BOOK THREE - CHAPTER FOUR
The initial goal of the Kwisatz Haderach program was to find a genetic solution to the enduring problems of mankind. Achieving the Kwisatz Haderach was only the first step of the process towards a solution. Paul Atreides and his son, the God Emperor, did follow the second part of the plan, at least in intent - as much as they deviated from our original projections, they did follow that part of their genetic programming quite nicely. What they lacked, however, was the necessary perspective to continue the plan in a proper manner - a perspective that the Sisterhood, as the originator of the program, does possess. We suspect The Tyrant's Ancestral Memories, as described in the recently discovered journals at Dar-es-Balat, failed to integrate some of the better-guarded subtleties of the Bene Gesserit plans from the memories of the Sisters in his ancestry - the contrast with the living, continuously developing tradition of the Sisterhood with his static, consistently overestimated array of Ancestral Memories is clear. It appears even The Tyrant himself overestimated the lucidity and comprehensiveness of his access to his ancestry, a realisation that to us has both positive and negative aspects: it allows us to silence most of our fears about his powers and his resemblance to us, but it also increases the potential damage his mismanagement has done to our breeding program. However, the biggest mistake The Tyrant made was to accept his metamorphosis before reaching the age of sexual maturity. The use of his sister as the basis of his breeding program has proven to be misguided: her mastering of the Ancestral Memories involved a method that locked them away rather than allowing them to develop, thus minimising the desirable traits the Kwisatz Haderach's seed would have perpetuated.
-from "Atreides Atrocity - An Analysis", Bene Gesserit Archives-
"I've lost her," Duncan despaired. For all intents and purposes, my love is dead.
"I don't care, ghola," Scytale said. "We have more pressing matters to take care of."
They were in the hold with the axolotl tanks, the five bloated, malformed bodies floating in the Melange liquid, creating new life out of old cells. What had once been Sheeana was ready to give birth again.
Scytale took a large syringe filled with a light-blue substance, and injected the contents straight into a tube that led into Sheeana's skull through one of her temples. Soon after, labour began, and the head of the new ghola became visible. Despite the differences in appearance, Duncan immediately recognised the face from his distant past. Why would he resurrect him, of all people?, he wondered.
Idaho decided to ask. "What purpose does giving him new life serve?"
"It was foretold in a prophecy that it would have to be this way," Scytale answered. "I am merely performing the task I have been given."
The very moment the ghola was born, loud noises reached them from the adjoining hold, where the worm was being kept - a bonking sound, over and over again. Without fully realising why he did it, Idaho cradled the crying baby - still wet with axolotl-tank fluid - in his arms and took it to the worm.
As soon as they entered the hold, the worm stopped its violent movements, turning its head to the two gholas. Idaho walked over to the pen and lay the baby on the bed of Spice. The infant was completely calm now.
"Our new son," he whispered.
The worm carefully moved closer to the small form, appearing to determine what kind of strange object it was that had entered his territory. Some of the sandtrout that formed its front segment partly detached and encapsulated the ghola baby, completely hiding it from view.
**********
Finally ... Your mind, still undeveloped but full of potential, is available to me. Your young limbs I will reconfigure, and soon I will have my true body again!
**********
"Where is our son?"
Sheeana came storming from the house, in panic, looking for Duncan. She found him in the garden next to the house, where they grew the giant pumpkins and the baby carrots and the candy tree.
"What's the matter?", Duncan asked.
"Paul! Paul is gone!"
Duncan knew they had raised their son to be responsible, and always do the right thing. "Where could he have gone? He doesn't know the way around here. He is just a little boy."
Pulling Duncan's arm, trying to get him to stop his work, she yelled: "Perhaps he is lost, or Shaitan came and kidnapped him!"
Duncan appeared not to share her concern. "If that's true, I'm sure we will get a new one. Waldemar will come again."
"You don't love our son! I hate you!" Sheeana dashed off towards the woods, where she thought Paul could have ran away to, when suddenly she tripped and fell. A severe illness overcame her.
Duncan walked over, and said: "Something's not right."
**********
"The new Teg gholas are almost ready to be born," Scytale said, inspecting the readouts on some of the strange-looking displays he had attached to the tanks. "We will soon have a small army of our own."
Will that be enough?, Idaho wondered. The power of the Prometheans might be too great.
Suddenly, violent convulsions shook the axolotl tank that had once been Sheeana. Scytale pushed Idaho aside as he approached the tank. He looked at Idaho. "Something's not right."
**********
As Solar the firefly started his climb up to the roof of the sky again, Sheeana realised this day would bring many changes. She had been ill for a few days, but was starting to feel a bit better now. She got up out of bed and looked for Duncan, but she couldn't find him anywhere in the house. She was starting to get a little worried.
Suddenly, immense pain shot through Sheeana's body, causing her to collapse onto the floor of the kitchen. Duncan rushed over from outside, alarmed by Sheeana's cry for help, and supported her while she tried to stand up. "What's the matter, my love?", he asked.
