sand. She wore no still-suit as she had done as a little girl. Her legs and arms were bare. Free. She felt the sandy grains pressing against the skin of her arms and legs. Dust clung to the prickles of perspiration from her pores. With the soft dust all around her, she imagined what it would be like to be one of the sandworms in the wild, plunging beneath the surface like a big fish in a great arid sea.
Sheeana got to her feet as the first three worms arrived. She picked up the empty spice-gathering basket from where she had set it and stood to face the sinuous creatures. They extended their round heads, their mouths glittering with crystal teeth and tiny flickers of flame fueled by an inner friction furnace.
The original worms of Arrakis had been aggressively territorial. After the God Emperor went 'back into the sand,' each of the new worms he spawned contained a pearl of his awareness, and they could work together when they wished to do so.
She cocked her head and lifted her sealed basket to show them. 'I have come to gather spice, Shaitan.' Long ago, the priests on Rakis had been horrified to hear her speak thus to their Divided God.
Unafraid, Sheeana walked between their ringed bodies, as if they were only towering trees. She and the sandworms had always had an understanding. Few others aboard the no-ship dared to enter the hold now that the creatures had grown so large. Sheeana was the only one who could gather natural spice from the sands, some of which she added to the much greater supply of fresh melange created in the ship's axlotl tanks.
Sniffing, she followed the scent to where a fresh cinnamony bloom might be found. Children from her village had done the same thing long ago. The fragments of windblown melange they scavenged from the dunes helped to buy supplies and tools. Now that whole way of life was gone, as was Rakis itself… Inside her head, the fascinating and ancient voice of Serena Butler once again bubbled up from deep within her Other Memories. Sheeana carried on her conversation aloud. 'Tell me one thing: How can Serena Butler be among my ancestors?' If you dig deep enough, I am there. Ancestor after ancestor, generation after generation…
Sheeana was not so easily convinced. 'But Serena Butler's only child was murdered by thinking machines. That was the trigger of the Jihad. You had no heirs, no other descendants. How can you be in my Other Memories, regardless of how far back I go?'
She looked up at the strange forms of the sandworms, as if the martyred woman's face might be there.
Because, Serena said, I am. The ancient voice said no more, and Sheeana knew she would get no better answer.
Brushing past the nearest worm, Sheeana stroked one of the hard, encrusted ring segments. She sensed that these worms dreamed of freedom, too, longing to find a great open landscape through which they could burrow, where they could claim their own territory, fight battles of dominance, and propagate.
Day by day, Sheeana observed them from the viewing gallery above. She saw the worms circling the hold, testing their boundaries, knowing that they must wait… wait! Just like the Futars pacing in their arboretum, or the refugee Bene Gesserits and Jews, or Duncan Idaho, Miles Teg, and the ghola children.
They were all trapped here, caught in the odyssey. There must be someplace safe where they could go.
Finding a rusty blotch on the sand, she stooped to brush fresh melange into her impermeable basket. The worms produced only small amounts of melange, but because it was fresh and genuine, Sheeana kept much of it for her own uses.
Though the axlotl-produced spice was chemically identical, she preferred the close connection to the sandworms, even if it was all in her imagination. Like Serena Butler? Or Sayyadina Ramallo?
The worms passed her and began to plow their great bodies through the sand.
Sheeana bent to gather more spice.
INSIDE THE MEDICAL center — torture chamber, more like! — the Rabbi knelt beside the gross female form and prayed, as he did so often.
'May our Ancient God bless and forgive you, Rebecca.' Though she was brain dead and her body no longer resembled the woman he had known, he insisted on using her given name. She had said she would be dreaming, living among those myriad lives within her. Was it true? Despite what he saw and smelled in this chamber of horrors, he would remember who she had been and honor her.
Ten years as a tank! 'Mother of monsters. Why did you allow them to do this, daughter?' And now, with the ghola project on hiatus, her body no longer even served the purpose for which she had sacrificed it. What a terrible thing.
Her naked abdomen, adorned with tubes and monitors, was no longer swollen, but he had seen her several times as a mound carrying a pregnancy so unnatural that even God must turn his eyes from it. Rebecca and the other two Bene Gesserit women who had volunteered to become such horrors lay on sterile beds.
Axlotl tanks! Even the name sounded unnatural, stripped of all humanity.
For years these 'tanks' had produced gholas; now they simply secreted chemical precursors that were processed into melange. Their bodies had become nothing more than detestable factories. The women were maintained with a constant stream of fluids, nutrients, and catalysts.
'Is any goal worth such a price?' the Rabbi whispered, not sure if he was beseeching the Almighty in prayer or asking Rebecca directly. In either event, he received no answer.
With a shudder, he let his fingers touch Rebecca's belly. The Bene Gesserit doctors had often scolded him, telling him not to touch 'the tank.' But, though he despised what Rebecca had done to herself, he would never harm her.
He was resigned to the fact that he could no longer save her, either.
The Rabbi had looked in on the ghola children. They seemed innocent enough, but he was not fooled. He knew why these genetically ancient babies had been born, and he wanted no part of such an insidious plan.
He heard someone arrive in the humming silence of the medical chamber and looked up to see a bearded man. Quiet, intelligent, and competent, Jacob had taken it upon himself to watch over the Rabbi, as Rebecca had once done. 'I knew I would find you here, Rabbi.' His expression was stern and scolding—one the old man himself might have used when he disapproved of someone else's behavior. 'We have been waiting for you. It is time.'
The Rabbi glanced at a chronometer and realized how late it was. According to their calculations and the habits they followed, this was sunset on Friday, time to begin the twenty-four hours of Shabbat. He would say the prayers in their makeshift synagogue; he would read Psalm 29 from the original text (not the horribly bastardized version in the Orange Catholic Bible), and then his small group would sing.
Preoccupied with his prayers and wrestling with his conscience, the old man had lost track of time. 'Yes, Jacob. I am coming. I'm sorry.'
The other man took the Rabbi by the arm and helped him along, though he needed no assistance. Jacob leaned closer and reached out to brush unexpected tear streaks from the older man's cheeks. 'You are crying, Rabbi.'
The old man glanced back at what had once been a vibrant woman, Rebecca. He stopped for a long, uncertain moment, and then permitted his companion to lead him from the medical chamber.
4
Soostones: Highly valued jewels produced by the abraded carapace of a monoped sea creature, the cholister, found only on Buzzell. Soostones absorb rainbows of color, depending upon the touch of flesh or how light falls on them.
Because of their high value and portability, the small and perfectly round stones-like melange—are used as hard currency, especially in times of economic turmoil and social upheaval.
With the smell of salt air around her — so different from the Chapterhouse desert! — Mother Commander Murbella surveyed the continuing operations on Buzzell. In the past year, Reverend Mother Corysta had sent the New Sisterhood many shipments of soostones, which covered other expenses while the spice production was devoted to paying for the armaments Richese had begun to produce. Murbella had distributed her spies widely,
