Dune

The Bene Gesserit remained a puzzle and, more than ever, he saw the weakness of typicals. How could you bargain with people whose patterns did not follow an acceptable path? You might think you understood them and then they shot off in a new direction. They were untypical! Trying to understand them disrupted his sense of order. He was certain he had not received anything real in all of this bargaining. A bit more freedom that was actually the illusion of freedom. Nothing he really wanted came from this cold-faced witch! It was tantalizing to try piecing together any substance from what he knew about the Bene Gesserit. There was, for instance, the claim they did without most bureaucratic systems and record keeping. Except for Bellonda’s Archives, of course, and every time he mentioned those, Odrade said, “Heaven guard us!” or something equivalent.

Now he asked, “How do you maintain yourselves without officials and records?” He was deeply puzzled.

“A thing needs doing, we do it. Bury a Sister?” She pointed to the scene in the orchard where shovels had been brought into play and dirt was being tamped on the grave.

“That’s how it’s done and there’s always someone around who’s responsible. They know who they are.”

“Who . . . who takes care of this unwholesome . . . ?”

“It’s not unwholesome! It’s part of our education. Failed Sisters usually supervise. Acolytes do the work.”

“Don’t they . . . I mean, isn’t this distasteful to them? Failed Sisters, you say. And acolytes. It would seem to be more of a punishment than . . .”

“Punishment! Come, come, Scytale. Have you only one song to sing?” She pointed at the burial party. “After their apprenticeship, all of our people willingly accept their jobs.”

“But no . . . ahhh, bureaucratic . . .”

“We’re not stupid!”

Again, he did not understand, but she responded to his silent puzzlement.

“Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.”

He had difficulty seeing the relevance. Where was she leading him?

When he remained silent, she said: “Honored Matres have all the marks of bureaucracy. Ministers of this, Great Honored Matres of that, a powerful few at the top and many functionaries below. They already are full of adolescent hungers. Like voracious predators, they never consider how they exterminate their prey. A tight relationship: Reduce the numbers of those upon whom you feed and you bring your own structure crashing down.”

He found it difficult to believe the witches really saw Honored Matres this way and said so.

“If you survive, Scytale, you will see my words made real. Great cries of rage by those unthinking women at the necessity to retrench. Much new effort to wring the most out of their prey. Capture more of them! Squeeze them harder! It will just mean quicker extermination. Idaho says they’re already in the die-back stage.”

The ghola says this? So she was using him as a Mentat! “Where do you get such ideas? Surely this does not originate with your ghola.” Continue to believe he’s yours!

“He merely confirmed our assessment. An example in Other Memory alerted us.”

“Ohh?” This thing of Other Memory bothered him. Could their claim be true? Memories from his own multiple lives were of enormous value. He asked for confirmation.

“We remembered the relationship between a food animal called a snowshoe rabbit and a predatory cat called a lynx. The cat population always grew to follow the population of the rabbits, and then overfeeding dumped the predators into famine times and severe die-back.”

“An interesting term, die-back.”

“Descriptive of what we intend for the Honored Matres.”

When their meeting ended (without anything gained for him), Scytale found himself more confused than ever. Was that truly their intent? The damnable woman! He could not be sure of anything she said.

When she returned him to his quarters in the ship, Scytale stood for a long time looking through the barrier field at the long corridor where Idaho and Murbella sometimes came on their way to their practice floor. He knew that must be where they went through a wide doorway down there. They always emerged sweating and breathing deeply.

Neither of his fellow prisoners appeared, although he loitered there for more than an hour.