BOOK ONE - CHAPTER TWELVE
 

Muad'Dib is not the one you seek, he is merely the one who comes before. He is the first drop of water that will form the sea, the initial step of a long journey on a dangerous road. He prepares the soil, but does not cause the growth. I now ask you: how will the organism that is about to emerge die?
-The Preacher at Arrakeen-
 

A short distance away from the no-ship, the Bene Gesserit and the group of Jews had fashioned a primitive shelter for themselves, somewhat hidden from the ship's spying devices by some shrubbery that had survived the inferno of the ship's touchdown and was now desperately attempting to grow back what had been destroyed, but close enough to be able to see and hear all that happened at the strangely shaped craft.

Garimi glanced over to the mountain of metal, at the same time hoping to see some kind of activity there, and praying all would remain silent. Idaho's hostile takeover of the ship a month ago had proven that even those most carefully conditioned for rational behaviour were capable of destructive acts of despair.

With more physical longing than she wished, Garimi thought of the Spice stored inside the no-ship, and how some of her sisters had already started showing the first signs of deficiency disease.They masked it well, but unless they found some Spice soon, the health of most Bene Gesserit would start declining rapidly. The time-release capsules with a small supply of melange implanted in each, programmed to activate in time of emergency, were all but depleted.

Apart from that, the change in nourishment had not been easy on them. Bene Gesserit claimed to be able to display extreme adaptability, but the parsimonious diet of what the forest supplied them would take some getting used to. Round-the-clock watch duty to make sure Duncan would not be able to launch an unexpected attack had worn them down as well.

The Rabbi was once more lecturing his audience. What does he intend to achieve this time?, Garimi wondered. Is this one of his theological lessons, another attempt to solidify our alliance, or just a way to pass the time?

"I have noticed you Bene Gesserits pride yourselves on being able to exert great control over the tool of language," he said. "In my culture, language has also been awarded a central place. This is how I understand better than most in what way language can be extremely dangerous. Using it without knowing how to live it constricts the meaning of words, and guides the thoughts of the user into rigid patterns. This way the use of a certain language might prevent the speaker from understanding concepts and viewpoints expressed in a different language, and even those who have mastered many languages, oftentimes are still unable to understand the wordlessness that permeates life. Can you afford to submit yourselves to such restrictions?"

A Bene Gesserit Proctor - an archivist called Heshilta, Garimi remembered - answered. "Our Other Memory offers liberation from such limitations."

"Rebecca has explained this faculty of yours to me, and based on the extent to which I understand this 'Other Memory', I can see you have not fully grasped what I've been trying to say. Thoughts are not necessarily verbal, but this 'Other Memory' of yours does manifest itself in the form of words, perceived as if they were spoken by the personas of your predecessors. There are fundamental gaps between these non-verbal thoughts and the words you classify them with, and nothing I have heard suggests to me you're able to properly perform the translation between the two - and even if you were, the translation itself would mean destruction. As I have said before, words classify reality, and force impressions into previously constructed categories. They destroy those impressions. The words from your Other Memory merely constitute the unrecogniseably altered debris of your world."

"I think you are mistaken," Heshilta started to say, but the Rabbi continued.

"Your many years of mental and physical training weave similar webs. The ways in which you've been taught to react might prove dangerously inadequate in unexpectedly different situations."

"Now, I know this is incorrect," Heshilta interjected sharply. "Other Memory allows for a nigh-infinite number of permutations of the techniques we've been trained in. In any Bene Gesserit, simulflow will develop to such an extent that thoughts and pieces of advice from past sisters will integrate into current mental processes, to help us adapt to any new situation imagineable."

Suddenly, Heshilta bent over, groaning and clutching her chest in intense pain.

"What's the matter?", the Rabbi asked, despite his earlier polemic habits betraying real compassion for the woman.

"Spice deficiency," Garimi said.

"One should never allow oneself to become so dependent on a rare substance," the Rabbi muttered, but making sure Garimi was able to hear it.

"She might die soon!", Garimi said, almost losing her temper.

"One need not fear death. Death is a part of life. It is life's final stage in which a story that one's existence constitutes receives closure."

"All important knowledge is passed on via Other Memory, so in effect a Bene Gesserit never dies as long as the Sisterhood exists," Garimi reacted smugly.

"Does this type of immortality not invalidate the original life?"

"It doesn't when the old memories get the chance to form new interaction-patterns with other personalities and experiences."

"The original life should be unique, and allowed to receive a worthy end. One should not attempt to trick death."

Death. Garimi allowed the concept to permeate her thoughts, silently mouthing the word several times, realising the mnemonic powers spoken language had. What a strange thing that is - the end of life. After death there is nothing. Of course, one could say death exists in life as its complement - a true understanding of life yielding a workable concept of non-life as its negative - but whether or not it is correct to equate non-life with death is debateable.

Existence - being - carries with it death, in the sense that throughout life one must prepare for its termination, feeling the end coming ever closer. Nothingness is still something that can be thought, while not-being should retreat to just beyond the horizon of what can be grasped with thought-categories functional in and formed because of life.

Sadness overcame Garimi then. Everything that has happened, and all the things that have yet to take place - not one of them evokes any response from me anymore, only the realisation that this response somehow fails to come incites the emergence of a shadow of an emotion in me. When that too has disappeared, will that truly be death?

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