Humanity's strongest impulse is reproduction, making sex the richest source of energy. By submitting to our teachings you will unleash this energy to vital ends: manipulation, seduction, influence. As necessity arises you will unleash it as desire, or enthusiasm, or spiritual euphoria. A radiant, high-octane creativity. You will then acquire the radiant splendor of personality employed in creative action, in which tension subsides into peace, balance, and tenderness.
- HONORED MATRES TRAINING MANUAL
Sheeana awoke in her bed, gasping for air, breaking the silence of the no-ship. Her hands frantically searched her body for the appendages that populated the horror of her nightmare, but found none. Bathed in sweat she rose, then scrambled to make light, then fought the fog clouding her eyes. Through the tears, she recognized her image in the antique mirror by the bed. No, she was not an axolotl tank with the engorging ripples of pink flesh; her head was not a cruel oval facing the sky in a silent cry. Her arms had not turned into wide supporting arches for the body trapped by the weight of the soft, massive flesh shaped as a giant open-air womb. No churning white liquids congealed around scores of baby Duncans and Tleilaxu Masters delivered in the hands of lab-coat dressed servants whose blue-veined skin did not reach out from the darkness to clasp her neck. As normality embraced her, the heavy breathing finally subsided.
The abyss preyed on her at night, a black zone in her consciousness that all Reverend Mothers steered clear of, a primordial force looming large, a face shrouded in darkness, infecting her with the need to manifest itself. No more sleep was in the cards until she had sublimated the impulse that could not be denied. She stood up.
The Van Gogh painting stared at her, hanging on the wall just like the day she had smuggled it away from Odrade's old study and took it with her as she left behind the husk of the old Imperium. Several unfinished shapes of molding plaz clay stood on work surfaces begging for her attention, waiting for her strikes and shoves and caresses to evolve into solid art, waiting to chase the chthonic feeling, materialize it, and deliver her from the fear.
Sheeana played with the spatulas and chisels, hesitated, stopped. The Need shook her body, but no muse guided her fingers. Other times inspiration guided her hands to materialize the feeling. But she could not touch that source tonight. She trembled at the thought of making contact with that inner rage.
As she put down the tools a rasp at the door caught her attention. Slipping into a black night gown, she opened the door to reveal in the stark hallway light a woman in Acolyte vests.
Oriana stood in the doorway, perfectly calm, joyful, serene.
"It is very late," Sheeana warned.
Oriana tilted her head, her thin mouth opened in a faint smile. "I heard a noise from your room, thought you would be up. I have nobody to talk to." She held a deck of cards in her hands.
Sheeana's arm opened the door wide while observing how the acolyte and friend looked so strong and so fragile at the same time. The incongruence awakened the inner darkness she had spent minutes to tame. Rage, do not leap on this stray cat.
"What is it?" she asked, showing her friend in.
The creature that was Oriana delivered the opening gambit: "I am working on the Tarots." This simulacrum, identical in body, mind and memories to the original, was imprinted on the blank flesh and brain of the Face Dancer; the body strode with the same hesitant steps Oriana would have used, and took a chairdog as seat. Sheeana locked the door in subconscious anticipation of incoming danger. Seeing this, the creature complained: "There are guards and Duncan's Futars patrolling the hallways, no harm can reach us here."
"I am sorry we have not talked much since we first landed on Delphyne, Oriana."
"Look at this layout," Oriana ignored Sheena's apology and arranged a hand-picked Major Arcana on the table. The gold filaments of the card covers glistened in the low light. "This prediction came to me just an hour ago as I interrogated the Dune Tarot on our predicament," she added.
The creature was amused as the Oriana within her was alarmed. A careful balance had developed between zir and the Oriana persona, the material and the mold, since the day one had absorbed the other. The two parts often engaged in inner dialogue. In the beginning the contribution was balanced, a partnership of equals. Lately, the Oriana memory intruded on the conscience and thoughts of the Face Dancer more and more. Oriana loved Sheeana and disapproved of the plan. The Face Dancer, whose secret name was Kiroom, had come to like Oriana. But people were just today's dress. This Oriana garment was unraveling, and in doing so its personality was rubbing off its owner. Kiroom would not forget Oriana but this old dress would be left in the closet, not forgotten but simply packed away for a rainy day when it would become useful again.
Sheeana looked down at the cards, suppressing the urge to scold her friend. Bene Gesserit teachings warned against cultivating the prescience that so many of them hid in their DNA makeup. And yet Sheeana's preaching to her Sisters had always emphasized experimenting beyond the narrow limits of old Bene Gesserit prejudice. "We have to probe the unknown," she replied, taking a seat in front of her friend.
"Didn't Reverend Mother Helena Mohiam resort to the Tarots during the Dune times?" the creature replied liberally choosing among the Oriana's Bene Gesserit knowledge. "The Twin Moons, the Windtrap, the Water Distiller," she described the cards on the table in a trance-like fashion. This Face Dancer shares to conceal, the Oriana persona commented within.
