Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
Our species is not genetically nor culturally programmed to care for the long-term. Slash-and-burn civilizations expand into the Seeking, unleashing destruction to the same planets they will call home. Mass extinctions, climate obliteration, and long-term challenges for human habitability is the result. The endless destruction of nature's infinite variety and the disregard for humankind's own biological roots must end. The wheel of karma must be broken. That is why we act.
— THE ECOLOGISTS' MANIFESTO
Early in the morning Murbella, stunning in a translucent white dress and high black heels, and wearing a golden necklace and bangles on her wrists in the forgotten Etruscan fashion, stopped at the cafeteria to bathe in the looks of the admiring Acolytes. Her hair fell in a perfectly shaped bobbed hairdo, undisturbed by the wisp of desert wind that came in through the doors. She stared at the Sisters gathered there, then grabbed spice coffee and rigidly walked back to the meeting room she had established nearby. The Sisters, guards and cafeteria personnel alike, all followed her out with admiring looks. Standing on the pedestal, don't trip on your gown, she warned herself.
Bellonda entered the work room shortly after, and the Mother Superior looked at her.
"About Scytale?" guessed Bellonda.
"Yes," murmured Murbella.
"Our trick worked," Bell replied. "Master Zoel says a test tank will be ready within a month. The secret of production is a catalyst that interacts with the sandworm's water of life – the concentrated spice essence, and once at full regime it can output a literjon of spice per month."
"A tank, you call 'it'? I'll remind you we are talking about one of our Sisters."
"Yes. Based on our needs, we will need two dozen tanks, and the same number of volunteers."
"Our survival demands it. See to it."
"Already done, Murbella."
"Where did you find twenty-four Sisters willing to volunteer to be spice factories for the Matres who need to be converted?"
"Didn't say Sisters."
"Honored Matres?"
"The Splintered ones we captured in last month's recapture of Lampadas."
"Lampadas? That is fitting. A hundred years of pain is what I wish for the whores who destroyed our most beautiful school."
Bell hesitated, then lowered her voice: "Murbella?"
"What now?
"If other Matres within our ranks heard you…"
"Other Matres? Do you still think of me as one of them?"
"I don't, but certainly they do…"
"A Matre can call another Matre whatever she wants."
"Fine. Teg is out here," concluded Bellonda standing aside.
"Call him in, we need some of his leaps of imagination."
Bell walked out, certainly upset by the line. She understands imagination is not a thing for her.
While waiting, Murbella found herself daydreaming… of sweaty bedsheets and baliset songs. That bad minstrel is sneaking in my senses as well as my room, she thought. I must not lose control.
Teg was through the door with the Tleilaxu Master before Bell could stop him; he climbed on a chair and pillows in front of Murbella, studied her pensive gaze before she broke eye contact. Ever the observer. He does not like me, this new ghola Bashar. But, we had no time for Odrade's motherly conditioning.
"I thought we would be alone." snapped Murbella.
"We have allies to consult." pressed Teg, pointing to the Master.
"We may as well. The four of us, let's begin," she consented. The other council members, especially Angelica and Ashala, were going to be furious. They can watch the recording… there are too many projects in flight for them to grasp the entire scope.
"Murbella, we need to leave Chapterhouse," began Teg, his body on three stacked pillows on top of the chair.
"I know. We are due for a rendez-vous with these Handlers in a month. We hoped, Master Zoel, that you could tell us more about the nature of this threat." This Tleilaxu master, she reflected, appeared quite like a punk from the old Terra days, metal piercings and the simple dark coat that could have hidden more than a weapon. He was such a far cry from the simple, unadorned and despicable masters of the Tleilaxu of old, but the same pointy teeth. No wonder the Bandalong masters never really trusted these Scattered ones. The new Tleilaxu stood in the foreground, the old ones faded in the back.
Teg pressed on: "No, Murbella, the Order needs to evacuate Chapterhouse and designate a new capital. The location of this place is not hidden anymore, and the desertification makes for very expensive food imports. Do you think there are any fish left in the wild?"
"That's on purpose. My stew needs to be an incredibly costly item."
"Bell here tells me the spice problem is about to be solved, by a large measure thanks to Master Zoel here. We stopped creating new Matres, and the existing ones are undertaking the agony in the largest numbers. One in five fails, which means a number of them will think twice before volunteering."
