Murbella walked with Janess—now Reverend Mother Janess—through the stony remnants of the dying gardens around the Keep. They stood by the rocky bed of a dry stream, all the moisture stolen by the dramatically changing climate of Chapterhouse. The polished stones were a poignant reminder of the fast-flowing water that had once rushed along this channel.
'You are my lieutenant now, no longer my daughter.' She knew her words must sound harsh to the young woman, but Janess did not flinch. Both of them understood that from now on an appropriate emotional separation had to be maintained, that Murbella must be Mother Commander, not mother. 'Both the Bene Gesserits and the Honored Matres have tried to prohibit love, but they can only prohibit the expression of it, not the thought or emotion. Mother Superior Odrade was called a heretic among her Sisters because she believed in the power of love.'
'I understand, Mother… Commander. Each of us must give up something for the sake of the new order.'
'I shall teach you to swim by hurling you into the raging waters, a metaphor that I fear will not be relevant here much longer. I am counting on you to advance more quickly than either of our factions. It has taken six years of struggle, dragging both sides toward the center, for the women to learn to live with each other. Fundamental change may take generations, but we have made great strides.'
'Duncan Idaho called it 'compromise by swordpoint,'' Janess quoted.
Murbella raised her eyebrows. 'Did he?'
'I can show you the historical record, if you like.'
'An apt description. The New Sisterhood is not yet the smoothly running machine I had hoped for, but I have convinced the Sisters to stop killing each other. Most of them, at least.'
She thought quickly of Janess's old nemesis, Caree Debrak, who had disappeared from the student bungalows only days before she'd been scheduled to undergo the Agony; Caree had renounced the conversion as brainwashing and slipped away into the night. Few of the Sisters would miss her.
'Under normal circumstances,' Murbella continued, 'I could overlook the fact that some Honored Matres don't accept my rule. Freedom of discourse and the airing of opposing philosophies. But not now.'
Janess drew herself straight, showing that she was ready for her assignment.
'Renegade Honored Matres still control much of Gammu and a dozen other worlds.
They have seized the soostone operations on Buzzell and gathered their most powerful forces on Tleilax.'
Over the past year, the Mother Commander had assembled a force of Sisters and vigorously trained them in the combined fighting techniques of Honored Matres and Bene Gesserits. The bond between the two factions was best forged in the crucible of personal combat. 'Now it is time to give my trainees a target.'
'Stop training and start fighting,' Janess said.
'Another quote from Duncan?'
'Not that I'm aware of… but I think he'd agree with the sentiment.'
Murbella smiled wryly. 'Yes, he probably would. If the renegades will not join us, they must be eliminated. I will not have them slip knives into our backs when we are concentrating on real battles.'
'They have had years to entrench themselves, and they will not fall without a terrific battle.'
Murbella nodded. 'Of more immediate concern is the enclave of dissidents right here on Chapterhouse. It hurts me like a splinter in my hand. In the best case, it causes troublesome pain; in the worst, it festers and spreads an infection. Either way, the splinter must be removed.'
Janess narrowed her eyes. 'Yes, they are much too close to home. Even if the Chapterhouse dissidents do nothing overt against us, they demonstrate a weakness to outside observers. The situation brings to mind another wise observation from Duncan Idaho's first life. In a report he submitted when he lived among the Fremen on Dune, he said, 'A leak in a qanat is a slow but fatal weakness. Finding the leak, and plugging it, is a difficult task, but it must be done for the survival of all.''
The Mother Commander was both proud and amused. 'In citing so many of Duncan's writings, do not forget to think for yourself. Then someday others will begin quoting you.' Her daughter wrestled with that idea, then nodded. Murbella continued. 'You will help me plug the leak in the qanat, Janess.'
THE BASHAR OF the New Sisterhood's main forces, Wikki Aztin, devoted her time and her best resources to training Janess for her first tough assignment.
Wikki had a ready sense of humor and a story for every occasion. A stooped and narrow-faced woman of uncommon energy, she suffered from a congenital heart defect that prevented her from attempting the Agony; thus, Wikki had never become a Reverend Mother. Instead, she was assigned to the Sisterhood's military operations, where she had risen through the ranks.
Outside the Mother Commander's shelter in the isolated training fields, spotlights illuminated the attack 'thopters Janess was preparing for their vigorous assault the following day.
Housecleaning, Murbella called it. These rebels had betrayed her. Unlike outsiders who had never heard the Sisterhood's teachings, or misguided women who did not know the threat of the oncoming Enemy. Murbella hated the Honored Matre holdouts on Buzzell, Gammu, and Tleilax, but those women didn't know any better. These dissidents, however—she considered their betrayal far worse. It was a personal affront.
When Janess was out of earshot, tending to her duties, Murbella came up to stand with the bashar. Wikki said, 'Did you know that some of the Sisters are betting against your pup, Mother Commander?'
'I suspected as much. They feel I gave her too much responsibility too soon after becoming a Reverend Mother, but it's only making her work harder.'
'I've seen her digging in with a new resolve, trying to prove them wrong.
She's got your spirit, and she reveres Duncan Idaho. With all eyes on her, she looks forward to an opportunity to shine, to set an example for others.' Wikki looked out into the night. 'You sure you don't want me to come along on the assault tomorrow? This engagement is close to home, small but important. A real exercise would be… gratifying.'
'I need you to stay here and watch things. While I'm away from the Keep, someone could attempt a coup.'
'I thought you had gotten them to settle their differences.'
'It is an unstable equilibrium.' Murbella sighed. 'Sometimes, I wish the real Enemy would just attack us—and force those women to all fight on the same side.'
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Murbella and her squadron took off. Janess rode with her in the lead 'thopter as they flew over the surface of the planet. Despite her training, and the confidence her mother placed in her, Janess was still a green lieutenant, not yet ready to assume command.
After turning a reluctant blind eye to them for several years, the Mother Commander could no longer tolerate deserters and malcontents. Even in the remote regions, the settlement was too great a weak spot, a magnet for potential saboteurs as well as a possible foothold for a larger force of renegade Honored Matres from elsewhere.
Murbella had no doubts about what she had to do, and no sympathy. Because the New Sisterhood was desperate for competent fighters, she would invite the deserters back into the fold, but she did not have high hopes that any of them would accept. As cowards and complainers, these women had already shown their true colors. She wondered what Duncan would have done in a situation like this.
As the squadron approached the reported location of the encampment, Janess reported that she had picked up heat and transmission signatures. Without prompting, she ordered all of the aircraft to activate their shields, in case the rebels fired at them with weapons stolen from the Chapterhouse armories.
When Janess and her tactical officers scanned the area in their initial high-altitude sweep, however, they found no competing aircraft or military equipment in the vicinity, just a few hundred lightly armed women trying to hide in the thick conifer forests below. Although patches of snow made for wide variances in the thermal map of the area, the human bodies stood out like bonfires.
Converting the image to optical, Murbella panned across the deserters, many of whom she recognized; some had been gone for years, even before she had executed one of their vocal proponents, Annine.
She addressed the rebels below over the 'thopter's booming loudspeaker. 'This is Mother Commander