Sheeana looked down at the cards, marveling at the vivid colors among the black china ink curves. These cards were works of art. The vivid depictions of millennia-old archetypes called upon her, so beautiful and ancient, in strange juxtaposition to the acolyte's young, tapered fingers that handled them. These cards required, no, demanded reverence from the viewer.
"Crisis, patience, and a death," Sheeana interpreted, and paused. She turned a card, observed the gold-on-black design, and caressed the delicate gold filigraine. Tree branches were woven together around the sandworm's open mouth at the center. She flipped the card once again and observed the symbols. "What does the deck say next?" she spoke casually as she drew the next card.
Sheeana carefully placed the new card beside the other three: a red-and-blue jester with two faces. Oriana winced, betrayed dismay, quickly recomposed herself. The Reverend Mother looked up, puzzled. "I am surprised too. This is an old Face Dancer card instead of the Doppelganger. And I know the Pyre replaced the Water Distiller during the Famine times; same with the Hourglass replacing the Windtrap. This deck is built in the old fashion. Where did you find it?"
"Scytale's spice affords us to buy some antiques," Oriana answered.
"We are playing a dangerous game with Scytale, and Garimi knows it. A captive animal does not lose its talons. I fear his revenge and the methods with which he will pursue it, should he find an opening."
"Indeed," was the Face Dancer's reply with Oriana's voice. The loathing came from both.
"Have more respect, then. Why do you employ an original Muad'Dib-times deck for your daily practice?" Sheeana reprised. "You will damage it. See how easy the gold filigraine is detached from the base. But enough. Let's see, now. The Face Dancer / Doppelganger. Duplicity, betrayal, double-cross."
Oriana straightened up, her mask radiating sureness. "It clarifies the others. A crisis caused by a betrayal, a plan leading to death."
"It seems very literal, my dear. The flesh's death is most literal, but you know the Tarot too well to consider only first-level interpretations."
"I think we should be on high alert."
"It's late at night and the end of a long day. You are enabling your inner fears. Go to rest and you will see things differently in the light of day. You do not need our School's admonitions about self-fulfilling prophecies. Exhaustion and sour moods contaminate divination."
"But the reading..."
"Since when do the Bene Gesserit use practical magic to make decisions?" Sheena replied, rising from her chair. Unrelated, inner anger choked her throat, demanding a release.
The creature sheepishly looked back. "Don't be angry, I..."
"I can see at least ten other interpretations of these cards, and I have no talent for the tarots," continued the Reverend Mother raising her voice. "A love coming to an end, and a betrayal. Or, a spiritual epiphany will bring sudden change and inner conflict. Or,"
"Please Sheeana..."
"I am not finished! Or, a..., a Face Dancer will kill one of us and replace her, for what I care." Sheena woke up to her body shaking, her chest heaving, her breath once again frantic. "I must apologize," she added, "I am in a strange mood tonight."
The creature wore a faint smile again. The opening was daring, but had worked. And now the core performance began. Still comfortably holding on to the Oriana persona, the Kiroom collected the cards and put the deck away in a pocket of its vest, from where it produced a shiny crimson case. "In the antique shop where I found the deck, I also discovered this," and she pushed it toward the Reverend Mother.
"For me?"
"Open it," Oriana invited her.
The small case opened with a creak to reveal an asymmetrical tool shaped like a common cooking whip, but brilliant like a jewel. With a cry Sheeana lifted the subtle instrument as it could at any point take off and fly away, her fingers following the translucid surface from the wide handle to the tip carved in curvilinear arcs that went up and backward to rejoin the main shaft. "Is this what I am thinking?"
"It's the thing. A Macromano's plazwhip replica," confirmed Oriana smiling, but subtly tensing for action.
"This," exclaimed Sheenaa, suddenly euphoric, "is the only tool worth using to sculpt splash-like droplets, water-like effects, and soft wax looks. Marcomano's original is lost in time, but artisans still create replicas." She grasped it firmly and the whip started to throb gently in her hand as electric currents activated on the surface. "So beautiful."
"Delphyne is quite a trading place. The Niners recreate it with new semiconductors. They make it easier to do the fine work, but I am no expert."
The Reverend Mother weighed the whip with one hand. She turned away from her friend to reach the closest platform where an inert piece of plaz stood there, ready to be activated and shaped. Her hands moved quickly to prime the material with the electrified whip, activating it to react to the tool's electric surface, and racing to shape what seemed like a many tentacle-shaped creature in fluffy, sinuous juts of shiny gray.
The Face Dancer sighed, just like the late Oriana signed when resigned to a predetermined course of action; the Oriana body hesitantly stood up and approached to the Reverend Mother's back, one hand reaching for the knife in the Acolyte's robes. Standing with her back to the acolyte, Sheeana was wrapped in the veils of the nightgown, ready to be stained red by the cut of the blade. This Face Dancer, the creature thought, curiously in third person as the Oriana identity had taken over, gave the victim a warning and a way out. The custom is observed. But even this killer regrets ending such a beautiful being. The Face Dancer was so close, Sheeana's body gave a pleasant warmth.
