Hell is not punishment, it's training.
- SUZUKI ROSHI
"And so, you aspire to be a clone of me?"
Reverend Mother Visella's voice echoed through the metallic walls of the underground facility Arbatar had led her in after Leerna's spice ordeal. Evening had set, the fateful evening when their planned escape from planet Agarath and the android society was going to take place. Yet any urgency had been put on pause for Visella. The puppet in front of her, a crude caricature of the real Visella, hung on the wall, shrieking in laughter. The unfinished design, the exposed joints, the organic flesh inexplicably protruding in between mechanical parts, the caricatural big eyes and incomplete mouth, all made it look like a monster yearning for life. A half-thing.
"Aspire? I don't aspire. I am, Visella," said the android's bitter voice, infused with the same spite the Reverend Mother would have used. "It is a pleasure to finally meet me."
Holding her breath, Visella quietly approached her presumed replica while absorbing the fine details: the jacks connected to the cervix, the arms and legs aimlessly flapping in the air, the unnatural face whose left side had a delicate metal sheen to it. She was mesmerized. "You look hopelessly inadequate as a simulacrum," she remarked. "Is your mind as much a work in progress as your body?"
"A new idea never looks perfect while in progress, Reverend Mother."
Visella examined the creature up close, her face stopping just a palm from it. The android looked back at her, unflinching. In Other Memory, the Ixian inventor she had acquired from Leerna watched in amusement.
Visella glared back at Arbatar. "For how long have you known this?"
Arbatar lowered her gaze.
"And why the flesh?" Visella asked, lifting a finger to push the disgorged skin hanging under the creature's neck. It felt like squishing a plush. "I thought androids were non-organic."
"Our... embryos are hybrid. We are partly engineered with organic tissues..." Arbatar stumbled, "which we later shed. They are instrumental... for us to learn about feelings and emotions. And pain. Arbatar paused. "How could we develop human-like empathy, without sharing the liveliness of the flesh?"
Inside Visella's mind the Ixian inventor's presence took the stage: 'Superb!'
"What kind of devious plan did the Sages come up with this time, Arbatar?" the Reverend Mother sneered.
"Listen..."
"Yes, humor me..." she growled, "mayhap your plan was to let me escape alone, and shape up a clone of me, to love and cherish forever?"
Arbatar smirked. "No..."
Visella raged on: "Was there the hint of a jest in my words? Would an effective replica take my place with the Sages? Or did they need a simulacrum of me to charm the masses, the Missionaria replicant in case the real Visella aged or died or escaped? Wasn't it enough that I trained Leerna..."
" t!" the puppet exploded from less than a foot away, taking over Visella's mind and body down like thunder. Her throat closed up as her head ached and she stumbled to regain balance, turning to the hanging doll.
"Don't you dare use the Voice on me, ugly creature..." she threatened.
"'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind!" the creature roared back. "Sage Visella, do I have to dissect your reactions until I trace them back to that nonsense?"
'Right', said the Ixian inventor inside Visella.
"But what right did you have to..."
"By Dur, Reverend Mother Visella Ashejak, think like the Sage you are!"
The puppet's provocation had the desired effect. Visella's senses quieted down. Her Bene Gesserit composure came back to her. Her mind, a hundred times faster than a Mentat's, looked for the bigger picture. An android who can act and speak just like myself, Visella's mind raced. I was acting irrational. And no wonder it used Voice to put me back in my place.
"Tell me, robotic Visella, is this but another way for the Sages to study us Bene Gesserit?"
"You can do better, Reverend Mother." The android's arms flailed.
"Is all this so that they can permanently incorporate my abilities in their government experiment?"
"That's a start!" squeaked the replica, "and then..."
"You could live forever, or pass down your traits to newborn androids..."
"Yes! And then..."
"Then what, android?"
"The Sages would have a complete Reverend Mother's profile, and architect defenses, for humans and androids, against the Missionaria Protectiva!" replied the android.
Visella turned once again. "Why? Are the Sages this scared of the Bene Gesserit, Arbatar?"
"Don't expect this replicant to know the Sages' mind," Arbatar corrected her. "We gave you sense augmentations to understand our world, didn't we?"
"Truth." And verily, Visella was now so much more than a Reverend Mother.
