Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [48]
“And the sooner you can have your own ghola,” Teg added. He stared intently at the two axlotl tanks until he could picture the women they had been before the hideous conversion process, real females with hearts and minds. They’d had lives and dreams, and people who cared about them. Yet, as soon as the Sisterhood had declared its need, they’d offered themselves without hesitation.
Teg knew that Sheeana had only to ask for more. New volunteers would consider it an honor to give birth to heroes from the legendary days of Dune.
We are the wellspring of human survival.
—MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA
M
urbella’s scouts returned ashen-faced from a flyby of the intact coordinates found in the scuttled Honored Matre ship. Racing out to a distant star system far beyond the known limits of the Scattering, they discovered evidence of great carnage.
When Murbella received the recordings from the scouts, she watched them in her private chamber along with Bellonda, Doria, and the old Archives Mother Accadia.
“Utterly wiped out,” said the scout. Young and intense, she was a former Honored Matre named Kiria. “Even with all their military might and violence . . .” She couldn’t seem to believe what she was saying or what she had seen. Kiria installed a shigawire spool into a viewer and projected holograms in the middle of the room. “See for yourselves.”
The unidentified planet, now a charred tomb, was obviously a former Honored Matre population center, with the remnants of dozens of large cities laid out in their characteristic fashion. The inhabitants were all dead, buildings blackened, entire metropolitan sections turned to glassy craters, structures melted, spaceports cracked, and the atmosphere turned into a dark stew of soot and poisonous vapors.
“This is worse. Look.” Deeply disturbed, Kiria switched to images that showed a battlefield in space. Strewn through the orbital zone floated the wreckage of thousands of large, heavily armored ships. Bristling with weapons, these were the Honored Matres’ great vessels—all of them destroyed, littering space in a wide ring. “We scanned the wreckage, Mother Commander. All of the craft were of a similar design to the Honored Matre battleship we encountered here. We found no other types of ships. Unbelievable!”
“What is the significance of that?” Bellonda said.
Kiria snapped at her, “It means that the Honored Matres were annihilated—thousands of their best battleships—and they didn’t manage to take out a single one of the Enemy! Not a one!” She brought a fist down on the table.
“Unless the Enemy removed their own damaged warships, to keep their workings secret,” Accadia said, though the explanation did not seem likely.
“You discovered no clues about the nature of the Enemy? Or of the Honored Matres themselves?” Murbella had tried again to search through Other Memory, striving to delve into her Honored Matre past, but had encountered only mysteries and dead ends. She could trace back along the Bene Gesserit lines, following life upon life all the way back to Old Earth. But in the Honored Matre line, she found almost nothing at all.
“I gathered enough evidence to be frightened,” Kiria said. “This is clearly a force we cannot defeat. If that many Honored Matres were wiped out, what hope does the New Sisterhood have?”
“There is always hope,” old Accadia said unconvincingly, as if quoting a platitude.
“And now there is incentive as well as a dire warning,” Murbella said. She looked at all of her advisors. “I will call a gathering immediately.”
ALMOST A THOUSAND Sisters had been invited from all over the planet, and the receiving hall had to be substantially modified for the event. The Mother Commander’s throne and all symbols of her office had been removed; soon the meaning of that gesture would become apparent to all. On the walls and vaulted ceiling, she had ordered all frescoes and other ornamentation to be covered, leaving the huge chamber with a starkly utilitarian character.