Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [111]
Sheeana got to her feet as the first three worms arrived. She picked up the empty spice-gathering basket from where she had set it and stood to face the sinuous creatures. They extended their round heads, their mouths glittering with crystal teeth and tiny flickers of flame fueled by an inner friction furnace.
The original worms of Arrakis had been aggressively territorial. After the God Emperor went “back into the sand,” each of the new worms he spawned contained a pearl of his awareness, and they could work together when they wished to do so.
She cocked her head and lifted her sealed basket to show them. “I have come to gather spice, Shaitan.” Long ago, the priests on Rakis had been horrified to hear her speak thus to their Divided God.
Unafraid, Sheeana walked between their ringed bodies, as if they were only towering trees. She and the sandworms had always had an understanding. Few others aboard the no-ship dared to enter the hold now that the creatures had grown so large. Sheeana was the only one who could gather natural spice from the sands, some of which she added to the much greater supply of fresh melange created in the ship’s axlotl tanks.
Sniffing, she followed the scent to where a fresh cinnamony bloom might be found. Children from her village had done the same thing long ago. The fragments of windblown melange they scavenged from the dunes helped to buy supplies and tools. Now that whole way of life was gone, as was Rakis itself. . . .
Inside her head, the fascinating and ancient voice of Serena Butler once again bubbled up from deep within her Other Memories. Sheeana carried on her conversation aloud. “Tell me one thing: How can Serena Butler be among my ancestors?”
If you dig deep enough, I am there. Ancestor after ancestor, generation after generation . . .
Sheeana was not so easily convinced. “But Serena Butler’s only child was murdered by thinking machines. That was the trigger of the Jihad. You had no heirs, no other descendants. How can you be in my Other Memories, regardless of how far back I go?”
She looked up at the strange forms of the sandworms, as if the martyred woman’s face might be there.
Because, Serena said, I am. The ancient voice said no more, and Sheeana knew she would get no better answer.
Brushing past the nearest worm, Sheeana stroked one of the hard, encrusted ring segments. She sensed that these worms dreamed of freedom, too, longing to find a great open landscape through which they could burrow, where they could claim their own territory, fight battles of dominance, and propagate.
Day by day, Sheeana observed them from the viewing gallery above. She saw the worms circling the hold, testing their boundaries, knowing that they must wait . . . wait! Just like the Futars pacing in their arboretum, or the refugee Bene Gesserits and Jews, or Duncan Idaho, Miles Teg, and the ghola children. They were all trapped here, caught in the odyssey. There must be someplace safe where they could go.
Finding a rusty blotch on the sand, she stooped to brush fresh melange into her impermeable basket. The worms produced only small amounts of melange, but because it was fresh and genuine, Sheeana kept much of it for her own uses. Though the axlotl-produced spice was chemically identical, she preferred the close connection to the sandworms, even if it was all in her imagination. Like Serena Butler? Or Sayyadina Ramallo?
The worms passed her and began to plow their great bodies through the sand. Sheeana bent to gather more spice.
INSIDE THE MEDICAL center—torture chamber, more like!—the Rabbi knelt beside the gross female form and prayed,