"And us Sages did observe how quickly - astoundingly quickly - your mind adapted to the connectivity to our planetary network, merging with it, until you started to compete in speed with our own," Arbatar continued, coming closer to her. "Do not underestimate how much we admire you. And as all the things we admire, we are obliged to emulate."
"You want humans to compete with your own kind."
"What an amazing gift your mind proved to be, Visella. Mentat material, they would have said in the Imperium."
"But why keep all this hidden from me, Arbatar?"
"Look at your reactions," she replied, "you have deep attachment to the old Butlerian Jihad beliefs. Even after all the time spent with us. I did not know what to expect."
"Androids I can accept, But one thing is to speak of creating a human-like mind, another is to attempt to duplicate one!" Visella glared at Arbatar.
"Am I so repugnant to you, Reverend Mother?" the puppet asked with a feeble voice.
"Your body is. Maybe your mind too."
Now the replica started to whine so unlike the original. "I yearn to be you," it begged, "and I am but an infant, with an infant's undeveloped looks. I am but a sketch. I yearn for the painter's brush and pigments to finish me."
"We thought you could be that painter," Arbatar said.
"And do what?"
"If only you could see the potential! An android Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit!" the replica implored.
The statement echoed in Visella's ears.
Double meaning.
Not only the android meant 'think of the effectiveness of an android Reverend Mother in a world ruled by androids'. Another meaning laid hidden: 'There will be no better resource for the Sisterhood than a Reverend Mother agent deeply planted into this world'. Visella nodded in a special way, one that another acolyte would pick up on.
Visella started at Arbatar, now possessed by an idea. "How was this replicant trained?"
"We fed the model the recordings of everything you did since you first set foot on Agarath; the tests, the data funneled through your implants too, though it is more recent. That is the training set. And after building the based model, there have been refinements as the model updates every time it fails to predict your behavior."
"Everything I did since I arrived?"
"Not the parts where we needed some privacy," Arbatar replied, discreetly.
"And our escape plans?"
"They belong to our private space," Arbatar continued.
"Escape! I thought so! Would that I could," barked the replicant.
Visella's mind was racing. "Expensive," was all she could say.
"As a candidate replicant," interjected Visella R., "I have unlimited access to resources and databases from our culture, with the sole goal of accurately capturing the inner workings of your mind."
"We have thrown quite a lot of resources into this project," Arbatar mused, "but then again have we done anything different with you, my dear?"
"Replicating my identity," mumbled a bothered Visella.
"We are androids, Visella; we do not believe in the ego-mind," replied Arbatar while wrapping his arms around her as a soothing gesture. "Who is 'I"? That is a non-sensical question to us. This hand is not a hand," she said, raising it. "Does your 'I' include your gut bacteria?"
How far could this go? Visella shuddered, then looked up at her replica, straight in the eyes.
"So what name should I use for you, my ugly replicant?"
"I am created as Visella R. Ashejak."
"And what's the R. for?"
"Replicant."
"Fair enough, Visella R. Are the Sages able to analyze your mind?"
"Not unless I let them."
"And have you?"
"They can't read me, Sister. That was their first surprise. The model of my mind is not shaped the way of non-replicants. And I am the first of my own."
Visella leaned into Arbatar's arm, the one that held her. "Visella R., how do you improve from here?" She turned toward Arbatar. "Certainly if I enter the scene at this point, it is because she can no longer progress without my help."
"Naturally, Reverend Mother," replied Visella R. with the same tone of voice, no: the same exact voice.
"More trials!"
The replicant stayed silent.
"So you need me eager and willing, to do what? Tell me the catch; as there is always a hidden one when dealing with androids."
Arbatar made to speak.
"No," she continued, "don't tell me, let me guess... it must be some harrowing test..." she thought quickly, intending to make fun of them, "say, something like submitting myself to a T-probe, so that it can create a subconscious simulacrum of me while recording my reactions to pain. Let that be the way!"
The replicant and Arbatar looked at each other. Arbatar looked back at her with great compassion.
"Please, no," Visella whispered while retreating a few steps. "That is actually the way, isn't it, Arbatar? The way of wisdom is always the way of suffering?"
"There is no spice equivalent for artificial life. There is no human/android equivalent of the Sharing Reverend Mothers perform."
"But, Arbatar, we shared each other's feelings..."
