Dune - 06 Chapterhouse Dune by Frank Herbert

Author:Frank Herbert [Herbert, Frank]
Format: epub
Publisher: Frank Herbert
Published: 2010-03-24T17:54:34.570000+00:00

"You're seeding the universe with enemies," he said. "You're feeding Honored Matres!"

She was fully (and only) Mentat then, required to match this ghola ability for ability. Drama? Romance? The body got in the way of Mentat performance. Mentats must use the body, not let it interfere.

"No Reverend Mother you've Scattered has ever returned or sent a message," he said. "You try to reassure yourselves by saying only the Scattered ones know where they go. How can you ignore the message they send in this other fact? Why has not one tried to communicate with Chapterhouse?"

He's chiding all of us, damn him! And he's right.

"Have I stated our problem in its most elemental form?"

Mentat questioning!

"Simplest question, simplest projection," she agreed.

"Amplified sexual ecstasy: Bene Gesserit imprint? Are Honored Matres trapping your people out there?"

"Murbella?" A one-word challenge. Assess this woman you say you love! Does she know things we should know?

"They're conditioned against raising their own enjoyment to addictive levels but they are vulnerable."

"She denies there are Bene Gesserit sources in Honored Matre history."

"As she was conditioned to do."

"A lust for power instead?"

"At last, you have asked a proper question." And when she did not reply, he said: "Mater Felicissima." Addressing her by the ancient term for Bene Gesserit Council members.

She knew why he did it and felt the word produce the wanted effect. She was firmly balanced now, Mentat Reverend Mother encompassed by the mohalata of her own Spice Agony -- that union of benign Other Memory protecting her from domination by malignant ancestors.

How did he know to do that? Every observer behind the comeyes would be asking that question. Of course! The Tyrant trained him thus, time and time again. What do we have here? What is this talent Mother Superior dares employ? Dangerous, yes, but far more valuable than I suspected. By the gods of our own creation! Is he the tool to free us?

How calm he was. He knew he had caught her.

"In one of my lives, Bell, I visited your Bene Gesserit house on Wallach IX and there talked to one of your ancestors, Tersius Helen Anteac. Let her guide you, Bell. She knows."

Bellonda felt familiar prodding in her mind. How could he know Anteac was my ancestor?

"I went to Wallach IX at the Tyrant's command," he said. "Oh, yes! I often thought of him as Tyrant. My orders were to suppress the Mentat school you thought you had hidden there."

Anteac-simulflow intruded: "I show you now the event of which he speaks."

"Consider," he said. "I, a Mentat, forced to suppress a school that trained people the way I was trained. I knew why he ordered it, of course, and so do you."

Simulflow poured it through her awareness: Order of Mentats, founded by Gilbertus Albans; temporary sanctuary with Bene Tleilax who hoped to incorporate them into Tleilaxu hegemony; spread into uncounted "seed schools"; suppressed by Leto II because they formed a nucleus of independent opposition; spread into the Scattering after the Famine.

"He kept a few of the finest teachers on Dune, but the question Anteac forces you to confront now does not go there.

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