"When I have this sword there is no Buddha and no Patriarchs."
- SEN NO RIKYU
For her initiation ceremony, Sage and Reverend Mother Visella Ashejak wore a long green dress with gold trimmings, her hair gathered in an elegant bun atop her head. She had playfully teased Avatasuyara, hinting that she half-expected something unsettling to occur.
"So what unexpected surprise should I expect at the ceremony?" she had asked after they had walked her through the rite step by step.
"Why do you ask?" inquired Avatasuyara.
"So that I can be ready," she replied.
"Good. Being always ready is the right state of mind," was the Sage's reply, "but, a ceremony is not a good place to startle disciples. The initiation is a milestone marker that we embed in our conscience."
Forget the rundown wooden huts and scant temples she had recently met other Sages in: this time she was climbing the staircase to a whitewashed building that stood precipitously on the edge of a mountain cliff in the highest plateau of Agarath. Homage to the lands on Earth that were cradles to our spirits. The air was thin and rarefied, and snow still showed across the patchy green meadows that spring had turned into thousands of water trickles.
"Why an initiation, Sage?" Visella asked while climbing the steps with Avatasuyara at her side.
"Because you are one of us, by training and by your actions. We may as well make it official and proper."
"How can you not fear that deep down I have remained a hard core Bene Gesserit?' she inquired in spite of herself. The stone steps were steep and despite her training, the distant view of the top, many flights up, took her breath away.
The Sage laughed. "But what difference does it make? We know your mind and know your actions. I only fear for you when you think of building power as an asset to be used later."
She paused to reflect on that, while they kept climbing. She marveled at how the old Sage was able to climb without running out of breath; then recalled once again that his body was inorganic. "In my parts they used to say, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
"That's why on this planet you can be reassured every action will have a watcher."
Except, you have private broadcasts when security demands it, she thought. Except, you withhold access to your critical databases even from me. She had learned that every statement by these androids came with caveats. And she had confronted the Sage on the subject. "Of course, everything we say may be true in the context of when we said it, but not in a different context."
Did they know anything about her ruse to escape? Navigator Solideum thought otherwise.
"Why did you take me in, Avatasuyara?" she asked.
"It is time to change," he replied, while slowing down his pace to allow her to catch up.
"But why me?"
"When we recruit, we look for fertile ground."
Very, very calmly, Visella held her breath and decided to plunge in. "So you planned my landing here, correct? Did you arrange it?"
"Pah!" his teacher laughed, "You guessed this one too! We sabotaged your ship when you stopped on Uxmal while on your way to us."
The Reverend Mother breathed deeply in and out. "I thought so."
"Our agents tirelessly comb through the large Humanity that expands in the Scattering. They made reports."
"So I looked like a promising recruit in their eyes?"
"On the contrary. They warned us against you."
"Warned you?" In the same moment she spoke, Visella also activated her augmented senses to look up her own dossier. And of course there was one, except she had never thought the Sages would give her access; and she was wrong, her file had been there all along for her to discover. Her fault, then. She read it quickly with her inner eyes. The reports went back multiple years and through many stops in the Scattering. Indeed, they knew a lot about her; but to her surprise, they also did not know enough.
"But you still picked me?"
"We told them to find a single human who could represent the biggest threat to our species."
"And that is me?"
"A Missionaria agent would not miss the opportunity to shape an entire culture of sentient beings to love the Bene Gesserit and its emissaries. Don't try to convince me you have not attempted it," said Avatasuyara.
"And that's what I planned originally, but I was too busy re-learning to be a human to act on it."
"We know! But here is the truth, Visella Ashejak," continued the sage, "Androids do not rush decisions. Our beliefs are many and are irrelevant. Only sentient life is relevant. Our religion is no religion. An aspiration to better ourselves and others - what else do you need? What levers do you see to enslave our spirituality?"
Visella had admitted she couldn't. The Missionaria used deeply-ingrained archetypes. Existing myths and religions to bend belief, but this society's approach to the universe was different. Pragmatically flexible. Except...
"If you want to play your Sheeana prophetess game on our humans, go ahead and I wish you good luck," the Sage continued, "you may even succeed for a century or two. Exotic distractions like the Bene Gesserit tend to attract attention on this planet, they become a fashion of sorts, for a while. Yet remember this: for a thousand years we have invested in training individuals at scale, setting them free, through a program of mental and physical training, like the one you went through, so ambitious that even the Bene Gesserit have never attempted anything similar beyond the small confines of their own Sisterhood island."
"Save our Missionaria."
"Not much or training program, is that?"
"True. Is yours truly a training program, then?"
"The fact that you can barely decipher the shape of it, while being immersed and almost drowning in it, should make you think," the Sage replied.
Visella's mind retreated as a response to a nascent vertigo, questioning the Sage's statement for weaknesses. Yet she had experienced first-hand the empowering approach of these androids. It could be true.
"One day you will look back and be able to trace the contours of all your experiences here as one clear line, and the big picture will emerge. Our approach, Visella, has enough common ground with the Sisterhood," the Sage added, feeling chatty, "so that every attempt to charm us has backfired into letting us charm you."
Truth, she had reflected.
"Sage, you make me feel like a predator who has been domesticated."
"Don't!" he replied enraged. "Your accomplishments are all your own. We tied you to no leash... how otherwise could we recruit the best energies that lay in you? To be unchained, and to be dangerous, and to heed the call of your instincts and to cause consequences, that is the price we all pay for freedom."