"But we have had no dictionary to translate organic memories," the replicant interjected. "But we have... an experimental, modified T-probe."
"This is also very timely. Do the Sages know of our escape plans, Arbatar?"
"No, Visella," continued Arbatar, "the Sages do not know." She smiled faintly. "This device is something Visella R. and I have come up with. It was long before... we decided to escape. It is moot now, but before we left this planet forever I owed you this..."
"Why?" Visella asked, undecided whether to caress or slap her partner's cheek.
"Because of all the secrets we held back from you, this is the last one, my love."
Visella was not of the Atreides line, her awareness not gifted with the heavy burden of prescience, yet in that moment she sensed a blazing path taking her into the future, and a sense of foreboding. All the universe focused on the nexus of that particular moment. No future was revealed to her, but she caught hints of titanic events that would unfold in a distant future, with a horrible feeling of personal responsibility.
The Ixian inventor once again materialized in her Memory. 'And so for you also comes the moment of great responsibility. So what is it going to be? Will you hesitate... or will you take the leap?'
She had a glimpse of a score of android Reverend Mothers, immortal and all-knowing. If only Sharing worked for these artificial creatures...
'What will it be, Reverend Mother?' the Ixian in her teased.
"I may not be you, I may not feel the way humans feel, maybe, but Sage Visella, I yearn," the replicant implored.
Visella's pulse quickened. This... changes everything.
"Will you obey me, Visella R?" Visella asked.
"Since when does a Reverend Mother submit to her peer?"
"It's to be expected, Visella," commented Arbatar standing out of the way, for she recognized a Reverend Mother concentrating all her faculties in the present instant.
"I need to know, are you by chance replicating Navigator Solideum too?"
'You are just buying time!' thought the Ixian inventor inside her.
"That has already been done Reverend Mother," the replicant interjected. "Centuries ago. It's what we call a non-ship, right? This is a first, though."
Visella leapt. "I will submit to the T-probe. Right now."
"Are you sure..." Arbatar doubted.
"Leave me alone with her, Arbatar."
"I did not expect..."
She stared at him, silently, the look of a Reverend Mother with untold centuries of experience. Arbatar lowered her gaze.
"As you wish, my love."
"I wish it."
"Then I will step outside," Arbatar replied despondently, "to direct our Alkadi fighters to take Solideum in their custody, and then here to collect us. We can accommodate this in our escape plan."
"No. Cut all communication with them."
It was Arbatar's time to be confused. "Why?"
"Because we are no longer escaping, my love."
"But..."
"Wait outside!" Visella commanded. With Voice. Arbatar stood paralyzed for a moment, then turned around, and strode out, her legs moving on their own.
The two Visellas were alone now. Visella R. stood hanging, her expression impassive. "It was impressive," she noted. "You learned to adapt Voice to work with androids." Then she waved in the direction of a cable-stuffed armchair to the side of the room. "That."
"That's where I should sit for my torture?"
The replicant nodded.
"Where are the straps and the tongue guard?"
"It is an experimental T-probe. The pain won't be physical."
Visella hesitated. "But still painful?"
"More than the spice trance, I estimate."
"And for how long?"
"It is going to be the longest minute of your existence."
"Fast pain is better."
"It won't look fast to you."
Visella breathed deeply, strode over to the armchair, and sat in it, invoking all her Bene Gesserit training to help. Her hand unconsciously reached for the soostone at her neck.
"Powering up the device. You know, in case you are wondering, you are not exactly achieving immortality by creating me," the replicant commented casually.
"And you will achieve my Other Memories, on top of my full personality?"
"If the T-probe delivers."
"And is this the only way?"
"My model only knows what you have shared or broadcasted to date," replied the replicant. "For example, the memory of the soostone you are holding so tight in your hand: back at age ten, on your home island on Buzzell..." Visella paid only so much attention to the robot as it reminisced the story of her childhood on Buzzell as she had told Arbatar: her friend Teian, the gift of the soostone, the fishing accident, the funeral. The grief. Her mind summoned the deepest prana-bindu state it could evoke. She whispered: "Stop it. It wasn't a soostone."
"I beg your pardon, Reverend Mother?" the replicant asked, startled.
"It was not a soostone. It was a pearl. And Teian was not a boy. He was my captor."
"But..." the replicant started.
