Heretics of Dune
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Odrade put down feelings of sympathy. Sheeana was like herself as a young girl, in so many ways. She had that globular intellect which expanded on all surfaces the way a balloon expanded when filled. Odrade recalled how her own teachers had been admiring of this, but wary, just the way Taraza was now wary. Odrade had recognized this wariness while even younger than Sheeana and held no doubts that Sheeana saw it here. Intellect had its uses.
"Mmmmmm," Taraza said.
Odrade heard the humming sound of the Mother Superior's internal reflections as part of a simulflow. Odrade's own memory had surged backward. The Sisters who had brought Odrade her food when she studied late had always loitered to observe her in their special way, just as Sheeana was watched and monitored at all times. Odrade had known about those special ways of observing from an early age. That was, after all, one of the great lures of the Bene Gesserit. You wanted to be capable of such esoteric abilities. Sheeana certainly possessed this desire. It was the dream of every postulant.
That such things might be possible for me!
Taraza spoke finally: "What is it you think you want from us, child?"
"The same things you thought you wanted when you were my age, Mother Superior."
Odrade suppressed a smile. Sheeana's wild sense of independence had skated close to insolence there and Taraza certainly recognized this.
"You think that is a proper use for the gift of life?" Taraza asked.
"It is the only use I know, Mother Superior."
"Your candor is appreciated but I warn you to be careful in your use of it," Taraza said.
"Yes, Mother Superior."
"You already owe us much and you will owe us more," Taraza said. "Remember that. Our gifts do not come cheaply."
Sheeana has not the vaguest appreciation of what she will pay for our gifts, Odrade thought.
The Sisterhood never let its initiates forget what they owed and must repay. You did not repay with love. Love was dangerous and Sheeana already was learning this. The gift of life? A shudder began to course through Odrade and she cleared her throat to compensate.
Am I alive? Perhaps when they took me away from Mama Sibia I died. I was alive there in that house but did I live after the Sisters removed me?
Taraza said: "You may leave us now, Sheeana."
Sheeana turned on one heel and left the room but not before Odrade saw the tight smile on the young face. Sheeana knew she had passed the Mother Superior's examination.
When the door closed behind Sheeana, Taraza said: "You mentioned her natural ability with Voice. I heard it, of course. Remarkable."
"She kept it well bridled," Odrade said. "She has learned not to try it on us."
"What do we have there, Dar?"
"Perhaps someday a Mother Superior of extraordinary abilities."
"Not too extraordinary?"
"We will have to see."
"Do you think she is capable of killing for us?"
Odrade was startled and showed it. "Now?"
"Yes, of course."
"The ghola?"
"Teg would not do it," Taraza said. "I even have doubts about Lucilla. Their reports make it clear that he is capable of forging powerful bonds of... of affinity."
"Even as I?"
"Schwangyu herself was not completely immune."
"Where is the noble purpose in such an act?" Odrade asked. "Isn't this what the Tyrant's warning has -"
"Him? He killed many times!"
"And paid for it."
"We pay for everything we take, Dar."
"Even for a life?"
"Never forget for one instant, Dar, that a Mother Superior is capable of making any necessary decision for the Sisterhood's survival!"
"So be it," Odrade said. "Take what you want and pay for it."
It was the proper reply but it reinforced the new strength Odrade felt, this freedom to respond in her own way within a new universe. Where had such toughness originated? Was it something out of her cruel Bene Gesserit conditioning? Was it from her Atreides ancestry? She did not try to fool herself that this came from a decision never again to follow another's moral guidance rather than her own. This inner stability upon which she now stationed herself was not a pure morality. Not bravado, either. Those were never enough.
"You are very like your father," Taraza said. "Usually, it's the dam who provides most of the courage but this time I think it was the father."
"Miles Teg is admirably courageous but I think you oversimplify," Odrade said.
"Perhaps I do. But I have been right about you at every turn, Dar, even back there when we were student postulants."
She knows! Odrade thought.
"We don't need to explain it," Odrade said. And she thought: It comes from being born who I am, trained and shaped the way I was... the way we both were: Dar and Tar.
"It's something in the Atreides line that we have not fully analyzed," Taraza said.
"No genetic accidents?"
"I sometimes wonder if we've suffered any real accidents since the Tyrant," Taraza said.
"Did he stretch out back there in his citadel and look across the millennia to this very moment?"
"How far back would you reach for the roots?" Taraza asked.
Odrade said: "What really happens when a Mother Superior commands the Breeding Mistresses: 'Have that one go breed with that one'?"
Taraza produced a cold smile.
Odrade felt herself suddenly at the crest of a wave, awareness pushing all of her over into this new realm. Taraza wants my rebellion! She wants me as her opponent!
"Will you see Waff now?" Odrade asked.
"First, I want your assessment of him."
"He sees us as the ultimate tool to create the 'Tleilaxu Ascendancy.' We are God's gift to his people."
"They have been waiting a long time for this," Taraza said. "To dissemble so carefully, all of them for all of those eons!"