Sisterhood of Dune (35 page)

“Rossak has changed much … and little,” Norma said through her tank speakers.

Karee couldn’t stop smiling at Cioba. “You have met all expectations, Granddaughter. Many of our graduate Sisters have gone on to join noble families as wives or advisers—but you have cemented the Sisterhood’s hold in the Imperium’s largest conglomerate.”

“Yes, it was an excellent business decision.” It had been a calculated choice between Reverend Mother Raquella and Josef Venport, but Cioba felt a real pride in her family and in the power and influence of Venport Holdings.

Cioba’s two young daughters hurried in, bursting with excitement but struggling to act with the sedate demeanor they had been taught. Cioba could not hide her joy. She widened her arms and pulled Sabine and Candys into an embrace.

“I know you’re both doing well. You will make the Reverend Mother and the whole Sisterhood proud.” With Sorceress genetics from both the Marques and Cenva bloodlines, not to mention the political influence of the Venport family, these girls had a superb future.

The Reverend Mother watched the interaction with a cool frown. Cioba noted that when Sister Dorotea joined the gathering, Raquella turned pointedly away from her. “We try not to encourage or remind our acolytes of their family ties,” the old woman said.

But Cioba faced her. “In many cases that is true, Reverend Mother, but these are the daughters and eventual heirs of Josef Venport, the granddaughters of Sorceresses. They are required to know who they are, and who they are expected to be.”

Surprising them, Norma Cenva spoke up through the speakerpatch, reminding them of the draconian Sorceress Zufa Cenva, who had heaped so much disappointment upon her own stunted daughter. “Sometimes
not
knowing your mother can be a great advantage.”

Most of the Imperium’s history lies ahead of us, beyond our view. But mark my words: I will be remembered.

—
EMPEROR SALVADOR CORRINO
, coronation speech

Though Roderick was two years younger than his brother, he often felt like the more mature one.

He bit his tongue as he listened to Salvador stumble through a practice speech in one of the garden salons of the Imperial Palace. The prismatic doors were closed, and Roderick was the sole audience. He sat on a stiff divan facing his brother, hoping to offer advice.

After Manford Torondo’s appearance before the Landsraad Council, and continuing outbreaks of Butlerian fervor, Roderick had dusted off an anticomputer speech Emperor Jules had delivered more than once; he substituted simplified phrasings to better suit Salvador, rather than the more flowery language that their father had favored. Roderick was happy with how he’d updated the speech, but as he listened to his brother practicing, he noted Salvador’s tendency to slow his words and stumble over them, without using the proper timing or inflection.

“The defense against temptation ends at home, I mean, begins at…” Salvador looked back at the text, and shook his head. “I shall never be a great orator, Brother, so let’s set a simpler goal of not causing any further damage.”

“That was perfectly acceptable,” he lied, “but I’ve heard you do better. Even so, the people will understand your message. And it should serve to quell some of the Butlerian antics for the time being.”

Salvador seemed to see through the feeble effort to raise his spirits. He just shook his head in dismay and again studied the words on the holo-prompter.

*   *   *

AFTER HELPING HIS
brother prepare, Roderick still had a great deal of work to do and no time to talk with his wife, Haditha. She had sent messages to him through servants, and now he hurried home to dress for the public speech. He didn’t even learn of an emergency involving Haditha until he entered the royal apartments.

His wife was already gone, and the glum chief of staff told him about a confrontation between Haditha and her personal secretary, Sister Perianna, a nosy and humorless woman who had also been trained on Rossak (though Roderick did not find her at all comparable to Sister Dorotea). Apparently, Perianna had left her position on short notice and was no longer welcome at the Palace.

Right now, though, Roderick could not worry about a domestic squabble. Haditha was able to handle her own household staff. He barely had time to dress for the evening, grab a quick platter of bread and cold meats, before he had to leave for the Hall of Parliament. He hoped Salvador had practiced the speech a few more times.

