Dune

That was a thing Sheeana claimed she wanted from him. “Intimate trivia. It’s the stuff all artists want.”

Sheeana did not know what she asked. All of those living encounters had created new meanings. Patterns within patterns. Minuscule things gained a poignancy he despaired of sharing with anyone . . . even with Murbella.

The touch of a hand on my arm. A child’s laughing face. The glitter in an attacker’s eyes.

Mundane things without counting. A familiar voice saying: “I just want to put my feet up and collapse tonight. Don’t ask me to move.”

All had become part of him. They were bound into his character. Living had cemented them inextricably and he could not explain it to anyone.

Murbella spoke without looking at him. “There were many women in those lives of yours.”

“I’ve never counted them.”

“Did you love them?”

“They’re dead, Murbella. All I can promise is that there are no jealous ghosts in my past.”

Murbella extinguished the glowglobes. He closed his eyes and felt darkness close in as she crept into his arms. He held her tightly, knowing she needed it, but his mind rolled of its own volition.

An old memory produced a Mentat teacher’s saying: “The greatest relevancy can become irrelevant in the space of a heartbeat. Mentats should look upon such moments with joy.”

He felt no joy.

All of those serial lives continued within him in defiance of Mentat relevancies. A Mentat came at his universe fresh in each instant. Nothing old, nothing new, nothing set in ancient adhesives, nothing truly known. You were the net and you existed only to examine the catch.

What did not go through? How fine a mesh did I use on this lot?

That was the Mentat view. But there was no way the Tleilaxu could have included all of those ghola-Idaho cells to recreate him. There had to be gaps in their serial collection of his cells. He had identified many of those gaps.

But no gaps in my memory. I remember them all.

He was a network linked outside of Time. That is how I can see the people of that vision . . . the net. It was the only explanation Mentat awareness could provide and if the Sisterhood guessed, they would be terrified. No matter how many times he denied it, they would say: “Another Kwisatz Haderach! Kill him!”

So work for yourself, Mentat!

He knew he had most of the mosaic pieces but still they did not go together in that Ahh, hah! assembly of questions Mentats prized.

A game where one of the pieces can’t be moved.

Excuses for extraordinary behavior.

“They want our willing participation in their dream.”

Test the limits!

Humans can balance on strange surfaces.

Get in tune. Don’t think. Do it.

The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don’t fit.

—DARWI ODRADE

As they traveled south toward the desert in the early afternoon, Odrade found the countryside disturbingly changed from her previous inspection three months earlier. She felt vindicated in having chosen ground vehicles. Views framed by the thick plaz protecting them from the dust revealed more details at this level.

Much drier.

Her immediate party rode in a relatively light car—only fifteen passengers including the driver. Suspensors and sophisticated jet drive when they were not on ground-effect. Capable of a smooth three hundred klicks an hour on the glaze. Her escort (too large, thanks to an overzealous Tamalane) followed in a bus that also carried changes of clothing, foods and drinks for wayside stops.

Streggi, seated beside Odrade and behind the driver, said: “Could we not manage a small rain here, Mother Superior?”

Odrade’s lips thinned. Silence was the best answer.

They had been late starting. All of them assembled on the loading dock and were ready to leave when a message came down from Bellonda. Another disaster report requiring Mother Superior’s personal attention at the last minute!

It was one of those times when Odrade felt her only possible role was that of official interpreter. Walk to the edge of the stage and tell them what it meant: “Today, Sisters, we learned that Honored Matres have obliterated four more of our planets. We are that much smaller.”