Under orange sun,
Black woods lift our heavy hearts,
Wind-swept love abides.
- FROM THE DIARY OF A BENE GESSERIT OF THE DIASPORA, ADALMI HISTORICAL LANDMARK AND MUSEUM
"Do try the black salad. And that's some killer black leek," joked Initiate Sereti while staring at her plate. The bleak-looking vegetables laid in a dark green puddle in front of her, just like every Sister's who sat at the table next to her. A local flora adaptation - they had told her - to absorb the most energy from the cooler sun. So much for the appetizing green of terran vegetables.
Sereti was going to have none of it. "You," she whispered into the serving Acolyte's ear, "chef Amerza promised me to set aside some provisions from Chapterhouse for me."
"Chef Amerza keeps Chapterhouse food for extraordinary celebrations only," commented the young girl aloud, moving to serve a hot tempura dish in front of Proctor Meeneea.
"You are a deplorable serving wench," muttered Sereti, "it's time to get Lornul to serve us instead. We need a hot man serving hot dishes."
"Steel yourself, Sereti," the Proctor admonished, overlooking the young Reverend Mother's undisciplined comment. "We will plant terran seeds as soon as we have elected a new home."
A new home, Sereti thought, but pray it won't be this planet. The one they were on at present was the thirtieth the Bene Gesserit's escape vessel #249 "Tazenda '' had stopped on its way through the Scattering; a tidally-locked orange rock orbiting a red dwarf. "Pumpkin," they had promptly nicknamed it, a mildly benign name scribbled below the list of planets they had already visited: Hair-raiser (a world plagued by electric storms), Cinderella (strato-volcanos), Carcass (the smell), Slush, Sauna, Swoosh (tornados), Somersault (low gravity), and many more...
"Serving girl, what is this tempura made of?"
"Chef Amerza refused to describe it, Reverend Mother." The tempura stick snapped open with a pop, revealing some nondescript meat covered in a crispy leathery skin.
"Is this a local reptile?"
"I bet it's the giant grasshoppers from Lawnmower, Sister."
Lawnmower's grasshoppers were dry and bitter and tasteless; chef Amerza had laced the fried feast with spice to provide an extra incentive for her guests. Six months into their journey they had introduced severe melange rationing. Too much hostile territory to cover. Too much uncertainty on sandtrout scattering timelines. It had the convincing stink of a lie. Something had gone really wrong and the higher ups were covering it. Sereti could name too many hasty retreats from previous landings. Did they have to sell spice to afford vital repairs or bribes? Secret councils behind closed doors. Lack of discipline and a bored sense of fatalism had spread.
Sereti closed her eyes and chewed the stick. It was surprisingly spicy and savory, not at all bad compared to fried chitin bodies they had fed on lately. Silence spread around the table as the Sisters were busy crunching and munching.
"Listen up," started the Proctor. "Chef Amerza gave us a little sample of what awaits us at the colony. Select sisters will accompany me to the banquet the atarok have organized to honor the Bene Gesserit."
"They call us witches, Proctor," a Sister corrected her.
"They'd better. We will welcome all the hospitality we can find," she replied. "As you know we are running lean." Only sullen stares from the ranks. We are ragged, spice-starved, and wary. "Until we find a suitable place to settle, that is. The damnable Matres infests too many of the sectors we have visited." They did not know, but theorized the Matres' many Orders ran amok in an uncoordinated fashion on this side of the universe.
"To travel through the Scattering and maintain a low profile, one must focus on the secondary destinations, the underground planets and the discarded ones," the Proctor explained once again with the sing-song voice of an often-repeated lesson. "Second choices. Less than comfortable destinations. Refuges for outcasts. The very people we want to prepare for the holy Sheeana. Steel yourselves, Sisters."
One does not travel into the Scattering without adequate supplies, though, was Sereti's silent protest. Nor skimps training, discipline and the rules. One does not behave as a frightened animal, turning a well-disciplined group into a disorderly mob.
"We will adjust to the local food, among many other necessities." The Proctor continued. "Taking in shepherds and peasants' food offers means developing, as you all know, adaptive tastebuds."
"What's that?" Sereti asked.
"Prepare to eat shit," another Sister translated.
Sereti walked out of the no-ship, greeted by the giant red dwarf sun whose light turned orange in the hazy sky. Big Clementine, as its nickname said, claimed an entire fifth of the sky to her left, and the sky never moved. Here it is always "almost sunset". That was the byproduct of living on a planet with permanent day and night sides. The ever-blowing breeze coming from the terminator line cooled her, an ever-on fan which balanced the highlands' warm and dry climate where they had seen reptiles, dry brushes, cacti, and giant umber-colored kangaroos.
One could know cardinal directions by the blowing of the winds.
Kangaroos, that's the meat we had, she realized. Six foot high, with a very intelligent look in their disquieting red pupils.
Walking briskly on the trail she herself had carved into the landscape by treading and retreading her boots on it every single day, twice a day, for a month, she tried to remember the wind schedule to check she was in between windstorms. "Low aerial tides", was the name the ataroks gave to the calm periods.
