Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [51]
Scowling grimly, Bellonda provided the attacker’s name after ransacking her Mentat mind. “She is Sister Osafa Chram. One of the orchard workers, a new arrival from across the planet.”
A Bene Gesserit has tried to kill me. No longer was it just the power-hungry Honored Matres who sought to seize her position of power.
“Sheeana was right to flee . . . and leave the rest of us to rot here!” Looking up at the Sisters, then giving a final glare at Murbella, Osafa Chram summoned the necessary courage and willed herself to die.
As the assassin began her final spasms, Murbella shouted, “Bellonda! Share with her! We must discover what she knows! How widespread is this conspiracy?”
The Reverend Mother reacted with unexpected speed and grace, slapping her hands to the woman’s temples and pressing their foreheads together. “She resists me even with her dying breath! Not letting her thoughts flow.” Bellonda winced, then withdrew. “She’s gone.”
Doria leaned closer and grimaced. “Smell that. Shere, and lots of it. She’s made sure we can’t even use a mechanical probe to pry loose her thoughts.”
The gathered Sisters murmured uneasily. Murbella wondered if she needed to subject everyone to Truthsayer interrogation. A thousand of them! And if this Bene Gesserit Sister had tried to kill the Mother Commander, could Murbella trust even her Truthsayers?
Marshaling her concentration, she gave a dismissive wave toward the dead woman on the floor. “Remove that. Everyone else, resume your seats. A gathering is serious business, and we have fallen behind schedule.”
“We’re with you, Mother Commander!” a young woman shouted from the audience. Murbella couldn’t tell who said it.
Doria quietly returned to her seat, watching Murbella with grudging respect. Some of the former Honored Matres in the audience were clearly surprised—some smug, others indignant—that a knife blade could have come from the coldly pacifistic Bene Gesserits.
Murbella gave no more than an annoyed glance as women hustled away with the bundled body of the dead woman. “I have fended off assassination attempts before. We have important work to do here, and we must quash these petty rebellions among us, erasing all vestiges of our past conflicts.”
“For that, we would need collective amnesia,” Bellonda snorted.
A thin wave of laughter spread through the room, and dissipated quickly.
“I will force it upon you,” Murbella said with a glare, “no matter how many heads I have to knock together.”
The fabric of the universe is connected by threads of thought and tangled alliances. Others may glimpse parts of the pattern, but only we can decipher all of it. We can use that information to form a deadly net in which to trap our enemies.
—KHRONE,
secret message to the Face Dancer myriad
A
n insistent communication seized Khrone through the tachyon net as the Guildship departed Tleilax, where he had secretly inspected the progress of the new ghola in its axlotl tank.
His lackey Uxtal had indeed implanted an embryo made from the cells hidden in the burned body of the Tleilaxu Master. So, the Lost Tleilaxu was not completely incompetent. The mysterious child was growing even now. And if the ghola’s identity was as Khrone suspected, the possibilities were interesting, indeed.
A year ago, Khrone had deposited Uxtal in Bandalong with strict orders, and the terrified researcher had obeyed in every way. A Face Dancer replica might have been adequate to the task, given a clear enough mental imprinting of Uxtal’s knowledge, but the squirming assistant had been performing with an edge of desperation that no Face Dancer could match. Ah, the predictable instinct of humans to survive. It could easily be used against them.
As the Guildship drifted around to the nightside of Tleilax, the ship’s viewers showed black scars where cities had been erased. Only a few weakly shining lights marked struggling towns that clung to life. Somewhere down there,