BOOK THREE - CHAPTER TWO
In my youth I succumbed to love, and I understand the dangers I created for the Sisterhood. However, my actions have not caused irrepaireable damage - the preparations I've made for the future of my grandson will ensure that. Despite what many Sisters believe, love does not destroy indiscriminately. Subservience to an emotion might not diminish once you understand the relation of dependence you are trapped in, if that particular relationship - or the propensity to it - makes you stronger. The love I still feel for my Duke makes me stronger.
-Reverend Mother Jessica Atreides-Murbella!
The latest video material delivered by the spy drones showed Duncan images of the Mother Superior struggling to get away from a Futar, the loose sand impeding her escape. She had killed three of the man-cat hybrids already, but exhaustion was taking its toll on her now.
Without hesitation Idaho exited the no-ship, his desire to save her greater than his concern for his own safety. She was quite close to the ship and was attempting to reach the Bene Gesserit sietch.
She sank away up to her knees in a small dust basin, the material in it having the consistency of water, and fell forward onto the sand. The Futar halted, savoring what it thought would be the final moments of the chase. Further back, the beast's Handler was looking on with a satisfed smirk on his face.
Turning around, Murbella saw the Futar coming closer, and this sight filled her with intense fear. She had been pursued by one of these beasts once before, and had barely escaped with her life. Her patrol's mission had been to secure the base of a group of rebels on a world rich in valuable ore, but instead of the easy victory they had imagined, they found themselves caught in an ambush, Futars suddenly attacking them from all sides. Murbella had been the only one to get away.
Fear of the ferocious animals grew wild amongst Honoured Matre ranks, every battle proving that despite their immense speed and strength, not even the best Honoured Matre fighters were a match for the claws and teeth of the Futars.
Fully expecting to die at that moment, Murbella was rather surprised to see the Futar suddenly sink away into the sand, disappearing entirely, and a large moving dune covering the Handler. Strong hands grabbed her from behind, and she whirled around, ready to combat whatever threat this would turn out to be.
"Murbella, my love," a familiar voice said.
**********
Under cover of a hail of sand Duncan saw fit to generate, he and Murbella managed to find their way to the Bene Gesserit sietch. Stunned by the fear she had experienced in battle, as well as the sudden reapperance of the man she had not seen in such a long time, she failed to wonder about the strange powers Duncan displayed.
Duncan sat down next to Murbella, took her hands in his and wordlessly requested intimate eye-contact. She seemed distracted and somewhat unwilling to share such a moment with him right now, requiring some time to meet his gaze.
"Murbella, I love you," he said softly. "I realise now that what we had - what we have - transcends the purely physical dependency of our mutual imprinting. I left Chapter House to safeguard the future of the Sisterhood, and coming back here now is not a course of action I actively chose, but I am extremely happy to be here, and see you again."
Murbella turned away, her posture containing the slightest hint of revulsion. "I ... I missed you too."
Duncan failed to notice what Murbella's body language transmitted. "You cannot imagine how terrible our months apart have been for me."
Murbella's facial expression underwent a radical change, angry contortions Duncan had never seen before. "Months? I suffered for three years before I was finally able to not think of you for the greater part of the day!"
"Three years?" Duncan was lost.
"I haven't seen you in over a decade," Murbella spat back. Not allowing Duncan to ask her about the discrepancy between his experiences and hers - although her comment did corroborate his suspicions -, she continued. "I can't just go back to loving you. You should leave."
In Murbella's mind, a vortex of conflicting emotions, inherent propensities and conditioned responses drove away all clear thoughts. The Imprinting she shared with him told her to take him in her arms; her own emotions wanted her to process the shock of his reappearance first, but simultaneously made her rejoice at his return after all these years; her Honoured Matre conditioning told her to either use this lowly male or discard of him, preferably in a violent manner; and her Bene Gesserit conditioning warned her about the dangers of love, and drove her to question the circumstances of his reappearance.
"You mentioned you didn't actively choose to come back," Murbella said, her Bene Gesserit curiosity emerging the victor from her inner turmoil. "What then made you return to Chapter House?"
"I ... I don't recall." Idaho failed to remember exactly what he had meant.
He has changed, Murbella realised. The Duncan I knew would know. His actions since our reunion suggest it's as if his intelligence has dropped considerably: he's simply unable to think of certain things, while believing he has thought of everything.
Suddenly Murbella's arrogance escalated into anger, realising what might have happened. "The Prometheans - you led them here!"
"No!"
The answer was a reflex, but Idaho knew that she was essentially correct. The guilt he felt for the destruction he had indirectly caused consumed him, but something else attracted his attention.
