Page 41 of Hunters Of Dune (Dune 7)

Choosing a landing site, the Mother Commander banked the aircraft and slowed the flapping motion of the wings. She saw her two Spice Ops Directors standing together on the sand, taking silicon or bacteriological samples for laboratory analysis. Several isolated research stations had already been established far out in the desert belt, allowing scientific teams to analyze possible spice blows. Harvesting equipment waited to be deployed--small scrapers and gatherers, not the monstrous hovering carryalls and factories that had once been used on Rakis.

After landing the ornithopter, Murbella just sat in the cabin, not yet ready to emerge. Bellonda trudged over, brushing gritty dust from her work clothes. With an expression of annoyance on her sunburned face, Doria followed, squinting into the sunlight that reflected off the cockpit.

Finally emerging, Murbella drew a warm, dry breath that smelled more of bitter dust than of melange. "Out here in the desert, I feel a sense of serenity, of eternal calmness."

"I wish I did." Doria dropped her heavy pack and kit onto the dirt. "When will you assign someone else to work the spice operations?"

"I am quite content with my responsibilities," Bellonda said, primarily to irritate Doria.

Murbella sighed at their petulant competitiveness and bantering. "We need spice and soostones, and we need cooperation. Show me you are worthy, Doria, and perhaps I will send you to Buzzell, where you can complain about the cold and damp, rather than the arid heat. For now, my command is that you work here. With Bellonda. And, Bell, your assignment is to remember what you are and to make Doria into a superior Sister."

The wind blew stinging sand into their faces, but Murbella forced herself not to blink. Bellonda and Doria stood side by side, wrestling with their displeasure. The former Honored Matre was the first to give a curt nod. "You are the Mother Commander."

BACK IN THE Keep that evening, Murbella went to her workroom to study Bellonda's meticulous projections of how much spice they could expect to harvest in coming years from the fledgling desert, and how swiftly productivity would rise. The New Sisterhood had expended spice widely enough from their stockpiles that outsiders believed they had an inexhaustible supply. In time, though, their secret hoards could dwindle to nothing more than a cinnamony aftertaste. She compared the amount to the soostone profits starting to roll in from Buzzell, and then to the payments the Richesian weapons shops demanded.

Outside, through the Keep's windows, she saw distant, silent flashes of lightning, as if the gods had muted the sounds of the changing weather. Then, as if in response to her thoughts, dry wind began to pummel the Keep, accompanied by claps of thunder. She went to the window, looked out at the twisting tongues of dust and a few dead leaves swirling along a footpath between buildings.

The storm intensified, and a startling patter of large raindrops struck the dusty plaz, leaving streaks in the blown grit. The weather of Chapterhouse had been in upheaval for years, but she didn't recall Weather Control planning a rainstorm over the Keep. Murbella couldn't remember the last time rain had come down like this. An unexpected storm.

Many dangerous storms were out there--not just the oncoming Enemy. The most powerful strongholds of the Honored Matres remained on various worlds like festering sores. And still no one knew where the Honored Matres had come from, or what they had done to provoke the relentless Enemy.

Humanity had evolved in the wrong direction for too long, wandering down a blind path--the Golden Path--and the damage might be irreversible. With the Outside Enemy coming, Murbella feared they might well be on the threshold of the greatest storm of all: Kralizec, Arafel, Armageddon, Ragnarok--by any name, the darkness at the end of the universe.

The rain outside lasted for only a few moments, but the howling wind continued long into the night.

Do our enemies occur naturally, or do we create them through our own actions?

--MOTHER SUPERIOR ALMA MAVIS TARAZA,

Bene Gesserit Archives, open records for acolytes

T

he very existence of the Leto II ghola was an offense to Garimi. Little Tyrant! A baby with the destruction of the human race in his genes! How many more reminders of Bene Gesserit shame and human failure must they face? How could her fellow Sisters refuse to learn from mistakes? Blind hubris and foolishness!

From the very beginning Garimi and her staunchly conservative allies had argued against the creation of these historical gholas, for obvious reasons. Those figures had already lived their lifetimes. Many had caused great damage and turned the universe upside down. Leto II--the God Emperor of Dune who became known as the Tyrant--was the worst, by far.

Garimi shuddered to think of the unspeakably huge risks Sheeana was taking with all of them. Not even Paul Atreides, the long sought-after and yet uncontrolled Kwisatz Haderach, had caused as much damage as Leto II. Paul had at least maintained an element of caution, keeping part of his humanity and refusing to do the terrible things that his own son had later embraced. Muad'Dib at least had the good grace to feel guilty.

But not Leto II.

The Tyrant had sacrificed his humanity from the beginning. Without remorse, he had accepted the awful consequences of merging with a sandworm and he forged ahead, plowing through history like a whirlwind, casting innocent lives around him like discarded chaff. Even he had known how hated he would be when he said, "I am necessary, so that never again in all of history will you need someone like me."

And now Sheeana had brought the little monster back, despite the risk that he might do even more damage! But Duncan, Teg, Sheeana, and others felt Leto II might be the most powerful of all the gholas. Most powerful? Most dangerous, instead! At the moment, Leto was just a one-year-old baby in the creche, helpless and weak.

He would never be this vulnerable again.

Garimi and her loyal Sisters decided to make their move without delay. Morally, they had no choice but to destroy him.

She and her broad-shouldered companion Stuka slipped along the dim corridors of the Ithaca. In deference to ancient human biological cycles, Duncan the "captain" had imposed a regular diurnal shifting of bright lights and dimness to simulate days and nights. Though it was not necessary to adhere to such a clock, most people aboard found it socially convenient to do so.

Together, the two women stalked around corners and dropped through tubes and lift platforms from one deck to the next. Now, as most of the passengers prepared for sleep, she and Stuka entered the silent creche near the expansive medical chambers. Two-year-old Stilgar and three-year-old Liet-Kynes were in the nursery, while the other five young gholas were with proctors. Leto II was the only baby currently in the creche, though the axlotl tanks were sure to crea

te more, eventually.

Using her knowledge of the ship's controls, Garimi worked from the hall station to bypass the observation imagers. She wanted no record of the supposed crime that she and Stuka were about to commit, though Garimi knew she could not keep her secret for long. Many of the Reverend Mothers aboard were Truthsayers. They could ferret out the murderers with proven methods of interrogation, even if they had to question all the refugees aboard.

Garimi had made her choice. Stuka, too, swore she would sacrifice her life to do what was right. And if the two of them didn't succeed, Garimi knew of at least a dozen other Sisters who would gladly do the same, given the chance.

She looked at her friend and partner. "Are you ready for this?"

Stuka's wide face, though young and smooth, seemed to carry an infinite age and sadness. "I have made my peace." She took a deep breath. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." The two Sisters intoned the rest of the Litany together; Garimi found that it had never ceased to be useful.

With the surveillance imagers successfully deactivated, the pair entered the creche, using all of the Bene Gesserit stealth and silence they could manage. Baby Leto lay in one of the small monitored cradles, by all appearances an innocent little child, looking so human. Innocent! Garimi sneered. How deceptive appearances could be.

She certainly did not need Stuka's assistance. It should be simple enough to smother the little monster. Nevertheless, the two angry Bene Gesserits shored up each other's confidence.

Stuka looked down at Leto and whispered to her companion. "In his original life, the Tyrant's mother died in childbirth, and a Face Dancer tried to murder the twins when they were only hours old. Their father went off blind into the desert, leaving the babies to be raised by others. Neither Leto nor his twin sister were ever held warmly in their parents' arms."

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