage and willed herself to die.
As the assassin began her final spasms, Murbella shouted, 'Bellonda! Share with her! We must discover what she knows! How widespread is this conspiracy?'
The Reverend Mother reacted with unexpected speed and grace, slapping her hands to the woman's temples and pressing their foreheads together. 'She resists me even with her dying breath! Not letting her thoughts flow.'
Bellonda winced, then withdrew. 'She's gone.'
Doria leaned closer and grimaced. 'Smell that. Shere, and lots of it. She's made sure we can't even use a mechanical probe to pry loose her thoughts.'
The gathered Sisters murmured uneasily. Murbella wondered if she needed to subject everyone to Truthsayer interrogation. A thousand of them! And if this Bene Gesserit Sister had tried to kill the Mother Commander, could Murbella trust even her Truthsayers?
Marshaling her concentration, she gave a dismissive wave toward the dead woman on the floor. 'Remove that. Everyone else, resume your seats. A gathering is serious business, and we have fallen behind schedule.'
'We're with you, Mother Commander!' a young woman shouted from the audience.
Murbella couldn't tell who said it.
Doria quietly returned to her seat, watching Murbella with grudging respect.
Some of the former Honored Matres in the audience were clearly surprised—some smug, others indignant— that a knife blade could have come from the coldly pacifistic Bene Gesserits.
Murbella gave no more than an annoyed glance as women hustled away with the bundled body of the dead woman. 'I have fended off assassination attempts before. We have important work to do here, and we must quash these petty rebellions among us, erasing all vestiges of our past conflicts.'
'For that, we would need collective amnesia,' Bellonda snorted. A thin wave of laughter spread through the room, and dissipated quickly.
'I will force it upon you,' Murbella said with a glare, 'no matter how many heads I have to knock together.'
5
The fabric of the universe is connected by threads of thought and tangled alliances. Others may glimpse parts of the pattern, but only we can decipher all of it. We can use that information to form a deadly net in which to trap our enemies.
An insistent communication seized Khrone through the tachyon net as the Guildship departed Tleilax, where he had secretly inspected the progress of the new ghola in its axlotl tank.
His lackey Uxtal had indeed implanted an embryo made from the cells hidden in the burned body of the Tleilaxu Master. So, the Lost Tleilaxu was not completely incompetent. The mysterious child was growing even now. And if the ghola's identity was as Khrone suspected, the possibilities were interesting, indeed.
A year ago, Khrone had deposited Uxtal in Bandalong with strict orders, and the terrified researcher had obeyed in every way. A Face Dancer replica might have been adequate to the task, given a clear enough mental imprinting of Uxtal's knowledge, but the squirming assistant had been performing with an edge of desperation that no Face Dancer could match. Ah, the predictable instinct of humans to survive. It could easily be used against
