Membership in a conspiracy, as in an army, frees people from the sense of personal responsibility.
- THE GOD EMPEROR
Reverend Mother Ashala Redondo found the cool air of the Bene Gesserit jails refreshing, a rare moment of respite from a world whose skies were turning overnight into a roving furnace. Only a week before Centrals' workshops had delivered the first batch of stillsuits designed for the ecologists working closest to the Tropical Belt. So very soon the city's Acolytes too were going to lose their appetite for the fashionable gowns, for the lustrous silks, and for the red boots that Murbella had pioneered among them all, to inevitably adopt the unfashionable burnt umber of those motion-powered moisture-recycling uniforms. Forever.
Unfashionable, like Ashala's title: the Magistra Equitum. A joke on an ancient Roman magistrature; Murbella's own joke on her austere personality. "The mistress of the Cavalry," she used to quip: the eternal second-in-command after the all-powerful dictator, the Matres-made-Reverend-Mother.
And yet, so quickly the tables turned when you played the game of power! Sic transit gloria mundi, sister, she whispered to herself. And so does the glory of the world move on.
And yet, Ashala hesitated when her eyes finally fell on Murbella, strapped in plasteel chains, her mouth gagged. Still wearing the purple dress in which she had fallen from the sky on the lance that returned her from her almost suicidal mission to meet the Enemy, the all-triumphant Reverend Mother Superior, which she was at that time, until she wasn't.
"I apologize for the restraints," Ashala commented while removing the gag from Murbella's mouth, "but as you know our Bene Gesserit guards are not resistant to Voice, by design. And your physical prowess would have made a conventional arrest difficult."
Murbella spat on the floor. She looked questioningly at a Futar laying quietly on the tile floor, its leash tied to a hook near the entrance.
"You are not honoring me with your moisture, I take it," Ashala continued.
"On what charges am I a prisoner?" the former Mother Superior asked, gulping in fresh air.
"None. This confinement is intended for your own safety."
"To protect me from whom? You?" Murbella grimaced. "Well, it failed."
"Bene Gesserit security took measures to prevent any unrest that could follow the Proctors' vote."
"You held the vote without me!"
"The Mother Superior is not required at the Proctors' meeting."
"I came back victorious! We infiltrated a Face Dancer among our enemies!" Murbella replied, "but of course that meant more ammunition for your case."
"I care not about your use of Face Dancers. Your time has simply passed, Honored Matre."
"I am a full Sister as you are, and my Memories prove it!"
"Yes, we - I mean Odrade - adopted you," Ashala said with a disarming smile, "just before you imposed yourself on us and opened the gates for the whores to pacifically invade our planet. What did you use to say? A wedding on the battlefield! Well, I congratulate you. You lasted longer than I thought. But we Bene Gesserit will take it from here. We have to preserve the Sisterhood."
This Sister, thought Murbella, is so jaded she has posted a Futar to guard me even if its paralyzing cry only affects the uninitiated Matres. That error revealed a narrow mindset in her former subordinate.
She could picture in her mind the more traditionalist Reverend Mothers, the Atreides pureblood that made up the cadres of Acolytes who had sided with Ashala; the ones who had felt slidelined by the new hordes of Matres that had willingly descended on Chapterhouse to be converted; the Angelikas who had assumed more and more power as they became Reverend Mothers. It was her fault. She had paid more attention to keeping in line the converted Matres, the savage ones, and turned her back to the more conservative elements of the Sisterhood. And that would have worked, except for the most basic of Bene Gesserit customs: a Mother Superior is elected, and can only rule with the Proctors' approval. And Ashala had always been the better politician.
"Let me guess, Ashala: no more axolotl tanks?"
"I am banning them. Gholas will be ghosts of the past, nothing more."
"Cyborgs? Master Zoel's Face Dancers?"
"All abominations. Your Tleilaxu puppet is in a nearby chamber."
"For his own safety?"
"A number of Sisters wanted him eliminated."
"Thank goodness for you thinking about us, Ashala."
"I am Mother Superior to you, Murbella."
"Mother Superior Ashala Redondo, know that to reach the top is to have the entire universe to answer to."
"I am learning quickly."
"Surely the thousands of Honored Matres on this planet and their opinions should give you pause. Aren't they asking what happened?"
"The Proctors, including the few whores you converted, voted for me. A peaceful transition of power governed by our radically democratic institutions. And you submitted to the transition without spilling blood."
"How could I, restrained in my sleep? And you have stopped the spice ordeals for the novices, have you not."
"The entire Matres training program is being re-evaluated. It was revealed our spice stocks are much smaller than what was reported in the public record, so the trances are on hold."
"Even though we have Scytale's spice-making tanks."
"As soon as it's feasible, we plan to revert to the old ways."
"Organic spice, desert-to-table?"
"Your humor may seem fresh to you, but you look like an old hag whose remarks are the only weapon."
"The Matres will revolt against you."
"Dog eat dog. The trainees will blame the Matres you have converted, the ones who already have the power and status. I hope they kill one another, leaving us to mediate."
"And my generals?" Ashals' reaction was well hidden behind the Bene Gesserit training.
"They report to me."
"If you or your Sisters are trying to seduce them, you will find it hard to turn them."
"Why, are you suddenly the best imprinter we have?"
"Deep hypnotic compulsions take time to imprint, and you gave me years of runway."
"If they don't turn, we will replace them."
"Good luck turning the Bashar," Murbella sneered. Ashala slightly held her breath.
Then, Miles is still at large and dangerous.
Ashala let out a sigh. "Murbella," she spoke plainly, "It's in the interest of the Sisterhood that we move on. You will be allowed to leave, but not return, to Chapterhouse. We will find a suitable planet, maybe even miserable Buzzell. You can take that pleasure man, Lorain, with you. Don't you think it's right and just that we follow the rules of our millenary Sisterhood and complete the transition of power?"
"Then give me my day in front of the Proctors. Let me explain."
Ashals shook her head. "What is done is done."
"You will learn, like I was blind to my weak spot, that it's no easy feat to hold the reins and keep all the horses in line, Magistra Equitum," Murbella sneered. "So why haven't you killed me yet, Ashala?" she added. The new Mother Superior stopped to listen to noises outside of the chamber. Murbella's mind finally snapped out of her lethargy as she searched for opportunities to break out of the shigawire ropes that tied her arms and legs. "Let me guess: it was you who trained that Reo fighter who almost killed me at the spaceport. What better plan than to arm an Honored Matre with the means to destroy another."
Ashala's silence was all the proof she needed. "I need your Other Memories," she finally said in a plain tone, aptly masking the words' weight.
Murbella sighed. So now we discover how tenuous your grip is on my Sisters! Odrade's words still carry weight among the traditionalists. And that in a nutshell revealed to Murbella everything that was wrong with the traditional Bene Gesserit: attached to the past. Falling into old patterns. Candidates for extinction.
"No. Odrade'd better be buried forever," Murbella replied hoarsely.
"I will let you think it over, naturally," Ashala turned around to face the exit door, with a gentle swirl of her heavy black aba. "We Share together, and you are free to leave in peace to whatever planet will make your exile happy. A life of freedom, and if you care about that man, love."
"Consider yourself lucky. If you had Odrade's Memory within you, you'd hear her curse you every minute of your existence," Murbella barked back.
"Amusing," Ashala replied, heading for the exit without a second glance. "I will leave you to your thoughts for today. I was never the one to torture a former Mother Superior without giving her a way out first."