He found Haditha already waiting for him in the private box they shared on one side of the central stage in the cavernous open hall. With long, curly auburn hair and patrician features, she resembled portraits Roderick had seen of her late grand-uncle, a military figure in the Jihad, but with more delicate features and darker eyes. She wore a black lace gown with a pearl necklace; her hair was held in place with a ruby-studded barrette.

As Roderick sat down, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Today has been quite a rush.” He was attired in a tuxedo with tails in preparation for a society party to be held after the speech. His stomach churned from the food he had downed so quickly.

From her intense, flashing eyes, he could tell Haditha was upset. “Today has been a disaster. Perianna is gone—and good riddance.”

He could see the deep hurt on his wife’s face, and assumed this was more than just an argument with her personal secretary. “What happened?”

“For weeks now, I have been noticing small details … some of my possessions moved, drawers not quite closed the same way I left them, documents a little straighter, a stylus out of place on my writing desk—and on yours.”

“My writing desk? Was anything taken?”

“Not that I could tell. Perianna is the only one who had access, but she denied everything when I asked her. Today, though, I saw her slip out of my private study. I hid, so she didn’t know I’d caught her—and when I asked her later, Perianna claimed she had never gone there, which I
knew
was a lie. So I exposed her. She made a great show of indignation, insisted that I search her quarters and all her possessions if I thought she was a thief.”

Roderick narrowed his eyes, feeling a growing concern. “And did you?”

“I had to, once she’d pushed me to it. Of course, we didn’t find anything—as she must have known.” Haditha’s eyes flashed with anger. “Perianna said she could no longer serve me properly if I didn’t trust her, and she resigned from my service. I let her go.”

Roderick felt cold. The departed servant had been trained in the Sisterhood, and he knew from Dorotea’s openly demonstrated skills that Perianna could well have memorized anything she saw, without carrying physical evidence. “Maybe we should have held her for further interrogation.”

“That’s what I realized—but too late, and she was already gone. She’s departed from Salusa.”

Roderick clenched his jaw. He knew that his wife kept no dangerous state secrets in her private chambers, so Perianna wouldn’t have found anything critical. Even if she’d caught a glimpse of his own private journal, it contained only a few personal entries about his family, nothing politically significant. And there was no proof of her spying, but he still felt a sinking sensation in his already roiling stomach.

Emperor Salvador emerged on the stage below, walking toward the podium. The brothers each wore implanted transceivers, so that Roderick could provide comments to Salvador, if necessary. When Roderick kept the transceiver switched off so he could think about what his wife had told him, Salvador flashed an uneasy glance up at the box.

“It’s probably nothing,” Roderick said, and then turned his focus on the Emperor’s speech. He squeezed his earlobe to turn on the transceiver, and noticed Salvador’s expression of great relief before he took to the podium.

Theories change as new data comes to light.
Facts,
however, do not change—nor do my principles. That is why I am suspicious of theories of any kind.

—
MANFORD TORONDO
, address to the Butlerians on Lampadas

The intellectual environment on Zenith fostered innovation and scientific creativity, and the planet prided itself on being an oasis for discovery and progress. Researchers such as Ptolemy and his partner, Dr. Elchan, received funding from an interplanetary pool of grant money that was readily dispensed to anyone who had a feasible idea and a concrete plan for implementation.

Ptolemy came from a large family, three sisters and two brothers, all of whom were successful researchers in various fields, each with an independent laboratory and staff of technicians. They had friendly competitions to see which of them could boast the most beneficial discoveries, and even though Ptolemy had little enough time to keep up with all the technical publications in his own specific field, he made the effort to read every paper his brothers and sisters published.

Zenan scientific teams worked with the clear understanding that when discoveries proved pragmatic and lucrative, a significant share of the profits went back into the pool to be made available for the next group of scientists with interesting ideas. Advancements were offered for development to other worlds in the Imperium. Even with such openness and generosity, the economy of Zenith thrived.

