The Mother Commander tasked her advisors to study the exact amount of poison necessary to trigger the Agony. Some Reverend Mothers suggested diluting the substance, but if they didn't give enough to be fatal, and thus effective, the entire experiment would fail.
Dozens more Sisters died. More than 60 percent of those who took the poison.
Kiria offered a hard but coldly logical solution. "Assess each candidate, and dole out the Water of Life only to those most likely to succeed. We can't gamble foolishly. Each dose we give to a woman who fails is wasted. We must discriminate."
Murbella disagreed. "None of them has a chance unless they undergo the Agony. The whole point of this operation is to give it to everyone--and the most fit will survive."
The women stood amidst the bedlam of the dormitory rooms in the sick houses that had been converted from any building large enough to accommodate beds. Four lifeless bodies were carried past them by exhausted-looking Reverend Mothers. They had run out of sheets, so the corpses were uncovered, their faces twisted in a display of the incalculable pain they had suffered.
Ignoring the dead, Murbella knelt beside the bed of one young woman who survived. She had to look at the casualty total from a different perspective. If they were all destined to die, it was a fruitless exercise to count those who perished. In that light, the only relevant number was the tally of those who did recover. The victories.
"If we don't have enough Water of Life, use other poisons." Murbella got wearily to her feet, ignoring the smells, the sounds. "The Bene Gesserit may have determined that the Water of Life is most effective at forcing the Agony, but long ago the Sisters used other deadly chemicals--anything that would push the body into an absolute crisis." She perused the young students, these girls who had hoped one day to grow up to become Reverend Mothers. Now each of them had one chance, and one chance only. "Poison them one way or another. Poison them all. If they survive, they belong here."
A courier ran up to her, one of the younger Sisters who had recently survived the transformation. "Mother Commander! You are needed immediately in Archives."
Murbella turned. "Has Accadia found something?"
"No, Mother Commander. She . . . you have to see for yourself." The younger woman swallowed. "And hurry."
The ancient woman did not have the strength to leave her office. Accadia sat surrounded by wire spool readers and stacks of data-dense crystal sheets. She sprawled back in her large chair, breathing heavily, barely able to move. The old woman's rheumy eyes flickered open. "So, you've come . . . in time."
Murbella looked at the archivist, appalled. Accadia, too, had the plague. "But you are a Reverend Mother! You can fight this."
"I am old and tired. I used the last of my stamina to compile our records and projections, to map out the spread of this disease. Maybe we can prevent it on other worlds."
"Doubtful. The Enemy distributes the virus wherever they consider it strategic." Already she had made up her mind to have several other Reverend Mothers Share with Accadia. Her extensive memories and knowledge must not be lost.
Accadia struggled to sit up in the chair. "Mother Commander, don't be so focused on the epidemic that you fail to see its consequences." She began coughing. Blotches had appeared all over her skin, the advanced stages of the disease. "This plague is a mere foray, a test attack. On many planets it is sufficient, but the Enemy must know the Sisterhood well enough by now to be sure we can fight this, at least to a point. After they soften us up, they'll attack by other means."
Murbella felt cold inside. "If thinking machines destroy the New Sisterhood, then the remaining fragments of humanity will have no chance of resisting them. We are the most important hurdle Omnius has to overcome."
"So you finally understand the implications?" The old woman grasped the Mother Commander's hand to make sure she understood. "This planet has always been hidden, but now the thinking machines must know the location of Chapterhouse. I would wager that their space fleet is already on its way."
One man's dream is another's nightmare.
--a saying of Ancient Kaitain
After dragging Stuka's body away, the nomads separated Sheeana and Teg from Stilgar and Liet-Kynes. Apparently they saw the two boys--twelve and thirteen--as no threat, not knowing that both were deadly Fremen fighters, whose clear memories held many raids against the Harkonnens.
Teg recognized the strategy. "The old leader wants to interrogate our young ones first." Var and his hard-bitten comrades would assume the youths would be easily intimidated, not capable of resisting difficult questioning.
