Dune

The appearance of parsimonious metering to all of that expenditure spoke of energy crisis. One of Bell’s concerns. You could hear it in her voice even when she was being her most objective: “Down to the bone and nowhere else to cut!” Every Bene Gesserit knew the watchful eyes of Accounting were on them these days, critical of the Sisterhood’s outflowing vitality.

Bellonda strode into the workroom unannounced with a roll of ridulian crystal records under her left arm. She walked as though she hated the floor, stamping on it as if to say “There! Take that! And that!” Beating the floor because it was guilty of being underfoot.

Odrade felt her chest tighten as she saw the look in Bell’s eyes. The ridulian records went “Slap!” as Bellonda threw them onto the table.

“Lampadas!” Bellonda said and there was agony in her voice.

Odrade had no need to open the roll. Sea Child’s bloody water has become reality.

“Survivors?” Her voice sounded strained.

“None.” Bellonda slumped into the chairdog she kept on her side of Odrade’s table.

Tamalane entered then and sat behind Bellonda. Both looked stricken.

No survivors.

Odrade permitted herself a slow shudder that went from her breast to the soles of her feet. She did not care that the others saw such a revealing reaction. This workroom had seen worse behavior from Sisters.

“Who reported?” Odrade asked.

Bellonda said, “It came through our CHOAM spies and had the special mark on it. The Rabbi supplied the information, no doubt of it.”

Odrade did not know how to respond. She glanced at the wide bow window behind her companions, seeing a soft flutter of snowflakes. Yes, this news deservedly went with winter marshaling its forces out there.

The sisters of Chapterhouse were unhappy about the sudden plunge into winter. Necessities had forced Weather Control to let the temperature drop precipitately. No gradual decline into winter, no kindness to growing things that now must pass through the freezing dormancy. This was three and four degrees colder every night. Get the whole thing over in a week or so and plunge them all into the seemingly interminable chill.

Cold to match the news about Lampadas.

One result of this weather shift was fog. She could see it dissipating as the brief snow flurry ended. Very confusing weather. They got the dewpoint next to the air temperature and the fog rolled into the remaining wet spots. It lifted from the ground in tulle mists that wandered through leafless orchards like a poisonous gas.

No survivors at all?

Bellonda shook her head from side to side in answer to Odrade’s questioning look.

Lampadas—a jewel in the Sisterhood’s network of planets, home of their most prized school, another lifeless ball of ashes and hardened melt. And the Bashar Alef Burzmali with all of his hand-picked defense force. All dead?

“All dead,” Bellonda said.

Burzmali, favorite student of the old Bashar Teg, gone and nothing gained by it. Lampadas—the marvelous library, the brilliant teachers, the premier students . . . all gone.

“Even Lucilla?” Odrade asked. The Reverend Mother Lucilla, vice chancellor of Lampadas, had been instructed to flee at the first sign of trouble, taking with her as many of the doomed as she could store in Other Memory.

“The spies said all dead,” Bellonda insisted.

It was a chilling signal to surviving Bene Gesserit: “You may be next!”

How could any human society be anesthetized to such brutality? Odrade wondered. She visualized the news with breakfast at some Honored Matre base: “We’ve destroyed another Bene Gesserit planet. Ten billion dead, they say. That makes six planets this month, doesn’t it? Pass the cream, will you, dear?”

Almost glassy-eyed with horror, Odrade picked up the report and glanced through it. From the Rabbi, no doubt of that. She put it down gently and looked at her Councillors.

Bellonda—old, fat and florid. Mentat-Archivist, wearing lenses to read now, uncaring what that revealed about her. Bellonda showed her blunt teeth in a wide grimace that said more than words. She had seen Odrade’s reaction to the report. Bell might argue once more for retaliation in kind. That could be expected from someone valued for her natural viciousness. She needed to be thrown back into Mentat mode where she would be more analytical.

In her own way, Bell is right, Odrade thought. But she won’t like what I have in mind. I must be cautious in what I say now. Too soon to reveal my plan.

“There are circumstances where viciousness can blunt viciousness,” Odrade said. “We must consider it carefully.”

There! That would forestall Bell’s outburst.