Something ticked off an inner alarm. Odrade fell into simulflow, seeking the source. Something in the room or in Spider Queen? There was a lack of spontaneity about the setting matched by much that Dama did. So all of this was designed to create an effect. Carefully schemed.
Is this one really my Spider Queen? Or is there a more powerful one watching us?
Odrade explored this thought, sorting swiftly. It was a process that provided more questions than answers, a mental shorthand akin to that of Mentats. Sort for relevance and bring up the latent (but orderly) backgrounds. Order generally was a product of human activity. Chaos existed as raw material from which to create order. That was the Mentat approach, giving no unalterable truths but a remarkable lever for decision-making: orderly assemblage of data in a non-discrete system.
She arrived at a Projective.
They revel in chaos! Prefer it! Adrenaline addicts!
So Dama was Dama, Great Honored Matre. Forever the patroness, forever the superior.
There is no greater one watching us. But Dama believes this is bargaining. One would think she had never done it before. Precisely!
Dama touched an unmarked place below the window and the wall folded back, revealing that the window was but an artful projection. The way was opened onto a high balcony paved with dark green tiles. It overlooked plantations much different from those in the window projection. Here was chaos preserved, wilderness left to its own devices and made more remarkable by ordered gardens in the distance. Brambles, fallen trees, thick bushes. And beyond: evenly spaced rows of what appeared to be vegetables with automated harvesters passing back and forth, leaving bare ground behind them.
Love of chaos, indeed!
Spider Queen smiled and led the way onto the balcony.
As she emerged, Odrade once more was stopped by what she saw. A decoration on the parapet to her left. A life-size figure shaped from an almost ethereal substance, all feathery planes and curved surfaces.
When she squinted at the figure, Odrade saw it was intended to represent a human. Male or female? In some positions male, and in some female. Planes and curves responded to vagrant breezes. Thin, almost invisible wires (looked to be shigawire) suspended it from a delicately curving tube anchored in a translucent mound. The lower extremities of the figure almost touched the pebbled surface of the supporting base.
Odrade stared, captivated.
Why does it remind me of Sheeana's "The Void"?
When the wind moved it, the whole creation appeared to dance, relapsing sometimes into a graceful walk, then a slow pirouette and sweeping turns with outstretched leg.
"It is called 'Ballet Master,' " Dama said. "In some winds it will kick its feet high. I have seen it running as gracefully as a marathoner. Sometimes it is just ugly little motions, arms jerking as though they held weapons. Beautiful and ugly - it is all the same. I think the artist misnamed it. 'Being Unknown' would have been better."
Beautiful and ugly - all the same. Being Unknown.
That was a terrible thing about Sheeana's creation. Odrade felt a cold wash of fear. "Who was the artist?"
"I've no idea. One of my predecessors took it from a planet we were destroying. Why does it interest you?"
It's the wild thing no one can govern. But she said: "I presume we're both seeking a basis for understanding, trying to find similarities between us."
This brought the orange glare. "You may try to understand us but we have no need to understand you."
"Both of us come from societies of women."
"It is dangerous to think of us as your offshoots!"
But Murbella's evidence says you are. Formed in the Scattering by Fish Speakers and Reverend Mothers in extremis.
All ingenuous and fooling nobody, Odrade asked: "Why is that dangerous?"
Dama's laugh conveyed no amusement. Vindictive.
Odrade experienced an abrupt new assessment of danger. More than a Bene Gesserit probe-and-review was demanded here. These women were accustomed to killing when angered. A reflex. Dama had said as much when speaking to her aide, and Dama had just signaled there were limits to her tolerance.
Yet, in her own way, she is trying to bargain. She displays her mechanical marvels, her powers, her wealth. No offer of alliance. Be willing servants, witches, our slaves, and we will forgive much. To gain the last of the Million Planets? More than that, certainly, but an interesting number.
With a new caution, Odrade reformed her approach. Reverend Mothers too easily fell into an adaptive pattern. I am, of course, quite different from you but I will unbend for the sake of accord. That would not do with Honored Matres. They would accept nothing to suggest they were not in absolute control. It was a statement of Dama's superiority over her Sisters that she allowed Odrade so much latitude.
Once more, Dama spoke in her imperious manner.
Odrade listened. How odd that Spider Queen thought one of the most attractive things the Bene Gesserit could provide was immunity from new diseases.
Was that the form of attack that drove them here?
Her sincerity was naive. None of this tiresome periodic checking to see if you had acquired secret inhabitants in your flesh. Sometimes not so secret. Sometimes disgustingly perilous. But the Bene Gesserit could end all that and would be suitably rewarded.
How pleasant.
Still that vindictive tone in every word. Odrade caught herself in this thought: Vindictive? That did not catch the proper flavor. Something carried at a deeper level.
Unconsciously jealous of what you lost when you broke away from us!
This was another pattern and it had been stylized!
Honored Matres fell back on repetitious mannerisms.
Mannerisms we abandoned long ago.
This was more than refusal to recognize Bene Gesserit origins. This was garbage disposal.