Memories of Dune

One of the very few things I did like about BH/KJA's Hunters/Sandworms was their background of the Honored Matres, and the eventual fate of the Tleilaxu. The ridiculousness of most of the ending aside, this sub-story of the Tleilaxu and the Honored Matres was something that made sense to me and could have fit into Frank Herbert'/s Dune. I think that out of everything in Hunters/Sandworms of Dune, the connection between the Honored Matres and the Tleilaxu was one thing that could have come from FH's notes.

So I decided to do something with that, and also touch upon why the HM developed separately from the BG instead of being absorbed into the Sisterhood.

o0o0o0o

The Girl

ca. 14,075 AG

She did not even have a name. Just a combination of several letters and numbers that, when said rapidly, bore passing resemblance to what she would eventually learn were proper names. But she had barely known that they were letters or numbers. Each of the girls in the creche had the same sort of label, and they learned to recognize, and utter the sound as a means of identifying themselves and others.

The identification of the ones who presided over them had different and more complicated sounds, though. Ones that sounded smoother and more pleasing to her ears. She tried to make these noises, and was frowned at. The Tleilaxu spoke to her and the other girls in a different way than they spoke amongst themselves, though. She had been quick to observe that from a very young age. Many of the other girls were complacent n their understanding of the world. They were fed, clothed, taught the rudiments of social graces and cleanliness so that they could fend for themselves. Older girls did much of the personal caring for the younger ones.

They took walks, were led in simple exercise routines, and played games in the spaces given them. On occasion, one or a group of their keepers would come around, and choose this girl or that to be taken away. Such girls had never been seen again, as far as she could remember. Sometimes it was because a girl had been repeatedly ill-behaved, openly defying their keepers when issued a command. A few were constantly sickly. Whatever the reason, the Tleilaxu would not speak of these other girls when inquired by their charges. A sharp rap on the head was often the response to those who were insistent.

However, there were others who were taken because they bled from between their legs. Their bodies would start to change. Breasts would grow, hips would broaden. Everyone knew what this meant, and that the girl would disappear in due time. It was feared, but met with general resignation and acceptance. Once in a while a girl might hide, but there were not many places that offered even temporary safety. The Tleilaxy always won, in the end, and discipline was terrible.

This girl listened to the Tleilaxu as they walked amongst the girls or observed them. She came to understand that she and the others were taught a much simpler form of what the Tleilaxu spoke amongst themselves. The few times she'd spoken to them using these bigger words, she'd been slapped. She was quick to learn, and became but one of the bland-faced girls, talking in the childish way while listening to a language she had never been intended to learn. She learned to count beyond her fingers, and see deeper meaning in the videos that the girls were allowed to watch.

She came to understand many of these higher words, and to eventually understand what they meant for her. Among children who the Tleilaxu believed too stupid to ever understand them, the men did not guard their words. The girls were the way that these squat, gray-skinned men used to make more of themselves. When a girl bled, it meant her body was ready to be used for this purpose. An axlotl tank. She didn't know the particulars, but some primal instinct told her that she did not want to be one. Gholas were also mentioned, though she was not quite sure what those were. And she herself had come out of an axlotl tank. Axlotl tanks begat more axlotl tanks, and they had been doing this for many, many, many cycles, far beyond what she had ever counted.

As if this revelation had triggered something within her, her time came. When asked how many cycles she'd lived, she would have held up thirteen or fourteen fingers. Like many other girls, she tried to hide her affliction while trying to figure a way to escape. She had been taught no practical or technical knowledge, but she still tried to observe as much as she could. However, no girl was able to hide their bleeding longer than a few cycles.

She tried to hide, of course. She was not the only girl. But like all others, she was caught. She begged for release from her captors, and was repeatedly slapped. Girls were not meant to be intelligent, or use words fit only for male tongues. They strapped her down, and needles went into her arms. As she sunk into consciousness, she cursed the Tleilaxu more with her emotions than the limited words she knew, certain it was the last thing she would ever be able to do, consciously.

o0o0o0o

There are whispers. She feels like she is floating. There are words unfamiliar to her, and she strains to respond.

