Chapterhouse: Dune

Peace-making? Not a role expected of The Mouse.

Tamalane stood. "Bouillabaisse. We must eat the fish before our sea is gone. Not enough nullentropy storage."

In the softest of simulflows, Odrade noted the departure of her companions to the cafeteria line. Tamalane's accusatory words recalled that second day with Sheeana after the decision to phase out the Great Sea. Standing at Sheeana's window in the early morning, Odrade had watched a seabird move against the desert background. It winged its way northward, a creature completely out of place in that setting but beautiful in a profoundly nostalgic way because of it.

White wings glistened in early sunlight. A touch of black beneath and in front of its eyes. Abruptly, it hovered, wings motionless. Then, lifting on an air current, it tucked its wings like a hawk and plummeted out of view behind the farther buildings. Reappearing, it carried something in its beak, a morsel it swallowed on the wing.

A seabird alone and adapting.

We adapt. We do indeed adapt.

It was not a quiet thought. Nothing to induce repose. Shocking rather. Odrade had felt jarred out of a dangerously drifting course. Not only her beloved Chapterhouse but their entire human universe was breaking out of its old shapes and taking on new forms. Perhaps it was right in this new universe that Sheeana continued to conceal things from Mother Superior. And she is concealing something.

Once more, Bellonda's acidic tones brought Odrade to full awareness of her surroundings. "If you won't serve yourself, I suppose we must take care of you." Bellonda placed a bowl of aromatic fish stew in front of Odrade, a great chunk of garlic bread beside it.

When each had sampled the bouillabaisse, Bellonda put down her spoon and stared hard at Odrade. "You're not going to suggest we 'love one another' or some such debilitating nonsense?"

"Thank you for bringing my food," Odrade said.

Sheeana swallowed and a wide grin came over her features. "It's delicious."

Bellonda returned to eating. "It's all right." But she had heard the unspoken comment.

Tamalane ate steadily, shifting attention from Sheeana to Bellonda and then to Odrade. Tam appeared to agree with a proposed softening of emotional strictures. At least, she voiced no objections and older Sisters were most likely to object.

The love the Bene Gesserit tried to deny was everywhere, Odrade thought. In small things and big. How many ways there were to prepare delectable, life-sustaining foods, recipes that really were embodiments of loves old and new. This bouillabaisse so smoothly restorative on her tongue; its origins were planted deeply in love: the wife at home using that part of the day's catch her husband could not sell.

The very essence of the Bene Gesserit was concealed in loves. Why else minister to those unspoken needs humanity always carried? Why else work for the perfectibility of humankind?

Bowl empty, Bellonda put down her spoon and wiped up the dregs with the last of her bread. She swallowed, looking pensive. "Love weakens us," she said. No force in her voice.

An acolyte could have said it no differently. Right out of the Coda. Odrade concealed amusement and countered with another Coda stepping-stone. "Beware jargon. It usually hides ignorance and carries little knowledge."

Respectful wariness entered Bellonda's eyes.

Sheeana pushed herself back from the table and wiped her mouth with her napkin. Tamalane did the same. Her chairdog adjusted as she leaned back, eyes bright and amused.

Tam knows! The wily old witch is still wise in my ways. But Sheeana... what game is Sheeana playing? I would almost say she hopes to distract me, to keep my attention away from her. She is very good at it, learned it at my knee. Well... two can play that game. I press Bellonda, but watch my little Dune waif.

"What price respectability, Bell?" Odrade asked.

Bellonda accepted this thrust in silence. Hidden in Bene Gesserit jargon was a definition of respectability and they all knew it.

"Should we honor the memory of the Lady Jessica for her humanity?" Odrade asked. Sheeana is surprised!

"Jessica put the Sisterhood in jeopardy!" Bellonda accuses.

"To thine own Sisters be true," Tamalane murmured.

"Our antique definition of respectability helps keep us human," Odrade said. Hear me well, Sheeana.

Her voice little more than a whisper, Sheeana said, "If we lose that we lose it all."

Odrade suppressed a sigh. So that's it!

Sheeana met her gaze. "You are instructing us, of course."

"Twilight thoughts," Bellonda muttered. "Best we avoid them."

"Taraza called us 'Latter-day Bene Gesserit,' " Sheeana said.

Odrade's mood went self-accusatory.

The bane of our present existence. Sinister imaginings can destroy us.

How easy it was to conjure a future that looked at them from blazing orange eyes of berserk Honored Matres. Fears out of many pasts crouched within Odrade, breathless moments focused on fangs that went with such eyes.