Page 24 (1/2)

Natural selection has been described as an environeny Where hu viewpoint Reproduction by sex tends toward experi the ancient one about whether environent after the variation occurs, or whether environ the variations which it screens Dune did not realty answer those questions: it merely raised new questions which Leto and the Sisterhood enerations -The Dune Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada

The bare brown rocks of the Shield Wall loomed in the distance, visible to Ghanima as the embodiment of that apparition which threatened her future She stood at the edge of the roof garden atop the Keep, the setting sun at her back The sun held a deep orange glow fro dust clouds, a color as rich as the ri: Alia Alia Is your fate to be ly cla in a Fremen society - perhaps it was a real sexual difference, but whatever - the ferand on the accu that wisdom’s threats within Ghanima

"Abomination;" the Lady Jessica had said, "our ter history of bitter experiences behind it The way of it seems to be that the inner lives divide They split into the benign and the nant appear to unite in one powerful psyche, trying to take over the living flesh and its consciousness The process is known to take considerable tins are well known"

"Why did you abandon Alia?" Ghanima asked

"I fled in terror of what I’d created," Jessica said, her voice low "I gave up And ave up too soon"

"What do you mean?"

"I cannot explain yet, but ive you false hopes Ghafla, the aboy It was called s, but chiefly it was called possession That’s what it seenancy and it takes possession of you"

"Leto feared the spice," Ghani that she could talk about him quietly The terrible price demanded of them!

"And wisely," Jessica had said She would say no more

But Ghani past an odd blurred veil and futilely expanding on the Bene Gesserit fears To explain what had befallen Alia did not ease it one bit The Bene Gesserit accumulation of experience had pointed to a possible way out of the trap, though, and when Ghani, she first called upon the Mohalata, a partnership of the benign whichas she stood in the sunset glow at the edge of the Keep’s roof garden Immediately she felt the memory-presence of her mother Chani stood there, an apparition between Ghanima and the distant cliffs

"Enter here and you will eat the fruit of the Zaqquuhter; it is your only safety"

The inner cla her consciousness into the Sisterhood’s Credo, reacting out of desperationher lips, letting her voice rise to a whisper:

"Religion is the eion is the encystuesswork, the hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which led with shreds of enlightenment And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is ’Thou shall not question!’ But we question We break that commandment as a matter of course The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the iination to humankind’s deepest sense of creativity"

Slowly a sense of order returned to Ghanih, and kne fragile was this peace she had attained - and that blurring veil remained in her mind

"Leb Kamai," she whispered "Heart of my enemy, you shall not be my heart"

And she called up aface with its heavy brows and firht In hate, I can resist Alia’s fate

But the treility of her position remained, and all she could think about was how much Farad’n resembled his uncle, the late Shadda up fro the parapet with ht: And she’s Shadda out alone?" Irulan de over her with a scowling face

Ghaniuards had seen her eer went to the fact that they were in the open here and that a distant weapona stillsuit," Ghaniht outside the sietch without a stillsuit was autoer the tribe"

"Water! Water!" Irulan snapped "I want to knohy you endanger yourself this way Coer is there now?" Ghaniuards are everywhere"

Irulan peered upward at the darkening sky Stars were already visible against a grey-blue backdrop She returned her attention to Ghaniue I was sent to tell you we have word from Farad’n He accepts, but for so?"

"We don’t know yet It’s being negotiated But Duncan is being sent horand"

"Who can blaht with Alia!"

"Don’t try to gull ht I’ve heard the stories"

"The Sisterhood’s fears -"

"Are real," Ghanie Will you use this opportunity to have another try at dissuading iven up"

"You should know better than to try lying toto dissuade you This course is madness" And Irulan wondered why she let Ghani A Bene Gesserit didn’t need to be irritated at anything She said: "I’er to you You know that Ghani, Ghani you’re Paul’s daughter How can you -"

"Because I’aet that, childless wife of my father We Atreides have a bloody history and we’re not through with the blood"

Distracted, Irulan asked: "Who’s Agamemnon?"

"How sparse your vaunted Bene Gesserit education proves itself," Ghani that you foreshorten history But o back to" She broke off; best not to arouse those shades froile sleep

"Whatever you reerous this course is to -"

"I’ll kill him," Ghanima said "He owes me a life"

"And I’ll prevent it if I can"

"We already know this You won’t get the opportunity Alia is sending you south to one of the nens until after it’s done"

Irulan shook her head in disainst any danger I’ll do it with uish in some brickwalled djedida while you"

"There’s always the Huanui," Ghani softly "We have the deathstill as an alternative I’m sure you couldn’t interfere fro for aIt was a measure of how much care she had invested in Ghani except ani it to tremble on her lips "Ghani, I don’t fear for myself I’d throw myself into the worm’s mouth for you Yes, I’m what you call me, the childless wife of your father, but you’re the child I never had I beg you" Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes

