Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [192]
Outside the building, clapping and cheering rang out as news of the birth passed quickly around the training areas. Balconies above the library enclaves and discussion chambers overflowed with acolytes and teachers celebrating the felicitous event, though only a handful knew the full significance of this child in the breeding program.
Gaius Helen Mohiam gave the child to the midwives, refusing to form any sort of parental bond that was forbidden by the Bene Gesserit. Though she maintained her composure, she felt drawn, bone-weary, and old. This Jessica was her tenth daughter for the Sisterhood, and she hoped her childbearing duties were now at an end. She looked at young Reverend Mother Anirul Sadow Tonkin. How could she do better than she had already done? Jessica . . . their future.
I am indeed fortunate to participate in this moment, Anirul thought as she looked down at the exhausted new mother. It struck her as odd that of all the Sisters who had worked toward this goal for thousands of years, of all those who now watched eagerly in Other Memory, she was the one to supervise the birth of Jessica. Anirul herself would guide this child through years of training toward the critically important sexual union she must have, to carry the breeding program to its penultimate step.
Wrapped in a blanket, the baby girl had finally stopped crying and lay peacefully in the sheltering warmth of its enclosed bed.
Squinting down through the protective plaz, Anirul tried to imagine what this Jessica would look like as a grown woman. She envisioned the baby’s face elongating and thinning, and could visualize a tall lady of great beauty, with the regal features of her father Baron Harkonnen, generous lips, and smooth skin. The Baron would never meet his daughter or know her name, for this would be one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Bene Gesserit.
One day, when Jessica was of age, she would be commanded to bear a daughter, and that child must be introduced to the son of Abulurd Harkonnen, the Baron’s youngest demibrother. At the moment Abulurd and his wife had only one son, Rabban—but Anirul had set in motion a means of suggesting that they have more. This would improve the odds of one male surviving to maturity; it would also improve the gene selection, and improve the odds of good sexual timing.
A vast jigsaw puzzle remained apparent to Anirul, each of its pieces a separate event in the incredible Bene Gesserit breeding program. Only a few more components needed to slip into place now, and the Kwisatz Haderach would become a reality in flesh and blood—the all-powerful male who could bridge space and time, the ultimate tool to be wielded by the Bene Gesserit.
Anirul wondered now, as she often had without daring to speak of it, if such a man could cause the Bene Gesserit to once again find genuine religious fervor, like the fanaticism of the crusading Butler family. What if he made others revere him as a god?
Imagine that, she thought. The Bene Gesserit—who used religion only to manipulate others—ensnared by their own messianic leader. She doubted that could ever happen.
Reverend Mother Anirul went out to celebrate with her Sisters.
The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.
—Ancient Fremen Wisdom
Umma Kynes, you have accomplished much,” said one-eyed Heinar as the two men sat on a rocky promontory above their sietch. The Naib treated him as an equal now, even with overblown respect. Kynes had stopped bothering to argue with the desert people every time they called him “Umma,” their word for “prophet.”
He and Heinar watched the coppery sunset spill across the sweeping dunefield of the Great Erg. Far in the distance, a fuzzy haze hung on the horizon, the last remnants of a sandstorm that had passed the previous day.
Powerful winds had washed the dunes clean, scrubbed their surfaces, recontoured the landscape. Kynes relaxed against the rough rock, sipping from a pungent cup of spice coffee.
Seeing her husband about to go above