A rasp on metal, and the noise of something swinging. They both turned in surprise as the door unlocked without warning. The creature's hand let go of the knife hidden in the pocket, and forced all muscles to relax. The Oriana within was relieved. There in the light stood Duncan Idaho, his eyes blood-shot, barely holding himself together and leaning slightly against the wall.
"Duncan?" Sheeana turned to him in surprise.
Oriana was already on her feet, taking long strides toward the door, a sullen expression on her face. "I will see you tomorrow," she murmured while going around Duncan on her way to the exit. The killer was patient. The victim was not alone. Another opportunity could be produced.
Sheeana watched her go, while the hand holding the whip remained frozen in the air, in the act of creation. She frowned at Oriana. Sheeana could not suffer the unspoken agreement among her Sisters, who took every opportunity for her and Duncan to remain alone. "Thank you for the kind gift, Oriana," Sheenaa blurted out as her friend's silhouette disappeared beyond the door frame, soft footsteps moving starboard. She put down the whip and glanced at the intruder.
"How did you unlock the door, Duncan?"
"Your protection is my duty," he spoke hoarsely, avoiding her gaze. Something odd about his demeanor bothered her. A slight slur of the tongue, a slight shaking of the hand holding the doorknob. Duncan was drunk.
"And how does this self-appointed responsibility make it appropriate for you to own access controls to my apartment, and open the door uninvited in the middle of the night?
"Save me, Sheeana," he whispered, stumbling in and grasping Sheeana's hand. He knelt, panting, still holding her hand, shaking, not drunk, but not in control.
"Teach me, Sheeana."
"What nonsense are you blubbering?"
"Free me, please!"
She knelt, and their faces were at the same height. One look into his eyes was enough to know. He was in a painful stupor. No smell of liquor. Slightly musky body odor. "I am not your Murbella. Go back and go through your withdrawal. Your sexual addiction is yours to heal from. There are sleeping aids you can take." She forced him to get up straight, turned him around with a gentle push to his shoulder. Go on, little soldier, and go back.
"I come kneeling at your doorstep and you refuse me. I want you. Take me as your lover," he said, resisting the invitation to get out; Sheeana knew that in normal times, something in the man's deep voice, pleading this way, would finally tip her from the careful, rational control she maintained to unexplored territory; but this was a deranged Duncan, asking the way a madman asked his executioner for deliverance. His finger touched her skin. She moved his hand away.
"Make this wait between us end, Sheeana. Our bodies require it. Your smell inebriates me. Every time we share the same room, don't you feel our bodies can't handle the space between us? Don't you also feel fidgety, confused because we can only exist in each other's embrace?"
Controlling a little tremble, Sheeana pushed him gently to sit on the nearby couch.
Duncan continued his pleading. "Where are you going?" She had disappeared into another room. Moments later, she returned with a sleep sticker, opened his shirt enough to apply it on his heaving chest, and laid his head on her lap. Minutes later, his body stopped trembling as he quietly fell asleep in her arms. She studied his face, the handsome face that had bewitched Fish Speakers and Atreides for ages, the angular cheekbones, the ruffled hair. The vein on his neck pulsed with steady beats. He was sound asleep.
I have yet so much to ask you about the Tyrant. Do not die on me because of a sexual addiction to a Sister we left back in another universe. Here was the legendary Duncan Idaho, begging for sex, or love?, at her doorstep.
"I want you, but not like this, Duncan; not like this," she said in a low voice, wanting and at the same time afraid to be heard.
His body twitched a little as it entered REM state; his lips opened, said words in a language she did not recognize, then switched to ancient Galach: "Yes, Leto, I will protect her..."
Sheeana sighed. Leto? Siona... Sheeana... names so easily confused.
And there she was, holding in her arms the man her body wanted, but her mind loathed being attracted to; and inspiration, at last, struck her like lightning. She left the sleeping man on the couch, grabbed a piece of plaz, and focused her mind on the image of the late Tyrant. Time later, the plaz clay took the form of Leto the Sandworm, then an old Fremen playing the baliset. Then she molded a flower. She contemplated it for a bit, then destroyed it. With firm determination, she opened up to that inner thing that scared her late at night, and infused her fears within the inert material. The first attempts failed; she stopped to listen to the plaz, asking it what it wanted to be. She listened, and followed. Gradually a form emerged, the axolotl tank of her dream, the woman and machine, the metal supports, the gigantic open-air womb, the water splashes, the monstrous limbs supporting the engorging flesh, capped by the deformed oval head crying out to the distant stars. But right then, the fear was no longer in her; it had come out. Euphoria set in, as she looked upon the triumph of her creation. Electricity sparkled in her body, released from the rage.
"I exorcize you, nightmare. I am in charge." Then her mind focused on the real tanks - real women - they operated on the surface of the planet. Necessity could not save them from the shame of the act. I need to see them. And that meant to see Scytale, the fearsome trapped animal. Sheaana did not know which faraway inspiration came from, but from that place came another spark, another lightning.
Like this tank, I will mold Scytale from inert organic material into my ultimate worshiper.
The deep within her remained quiet.