Teg and Sheeana were taken to a holding tent made of a tough, weather-worn polymer. The structure was an odd mixture of primitive design and sophisticated technology, made for serviceability and ease of transport. The guard closed the flap but remained outside.
The windowless tent was just an empty enclosure, devoid of blankets, cushions, or tools of any kind. Teg paced in a small circle, then sat beside her on the packed dirt. Digging with his fingers, he quickly found a couple of sharp pebbles.
With Mentat clarity, he assessed their options. "When we do not return or report in," he said in a low voice, "we can expect Duncan to send another party down. He will be prepared. It sounds trite, but rescue will come." He knew that these nomads would crumble easily against a direct military assault. "Duncan is wise, and I trained him well. He will know what to do."
Sheeana stared at the door as if in meditative trance. "Duncan has lived hundreds of lives and remembers them all, Miles. I doubt you taught him anything new."
Teg gripped one of the pebbles, and it seemed to aid his concentration. Even in an empty tent, he saw a thousand possible avenues of escape. He and Sheeana could easily break out, kill the guard, and fight their way back to the lighter. Teg might not even need to take advantage of his accelerated speed. "These people are no match for me, or for you. But I will not leave Stilgar and Liet behind."
"Ah, the loyal Bashar."
"I wouldn't leave you, either. However, I fear that these people have disabled our ship, which would certainly tangle our escape plans. I heard them ransacking it."
Sheeana continued to stare at the shadowy wall of the tent. "Miles, I'm not so concerned about the possibility of escape as I am curious to learn why they kept us alive. Especially me, if what they said about the Sisterhood is true. They have good reason to hate me."
Teg tried to imagine the incredible exodus and reorganization of populations on this planet. Within years, all the inhabitants of the towns and cities would have seen the sands strangling their croplands, killing their orchards, creeping closer and closer to the city boundaries. They would have pulled away from the desert zone like people fleeing a slowly advancing fire.
Var's nomads, though . . . were they scavengers and misfits? Outcasts from the larger population centers? Why insist on staying at the threshold of the advancing desert, where they would have to uproot their settlement and retreat constantly? To what purpose?
These were technologically capable people, and Qelso clearly must have been settled long ago during the Scattering. They had their own groundcars and low-altitude flyers, fast ships to take them back and forth across the dunes. If they weren't outright exiles, perhaps Var's people replenished their supplies in the distant northern cities.
Teg and Sheeana hardly spoke for hours as they listened to the muffled sounds outside, the dry wind pushing and tugging at the tent, the scritch of blowing sand. Everything seemed to be comprised of movement outside: The people sent out parties, marched back and forth, set machinery to work.
As Teg listened to the noises, he catalogued them in his mind, building a picture of the operations. He heard a pounding drill that bored a well shaft, followed by a pump dispensing water into small cisterns. Each time, after only a brief gush of liquid, the flow dwindled to less than a trickle and stopped. He knew that such problems, caused by sandtrout, had been the bane of drilling operations on Arrakis. Water existed in deep enough st
rata, but it was blocked off by the voracious little Makers. Like platelets at the site of a wound, sandtrout would swiftly seal off the leak. As he listened to the resigned complaints of these people, Teg realized that they were familiar with the routine.
When night fell, a dusty young man entered the tent through the flap held open by the guard. He delivered a small meal of hard bread and dried fruit, as well as gamey-tasting white meat. The two captives also received carefully measured rations of water.
Sheeana looked at her sealed cup. "They are learning the fundamentals of extreme conservation. They begin to understand what their world will become." Obviously despising her Bene Gesserit robes, the young man glared at her and departed without a word.
Throughout the dark night, Teg remained awake, listening, trying to plan. The lack of activity was maddening, but he advised patience rather than rash action. They had heard nothing from Liet or Stilgar, and he feared the two young men might already be dead, like Stuka. Had they been killed during interrogation?
