Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [24]
Since emerging from the oddly distorted universe, Duncan had not engaged the Holtzman engines again, or selected a course. Without navigational guidance, each jump through foldspace carried considerable risk, so now the no-ship hung in empty space without coordinates. Although he could have mapped nearby star systems on the long-range projection and flagged possible planets to explore, Duncan let the ship drift, rudderless.
In their three years in the other universe, they had encountered no sign of the old man and woman, or of the gossamer web that Duncan insisted continued to search for them. Though Teg did not disbelieve the other man’s fears of the mysterious hunters that only he could see, the young Bashar also wished for an end—or just a point—to their odyssey.
Garimi’s lips sank into a deep frown as she stared at the mummified corpses. “See, we were right to leave Chapterhouse. Did we need any further proof that witches and whores do not mix?”
Sheeana raised her voice, addressing all of them. “For three years, we carried the bodies of our fallen Sisters without knowing they were here. In all that time, they have not been able to rest. These Reverend Mothers died without Sharing, without adding their lives to Other Memory. We can guess, but we cannot know, what agonies they endured before the whores killed them.”
“We do know that they refused to reveal the information the whores tried to wrest from them,” Garimi spoke up. “Chapterhouse remained intact and our private knowledge secure, until Murbella’s unholy alliance.”
Teg nodded to himself. When the Honored Matres had returned to the Old Empire, they had demanded the Bene Gesserit secret for manipulating a body’s biochemistry, presumably so that they could shrug off any further epidemics such as the ones the Enemy had inflicted on them. The Sisters had all refused. And they died for it.
No one knew the origin of the Honored Matres. After the Famine Times, somewhere out in the farthest reaches of the Scattering, perhaps some wild Reverend Mothers had collided with remnants of Leto II’s female Fish Speakers. Yet this blending could not have accounted for the seed of vengeful violence in their genetic makeup. The whores destroyed whole planets in their fury at being rebuffed by the Bene Gesserit and then by the old Tleilaxu. Teg knew that there must have been many dead Reverend Mothers in many torture chambers over the past decade.
The old Bashar had his own experiences with Honored Matre interrogators and their appalling torture devices back on Gammu. Even a hardened military commander could not withstand the incredible agony of their T-probes, and he had been fundamentally changed by the experience, though not in a way those women had expected. . . .
In the ceremony, Sheeana named the five victims from identifications found with their robes, then closed her eyes and lowered her head, as did everyone in the chamber. This moment of silence was the Bene Gesserit equivalent of prayer, a time when each Sister pondered a private blessing for the departed souls who lay before them.
Then Sheeana and Garimi carried one of the black-wrapped bodies into the airlock chamber. Retreating from the small vault, they let Elyen and Calissa carry another dead woman into the airlock. Sheeana had refused to let Teg or Duncan help. “This reminder of the whores’ vicious cruelty is our own burden.” When all of the mummified corpses had been placed reverently inside the chamber, Sheeana sealed the outer door and cycled the systems.
Everyone remained hushed, listening to the whisper of draining air. Finally, the outer door opened and the five bodies floated out along with the wispy residue of atmosphere. Drifting without a home . . . like everyone aboard the Ithaca. Like satellites of the no-ship, the wrapped humans accompanied the wandering vessel for a time, then slowly increased their separation until, against the night of