Other Sisters had taken to follow her single file, fearful of venturing too far from the ship. The trail kept close to the hills to the east which shielded them from the gale-force winds that swept the open plains thinly covered in frost. Life has found its niche, she reflected while keeping her gaze on the path, in the pockets of calm in mountain valleys and near the north pole.
A grunt startled her. The atarok stood a few paces away, motionless, hands resting on his spear in the "I mean no harm" stance, fiery blue eyes circled by a burnt orange face that merged with the pumpkin-colored landscape. Adaptations. In humans as well as in nature. Is that how her children would evolve on this planet? Short and thick, orange-skinned?
The man's spear had several yellow snakes skewered. They moved slowly still. He threw one at Sereti's feet, making her jump back until she realized its muscles were still twitching in death; an offering of food for the Reverend Mother. A brief conversation with half words and gestures. The indigenous' slurred Galach dialect was barely intelligible; he pointed the tip of the spear toward the settlement not ten miles away. So it goes that the colony had decided that the Holy Witches were to be honored in full, and to do so they would dig deep into their food caches. All the Holy Witches and their entourage were to be invited at today's meal, six water-hours from now, during aerial low tide. Sereti thanked him and told him she would pass the message to the Proctor (the Holiest Witch); then introduced herself by name and asked him for his.
"Atarok," was the expected reply she had heard from every other member of the tribe. Sun-eaters. These exiles shunned personal names. You could not persecute people without names. Without a sound, the man started walking back, orange skin dressed with orange clothes, until he vanished like a ghost against the apricot and umber landscape. Sereti leaned against the large black baobab, closed her eyes against the cold bark and remembered what the ocean looked like. She sighed.
By the time the Bene Gesserit had left the ship, thick blacked clouds crowded the fleeting sky in their race toward the horizon. Their ground transport moved steadily toward the red-brick colony; the "aerial low tide" still meant the black windmills that scattered the landscape whirled at great speed. Proctor Meeneea signaled Lornul, one of the few Chapterhouse men among them and naturally the Sisters' driver outside the ship, to slow down so that they could observe the settlement. Yet many young girls' eyes remained fixed on the driver, who was Chapterhouse-bred and naturally a prime mating target within the confines of the no-ship. The windmills funneled water from deep wells to irrigate low-lying crops. Electric tractors laid idle. The village's red walls seemed to encapsulate not only the buildings but also a ring of tall willows whose black leaves created a large canopy above the colony.
The tribe leaders, young men and women wearing black clothes closely resembling the Reverend Mothers', greeted them with a bow. Proctor Meeneea exchanged formalities. A short, soft-skinned master of ceremony offered a rose. "Thank you," said the Proctor, but as she extended a hand, the soft man's hands twitched, letting go of the rose, which fell to the ground.
"The local custom is to bow, never to touch," Sereti reminded her, standing close by.
Proctor Meeneea picked the rose up and thanked them, considering their clothes. Imitation as a survival strategy, she thought. Then asked about the trees.
"They trap clothing and other objects when the wind blows strong," was the answer in the local dialect.
"And for heavier objects?" inquired Sereti.
"The walls suffice."
"And people?" she added anxiously. The colony lay on that turbulent strip of land between the frosty plains and the calmer valleys running north to south, so that it could harness the wind. It was a dangerous set up. So was life on Pumpkin.
"When we first arrived, people got swept away by the wind, Sacred Witch. Or crushed against the walls. Now we tie kangaroo netting at every street's end," he affirmed with pride. "It catches kangaroos and people alike."
In a small procession they walked on, bewildered eyes following their black abas (there a naturally appropriate color), toward the center where the central windmill stood tall: a cylinder-shaped building with truck-long blades converging at the center. Lightning silently struck it every minute or two, no sound nor crackling to be heard. "Lightning catchers are built in concentric circles around the colony," continued the master of ceremony while catching up to the long-striding Sisters, "both to store electricity and to fend off electrical storms."
Near the community hall a smaller tower showed a large clock, which he described as a water-powered mechanism. Lacking meaningful sun movements, time was measured in water-hours.
A few feet behind, Sereti elbowed the Proctor's serving acolyte, "Reeta, did you notice the maze layout?"
"Narrow alleys and odd angles against the wind," the acolyte replied casually. "But they still have the two main perpendicular streets converging here at the center."
"It's very useful," commented the guide assigned to them, a young man with a brisk walk who stayed deferentially an extra step away from them. "There are nets at the ends of the main streets. When kangaroo herds venture this far in and the wind blows right, we capture three months worth of meat. Speaking of which, the banquet awaits. This way please."
"With me, Lornul," Sereti said, sweeping an arm around the Sisters' man, "Not without me," replied Reeta, in a fighting mood to get a lover. The doors opened to three long lines of black wooden tables already prepared with many dishes. "Where are the elderly?" the driver asked, oblivious to two women's desire to steer the conversation to more exciting topics, "No kids, no old people..."
"Orange, orange everywhere. I crave the rest of the spectrum: the blues, the greens. Particularly the sea. Describe it to me. Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Lornul," the acolyte prompted him, offering an orange-filled, mud-made mug, "And then I will tell you of my other cravings."
