Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [89]
“I will know about the soostones and your operations here. We need to know how to extract profits from Buzzell.”
“The soostones are ours,” Skira said. “This planet is—”
Murbella dealt her a blow across the chin so swiftly that it sent the woman reeling backward before she could raise a hand to defend herself. Looming over her like a bird of prey, Murbella said, “I ask again: Explain the soostone operations to me.”
One of the downtrodden Bene Gesserits broke from her line. A middle-aged woman with ash-blonde hair, she had a worn face that must once have been strikingly beautiful. “I can explain it to you.”
Skira scuttled like a crab onto her elbows trying to get to her feet. “Don’t listen to that cow. She’s a prisoner, fit for beating and nothing else.”
“I am called Corysta,” the blonde said, ignoring Skira.
Murbella nodded. “I am Mother Commander of the New Sisterhood. Mother Superior Odrade herself chose me as her successor before she was killed in the Battle of Junction. I have unified Bene Gesserits and Honored Matres to stand against our common, deadly Enemy.” She nudged Skira with her foot. “Only a few renegade Honored Matre enclaves such as this remain. We will either assimilate them or grind them to dust.”
“Honored Matres are not so easily defeated,” Skira insisted.
Murbella looked down her nose at the woman on the ground. “You were.” She focused on Corysta. “You are a Reverend Mother?”
“I am, but I was exiled here for the crime of love.”
“Love!” The wiry Skira spit the word out, as if expecting agreement from her conqueror. She began to talk about Corysta in a derisive, hard-edged voice, calling her a baby stealer and a criminal to both the Bene Gesserits and the Honored Matres.
Murbella gave the Sister a quick, appraising glance. “Is that true? Are you a notorious stealer of babies?”
Corysta kept her eyes averted. “I could not steal what was already mine. No, I was the victim of theft. I nurtured both children out of love, when no one else would.”
Murbella made up her mind on the spot, knowing she had to learn quickly. “In the interests of speed and efficiency, I will Share with you.” That way, she could gather all the information from Corysta in an instant.
The other woman hesitated only for a moment, then bowed her head and leaned forward so that Murbella could touch her, brow to brow, mind to mind. In a flood, the Mother Commander drew in everything she needed to know about Buzzell and far more than she had wanted to learn about Corysta.
All of the other woman’s experiences, her daily life, her knowledge, her painful memories and intense loyalties to the Sisterhood, became part of Murbella, as if she had lived them herself.
In the interior vista, she saw through Corysta’s eyes as she worked alongside other slaves at a sorting and cleaning table on a dock near the edge of the rugged reef. A breeze carried the biting odors of the sea to her nostrils. The morning sky was typically dreary and overcast. White gulls hopped along the fauxwood dock, looking for crustacean fragments and tiny morsels of meat that might fall off during the processing operations.
A scaly, intimidating Phibian overseer walked up and down the sorting line, his body reeking of rotted fish. He watched the work and periodically checked to make certain that none of the Bene Gesserit slaves had stolen anything. Corysta wondered where she could possibly go if she did try to steal a soostone fragment.
She had been in exile on Buzzell for almost two decades, first cast out by the Sisterhood as a young woman, then trapped as a slave to the whores from the Scattering. Corysta had been sentenced to Buzzell for what the Bene Gesserits called a “crime of humanity.” She had been ordered to breed with a spoiled, petulant nobleman who pranced about in a different outfit every time she saw him. Following the orders of her Breeding Mistresses, Corysta had seduced the fop—whom she could not imagine loving—and had manipulated her internal chemistry to ensure that the resulting child would be a daughter.