She comes awake in a bed, with concerned faces hovering over her. They are clad in dark clothing, and speak the language that the Tleilaxu use. She responds as best as she can, and is not slapped for using the Tleilaxu words.

The girls – many of them far older than she could have ever imagined, with white hair and wrinkled faces – fill in the many gaps of knowledge that the Tleilaxu instilled in their girls. In the Famine Times, the Tleilaxu realized the necessity of scattering their numbers to ensure their survival in these precarious times, and the girl and the others were part of that vessel. Tleilaxu females to help seed new colonies, as a precaution against the destruction of their home world. Out in the deep reaches of space, this Tleilaxu settlement had not thought anyone would find them.

But the Tleilaxu were not the only ones who had Scattered, and the struggling colony fell to a small army of women, refugees and descendants of refugees from the various wars that had erupted after the Tyrrant's stranglehold on the universe had been relinquished. The axlotl tanks were freed. Some were too old or worn out to live on their own, and had expired when unplugged from nutrients and air, their brains having turned to mush from the chemicals the Tleilaxu used to keep them asleep. But the girl had only been asleep for less than a year, so her limbs, thin as they are, were exercised back to normalcy.

She remembers the rage she felt at the Tleilaxu as she'd been dragged to her fate, and that is furthered the more she learns – or confirms – from her rescuers. Countless women before her have been turned to axlotl tanks and discarded, seen as nothing more than receptacles for the dreams and desires of the Tleilaxu men.

The dissolution of a central rule sent shock waves through the universe, fragmenting even the most powerful and longstanding organizations. The Tyrant had already had a stranglehold on the most precious substance in the universe. With a dearth of Spice, the Guild had to use its stores judiciously. The Bene Gesserit kept close watch over its ranks. The Great Houses did what they could to curry Leto's favor even as some of them also conspired to seize power from him or force him to release stores of Spice. He who controlled the Spice truly did control the Universe, and the Tyrant kept a tight control over this immeasurably valuable substance – and to many of the girl's new family, legendary, for Spice had not been seen in this part of the universe for centuries. Still, the Spice flowed… or more accurately, trickled.

And when the Tyrant died, even this trickle had come to a total stop. The Fish Speakers were forced to scatter. The Bene Gesserit had to become especially judicious in number of Reverend Mothers it admitted to its ranks. Trips on Guild ships came to cost more than even tons of precious cargo. The fortunes of Great Houses rose and fell with the regularity of the sunrise and sunset. It all came down to the survival of the fittest.

And this group has dedicated itself to its goals. With no Spice here in these deep reaches of space, there can be no Reverend Mothers, but many of the old Bene Geserit teachings are still accessible to the women of this ragtag group. The military training of the Fish Speakers also benefit these women, and the girl becomes one of their number. She becomes strong, and finally has an opportunity to make full use of her mind. History has long shown the fairer sex to be more abused than her masculine counterpart, and these women are determined to never let that be.

Eventually, the girl – no longer a girl, though – becomes the leader of these ranks. When she'd been rescued from them, the primary objective had been survival – axlotl tanks had not been the only thing raided from the Tleilaxu colony-ship. Under the leadership of her predecessor and herself, they have become strong enough to move beyond their base needs.

All these years, she has never let go of her rage. Regardless of what she has gained from the women who rescued her, her anger has been the driving force of her existence. She has known that one day, she would make the Tleilaxu pay. And now, she has more than sufficient means to.

For countless years, mothers have been used, abused, and discarded. In many societies, they had been seen as nothing more than broodmares and chattel. And in this, the Scattering, where fragments of once-powerful collectives are pitted against one another, women have again received a harsh lot in many places. Slavery, forced breeding, concubinage, domesticity, hard labor, or pleasure, all for the whims of men.

No more. Mothers are the givers of life, and they must be respected.

Honored Matres.