Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [101]
Still, Honored Matres often acted on impulse, not logic. And she had been raised, trained, even programmed to be an Honored Matre. Her cooperation wasn’t always easy, especially around that corpulent, supercilious witch, Bellonda. Murbella had made a grave mistake in her belief that forcing Doria and Bellonda to work together would make them grow and adapt—like an ancient atomic physicist slamming nuclei together, hoping to force a fusion reaction.
Instead, in the years that she and Bellonda had worked in the expanding arid zone, their mutual hatred had grown. Doria found it intolerable. Together in a scout ’thopter, the two women completed yet another desert survey. The close company only made Doria detest her bovine partner more—with her wheezing and sweating and tendency to annoy. The crowded cabin had become a pressure chamber.
When Doria finally piloted the ’thopter back to the main Keep, she flew with reckless speed, anxious to be away from the other woman. Beside her, clearly aware of her partner’s discomfort, Bellonda sat with a smug smile. Her sheer bulk seemed to throw the ’thopter off balance! In her tight black singlesuit, she looked like a lumpy zeppelin.
All afternoon, they had exchanged tense words, vicious smiles, and sharp glances. Chief among Bellonda’s personality defects, her training as a Mentat caused her to act as if she knew everything about every conceivable subject. But she didn’t know everything about the Honored Matres. Far from it.
Doria’s life had never been under her control. Since birth, she had been at the beck and call of one harsh mistress after another. In the Honored Matre way, she had been raised communally on Prix, out in the vast territory settled in the Scattering. Honored Matres didn’t care about the science of genetics; they let breeding take its course, depending upon which male a particular matre seduced and bonded.
Honored Matre daughters were segregated according to their fighting abilities and sexual prowess. From an early age, girls faced repeated tests, life-or-death conflicts that “streamlined” the pool of candidates. Doria desperately wanted to streamline the bloated old Reverend Mother beside her.
She smiled as a new image came to her. She looks like an ambulatory axlotl tank.
Ahead, the Keep was profiled against the orange splash of the setting sun. The ever-present dust created spectacular colors across the sky. But Doria could see no beauty in the sunset, and obsessed instead on the sweating pile of flesh beside her.
I can’t stand the smell of her. She’s probably thinking of ways to kill me, before I can stick her like the pig she is.
As the ’thopter came in for a landing, Doria let a melange pill dissolve in her mouth, though it brought her only hints of the drug’s usual calming effects. She’d lost count of the pills she’d taken over the past several hours.
Seeing her hunched over the controls, Bellonda said in her baritone voice, “Your small thoughts have always been transparent to me. I know you want to remove me, and you’re just waiting for the opportunity.”
“Mentats like to calculate probabilities. What is the probability that we will land and walk calmly away from each other?”
Bellonda considered the question seriously. “Very low, due to your paranoia.”
“Ah, psychoanalysis! The benefits of your companionship are endless.”
The ornithopter’s flapping wings slowed, and the craft settled with a rough jolt on the flat pavement. Doria waited for the other woman to criticize her rough landing; instead, Bellonda dismissively turned her back and fumbled with the latch on the passenger compartment door. The moment of vulnerability lit a fuse in Doria, setting off a visceral, predatory response.
Though cramped in the craft’s cockpit, she lashed out in a snapping blow with her