Even the way they conveyed food to their mouths said something. Where did the eyes go as the chopsticks progressed mouthward? Was it a quick stab and a rapid chew before a convulsive swallow? That was a one to watch. She was brewing upsets. And that thoughtful one over there who looked at each mouthful as though wondering how they hid the poison in such slop? A creative mind behind those eyes. Test her for a more sensitive position.
Odrade entered the hall.
The floor had a large checkerboard pattern, black and white plaz, virtually unscratchable. Acolytes said the pattern was for Reverend Mothers to use as a game board: "Place one of us here and another over there and some along that central line. Move them thus--winner take all."
Odrade took a seat near the corner of a table beside the western windows. The acolytes made room for her, their movements quietly unobtrusive.
This hall was part of the oldest construction on Chapterhouse. Built of wood with clear-span beams overhead, enormously thick and heavy things finished in dull black. They were some twenty-five meters long without a joint. Somewhere on Chapterhouse there was a grove of genetically tailored oaks reaching up to sunlight in their carefully tended plantations. Trees going up thirty meters at least without a limb, and more than two meters through the boles. They had been planted when this hall was built, replacements for these beams when age weakened them. Nineteen hundred SY the beams were supposed to endure.
How carefully the acolytes around her watched Mother Superior without ever appearing to look directly at her.
Odrade turned her head to peer out the western windows at the sunset. Dust again. The spreading intrusion from the desert inflamed the setting sun and set it glowing like a distant ember that might explode into uncontrollable fire at any instant.
Odrade suppressed a sigh. Thoughts such as these recreated her nightmare: the chasm ... the tightrope. She knew if she closed her eyes she would feel herself swaying on the rope. The hunter with the axe was nearer!
Acolytes eating close by stirred nervously as though they sensed her disquiet. Perhaps they did. Odrade heard the movement of fabrics and this dragged her out of her nightmare. She had become sensitized to a new note in the sounds of Central. There was a grating noise behind the most commonplace movements--that chair being shifted behind her ... and the opening of that kitchen door. Rasping grit. Cleaning crews complained of sand and "the damnable dust."
Odrade stared out the window at the source of that irritation: wind from the south. A dull haze, something between tan and earth brown, drew a curtain across the horizon. After the wind, dustings of its deposits would be found in building corners and on lee sides of hills. There was a flinty aroma to it, something alkaline that irritated the nostrils.
She looked down at the table as a serving acolyte placed her meal in front of her.
Odrade found herself enjoying this change from quick meals in her workroom and private dining room. When she ate alone up there, acolytes brought food so quietly and cleared away with such silent efficiency that sometimes she was surprised to find everything gone. Here, dining was bustle and conversation. In her quarters, Chef Duana might come in clucking, "You are not eating enough." Odrade generally heeded such admonitions. Watchdogs had their uses.
Tonight's meal was sligpork in a sauce of soy and molasses, minimal melange, a touch of basil and lemon. Fresh green beans cooked al dente with peppers. Dark red grape juice to drink. She took a bite of sligpork with anticipation and found it passable, a bit overcooked for her taste. Acolyte chefs had not missed it by much.
Then why this feeling of too many such meals?
She swallowed and hypersensitivity identified additives. This food was not here just to replenish Mother Superior's energy. Someone in the kitchen had asked for her day's nutrition list and adjusted this plate accordingly.
Food is a trap, she thought. More addictions. She did not like the cunning ways Chapterhouse chefs concealed things they put in the food "for the good of the diners." They knew, of course, that a Reverend Mother could identify ingredients and adjust metabolism within her limits. They were watching her right now, wondering how Mother Superior would judge tonight's menu.
As she ate, she listened to the other diners. None intruded on her--not physically or vocally. Sounds returned almost to what they had been before her entrance. Waggling tongues always changed their tone slightly when she entered and resumed at lower volume.
An unspoken question lay in all of those busy minds around her: Why is she here tonight?
Odrade sensed quiet awe in some nearby diners, a reaction Mother Superior sometimes employed to her advantage. Awe with an edge on it. Acolytes whispered among themselves (so the Proctors reported), "She has Taraza." They meant Odrade possessed her late predecessor as Primary. The two of them were a historical pair, required study for postulants.
Dar and Tar, already a legend.
Even Bellonda (dear old vicious Bell) came at Odrade obliquely because of this. Few frontal attacks, very little blaring in her accusatory arguments. Taraza was credited with saving the Sisterhood. That silenced much opposition. Taraza had said Honored Matres were essentially barbarians and their violence, although not totally deflectable, could be guided into bloody displays. Events had more or less verified this.
Correct up to a point, Tar. None of us anticipated the extent of their violence.
Taraza's classical veronica (how apt the bullring image) had aimed the Honored Matres into such episodes of carnage that the universe was mordant with potential supporters of their brutalized victims.
How do I defend us?
