"She who sees the Dependent Arising, sees the Dharma."
– ZENSUNNI SAYING
Fifteen days after the terrifying initiation into the Black Swans, Tutor Gammala let Tairasu know of the problem: "You are not Bene Gesserit material."
"Who decided?" Tairasu snapped. She sat in the Tutor's tiny room, a bed with a desk and two basic chairs, the Tutor's own body occupying most of the space left. A body that sweated profusely.
"Your mind does not respond to our nightly zensunni imprints. Your dreams don't react."
Dreams. In her dreams Tairasu always saw herself fall down, while silent white figures danced against the walls of a long dark tunnel. A piercing noise deafened her. She would wake up hyperventilating in the middle of the night; other times morning light would hit as her classmates tried to shake her out of her slumber.
"Without the proper nudges, your subconscious blocks will stand in the way between the spice ordeal and your survival of it."
"What blocks!" she replied vehemently.
"And we know Matres training injects hypnotic walls in your minds early on. Weren't you subject to the probe?"
If only Tutor Gammals knew she could recall every little detail of her training. She recalled straps that tied her to the table, while the T-probe turned every nerve and cell into living burning fire so that a fine-tuned predator could emerge. She recalled every trainer and punishment. The three days she spent in the freezing rain standing vigil and on the lookout for potential enemies, but more often for incursions by older students. Her first ritual kill among the unfit ones, the sisters-to-be that T-probe test drove insane, and whose life they were ordered to end.
"No!" she feigned ignorance.
"Precisely. The probe is used to create powerful inhibitions against self-awareness," then a pause.
"I am withdrawing your spice until further notice," was the Tutor's grave conclusion, "an assessment that is strengthened by your luckluster performance during training".
The Tutor glanced aside to look at the time, while Tairasu considered slaying this ugly sister once and for all. "Don't bother attacking me; the verdict is recorded, and if something happened to me you will discover that killing or maiming a Bene Gesserit leads to capital punishment."
There did not seem much that she could do but leave the room.
"Sutica, Gerta, how is your sleep?" Tairasu asked the next day while rushing to get dressed in the gray bodysuit for the morning combat practice. Like a line of gray ants they exited the building to warm up.
"I keep seeing Tutor Gammala in my sleep," commented Sutica. "'Ugly woman. She speaks to me but when I wakeI don't remember her words. Last night I was kneading bread dough."
"Does that mean anything?" Tairasu asked.
"She told me it means I am working on my own subconscious."
"I don't receive any secret training in my sleep," Tairasu lamented, "now she is withdrawing what little spice I was being granted."
"Our spice allotment is too small. Useless," intervened Gerta.
"They give you just enough to wean off of the laiz," Sutica confirmed. "None of us is being prepared for the Great Trial, and that's a fact."
"How is that possible?"
"Trouble in the high echelons," Sutica pointed a finger up, "With Murbella out of the picture, the B.G. have slowed down training."
"How can Angelika allow this?"
"We are about to ask her."
"During combat practice?"
"After. We are summoned for lunch," Sutica winked.
But it was not Angelika who showed up for lunch. When the hood of the black aba was pushed back, a different face emerged, one they did not know. Yet, the woman traced the Black Swans sign to reassure them she was a friend. She commanded them to grab food to go, then kept quiet until they reached the trees outside, in a deserted area in between campuses.
She spoke quickly, and directly to Sutica, without touching the food: "I am your designated point of contact. You will know me as Felicia. Officially I have been assigned to your campus as an auditor and our conversations will happen under the guise of quality-of-training feedback interviews. I will hide my messages to you inside your dormitory. We will meet to agree on a spot every fortnight. Angelika tells you to keep vigilant. To avoid suspicions, I will meet other students to normalize our meetings."
"Understood," Sutica was quick to answer, "How do we reach you?"
"You won't. We will take care of you. If you are in a life-or-death situation, however, you can hang a cloth to this tree. Now take this, and be gone." On the grass she laid three small packets, which the three girls pocketed before they could ask about their content. "Strictly once a day. Spice overdosing is not pleasant."