Sheeana sat beside him, in a heightened state of alertness. Her eyes were bright even in the tent shadows. As far as Teg could tell, the guard outside never stepped away from his position, never even moved. The people continued to send out parties and skimmer ships throughout the night, as if the camp were the staging area for a war effort.
At dawn, old Var came up to the tent, spoke briskly with the guard, and pulled the flap aside. Sheeana rose to a half crouch, ready to spring; Teg tensed, also prepared for a fight.
The nomad leader glared at Sheeana. "You and your witches are not forgiven for what you have done to Qelso. You never will be. But Liet-Kynes and Stilgar have convinced us to keep you alive, at least as long as we can learn from you."
The weathered leader brought the pair out into the bright sunlight. The wind flung stinging sand into their eyes. All around the settlement, trees had already died. The blowing dunes had encroached another few feet past the prominent rock outcroppings during the night. Each breath was crackling dry, even in the relative coolness of the morning.
"You put the other Bene Gesserits to death," Sheeana said, "and killed our companion Stuka. Am I next?"
"No. Because I said I would keep you alive."
The weathered man led them through the settlement. Workers were already disassembling large warehouse tents to move them farther from the edge of the sand. A heavy groundcar rumbled by, full of crates. A bloated flyer circled and landed near the smooth sand. Some kind of tanker?
Var led them to a large central building made from sectional metal walls and a conical roof. Inside, a long table was cluttered with charts. Reports were fastened to the walls, and one entire wall displayed a polymer-paper map, a high-resolution topographic projection of the entire continent. Mark after mark showed the steady growth of the desert belt.
Men sat around the table sharing reports and raising their voices in a tumult of conversation. Stilgar and Liet-Kynes, both dressed in dusty shipsuits, waved a greeting at the other two prisoners. The young men seemed pleased and relaxed.
As he scanned the setup, it was obvious to Teg that Stilgar and Liet had spent the whole previous day in the command tent. The old leader positioned himself between them, leaving Teg and Sheeana to stand.
Var pounded on the table, interrupting the cacophony. Everyone stopped talking, impatiently it seemed, and stared at him. "We have listened to our new friends describe what our world is sure to become. We've all heard legends of long-lost Dune, where water is more precious than blood." His face had a pinched look. "If we fail and the worms take over, our planet will become valuable only by the standards of outsiders."
One of the men snarled at Sheeana, "Damned Bene Gesserits!" The others glared at her as well, and she met their disapproval squarely, without comment.
Liet and Stilgar seemed to be in their element. Teg recalled the Bene Gesserit discussions over the original ghola project, how the long-forgotten abilities of those historical personages might become relevant again. Here was a perfect example. This duo of prominent survivors from the old days of Arrakis certainly knew how to deal with the crisis these people now faced.
The grizzled leader raised his hands, and his voice sounded as dry as the air. "After the death of the Tyrant long ago, my people fled into the Scattering. When they reached Qelso, they thought they had found Eden. It was a paradise for fifteen hundred years afterward."
The men glowered at Sheeana. Var explained how the refugees had established a thriving society, built cities, planted crops, mined for metals and minerals. They had no wish to overextend themselves or go searching for other lost brothers who had escaped during the Famine Times.
"Then a few decades ago everything changed. Visitors came, Bene Gesserits. At first we welcomed them, glad to have news from the outside. We offered them a new home. They became our guests. But the ingrates raped our entire planet, and now it is dying."
Another man clenched his hands into fists as he picked up the story. "The sandtrout multiplied out of control. Huge forests and vast plains died within years--only a few years! Great fires started in the wastelands, and weather patterns changed, turning much of our world into a dust bowl."
Teg spoke up, using his command voice. "If Liet and Stilgar told you about our no-ship and its mission, then you know we don't carry sandtrout and we have no intention of harming your world. We stopped here only to replenish vital supplies."
"In fact, we fled the heart of the Bene Gesserit order because we disagreed with the policies and leadership," Sheeana added.
"You have seven large sandworms in your hold," Var accused.