"How many have we lost?"
"Seven thousand so far, while converting thirty-five thousand."
Bellonda chimed in: "Angelika has suggested changes in the training which are being implemented right now."
"Good girl," commented Murbella.
"Meanwhile we have to halt almost all spice ordeals," concluded Bellonda.
"Our regular Sisters also need our attention," Teg pressed on, "They lament that the Matres' refuse to train them in combat. I need your Angelika to work with me so that we can make their speed skills a staple of our training."
"For Reverend Mothers and for your soldiers?"
"That's my recommendation."
"Bold proposal. Did Angelika agree?" asked Murbella.
"She would kill me on the spot if I proposed it," said Teg cooly.
"She would kill a boy?"
"Don't mock me."
"But you are faster than she is."
"Don't tell her. I'd get to the door, but this body of mine would not outrun her in the hallway."
"I will talk to her," she paused, looking out of the window. Dar, why are we still here? Your mission is complete, and the worms are back. "It is time to leave. Weather stations will remain here to monitor and harvest the spice. But we need not turn into the Fremen of old."
"Our infrastructure cannot support all the Matre freshwomen we keep landing on Central. Our water facilities are collapsing," confirmed Bellonda.
"It is time to go. Yes, let's pick a new planet. We will call it Chapterhouse… wherever our headquarters are, it will always be Chapterhouse," proposed Murbella.
Bell nodded: "Then this planet where we stand, is New Rakis."
"Precisely."
"The new planet will be one seeded with sandtrouts, of course," continued Teg, "no reason to create another bottleneck in spice production."
"And so we will have to move every twenty years or so as the worms overtake the place," continued Bellonda.
"An itinerant HQ? Are we ready for this?" asked Murbella.
"The way I see it, we are a relatively minor faction confronting one or more unknown enemies. Movement is strength," advised Teg.
"And so we will become like the errant Zensunni, forever hunted," said the ever-bitter Murbella.
"Until we have enough desert planets. We know of enough uninhabited planets not charted yet in navigation maps."
"Does that mean we will move to the borders of the Million Worlds, Teg?"
"There are no unchartered planets near Kaitan, if that is what you are asking. We will gradually drift toward the Scattering."
"How will you train your soldiers to speed combat, Teg?" asked Bell, suspicious.
"The same way I think Matres are trained. Hypnosis, prana-bindu, harsh environment, and the synaptic rewiring of the T-probes."
"Your recruits will die in droves. Faster to give them the Agony."
"Salusa Secundus was a warrior testing ground once and it will become it again. Al-Dhanab is where I will refine the training. It will be a small corps, given the losses I expect."
Murbella shook her head. "How have we Atreides come to this?" she blurted.
"Murbella?" questioned Bellonda, eyes like a hawk.
"Dar asked me to make her thoughts known," the Reverend Mother replied, "don't you look at me like I am some kind of abomination."
"Very well," commented Teg. "Tell my daughter in your head that she made extreme decisions too – remember Rakis, Lampadas? The Atreides of old had a sense of justice and scruples that almost caused their extinction. There is no chivalry in this age. This lesson the Atreides have learned thanks to the Fremen, I think: the necessity to choose between two dark paths."
"We are not in extremis yet, Teg. Hatch our contingency plan and prepare. Do not thin out the ranks of our army. Conserve our forces. The time of the Saurdaukar ended a long time ago."
Belloda spoke up: "And, you continue to evade the subject of your tribulations on Gammu. I still would want to know what happened there, how you acquired your own speed, and any other talent that you may have discovered there."
"Be my guest, Bellonda, but should we not speak of our rendez-vous with the enemy?" replied Teg.
The master had been quietly observing, rubbing his chin. "How is the war?" he muttered in that musical accent common in the Scattering, "I mean the current one."
Teg reassured him: "At current speed, in less than a decade we will have all the splintered Matres cornered, with minimal losses. Faster if the Handlers decided to pursue them, which is not the case so far."
"If these Handlers are Face Dancers, I can assure you we can deal with them. But I have never heard of Dancers without Masters."
"There could be Masters behind them," continued Teg.
"Or they may not be Face Dancers."