Hour after hour, after much ritual and speeches, tons of food and drink passed through their hands, all flavorful from the beginning to the end; Sereti started to open up to Pumpkin possibly becoming a home. "For our own survival, we must get that kangaroo's recipe," chef Amerza commented. For the first time, as the unusually wary and unruly Sisters gave in to the merriment. They were not revered here, and landscape colors aside, they were fed.
The ever bored Sereti affixed her eyes to the local guide she had been assigned, his exotic profile taking a new light as she chose not to neutralize the alcohol in the fermented beverage. "What's your name?" she tried to remember. After all, she had lost Lornul to her friend already. Three stools away, the master of ceremony was deeply engaged in a conversation with the Proctor. Something about agriculture.
Her guide looked back at her with dark eyes: "Atarok, Sacred Mother," and Sereti considered the handsome face framed by wiry dark hair, and saw beauty in this unusual orange face, the hunting eyes, the tanned skin. His skin smelled of sandalwood.
"I know, dear," she said while turning her shoulders slightly, her face slightly flushed on cue. "So I will give you a name then, a name just for me: Attar." She told her body to make her lips fuller, her smile sweeter. "I had a lover named so a long time ago." She extended a hand to touch his. Swiftly, the young man swung his arm back in surprise, but Sereti's hand was faster. A whirl of images exploded in her head as the connection zapped her into higher awareness. She felt her feelings go out through the joined hands, like a psychic sponge was draining them away. Another strange adaptation perhaps? She fought for the urge to regain control as she felt her life force was being harvested from her, her memories exposed and wrestled away. The party noise faded as time froze to save her life. Then time rushed back as Sereti screamed at the top of her lungs: "Face Dancers!"
Several things happened at that moment. Sereti's guide and the other ataroks in the hall were swayed while their bodies spasmed and their faces reassembled into faithful copies of the Reverend Mothers they all had just touched; arms straightened or shortened, skins changed color, until the floor was all Reverend Mothers and their doppelgangers.
The Reverend Mothers who found themselves the target of a physical attack were no longer in the same place their body had been a moment before. They crouched and leapt and slashed and kicked until their copycats were on the floor bleeding or incapacitated. Spice-starved they were, but still alert. And yet some Sisters did not move quite as fast, did not dodge the equally fast, equally instantaneous attacks from the Face Dancers who had so thoroughly copied the Reverend Mothers' muscular fitness down to the cellular level. Muffled cries followed bodies dropping. Sereti stood over the bloody corpse of her Attar, two large steak knives in her hands. In the midst of the action, without any of the customary signs betraying regular Face Dancers, every Bene Gesserit stood there, each one alone, not sure which black-robed figure was friend or foe.
Until Sereti screamed in chakobsa: "Voice!" And a dozen of her Sisters echoed around her.
"On the floor!"
"Freeze!"
"Kill yourself!"
The attackers miraculously obeyed with split-second accuracy, cowering on the floor or falling on their knives. Seconds later, the Sisters stood proud over the bodies of their assailants as the fight was over. I was right! They can't access our powers immediately after the transformation.
Sereti smiled, eyes searching for the other Sisters' gaze.
A change in the air pressure...
"Grab the walls!"
Her body slammed against the table and then dropped to the floor where it moved on its own accord.
Wind.
The doors opposite to the entrance were open and the gale-force wind that until that moment had been confined outside the building, unheard thanks to the wide walls and the especially designed insulation, was coming in with tsunami-force dragged everyone to the other side and into the main street, which was clear and funneling directly toward the colony gates. Bodies rolling, the Sisters were swept away like leaves, block after block, bouncing against the net at the end of it, where they laid against the ropes like trapped flies, blasted by the force of the wind.
Their lungs fought to exhale.
Minutes later the wind abated and the orange men came looking for survivors, spears in hands. They gagged and tied the Holy Witches who still breathed; and the same they did to the Face Dancers who had not knocked against tables and walls and poles, while the dead ones were left undisturbed, their bodies having reverted back to pale skin and pug noses.
It took a few hours for one particular Face Dancer to wake up in the dust. The original master of ceremonies looked down to his doppelganger without sympathy and addressed him briskly: "We neutralized the witches. Pay. Then you will go."
The Face Dancer slowly stood up and looked around nervously. Only five of them remained, all tied up but him, and several other bodies in unnatural poses were crowded in a large net. "Some of us died."
"You asked us to capture the witches at all costs. I acted within the letter of our agreement. You will leave now."
"I will leave with the witches, and the bodies of my dead brothers."
"No."
"Pardon?" the Face Dancer said with a threatening voice.
"No. Planet law. Captives are sold. Dead ones are nourishment. My people reached deep into our food reserves to set up your trap."
"But..."
"There is a market for captive witches, and there is the law of this planet. Protein is scarce. The bodies stay. Pay our reward and leave."
Still bruised but alive, the Face Dancer looked long into the eyes of the orange man while reaching deep in the awareness of the very same mind he had copied. For a moment he stood there, and smelled his own fear.
"Understood, atarok."