"Yes, and we will not release them here."
Liet-Kynes spoke quietly, as if lecturing children. "As we already told you, once it has begun, the desertification process is a chain reaction. The sandtrout have no natural enemies, and their encysting of water is so swift that nothing can adapt quickly enough to fight against them."
"Nevertheless, we will fight," Var said. "You see how simply we live in this camp. We have given up everything to stay here."
"But why?" Sheeana asked. "Even as the desert spreads, you have many years to prepare."
"Prepare? Do you mean surrender? You may call it a hopeless fight, but it is still a fight. If we cannot stop the desert, we will at least slow it. We'll battle the worms and the sands." The men at the table muttered. "No matter what you say, we will try to hinder the desert's progress in every way. We kill sandtrout, we hunt the new worms." Var stood up, and the others followed suit. "We are commandos sworn to slow the death of our world."
The desert still calls me. It sings in my blood like a love song.
--LIET-KYNES,
Planetology: New Treatises
Early the next morning, Var led his group of dusty, determined fighters to a landing zone of fire-baked pavement. "Today, my new friends, we'll show you how to kill a worm. Maybe two."
"Shai-Hulud," Stilgar said with great uneasiness. "Fremen used to worship the great worms."
"Fremen depended upon the worms and the spice," Liet replied quietly. "These people do not."
"With each demon we eliminate, we give our planet a little more time to survive." Var stared out into the desert as if his hatred could drive back the sands. Stilgar followed the man's gaze across the deeply shadowed dunes, trying to imagine the landscape in front of him as lush and green.
The sun was just rising over an escarpment, glinting off the silvery hull of an old low-altitude flyer parked on an area of pounded gravel and flash-fused cement. Var's people did not bother with permanent landing strips or spaceport zones, which would only be swallowed up by the spreading dunes.
Despite the protests of the two young men, Sheeana and Teg were forced to remain behind in the camp as hostages, watched suspiciously. Liet and Stilgar had been accepted on the hunt because of their invaluable knowledge of the desert. Today, they would demonstrate their skills.
Var's commandos clambered into the heavily used craft. It had
obviously weathered countless storms, rough flights, and incomplete maintenance; its hull was scuffed and scraped. The interior smelled of oil and sweat, and the seats were stone-hard, with only bars or straps for the passengers to hold onto.
Stilgar felt comfortable enough among the twenty weathered, grim men. To his trained eye, the commandos had a look of edgy anticipation, but they were too soft in the flesh for the adaptations they would soon face. With the rapid climate shift, even living in their nomadic camps at the fringe of the sand, these people remained unaware of the desert's true harshness. They would have to learn swiftly enough to face the escalating hardships. He and his friend could teach them--if they would listen.
Liet took his seat beside Stilgar and spoke to Var's men with genuine enthusiasm. "Right now, Qelso's air still contains enough moisture that truly dramatic measures aren't required. Soon, though, you will need to be careful not to waste so much as a thimbleful of water."
"We already live under the strictest conservation," one man said, as if Liet had insulted him.
"Oh? You don't recycle your sweat, respiration, or urine. You still import water from the higher latitudes, where it is readily available. Many regions on Qelso are still able to grow crops, and people live a fairly normal life."
"It will get worse," Stilgar agreed. "Your people have much hardening to do before the planet reaches its new equilibrium. This is the first day of your new field training."
The men muttered uncertainly at hearing such words from two seeming boys, but Liet sounded optimistic. "It is not so bad. We can teach you how to make stillsuits, how to conserve every breath, every sweat droplet. Your fighting instincts are admirable, but useless against sandworms. You must learn to survive among the behemoths that will eventually take control of your world. It is a necessary shift in attitude."
"The Fremen did so for a long time." Stilgar seated himself beside his friend. "It was an honorable way of life."
The fighters held onto straps and spread their feet for balance, preparing for takeoff. "That is what lies in store for us? Drinking recycled sweat and piss? Living in sealed chambers?"