It was not so much that defensive plans were inadequate. They could become irrelevant.
That, of course, is what I seek. We must be purified and made ready for a supreme effort.
Bellonda had sneered at that idea. "For our demise? Is that why we must be purified?"
Bellonda would be ambivalent when she discovered what Mother Superior planned. Bellonda-vicious would applaud. Bellonda-Mentat would argue for delay "until a more propitious moment."
But I will seek my own peculiar way despite what my Sisters think.
And many Sisters thought Odrade quite the strangest Mother Superior they had ever accepted. Elevated more with the left hand than with the right. Taraza Primary. I was there when you died, Tar. No one else to gather your persona. Elevation by accident?
Many disapproved of Odrade. But when opposition arose, back they went to "Taraza Primary--the best Mother Superior in our history."
Amusing! Taraza Within was the quickest to laugh and ask: Why don't you tell them about my mistakes, Dar? Especially about how I misjudged you.
Odrade chewed reflectively on a bite of sligpork. I'm overdue for a visit to Sheeana. South into the desert and that soon. Sheeana must be made ready to replace Tam.
The changing landscape loomed large in Odrade's thoughts. More than fifteen hundred years of Bene Gesserit occupancy on Chapterhouse. Signs of us everywhere. Not just in special groves or vineyards and orchards. What it must be doing to the collective psyche, seeing such changes come over their familiar land.
The acolyte seated beside Odrade made a soft throat-clearing sound. Was she about to address Mother Superior? A rare occurrence. The young woman continued to eat without speaking.
Odrade's thoughts returned to the prospective journey into the desert. Sheeana must have no forewarning. I must be sure she is the one we need. There were questions for Sheeana to answer.
Odrade knew what she would find on inspection stops en route. In Sisters, in plant and animal life, in the very foundations of Chapterhouse, she would see changes gross and changes subtle, things to wrench at Mother Superior's vaunted serenity. Even Murbella, never out of the no-ship, sensed these changes.
Only that morning, seated with her back to her console, Murbella had listened with new attentiveness to Odrade standing over her. Edgy alertness in the captive Honored Matre. Her voice betrayed doubts and unbalanced judgments.
"All is transient, Mother Superior?"
"That is knowledge impressed on you by Other Memory. No planet, no land or sea, no part of any land or sea is here forever."
"A morbid thought!" Rejection.
"Wherever we stand, we are only stewards."
"A useless viewpoint." Hesitant, questioning why Mother Superior chose this moment to say such things.
"I hear Honored Matres talking through you. They gave you greedy dreams, Murbella."
"So you say!" Deeply resentful.
"Honored Matres think they can buy infinite security: a small planet, you know, with plenty of subservient population."
Murbella produced a grimace.
"More planets!" Odrade snapped. "Always more and more and more! That's why they come swarming back."
"Poor pickings in this Old Empire."
"Excellent, Murbella! You're beginning to think like one of us."
"And that makes me a nothing!"
"Neither fish nor fowl, but your own true self? Even there, you're only a steward. Beware, Murbella! If you think you own something, that's like walking on quicksand."
This got a puzzled frown. Something would have to be done about the way Murbella allowed her emotions to play so openly on her face. It was permissible here, but someday...
"So nothing is safely owned. So what!" Bitter, bitter.
"You speak some of the right words but I don't think you've yet found a place in yourself where you can endure for your lifetime."
"Until an enemy finds me and slaughters me?"
Honored Matre training clings like glue! But she spoke to Duncan the other night in a way that tells me she is ready. The Van Gogh painting, I do believe, has sensitized her. I heard it in her voice. I must review that record.
"Who would slaughter you, Murbella?"
"You'll never withstand an Honored Matre attack!"
"I've already stated the basic fact that concerns us: No place is eternally safe."
"Another of your useless damned lessons!"
In the Acolyte Hall, Odrade recalled she had not found time to review that comeye record of Duncan and Murbella. A sigh almost escaped her. She covered it with a cough. Never do to let the young women see disturbance in Mother Superior.
To the desert and Sheeana! Inspection tour as soon as I can make time for it. Time!
Again, the acolyte seated beside Odrade made that throat noise. Odrade watched peripherally--blond, short black dress trimmed in white--Intermediate Third Stage. No movement of the head toward Odrade, no sidelong glances.
This is what I will find on my inspection tour: Fears. And in the landscape, those things we always see when we run out of time: trees left uncut because woodcutters have gone--dragooned into our Scattering, gone to their graves, gone to unknown places, perhaps even to peonage. Will I see architectural Fancies becoming attractive because they are incomplete, builders departed? No. We don't go in much for Fancies.
Other Memory held examples she wished she might find: old buildings more beautiful because they were unfinished. The builder bankrupt, an owner angered at his mistress... Some things were more interesting because of that: old walls, old ruins. Time sculpture.
