Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [162]
Still, even knowing his brother’s discomfort, he had a human need to say goodbye, even if D’murr no longer did. “Farewell, for now, then. I miss you.” As he spoke the long-overdue words, he sensed an easing of his own pain—odd, in a way, since he could no longer be sure his brother understood him as he once had.
Feeling guilty, C’tair broke the connection. Then he sat in silence, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: joy at having spoken to his twin again, but sadness at D’murr’s ambivalent reactions. How much had his brother changed?
D’murr should have cared about the death of their mother and the tragic events that had befallen Ix. A Guild Navigator’s position affected all mankind. Shouldn’t a Navigator be more caring, more protective of humanity?
But instead the young man seemed to have severed all ties, burned all bridges. Was D’murr reflecting Guild philosophy, or had he become so consumed with himself and his new abilities that he’d turned into an egomaniac? Was it necessary for him to behave that way? Had D’murr severed all contact with his humanity? No way to tell yet.
C’tair felt as if he had lost his brother all over again.
He removed the bioneutrino machine contacts that had temporarily expanded his mental powers, amplifying his thoughts and thus enabling him to communicate with distant Junction. Suddenly dizzy, he returned to his shielded bolt-hole and lay down on the narrow cot. Eyes closed, he envisioned the universe behind his lids, wondering what it must be like for his twin. His mind hummed with a strange residue of the contact, a backwash of mental expansion.
D’murr had sounded as if he were speaking underwater, through filters of comprehension. Now, underlying meanings occurred to C’tair—subtleties and refinements. Throughout the evening in the isolation of his hidden room, thoughts percolated through his mind, overwhelming him like a demonic possession. The contact had sparked something unexpected in his own brain, an amazing reaction.
For days he did not leave the enclosure, consumed with his enhanced memories, using the prototype apparatus to focus his thoughts to an obsessive clarity. Hour after hour, the replayed conversation became clearer to him, words and double meanings blossoming like flower petals . . . as if he traversed his own kind of foldspace of mind and memory. Nuances of D’murr’s dialogue became increasingly apparent, meanings C’tair hadn’t noticed at first. This gave him only an inkling of what his brother had become.
He found it exciting. And terrifying.
Finally, coming back to awareness an unknown number of days later, he noticed that food and beverage packages lay scattered around him. The room stank. He looked in a mirror, shocked to see that he had grown a scratchy dark brown beard. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair wild. C’tair barely recognized himself.
If Kailea Vernius were to set eyes on him now, she would draw back in horror or disdain and send him to work in the dimmest lower levels with the suboids. Somehow, though, after the tragedy of Ix, the rape of his beautiful underground city, his boyish crush on the Earl’s daughter seemed irrelevant. Of all the sacrifices C’tair had made, that was among the smallest.
And he was sure there would be harder ones to come.
Before cleaning himself or the hiding place, though, he began preparations for the next call to his brother.
Perceptions rule the universe.
—Bene Gesserit Saying
A robo-controlled shuttle left its orbiting Heighliner in the Laoujin system and streaked toward the surface of Wallach IX, transmitting appropriate security codes to bypass the Sisterhood’s primary defenses. The Bene Gesserit homeworld was just another stop on its long circuitous route wandering among the stars in the Imperium.
Her thick hair beginning to turn gray, her body starting to hint at its age, Gaius Helen Mohiam thought it would be good to be home after many months of other duties, each separate assignment a thread in the vast Bene Gesserit tapestry.