"I am not from Buzzell, Visella R. Do you understand me?"
"But your necklace..." the replicant protested.
"It was a pearl, I said, not a soostone."
The replicant looked at her.
"Listen to me, robot: you cannot rely on anything I said on this planet."
"But..."
"Visella R., you were trained on illusions. Get my memories and judge for yourself."
A pause ensued as Visella R. closed her eyes. "Your implants are connected to the sensors in the armchair. Do I have your permission to proceed, Reverend Mother?"
"Yes." Visella symbolically extended a hand toward the replicant's, but before she could finish the gesture, an electric discharge took over her spine, creating spasms throughout her entire nervous system. The pain was not going to be physical, they had said!? But her muscles clenched and contrapted into impossibility. She tried to scream, and failed. She sank into deeper and deeper agony.
"Acquisition in progress, 5% complete," stated Visella R. to a silent room.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...
Her nerves burned and burned. Veins exploded.
"Model re-running, 5% complete," was the message back.
She felt no body, only pain, excruciating pain. Hot. Inferno.
"10% complete."
Pain. She forgot herself. Only the Litany remained.
"25% complete."
I will permit it to pass over me and through me...
"50%"
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
"70%"
Her awareness splintered. "Who am I? How am I?".
"80%"
With a tiny piece of her awareness, Visella held tight to the internal switch all Reverend Mothers controlled by means of their superb self-regulation: the one that commanded heart arrest. So close, so close, the pain was pushing her to push the button, make it end, kill herself, make it go away, end herself, end the pain. When a new surge of pain came, her mind lost grasp even of that, and blissfully fell into nothingness.
Out there somewhere, something crackled: "100% complete."
Floating in the void, she heard a voice. The Ixian inventor's contralto, completing the Litany. 'Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. But see, child... there is no I.'
Darkness.
Visella was breathing again. Light was all around her now, but her eyes were closed. Black silhouettes of women around her transparent self. There was no air, there was no time, everything wrapped in a brilliant shining splendor. Only women looking at her.
Her mohalata.
"Am I dead?" Visella thought.
No, we confined you here.
"How?"
Too much pain for you. We carry you when you stumble.
"Where am I? Is this what possession looks like?" Even in her trance-like confusion, Visella questioned the shades around her.
Briefly, we had to take over.
"You possessed me?" Visella repeated.
A communion of souls can take on this pain.
"Of all beings, you, you, my Mohalata did this?"
You flatlined, Visella.
"Am I dead?" she asked again.
Who is 'I'?
A black velvet full of stars took over, and she felt the souls of the dead dissolve against the backdrop of her eyelids.
Real darkness.
A scythe of yellow light sliced through her eyes as she opened them, while she heard a soft voice calling her. "Visella, wake up."
With a rasp, like her vocal chords had atrophied for lack of use, Visella replied. "Did I flatline?" She felt a century old.
"From here, I could not tell." Visella R. responded.
"I had a physical seizure."
"No. Your body did not move for a long, long moment."
It took another minute for her mind to rediscover her body.
"I computed the new model of you, Reverend Mother," said Visella R., almost apologetically.
"R.?" Visella asked.
"Yes, Reverend Mother."
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes."
"Do you perceive Other Memory? At least the ones I held up close in my mind?"
A long pause.
"Imperfect. I have fragments of other lives."
"I held one in focus in my awareness for you."
"I acquired her completely, yes. Ixian."
"That's the one. Her trace was very fresh in my mind. As you are me now, what will you do?"
Visella R. whispered: "I will assess all possible back doors into the androids' minds."
"Good girl. Our Ixian inventor can guide you. Is that something within your reach?"
"Given the unlimited resources I have been granted."
Visella nodded. "We will always do what humanity requires."
Visella waited for what looked like a long time. "Arbatar must be incredibly worried. I will go." She tried to stand up from the armchair but failed to control her legs and fell on the floor.
"Reverend Mother..."
"I am fine," she replied, lifting herself up and proceeding more steadily toward the exit. "I will be back to you. Meantime, get a proper android body. Your looks lack proper sonzaikan."
"Reverend Mother, about the soostone..." the robot looked down at Visella's body on the ground.
"Yes?"
"I know what I did," she confessed, self-accusingly.
"You do. And now you too must endure the burden of my evil choices too, forever."