She is different, he noticed. She is immersed in a strange aura, a subtle atmosphere of evil that was never there before. Did our time apart effect such a drastic change? Still, I cannot deny my feelings. She hasn't divulged what she feels yet.
"Do you love me?", he asked, carefully.
Love ..., Murbella thought. How can such a primitive tendency have such a profound effect on our lives? Perhaps it really is a vital element of our existence. In their efforts to realise the widespread emergence of humanity, the Sisterhood might have gotten rid of one of the more useful and vital animal relics in humanity - perhaps the aversion I've been taught to harbour against love really is born out of an incomplete understanding of what it means to be human.
Love will provide one with a passion for things in life, and without such passion nothing is possible. On the other hand, the way love creates dependencies on people, carnal pleasures, places and things will limit ones rational development and cloud ones judgment. Perhaps a proper balance needs to be found between the propensities of the flesh and the logic of the mind - the latter existing in the knowledge of when to relinquish control.
"I do not love," Murbella lied, not wishing to accept the pain that would accompany a return to Duncan's arms and heart. "Emotions will only serve to lead us to damnation."
Idaho started humming one of Gurney Halleck's old love songs, partly to annoy her, and partly because the situation reminded him of the pain Gurney had been so skilled at conveying in his music.
"Stop it!", Murbella cried. "Singing unlocks emotions."
"Is this the reason why the Bene Gesserit despise music?" Idaho taunted her.
Duncan continued humming. The human voice is an extraordinarily expressive instrument. No two voices are exactly the same, and within a good vocalist's range there are numerous possibilities for unique variations in sound. However, the thing that makes the voice so special, is it's potential to form words, a word being a sonic constructum that has a certain "meaning" beyond the immediately apparent by virtue of it being part of a larger practice. Within a certain social and cultural context, some concatenations of sounds can refer to objects, states of affairs, concepts or operations because the people have agreed to partake in that particular context, which enables them to reconstruct and interpret part of the intentions and thoughts of the speaker based on what he or she said.
The fact that words can be used by appropriately conditioned listeners to create links to entities outside the boundaries of the conversation or the song in which these words appear, vastly increases the scope of said conversation or song, and because the act of reconstruction while trying to apprehend a sentence or group of sentences is such a personal process - despite the need to submit to the whims of the collective precisely because language is a communal practice -, a song with great lyrics can touch the attentive listener on many other levels than just the immediately and viscerally aesthetical. The ability of the human voice to inflict these words with many different shades of meaning by way of intonation and such only increases the range of emotions, thoughts and feelings that can be expressed in a song.
However, it cannot be the lyrics set to the music that offend or intimidate the Bene Gesserit so - they use words more effectively and intensively than anyone else. It has to be the music itself.
The absence of vocals does not need to create a void - rather, letting the instruments do the talking creates that space pregnant with associations that would normally have emerged from the use of lyrics.
In a similar fashion, a real musical artist can create soundscapes rich with meaning and imagery. The lack of words in such a case is not a flaw, but an asset: it gives the listener the space to enjoy the music and let the mind wander on the unique flow the interplay of instruments creates. Gurney Halleck had this ability - his skill on the baliset was unparallelled.
"That's it, isn't it?" Idaho exclaimed triumphantly, normal-thought derivatives of some of his Mentat abilities having enabled him to reach his conclusions in a matter of seconds. "Music is a language you Bene Gesserit cannot control! The voice, religion, the ritual and many other cultural elements lie within the Sisterhood's sphere of influence, but music has always managed to evade you. Anything beyond your control is a potential threat - that's why you wanted to exorcise it, at least within your own ranks."
Upon witnessing Duncan's outburst, Murbella was at first confused because of what was apparently a non sequitur, but she quickly constructed a hypothetical scenario that was in accordance with his behaviour, and decided this explanation was satisfying enough for her to not want to press the matter any further. However, the melody of Halleck's song had awakened something inside of her, something unexpected and utterly overwhelming as music is wont to do.
To Duncan, still rather pleased with himself for uncovering yet another element of the Bene Gesserit mystery, she appeared excessively nervous - much more nervous than was warranted by the revelation of this minor secret.
Once again, Idaho noticed a change in Murbella, a slight shift in her posture, a way of moving coupled with a facial expression that disturbed him deeply.
That's when he noticed the tapping of her fingers, and he immediately recognised what had to be the source of this compulsion.
No!, he cried in his mind. A heart-tearing conflict of love and repulsion filled him. I lost my precious Alia to you - I will not let you take Murbella as well!