The three girls felt the packets with their hands, having enough smarts not to take them out to look. "The consideration of the Order brings you this privilege. Spice is essential to make progress in your training. Yet it stays a secret. Nobody can know." Then she added: "You will find white contact lenses in your packets. You will need them."
"What's the use if we are not trained for the ordeal?" was Gerta's question; but their austere Sister had already stood up to leave, leaving her lunch box still on the ground, untouched.
"Open it, Tairasu," said Sutica, while checking for bystanders. Tairasu broke the seal and unwrapped the little package with nervous hands, spilling tiny blue capsules on the grass. In her hand were sealed contact lenses.
"Come on, pick them up! Let's try them now," exclaimed an excited Sutica.
A blue pill made her way down Tairasu's throat. At first there was nothing. They got up and walked silently back toward the campus. As she crossed the entrance, a fire exploded in her stomach. She could only describe it later as a spicy cinnamon roll churning through her innards. Through the shock she visualized two burning spirals rising through her body and converging at the crown of her head. Then came the lightheadedness; she paused to lean against a wall. Exultation came for a long moment, followed by a potent craving that left her breathless. Her body was asking for more.
The three girls looked at one another, unknowingly making big, big smiles that were not so much a function of how they felt but of their own body's reaction. This heightened state of mind lasted for an entire hour, to their delight.
From there, everything changed.
Tairasu initially noticed a slight relaxation of her muscles during prana-bindu practice. Then, combat became effortless. The cognitive boost even helped with the tedious Missionaria course. At the same time her smell and taste became hyper-alert to the ever-changing notes of the melange. One morning the simoom wind brought sand and dust to cover the already dry pastures in Central. Euphoria took her over for the entire day. Only at sunset did she realize it was caused by the spice in the air, brought by the deep desert winds. The sandworms were coming closer. Craving the sensation of stability it provided, she started to dip more liberally into her spice stash. Tutor Gammala even smiled at her once as her performance in class improved.
Her mind could race faster now.
Two weeks later, the nightmares returned.
Dreams of falling. She drowned under the wave of unstoppable, sky-high tsunamis. Translucent animals with manes floating in the air. Blurred men chased her across chasms and steep mountains.
After a week of bad dreams she woke up too sluggish to get out of bed. A black hole churned in the middle of her body. Dragging herself to the communal bathroom - she was the last one of her group to wake up once again - she reached the faucets, raised her chin, and dared look into the mirror.
What she saw snapped her into a fully awake state. Tiramisu began rummaging in her pockets until she found the contact lenses.
Blue irises surrounded her deep brown eyes.
She felt the chemical feeling of depression pulsing through her veins. She looked in her stash for a spice capsule, but failed to find any. She was out, but her body made it clear it wanted to be possessed by the drug once again, so desperately that it would blackmail its owner with all means possible, until she succumbed. She leaned on the sink fighting the sudden nausea. Her hands were shaking. The had swallowed the last pill three days before.
Slowly, she calmed herself down by reciting B.G. litanies that evoked the faintest sense of self-control. It was a long time before she noticed the smell of spice that permeated the bathroom. Her body started shaking again as it recognized the long-sought drug. Like a maniac, she started a frantic search. Her head was pounding, bothered by the daylight. She rushed to the toilets, almost slipping on the wet floor. There! She discovered a small ball attached to the back of one. Cracking it open, an uncontrolled "Yes!" came up through her lips and a miracle blue pill went straight into her mouth, cinnamon and cardamom flavors exploding. Her body relaxed, the headache was gone. She ran to the mirror. She washed away the blue mark left on her tongue. WIth two fingers she extracted a small ridulian crystal that was lodged on the inside of the ball, revealing the message contained within: "Do ut des. Share with the others. Keep ready."
I am a spice addict now. She re-read the message. Do ut des… I give to you, so that you will give me back. A gift that contained a warning. This is my only source of spice. From now on, her future was inextricably linked to her Black Swan sisters. They had her, as much as she had them.
She ran out to join the training with a newfound energy. Gammala scolded her for her tardiness. The Tutor stood quiet for a moment, then remarked: "Your irises are fully white now. At least the spice we gave you was enough to wean you off of that damnable laiz."