Dune

A great sigh shook the Rabbi and once more he looked to the instruments on his wall. Energy for the morrow.

He returned his attention to Rebecca. She was changed. He could not avoid awareness of it. She had become very like the Bene Gesserit. It was understandable. Her mind was filled with all of those people from Lampadas. But they were not Gadarene swine to be driven into the sea and their diabolism with them. And I am not another Jesus.

“This thing they tell you about the Mother Superior Odrade—that she often damns her own Archivists and the Archives with them. What a thing! Are not Archives like the books in which we preserve our wisdom?”

“Then am I an Archivist, Rabbi?”

Her question confounded him but it also illuminated the problem. He smiled. “I tell you something, daughter. I admit to a little sympathy with this Odrade. There is always something grumbling about Archivists.”

“Is that wisdom, Rabbi?” How shyly she asked it!

“Believe me, daughter, it is. How carefully the Archivist suppresses even the smallest hint of judgment. One word after another. Such arrogance!”

“How do they judge which words to use, Rabbi?”

“Ahhh, a bit of wisdom comes to you, daughter. But these Bene Gesserit have not achieved wisdom and it is their grail that prevents it.”

She could see it on his face. He tries to arm me with doubts about these lives I carry.

“Let me tell you a thing about the Bene Gesserit,” he said. Nothing came into his mind then. No words, no sage advice. This had not happened to him for years. There was only one course open to him: speak from the heart.

“Perhaps they have been too long on the road to Damascus without a blinding flash of illumination, Rebecca. I hear them say they act for the benefit of humankind. Somehow, I cannot see this in them, nor do I believe the Tyrant saw it.”

When Rebecca started to reply, he stopped her with an upraised hand. “Mature humanity? That is their grail? Is it not the mature fruit that is plucked and eaten?”

On the floor of Junction’s Great Hall, Rebecca remembered these words, seeing the personification of them not in the lives she preserved but in the actions of her captors.

Great Honored Matre had finished eating. She wiped her hands on the gown of an attendant.

“Let her approach,” Great Honored Matre said.

Pain lanced Rebecca’s left shoulder and she lurched forward on her knees. The one called Logno had come up behind with the stealth of a hunter and had jabbed a shuntgoad into the captive’s flesh.

Laughter echoed through the room.

Rebecca staggered to her feet and, staying just ahead of the goad, arrived at the foot of the steps leading up to the Great Honored Matre where the goad stopped her.

“Down!” Logno emphasized the command with another jab.

Rebecca sank to her knees and stared straight ahead at the risers of the steps. The yellow tiles displayed tiny scratches. Somehow, these flaws reassured her.

Great Honored Matre said: “Let her be, Logno. I wish answers, not screams.” Then to Rebecca: “Look at me, woman!”

Rebecca raised her eyes and stared up at the face of death. What an unremarkable face it was to have that threat in it. So . . . so evenly featured. Almost plain. Such a small figure. This amplified the peril Rebecca sensed. What powers the small woman must have to rule these terrible people.

“Do you know why you are here?” Great Honored Matre demanded.

In her most obsequious tones, Rebecca said: “I was told, O Great Honored Matre, that you wished me to recount the lore of Truthsay and other matters of Gammu.”

“You were mated to a Truthsayer!” It was accusation.

“He is dead, Great Honored Matre.”

“No, Logno!” This was directed at the aide who lunged forward with the goad. “This wretch does not know our ways. Now, go stand at the side, Logno, where I will not be annoyed by your impetuosity.”

“You will speak to me only in response to questions or when I command it, wretch!” Great Honored Matre shouted.

Rebecca cringed.

Speaker whispered in Rebecca’s head: That was almost Voice. Be warned.

“Have you ever known any of the ones who call themselves Bene Gesserit?” Great Honored Matre asked.

Really now! “Everyone has encountered the witches, Great Honored Matre.”

“What do you know of them?”

So this is why they brought me here.

“Only what I have heard, Great Honored Matre.”

“Are they brave?”

“It is said they always try to avoid risks, Great Honored Matre.”

You are worthy of us, Rebecca. That is the pattern of these whores. The marble rolls down the incline in its proper channel. They think you dislike us.

“Are these Bene Gesserit rich?” Great Honored Matre asked.

“I think the witches are poor beside you, Honored Matre,” Rebecca said.