Ghanihtness in her throat, said: "There is another difference between us You were never Fre else This is a chasm which divides us Alia knows Whatever else she may be, she knows this"

"You can’t tell what Alia knows," Irulan said, speaking bitterly "If I didn’t know her for Atreides, I’d swear she has set herself to destroy her own Family"

And how do you know she’s still Atreides? Ghani at this blindness in Irulan This was a Bene Gesserit, and who knew better than they the history of Abomination? She would not let herself even think about it, let alone believe it Alia must have worked some witchery on this poor woman

Ghaniuard your life But your cousin’s forfeit Say noof her lips, wiped her eyes "I did love your father," she whispered "I didn’t even know it until he was dead"

"Perhaps he isn’t dead," Ghanima said "This Preacher"

"Ghani! Sometimes I don’t understand you Would Paul attack his own fa sky "He htly of this -"

"To keep away the dark depths," Ghaniods know I don’t But I’hter I’m every person who’s contributed seed to the Atreides You won’t think of Abo else I’m the pre-born I knohat’s within me"

"That foolish old superstition about -"

"Don’t!" Ghanima reached a hand toward Irulan’sprograrandmother And I’ blood with a fingernail "This is a young body, but its experiences Oh, gods Irulan! My experiences! No!" She put out her hand once more as Irulan moved closer "I know all of those futures which my father explored I’ve the wisdonorance, too all the frailties If you’d help me, Irulan, first learn who I aathered Ghaniainst cheek

Don’t let ht Don’t let that happen

As this thought swept through her, the whole desert passed into night

One small bird has called thee From a beak streaked crimson It cried once over Sietch Tabr And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain -Las in a woman’s hair He looked to the open doorway of his cell and saw Sabiha sitting there In the half-immersed awareness of the spice he saw her outlined by all that his vision revealed about her She o years past the age when most Fremen women ed or at least betrothed Therefore her fa or someone She was nubile obviously His vision-shrouded eyes saw her as a creature out of humankind’s Terranic past: dark hair and pale skin, deep sockets which gave her blue-in-blue eyes a greenish cast She possessed a small nose and a wide nal to him that the Bene Gesserit plan was known - or suspected - here in Jacurutu So they hoped to revive Pharaonic In to force hi his sister? Surely Sabiha could not prevent that

His captors knew the plan, though And how had they learned it? They’d not shared its vision They’d not gone with hi membrane in other dimensions The reflexive and circular subjectivity of the visions which revealed Sabiha were his and his alone

Again the water rings tinkled in Sabiha’s hair and the sound stirred up his visions He knehere he had been and what he had learned Nothing could erase that He was not riding a great Maker palanquin now, the tinkle of water rings as No He was here in the cell of Jacurutu, eerous of all journeys: away from and back to the Ahl as-sunna wal-jamas, from the real world of the senses and back to that world

What was she doing there with the water rings tinkling in her hair? Oh, yes She was ht held him captive: food laced with spice essence to keep him half in and half out of the real universe until either he died or his grandht he’d won, they sent hiht, of course - that old witch! But what a thing to do The total recall of all those lives within hianize the data and remember it at will Those lives had been the raw stuff of anarchy One or all of them could have overwhel here in Jacurutu had been a desperate gaive it to hi will his patience last?

He stared out at Sabiha She’d thrown her hood back and revealed the tribal tattoos at her tenize the tattoos at first, then remembered where he was Yes, Jacurutu still lived

Leto did not knohether to be thankful toward his grandmother or hate her She wanted him to have conscious-level instincts But instincts were only racial memories of how to handle crises His direct memories of those other lives told hianized now, and could see the peril of revealing hi the revelation from Namri And Namri was another problem

Sabiha entered the cell with a bowl in her hands He adht froes of her hair Gently she raised his head and began feeding him from the bowl It was only then he realized hoeak he was He allowed her to feed hi the session with Gurney and Namri They believed him! Namri more than Gurney, but even Gurney could not deny what his senses had already reported to him about the planet

Sabiha wiped his ht, recalling that other vision which filled his heart with pain Many nights have I drea the winds pass overhead Many nights my flesh lay beside the snake’s den and I drea spice-bread baked on red-hot sheets of plasteel I saw the clear water in the qanat, gentle and shining, but a storh my heart She sips coffee and eats Her teeth shine in the shadows I see her braiding rance of her bosoh to my innermost senses She torments me and oppresses me by her very existence

The pressure of his lobe bodies, the sounds of sex, rhyth, ues Somewhere in his vision there were helix shapes, coal-colored, and he felt the beat of those shapes as they turned within him A voice pleaded in his skull: "Please, please, please, please" There was an adult beefswelling in his loins and he felt his irder-shape of ecstasy Then a sigh, a lingering groundswelling sweetness, a collapse