That damnable Atreides talent!

"No more than a secret society?"

Taraza gritted her teeth in frustration.

"Memories are not enough unless they call you to noble purpose!"

And what if it was true that the Sisterhood no longer heard the music of life?

Damn him! The Tyrant could still touch them.

What is he trying to tell us? His Golden Path could not be in peril. The Scattering had seen to that. Humans had spread their kind outward on uncounted courses like the spines of a hedgehog.

Had he seen a vision of the Scattered Ones returning? Could he possibly have anticipated this bramble patch at the foot of his Golden Path?

He knew we would suspect his powers. He knew it!

Taraza thought about the mounting reports of the Lost Ones who were returning to their roots. A remarkable diversity of people and artifacts accompanied by a remarkable degree of secrecy and wide evidence of conspiracy. No-ships of a peculiar design, weapons and artifacts of breathtaking sophistication. Diverse peoples and diverse ways.

Some, astonishingly primitive. At least on the surface.

And they wanted much more than melange. Taraza recognized the peculiar form of mysticism that drove the Scattered Ones back: "We want your elder secrets!"

The message of the Honored Matres was clear enough, too: "We will take what we want."

Odrade has it all right in her hands, Taraza thought. She had Sheeana. Soon, if Burzmali succeeded, she would have the ghola. She had the Tleilaxu Master of Masters. She could have Rakis itself!

If only she were not an Atreides.

Taraza glanced at the projected words still dancing above her tabletop: a comparison of this newest Duncan Idaho with all of the slain ones. Each new ghola had been slightly different from its predecessors. That was clear enough. The Tleilaxu were perfecting something. But what? Was the clue hidden in these new Face Dancers? The Tleilaxu obviously sought an undetectable Face Dancer, mimics whose mimicry reached perfection, shape-copiers who copied not only the surface memories of their victims but the deepest thoughts and identity as well. It was a form of immortality even more enticing than the one the Tleilaxu Masters used at present. That obviously was why they followed this course.

Her own analysis agreed with the majority of her advisors: Such a mimic would become the copied person. Odrade's reports on the Face Dancer Tuek were highly suggestive. Even the Tleilaxu Masters might not be able to shake such a Face Dancer out of its mimic shape and behavior.

And its beliefs.

Damn Odrade! She had painted her Sisters into a corner. They had no choice except to follow Odrade's lead and Odrade knew it!

How did she know it? Was it that wild talent again?

I cannot act blindly. I must know.

Taraza went through the well-remembered regimen to restore a sense of calm. She dared not make momentous decisions in a frustrated mood. A long look at the statuette of Chenoeh helped. Lifting herself from the chairdog, Taraza returned to her favorite window.

It often soothed her to stare out at this landscape, observing how the distances changed with the daily movement of sunlight and shifts in the planet's well-managed weather.

Hunger prodded her.

I will eat with the acolytes and lay Sisters today.

It helped at times to gather the young around her and remember the persistence of the eating rituals, the daily timing - morning, noon, and evening. That formed a reliable cement. She enjoyed watching her people. They were like a tide speaking of deeper things, of unseen forces and greater powers that persisted because the Bene Gesserit had found the ways of flowing with that persistence.

These thoughts renewed Taraza's balance. Nagging questions could be placed temporarily at a distance. She could look at them without passion.

Odrade and the Tyrant were right: Without noble purpose we are nothing.

One could not escape, though, the fact that critical decisions were being made on Rakis by a person who suffered from those recurring Atreides flaws. Odrade had always displayed typical Atreides weakness. She had been positively benevolent to erring acolytes. Affections developed out of such behavior!

Dangerous and mind-clouding affections.

This weakened others, who then were required to compensate for such laxity. More competent Sisters were called upon to take erring acolytes in hand and correct the weaknesses. Of course, Odrade's behavior had exposed these flaws in acolytes. One must admit this. Perhaps Odrade reasoned thus.

When she thought this way, something subtle and powerful shifted in Taraza's perceptions. She was forced to put down a deep sense of loneliness. It rankled. Melancholy could be quite as mind-clouding as affection... or even love. Taraza and her watchful Memory Sisters ascribed such emotional responses to awareness of mortality. She was forced to confront the fact that one day she would be no more than a set of memories in someone else's living flesh.

Memories and accidental discoveries, she saw, had made her vulnerable. And just when she needed every available faculty!

But I am not yet dead.

Taraza knew how to restore herself. And she knew the consequences. Always after these bouts of melancholy she regained an even firmer grip on her life and its purposes. Odrade's flawed behavior was a source of her Mother Superior's strength.

Odrade knew it. Taraza smiled grimly at this awareness. The Mother Superior's authority over her Sisters always became stronger when she returned from melancholy. Others had observed this but only Odrade knew about the rage.

There!

Taraza realized that she had confronted the distressful seeds of her frustration.

Odrade had clearly recognized on several occasions what sat at the core of the Mother Superior's behavior. A giant howl of rage against the uses others had made of her life. The power of that suppressed rage was daunting even though it could never be expressed in a way that vented it. That rage must never be allowed to heal. How it hurt! Odrade's awareness made the pain even more intense.

Such things did what they were supposed to do, of course. Bene Gesserit impositions developed certain mental muscles. They built up layers of callousness that could never be revealed to outsiders. Love was one of the most dangerous forces in the universe. They had to protect themselves against it. A Reverend Mother could never become intimately personal, not even in the services of the Bene Gesserit.

Simulation: We play the necessary role that saves us. The Bene Gesserit will persist!

How long would they be subservient this time? Another thirty-five hundred years? Well, damn them all! It would still be only a temporary thing.

Taraza turned her back on the window and its restorative view. She did feel restored. New strength flowed into her. There was strength enough to overcome that gnawing reluctance which had kept her from making the essential decision.

I will go to Rakis.

She no longer could evade the source of her own reluctance.

I may have to do what Bellonda wants.