"And if I turned to the dark side?"
"We too have our freedom, and our instincts, and containment measures. But fear not, child; it is easy to overestimate one's inner darkness. But the truth is, no one person can control the infinite universe, and the deep cosmos is infinitely darker than the evilest of people."
She put these words aside for later reflection. "What do you plan next for me, Sage?"
"The plan that is not a plan. It's not up to us to chart your path, only to train you and set you ready for action."
The sound of the wind took over, and for a time Visella decided not to count her steps. They kept climbing. As they finally reached the top of the twenty flights of steps that uncoiled like a snail up the mountain, Arbatar was there waiting to grab her hand to climb the very last step. "Welcome, my dear," she added, observing how proud Visella stood at the end of the long climb, her strength completely spent, yet determined to keep her composure among the artificial beings for whom the stairs had been effortless. The doors as tall as a building on its own were wide open while inside the stained glass light and soft echoes of footsteps inspired an attitude of mystical respect. They entered, leaving the wind behind, and in the soft sound of echoes between tall walls.
Dust motes danced in the air like little snowflakes.
After trodding on worn out stone slabs they came to a circle traced on the pavement, a simple red line in a wing of the huge monastery. She smelled the smoke coming from a bonfire still smoldering on the other side of the long hall. Visella kneeled down on the floor where droplets of water were condensing into frost. She could not suppress the elation of being there. There was a distant, regular beating of drums.
Not more than an hour before, she had been with Leerna, preparing her for the spice ordeal. She remembered her acolyte humbly asking: "What is the nature of the spice trance?" She replayed the scene in her mind (with her augmented senses) while she waited for the ceremony to begin. "You enter one person and you exit another," Visella had told Leerna. This ceremony was no trance, but she allowed herself to hope it would do the same for her.
And now, with the same eyes she examined the transformation her self had gone through on this castaway planet. What did she gain? An opening of the mind, the upending of her Sisterhood training, sure, and a return to her humanity and instincts. Her new acquisitions were many: a Navigator, a loving android, a new Bene Gesserit adept; and whip-like reflexes, and mental skills that put a modern Mentat to shame. Her heart had changed too.
Yet a fork in the road would present itself soon on her path. With a sense of deep liberation, she opened her mind up like a flower to the rite. Everything that happened from here on would be her decision. What she was about to experience would be a welcome, or a farewell ceremony, depending on what she decided to do – stay or escape. She sought Arbatar's eyes for reassurance.
A shaved monk in an orange and brown robe came forth, murmuring a litany that she could only half follow. Frankincense burned to spread its air-intoxicating perfume in the air. Arbatar, Avatasuyara, Rangrig, Klondi, her staff and other friends were there. And Leerna, marked for the ordeal later in the day. She looked at all of them, taking in the view. She admitted it to herself. I love these sentient beings… people.
The monk (a human? She looked like an organic woman) finished the litany chanting a bichord that had surely taken decades of vocal training. Everybody clapped.
She revealed a short sword from underneath her orange robe. It was real, made of ancient metal whose patterns resembled a row of stars in a constellation. Visella recognized it via Other Memory for a dao sword, miraculously preserved, as it was laid in front of her knees with the hilt to her right.
"Postulant, this sword that is presented to you is the Thunderbolt vehicle. Wield it."
She carefully grasped the hilt, felt the cold metal turn hot for just a moment (a self-induced illusion?). She lifted the blade gently. She was experiencing a piece of history.
"Know that this sword in your hand is infinitely sharp, made of holy adamantine and killer of all duality. In the right hands, this sword can cut through the world itself. What will you do with it?"
This, at last, was not part of the ritual Avatasuyara had shared with her.
"What will you do, postulant?" the monk repeated.
She dipped her awareness in Other Memory for help. "When I wield this sword there is no Buddha and no Patriarchs," she replied.
"It is with your mind that you wield this weapon. This weapon can cut through all duality and all suffering. To what end will you employ it?"
"To the liberation of all sentient beings."
"Go ahead and cut in front of you," the monk instructed her.
Visella slowly dipped the point of the sword through the air until it touched the stone slab. She was very careful not to scrape the blade on the floor.
"Rest the sword on the ground now. What did you cut?"
Was this a trick, or a visualization technique? Damn Avatasuyara and your surprises!
What to answer?
The truth. So Visella said: "I swung the sword to cut through my own duality, but there was nothing, only air."
"Nothing to cut!" the monk smiled. "Nothing to wield! For you yourself are the sword. And now, Sage Visella Ashejak, Initiate, rise, for your training begins."
Much against protocol, Sage and Reverend Mother Visella raised her head and whispered, in puzzlement: "Again?"
"Your training is complete," mumbled the monk, as soon as she had recovered from the surprise. "And so now it begins."
"Every moment we start anew," Visella replied, finally understanding.
"Our mind remains at the beginning. Let us all pronounce the vow."
And so they all chanted together: "Compassion embodies an infinite universe, but we vow to embrace it. Our work never ends, yet we vow to complete it. Sentient beings are innumerable, yet we will keep open the door through which all sentient beings will pass into liberation."
A bell struck, echoes spreading like waves of power across the vast building. Flower petals were scattered over her.
There Visella rose, changed in spite of her mind, changed in spite of herself.
Changed, since in the damp of the stone slabs, and in the light of the stained glass, in the wisps of smoke, a new doubt had blossomed in her mind. Avatasuyara is right. No matter what I do or think, I no longer am Bene Gesserit.