Working for the past decade at his rural laboratory estate, Ptolemy was both pleased and proud of what he and Dr. Elchan had accomplished. So far, two of their discoveries had been highly profitable, and three others moderately so. The lab building and residence was surrounded by twenty acres of rolling grassland dotted with stands of trees. Ptolemy supervised a staff of a dozen technicians, lab assistants, and domestic workers. It was an environment conducive to creativity and intellectual development.

He enjoyed Zenith’s collegial atmosphere so much that he had volunteered to serve a term as the planet’s representative to the Landsraad League. It was a family tradition to do one’s civic duty. Never in his life had he doubted that he and his dedicated partner were doing good work.

Thus, as a reasonable and open-minded man, he was taken aback by the Butlerian fervor against technology. It made no sense to him.

Of course, no one could deny the horrors that thinking machines had inflicted on humanity, but it was ridiculous to blame the science itself for human ambitions and failings. Only a close-minded person could deny, for instance, that Suk medical diagnostics and sophisticated surgical techniques had saved countless lives, or that agricultural machinery increased farming productivity by orders of magnitude beyond what human slaves could do, and thereby saved many from starvation. In fact, one of his sisters had developed a genetically modified strain of wheat that tripled the yield from a single crop. How could anyone argue against that?

And yet, the powerful Butlerian movement had spread to many planets, but thankfully not to this one. The whole idea mystified him. How could people look at a return to primitive living with any sort of wistful nostalgia?

Manford Torondo’s speech in the Landsraad Hall had convinced him that he must be missing a vital piece of the answer, because Ptolemy simply could not grasp that sort of thinking. Frustrated because he didn’t understand the Butlerians, he had nonetheless seen how influential they were, and the necessity of dedicating himself to finding common ground with them.

He researched where and how the movement had begun after the founder, a woman named Rayna Butler, survived a horrible fever as a child. Though Ptolemy did not like to think ill of the revered martyr, he suspected she might have suffered brain damage, a biochemical personality shift that had unbalanced her. She had gained influence through sheer charisma, tapping into the undeniable fear of Omnius. Her successor, Manford, had also suffered extreme physical and psychological trauma with the loss of his legs. On a personal level, Ptolemy couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the poor man, yet Manford was leading his followers along a foolish path, to the detriment of all humanity.

Ptolemy had been so sure that if he offered fully functional prosthetics, if he made the legless man whole again, Manford would admit that, yes, some technology was for the betterment of mankind. The first step on a path to enlightening the antiscience fanatics.

But Manford’s reaction to the gift had been appalling and incomprehensible. Ptolemy felt as if gravity itself had failed him. Having spent his life on Zenith, where ideas were openly discussed and debated, he found the blind stubbornness of the Butlerians appalling. Dr. Elchan, whose race had been much persecuted, both fairly and unfairly, was terrified; he had warned Ptolemy that Manford might react in such a way, and in fact Elchan claimed they were lucky to have escaped with their lives … which seemed absurd, but may very well have been true.

Cowed, Ptolemy and Elchan had returned to the countryside lab estate on Zenith and, with some embarrassment, buried themselves in their work. Forcing optimism, he said to Elchan in their laboratory, “We shouldn’t be discouraged, my friend. We tried our best, we made our case. Let’s waste no more time on the Butlerians.” He kept saying the words because he needed to convince himself.

The Tlulaxa researcher, on the other hand, was quiet and preoccupied. Ptolemy and Dr. Elchan had been friends and collaborators for many years, working with a synergy that produced not only good results but a highly enjoyable and stimulating atmosphere. Through his humanitarian work, Elchan had overcome much of the prejudice with which the Tlulaxa were regarded.

“I’m just glad to be safe back here.” Elchan raised his left arm, flexed the artificial fingers. “We know the replacement limbs work, thanks to the thoughtrode connection from my natural nerve endings to these artificial ones. I have my hand back, and I can use it, though I can’t feel it.”

“Sensory nerve receptors are an entirely different problem,” Ptolemy said. “But we’ll work it out.”

Elchan agreed. “The best way we can succeed is by continuing to give back to humanity. We’ll eventually overcome the Butlerian attitudes. Science remains true, whether or not they believe in it.”