Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [43]
He wished he could put Wanna out of her misery, killing her instead of letting the Harkonnens have their perverted fun. He saw her eyes, the spark of pain and hope, but Rabban stopped him. “Focus, Doctor. No mistakes.”
Through blurred vision he made out numerous targets, and tried to concentrate on one, a tottering old nobleman, a semuta addict. That one had lived a long life, undoubtedly with considerable debauchery. But for a Suk doctor to kill—
He fired.
Overwhelmed by the horrific scene now playing out in his head, Yueh paid no further attention to Sheeana’s ministrations. His body was drenched with sweat, but less from sexual exertion than from the extreme psychological distress. He saw Sheeana appraising him. The memories were so clear to him that his entire body felt like a raw wound: Wanna in agony and the sharp, broken-crystal pain of how his Suk conditioning had been thwarted. It had happened thousands of years ago!
The years before that watershed occurrence, and the years afterward, extended outward, filling his mind, now fresh and hungry. As the relentless memories returned, so did more anguish and guilt, accompanied by a disgust with himself.
Yueh felt as if he was about to vomit. Tears poured down his cheeks.
In the training room, Sheeana studied the wet streaks clinically. “You’re weeping. Does that mean you’ve successfully regained your memories?”
“I have them back.” His voice was husky and sounded infinitely old. “And damn you witches to hell for it.”
We have so little trouble finding enemies because violence is an innate part of human nature. Our greatest challenge, then, is to choose the most significant enemy, for we cannot hope to fight them all.
—BASHAR MILES TEG,
military assessment delivered to the Bene Gesserit
After she departed from Chapterhouse, Murbella traveled to the battle lines. That was where the Mother Commander belonged. Posing as nothing more important than an inspector for the New Sisterhood, Murbella arrived at Oculiat, one of the systems that lay directly in the path of the advancing thinking-machine fleet.
Once, Oculiat had been at the far edges of inhabited space, a jumping-off point for the Scattering after the Tyrant’s death. Objectively, this sparsely populated world had little significance, just another target on the vast cosmic map. But for Murbella, Oculiat represented a genuine psychological blow: When this world fell to the machines, the Enemy would be encroaching into the Old Empire itself, not just into a distant and unknown place that had been omitted from old star maps.
Until the Ixians delivered their Obliterators and the Guild provided all the ships she had demanded, the Mother Commander had no way to stop, or even slow, the thinking machines.
Under a hazy sky illuminated by watery yellow sunlight, Murbella stepped out of her ship. The landing field seemed deserted, as if no one tended the spaceport any longer. As if they were not even watching for the Enemy.
When she made her way to the frantic crowds in the central city, though, she saw that the inhabitants had already found their own enemy. A mob surrounded the main administration building where government officials had barricaded themselves. The locals had put their leaders under siege, screaming for blood or divine intervention. Preferably blood.
Murbella knew the raw power that their fear generated, but it was clearly not channeled properly. The people of Oculiat—and all desperate worlds facing the oncoming Enemy—needed guidance from the Sisterhood. They were an already-charged weapon that must be aimed. Instead, they were out of control. She saw what was happening and rushed forward, but stopped short of throwing herself headlong into the mob.
They would tear her limb from limb, and they would do it for Sheeana.
The random appearances and sermons of the “resurrected Sheeana” had