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this be true? Was it possible Mother Superior saw her that way?
"You came with criminal disobedience in mind," he said. "All in the name of
necessity! A little drama for the comeyes, proving you had no other choice."
She found his words restoring Mentat abilities. Did he do that knowingly? She
was fascinated by the need to study his manner as well as his words. Did he
really read her that well? The record of this encounter might be far more
valuable than her little playlet. And the outcome no different!
"You think Mother Superior's wishes are law?" she asked.
"Do you really think me unobservant?" Waving a hand at Teg, who started to
interrupt. "Bell! Be only a Mentat."
"I hear you." And so do many others!
"I'm deep into your problem."
"We've given you no problem!"
"But you have. You have, Bell. You're misers the way you parcel out the pieces
but I see it."
Bellonda abruptly remembered Odrade saying: "I don't need a Mentat! I need an
inventor."
"You . . . need . . . me," Idaho said. "Your problem is still in its shell but
the meat's there and must be extracted."
"Why would we possibly need you?"
"You need my imagination, my inventiveness, things that kept me alive in the
face of Leto's wrath."
"You've said he killed you so many times you lost count." Eat your own words,
Mentat!
He gave her an exquisitely controlled smile, so precise that neither she nor the
comeyes could mistake its intent. "But how can you trust me, Bell?"
He condemns himself!
"Without something new you're doomed," he said. "Only a matter of time and you
all know it. Perhaps not this generation. Perhaps not even the next one. But
inevitably."
Teg pulled sharply at Idaho's sleeve. "The Bashar could help, couldn't he?"
So the boy really listened. Idaho patted Teg's arm. "The Bashar's not enough."
Then to Bellonda: "Underdogs together. Must we growl over the same bone?"
"You've said that before." And doubtless will say it again.
"Still Mentat?" he asked. "Then discard drama! Get the romantic haze off our
problem."
Dar's the romantic! Not me!
"What's romantic," he asked, "about little pockets of Scattered Bene Gesserit
waiting to be slaughtered?"
"You think none will escape?"
"You're seeding the universe with enemies," he said. "You're feeding Honored
Matres!"
She was fully (and only) Mentat then, required to match this ghola ability for
ability. Drama? Romance? The body got in the way of Mentat performance.
Mentats must use the body, not let it interfere.
"No Reverend Mother you've Scattered has ever returned or sent a message," he
said. "You try to reassure yourselves by saying only the Scattered ones know
where they go. How can you ignore the message they send in this other fact?
Why has not one tried to communicate with Chapterhouse?"
He's chiding all of us, damn him! And he's right.
"Have I stated our problem in its most elemental form?"
Mentat questioning!
"Simplest question, simplest projection," she agreed.
"Amplified sexual ecstasy: Bene Gesserit imprint? Are Honored Matres trapping
your people out there?"
"Murbella?" A one-word challenge. Assess this woman you say you love! Does
she know things we should know?
"They're conditioned against raising their own enjoyment to addictive levels but
they are vulnerable."
"She denies there are Bene Gesserit sources in Honored Matre history."
"As she was conditioned to do."
"A lust for power instead?"
"At last, you have asked a proper question." And when she did not reply, he
said: "Mater Felicissima." Addressing her by the ancient term for Bene
Gesserit Council members.
She knew why he did it and felt the word produce the wanted effect. She was
firmly balanced now, Mentat Reverend Mother encompassed by the mohalata of her
own Spice Agony -- that union of benign Other Memory protecting her from
domination by malignant ancestors.
How did he know to do that? Every observer behind the comeyes would be asking
that question. Of course! The Tyrant trained him thus, time and time again.
What do we have here? What is this talent Mother Superior dares employ?
Dangerous, yes, but far more valuable than I suspected. By the gods of our own
creation! Is he the tool to free us?
How calm he was. He knew he had caught her.
"In one of my lives, Bell, I visited your Bene Gesserit house on Wallach IX and
there talked to one of your ancestors, Tersius Helen Anteac. Let her guide you,
Bell. She knows."
Bellonda felt familiar prodding in her mind. How could he know Anteac was my
ancestor?
"I went to Wallach IX at the Tyrant's command," he said. "Oh, yes! I often
thought of him as Tyrant. My orders were to suppress the Mentat school you
thought you had hidden there."
Anteac-simulflow intruded: "I show you now the event of which he speaks."
"Consider," he said. "I, a Mentat, forced to suppress a school that trained
people the way I was trained. I knew why he ordered it, of course, and so do
you."
Simulflow poured it through her awareness: Order of Mentats, founded by
Gilbertus Albans; temporary sanctuary with Bene Tleilax who hoped to incorporate
them into Tleilaxu hegemony; spread into uncounted "seed schools"; suppressed by
Leto II because they formed a nucleus of independent opposition; spread into the
Scattering after the Famine.
"He kept a few of the finest teachers on Dune, but the question Anteac forces
you to confront now does not go there. Where have your Sisters gone, Bell?"
"We have no way of knowing yet, do we?" She looked at his console with new
awareness. It was wrong to block such a mind. If they were to use him, they
must use him fully.
"By the way, Bell," as she stood to leave. "Honored Matres could be a
relatively small group."
Small? Didn't he know how the Sisterhood was being overwhelmed by terrifying
numbers on planet after planet?
"All numbers are relative. Is there something in the universe truly immovable?
Our Old Empire could be a last retreat for them, Bell. A place to hide and try
to regroup."
"You suggested that before . . . to Dar."
Not Mother Superior. Not Odrade. Dar. He smiled. "And perhaps we could help
with Scytale."
"We?"
"Murbella to gather information, I to assess it."
He did not like the smile this produced.
"Precisely what are you suggesting?"
"Let our imaginations roam and fashion our experiments accordingly. Of what use
would even a no-planet be if someone could penetrate the shielding?"
She glanced at the boy. Idaho knew their suspicion that the Bashar had seen the
no-ships? Naturally! A Mentat of his abilities . . . bits and pieces assembled
into a masterful projection.
"It would require the entire output of a G-3 sun to shield any halfway livable
planet." Dry and very cool the way she looked down at him.
"Nothing is out of the question in the Scattering."
"But not within our present capabilities. Do you have something less
ambitious?"
"Review the genetic markers in the cells of your people. Look for common
patterns in Atreides inheritance. There may be talents you have not even
guessed."
"Your inventive imagination bounces around."
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