"We only have suspicions. Master Zoel," concluded Teg., "Would you join Murbella and I to Gammu?"
"If Murbella asks, I will join."
How can he not? I adequately enslaved him, thought Murbella. He knows there will be rewards he is addicted to.
"I am asking you, Master," said Murbella.
"I will oblige," he replied, the fleeting smile on his face and the sudden change in the light of his eyes; a change that revealed for a just a moment a deep sense of expectancy, a dependency, like the addict's pavlovian response to an expected reward. Murbella's.
"I cannot stress more how dangerous this trip is going to be," concluded Teg.
"My own ghola is already growing in the tanks," was his plain answer.
It was twilight on Central, and yet you could still make out the shapes of the shuttles that continued to land Matres students on a daily basis, small yellow pilot lights that seemed like fixed stars when high above the stratosphere. Murbella took off her shoes while gazing out of the window to catch the last glimpse of sunlight. A male voice was singing with a soothing voice next to her.
Darling, dearest red-haired nymph
Of the passion of love you gave me a glimpse
The trees of Fidalgo spill sap made of honey
For a taste of your lips, I suffer divinely
You hide, and chide me, and leave me breathless
Make me long for a taste of your sweetness…
"You are improving," Murbella remarked, failing to muster the energy for more sarcastic comment, "these rhymes are decent."
The echo of the baliset's last chord faded, while Lorain, his muscular body cross-legged by the window, made a frown.
"Decent! She says they are decent! These lyrics have won awards on Chusuk! Maybe you'd prefer to hear some indecent ones?"
"How did I allow you to come into my bedroom again?" she smiled, closing the window and proceeding to undress herself, not in a provocative way, but with a deliberate indifference that told him he was but a casual observer.
"If not my songs, it must be my beautiful skin."
"I took you in despite them," continued Murbella.
"You are going to be more attracted to someone you like and who makes you feel insecure. Or someone you like and is considered desirable by other women. Or someone you like and dislike at the same time in a way that makes you feel slightly superior."
"These are attractions any living woman should wholeheartedly reject."
"Because they are tried and true!"
"Attraction, courtship and love are different concepts."
"And yet it all works, trust the troubadour."
"Try me," she challenged him.
"Precisely."
"It's not working, my dear." Murbella stood up, grabbing a towel and walking briskly toward the shower. Since when did I allow men to burden me with their emotions? The answer came immediately: since I have been trying to fill the space left by Duncan.
"A massage before going to bed?"
"It's been a long day. Don't touch me. Keep playing though."
When Murbella came out at the end of her hot shower, the air saturated with steam, her body smelling of energy and vitality, Lorain was there - naked, muscular, breathing. "You are lonely," that's all he said.
Had he been someone else... a gesture, a look would have been all that was necessary. But there was no electricity in the air. "You are out of tune today," she stopped him, ignoring his naked body and striding toward the wardrobe.
"Are you just going to stare at me and go to bed? Why did you call me?"
"Right. Now, dear, melt back into the background as room decor."
"Murbella," he came closer to caress her shoulder slowly…
"Last warning," she stared coldly at him, and he sensed it was a gaze that did not imply a playful challenge. He retreated with a sigh, then carefully walked out of the apartment, still naked!, in protest.
Murbella laughed, some of the day's tension releasing. However annoying, I don't feel ancient inside when he is around, she realized. That did not bring any comfort.
From outside her apartment, she followed him in her mind while he sang and played. Was he still walking around naked like a wildman? How long before the guards would stop him? Or let him go for the ridiculous minstrel he was? She pictured him going about his business, his baliset as his only piece of clothing, the building's personnel watching him in chagrin or contempt, while the chorus of a song dating back to the Corrino Imperium resounded across the hallways of the capitular building:
The Galacian girls do it for pearls,
And the Arrakeen for water!
But if you desire dames like consuming flames,
Try a Caladanin daughter!
… and then, to Murbella's astonishment, new verses followed:
Stacked up tall in their mystic halls
Are the Bene Gesserit Sisters!
Haughty souls in lousy robes
Both charming and sinister!
If you fear not, their fruit to taste
In ecstasy and disgrace,
Try the saint and sinner all in one,
And bed a Chapterhouse nun!