Another jolt of pain shook Sheeana. His hands felt very uncomfortable on her body. "Don't touch me!", she screamed, breaking free of Duncan's embrace. She turned to look at his face, finding genuine concern there, and something ... more. For a brief moment, Sheeana understood what he felt for the very first time. He loves me! However, she could not bring herself to admit to feeling the same. "I ... Don't follow me. Please ...", she stammered. She hesitated for a moment, then ran out the door, crying loudly.
She passed the vegetable gardens with the giant pumpkins and the baby carrots and the candy tree, entered the Forest Of The Howling Spirits, and didn't stop until she reached the small lake where the fairies lived, occasionally stumbling as pain once more seared through her body.
Strange visions flared up inside her mind, the pain providing her with moments of perceptional clarity. Through rifts in the sky, she could see Shaitan trying to reach her, hunting her, his crystal teeth tearing the clouds. The trees that surrounded her dissolved, and dunes of red sand rose up all around her.
Then the thoughts came.
Shaitan killed my parents - devoured my village!
Shaitan listened to me.
The black-robed women made me one of them. She remembered a face. Her name was ... Odrade?
A brief flash of clarity pervaded her mind then, the memory of a former life restoring some of her old thoughts, elements of the suppressed Odrade-within attempting to reassert her influence over Sheeana's traumatised consciousness. For a few short moments, she almost realised what was happening to her, and what was supposed to have happened to her, if the Sisterhood had had its way.
I'm ... an axolotl tank. Resignation in her fate filled her mind, a powerlessness that wasn't depressing but made her understand something of the motion of the allstream, and her role in history.
Odrade ... What was it that she wanted from me? Sheeana remembered she was an important part of a plan this woman had hatched. Why? What did she want me to do?
The contours of a structure of actions and reactions appeared. A religion? Shaitan ... his world had been destroyed, all but one of the giant worms killed.
Shaitan listened to me.
There lies the value I had to the Sisterhood.
They needed the Missionaria Protectiva to reach a new stage! The Sisterhood has been manipulating many cultures for millennia by infecting them with religious dogmas, preparing those societies for exploitation. The Atreides Manifesto had been the final element of the old strategy, preparing the Tleilaxu to share their valuable knowledge with the Sisterhood.
The painting! "Thatched Cottages At Cordeville" - it pointed out the new path. This artist of long ago, a deeply disturbed individual by normal standards, was the hunter that captured this array of emotions and locked it inside an object for us to look at and relive some of the most basic sensations we are capable of having. Irrationality and raw creative expression frozen in a carefully composed manner - the chaos not contained but not allowed to run rampant either.
I have to make the choice. Bene Gesserit rationality, or raw emotion, or perhaps a combination of the two? Or ... Is there a fourth choice?
Sheeana. The voice sounded soothing.
Who is that?, Sheeana wondered.
I have found you again.
Odrade?
Yes. I'm here to remind you of your duties as a Bene Gesserit. You have been given immense knowledge, and unique abilities. Remember the obligations the acquisition of power force upon you. You have sworn to serve mankind, to carve out a better future for humanity.
I see no future for humanity.
You cannot think such things!
I will think whichever way I want. I have made my choice.
You are the centrepiece of the Sisterhood's future!
Not any longer. I'm taking back my own life.
A dark shape appeared, for both Odrade and Sheeana to see: a large piece of black plaz, sharp tentacles reaching upward as if in despair from a massive curved base.
Odrade recognised the object, and remembered feeling the danger and pain encapsulated in the sculpture when she first saw it in Sheeana's quarters, such a long time ago. Void.
It moved, the rigid material having gained malleability. The tentacles shot out, encircling the concepts, emotions and sensations in Sheeana's mind, and then capturing her will to live.
Sheeana returned to her vision, the tangible appearance of the house in the distance, the one she had lived in with Duncan, losing its consistency, the painting's crude brushstrokes and vibrant colours reappearing.
The water of the lake called her, invited her to enter it. Looking back one more time, silently saying goodbye to all that she had loved and hated in her life, she walked forward. With each step, the water rose higher around her legs and chest, until it reached her chin.
She hesitated. She heard footsteps approaching, and Duncan's voice calling out to her. She ignored him.
Suddenly, she was submerged, looking upwards to the light, seeing the air bubbles rising to the surface.
What a strange sensation!, she thought. A Fremen drowning.
Slowly, she felt her mind go black, the oxygen in her lungs running out, until finally she embraced the darkness, and was no more.
**********
Because of the connection he had with the tanks through his peculiar devices, Scytale sensed what had happened, and ran towards the hold where the axolotl tanks were. When he arrived he saw that Idaho was already there, standing next to the tank with the monstrously deformed body of Sheeana. He was stroking her face, gently wiping her long hair away from her eyes, his hands wet with the fluid that filled the tank. Her hair had started falling out and her face was bloated and carried an expression of pain, but Idaho looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
He lifted his head towards Scytale, and spoke softly. "She's dead."