What would Bell say if I ordered a Fancy in my favorite orchard?
The acolyte beside Odrade said: "Mother Superior?"
Excellent! They so seldom find the courage.
"Yes?" Faint questioning. This had better be important. Would she hear?
She heard. "I intrude, Mother Superior, because of the urgency and because I know your interest in the orchards."
Superb! This acolyte had thick legs but that did not extend to her mind. Odrade stared at her silently.
"I am the one making the map for your bedchamber, Mother Superior."
So this was a reliable adept, a person trusted with work for Mother Superior. Even better.
"Will I have my map soon?"
"Two days, Mother Superior. I am adjusting projection overlays where I will mark the desert's daily growth."
A brief nod. That had been in the original order: an acolyte to keep the map current. Odrade wanted to awaken each morning, her imagination ignited by that changing view, the first thing impressed on awareness at arising.
"I put a report in your workroom this morning, Mother Superior. 'Orchard Management.'Perhaps you did not see it."
Odrade had seen only the label. She had been late coming from exercises, anxious to visit Murbella. So much depended on Murbella!
"The plantations around Central must either be abandoned or action taken to sustain them," the acolyte said. "That's the gist of the report."
"Repeat the report verbatim."
Night fell and the room lights brightened as Odrade listened. Concise. Terse even. The report carried a note of admonishment Odrade recognized as originating with Bellonda. No Archival signature but Weather's warnings went through Archives and this acolyte had lifted some of the original words.
The acolyte fell silent, report concluded.
How do I respond? Orchards, pastures and vineyards were not merely a buffer against alien intrusions, pleasant decorations on the landscape. They supported Chapterhouse morale and tables.
They support my morale.
How quietly this acolyte waited. Curly blond hair and round face. Pleasing countenance, though the mouth was wide. Food remained on her plate but she was not eating. Hands folded in her lap. I am here to serve you, Mother Superior.
While Odrade composed her response, memory intruded--an old incident simulflowing over immediate observations. She remembered her ornithopter training course. Two acolyte students with instructor at midday high over the wetlands of
Lampadas. She had been paired with as inept an acolyte as could have been accepted by the Sisterhood. Obviously a gene-choice. The Breeding Mistresses wanted her for a characteristic to be passed along to offspring. It certainly wasn't emotional balance or intelligence! Odrade remembered the name: Linchine.
Linchine had shouted at their instructor: "I am going to fly this damned 'thopter!"
And all the while a whirling sky and landscape of trees and marshy lakeshore dizzied them. That was how it seemed: us stationary and the world moving. Linchine doing the wrong thing every time. Each movement created worse gyrations.
The instructor cut her out of the system by pulling the disconnect only he could reach. He did not speak until they were flying straight and level.
"No way are you ever going to fly this, lady. Not ever! You don't have the right reactions. You have to begin training those into someone like you before puberty."
"I am! I am! I'll fly this damned thing." Hands jerking at the useless controls.
"You're washed out, lady. Grounded!"
Odrade breathed easier, realizing she had known all along that Linchine might kill them.
Whirling toward Odrade in the rear, Linchine screamed: "Tell him! Tell him he must obey a Bene Gesserit!"
Addressing the fact that Odrade, several years ahead of Lichine, already displayed a commanding presence.
Odrade sat in silence, features immobile.
Silence is often the best thing to say, some Bene Gesserit humorist had scrawled on a washroom mirror. Odrade found that good advice then and later.
Recalling herself to the needs of the acolyte in the dining hall, Odrade wondered why that old memory had come of itself. Such things seldom happened without purpose. Not silence now, certainly. Humor? Yes! That was the message. Odrade's humor (applied later) had taught Linchine something about herself. Humor under stress.
Odrade smiled at the acolyte beside her in the dining hall. "How would you like to be a horse?"
"What?" The word was startled out of her but she responded to Mother Superior's smile. Nothing alarming in that. Warm even. Everyone said Mother Superior permitted affections.
"You don't understand, of course," Odrade said.
"No, Mother Superior." Still smiling and patient.
Odrade allowed her gaze to quest ove
r the young face. Clear blue eyes not yet touched by the engulfing blue of Spice Agony. A mouth almost like Bell's but without the viciousness. Dependable muscles and dependable intelligence. She would be good at anticipating Mother Superior's needs. Witness her map assignment and that report. Sensitive. Went with her superior intelligence. Not likely to rise to the very top but always in key positions where you needed her qualities.
Why did I sit beside this one?
Odrade frequently selected a particular companion at mealtime visits. Acolytes mostly. They could be so revealing. Reports often found their way to Mother Superior's workroom: personal observations from Proctors about one acolyte or another. But sometimes, Odrade chose a seat for no reason she could explain. As I did tonight. Why this one?
Conversation rarely occurred unless Mother Superior initiated it. Gentle initiation usually, easing into more intimate matters. Others around them listened avidly.