"They're parasites, Bell! It's time we made that clear: a known weakness. And what does a body do when afflicted by parasites?" Odrade delivered this with a broad grin.
"Dar, when you assume this... this pseudo-humorous pose, I would like to throttle you!"
"Would you smile as you did it, Bell?"
"Damn you, Dar! One of these days..."
"We don't have many more days together, Bell, and that's what's eating you. Answer my question."
"Answer it yourself!"
"The body welcomes periodic delousing. Even addicts dream of freedom."
"Ahhhhh." A Mentat peered from Bellonda's eyes. "You think addiction to Honored Matres could be made painful?"
"In spite of your dreadful inability at humor, you still can function."
A cruel smile flexed Bellonda's mouth.
"I've managed to amuse you," Odrade said.
"Let me discuss this with Tam. She has a better head for strategy. Although... Sharing softened her."
When Bellonda had gone, Odrade leaned back and laughed quietly. Softened! "Don't go soft tomorrow, Dar, when you Share." The Mentat stumbles on logic and misses the heart. She sees the process and worries about failure. What do we do if... We open windows, Bell, and let in common sense. Even hilarity. Puts more serious matters in perspective. Poor Bell, my flawed Sister. Always something to occupy your nervousness.
Odrade left Central on departure morning much entangled in her thinking - an introspective mood, worried by what she had learned Sharing with Murbella and Sheeana.
I'm being self-indulgent.
That offered no relief. Her thoughts were framed by Other Memory and almost cynical fatalism.
Queen bees swarming?
That had been suggested of Honored Matres.
But Sheeana? And Tam approves?
This carried more in it than a Scattering.
I cannot follow into your wild place, Sheeana. My task is to produce order. I cannot risk what you have dared. There are different kinds of artistry. Yours repels me.
Absorbing lifetimes of Murbella's Other Memory helped. Murbella's knowledge was a powerful leverage on Honored Matres but full of disturbing nuances.
Not hypnotrance. They use cellular induction, a byproduct of their damned T-probes! Unconscious compulsion! How tempting to use it for ourselves. But this is where Honored Matres are most vulnerable - enormous unconsciousness content locked in by their own decisions. Murbella's key only emphasizes its danger to us.
They arrived at the Landing Flat in the midst of a windstorm that buffeted them when they emerged from their car. Odrade had vetoed a walk through what remained of orchards and vineyards.
Leaving for the last time? The question in Bellonda's eyes as she said goodbye. In Sheeana's worried frown.
Does Mother Superior accept my decision?
Provisionally, Sheeana. Provisionally. But I have not warned Murbella. So... perhaps I do share Tam's judgment.
Dortujla, in the van of Odrade's party, was withdrawn.
Understandable. She has been there... and watched her Sisters eaten. Courage, Sister! We are not yet defeated.
Only Murbella had appeared to take this in stride but she was thinking ahead to Odrade's encounter with the Spider Queen.
Have I armed Mother Superior sufficiently? Does she know in her guts how very dangerous this will be?
Odrade pushed such thoughts aside. There were things to do on the crossing. None of them more important than gathering her energies. Honored Matres could be analyzed almost out of reality, but the actual confrontation would be played as it came - a jazz performance. She liked the idea of jazz although the music distracted her with its antique flavors and the dips into wildness. Jazz spoke about life, though. No two performances ever identical. Players reacted to what was received from the others: jazz.
Feed us with jazz.
Air and space travel did not often concern itself with weather. Bludgeon your way through transitory interferences. Depend on Weather Control to provide launch windows through storms and cloud cover. Desert planets were an exception and that would have to be entered into Chapterhouse equations before long. Many changes, including return to Fremen mortuary practices. Bodies rendered for water and potash.
Odrade spoke of this as they waited for transport up to the ship. That wide cummerbund of hot, dry land expanding around the planet's equator would begin generating dangerous winds before long. One day, there would be coreolis storms: a blast-furnace from the desert interior with speeds in hundreds of kilometers an hour. Dune had seen winds of more than seven hundred kmh. Even space lighters took notice of such force. Air travel would be subject to the constant whims of surface conditions. And frail human flesh must find whatever shelter it could.
As we always have.
The lounge at the Flat was old. Stone inside and out, their first major building material here. Spartan slingchairs and low tables of molded plaz were more recent. Economy could not be ignored even for Mother Superior.
The lighter arrived in a dusty maelstrom. No nonsense about suspensor cushioning. This would be a quick lift with uncomfortable gees but not high enough to damage flesh.
Odrade felt almost disembodied as she said her final farewells and turned Chapterhouse over to a triumvirate of Sheeana, Murbella, and Bellonda. One last word: "Don't interfere with Teg. And I don't want anything nasty happening to Duncan. Hear me, Bell?"
All of the wonderful technological things they could accomplish and they still could not keep a thick sandstorm from almost blinding them as they lifted. Odrade closed her eyes and accepted the fact that she was not to get a last low-level overview of her beloved planet. She awoke to the thump of docking. Buzzcar waiting in a corridor just beyond the lock. A humming traverse to their quarters. Tamalane, Dortujla, and the acolyte servant maintained silence, respecting Mother Superior's desire to be with her own thoughts.