As she touched the small pale face, stroking the forehead and wispy dark hair, she remembered her daughter. An Abomination, Alia had been called: a child born with the full intelligence and genetic memories of a Reverend Mother. It had come full circle now. In her original lifetime, the little girl had killed Baron Harkonnen with the poison gom jabbar; later, as an adult and haunted by the evil presence of the Baron, Alia had taken her own life, throwing herself through a temple window high above the streets of Arrakeen. Now the reborn Baron had killed the reborn Alia, before she'd ever had the opportunity to reach the potential she deserved. It was as if the two of them were forever locked in mortal combat, on a mythical scale.
A tear rolled down Jessica's cheek with the grace of a falling raindrop. She closed her eyes and realized that she had been frozen in the same position for a long moment, caught up in memories. She hadn't even heard the visitor approach her quarters.
"Is there any way I might help you, my Lady?"
"Leave me. I want to be alone." But when she saw that it was the somber Dr. Yueh, her demeanor softened. "I'm sorry, Wellington. Yes, come in. You can help me."
"I don't wish to intrude."
With a wan smile she said, "You've earned the right to be here."
For long moments the unlikely pair stood together without speaking. Grateful just to have him there, Jessica finally said, "Long ago when you were with us at Castle Caladan, I cared for you. You always kept your life private, and when you betrayed us, I hated you more than I thought possible."
He hung his head. "I would throw myself upon a knife ten thousand times if I could take back the deeds I've done and erase the pain I've caused, my Lady."
"History can only move forward, Wellington, not backward."
"Oh? We've been dredged out of the dustbins of history, haven't we?"
On old Arrakis, the Fremen had made a solemn ritual of recovering a body's water in a deathstill and sharing it among the tribe. On Caladan, the tradition had been a funeral pyre or an ocean burial. While the Ithaca wandered through space, their dead had been ceremoniously ejected into the void.
Using stain-free fabric from the no-ship's sheets, they wrapped Alia's small, frail body. Here in the post-Omnius machine city, however, Jessica wasn't sure how best to honor her daughter. "We don't really have a funeral tradition anymore, so I don't know what to do."
"We'll do what we must. The symbols don't matter, but the thought does."
LONG AFTER THE last echoes of the battle on Synchrony had died away and survivors from the no-ship ventured out to discover the new face of the universe, Jessica and Yueh joined Paul, Chani, and Duncan in their own private funeral procession. Paul and Jessica carried the tiny wrapped body out into the streets where the sandworms had caused so much damage, where explosions in the battle against the Face Dancers had destroyed countless structures.
"Such a tiny body . . . and so much lost potential," Paul said. "I miss my sister terribly, even though I didn't get to know her this time as well as I would have liked."
Duncan led the group, shunting aside his other responsibilities for the time being. "I don't remember the original little girl, but I remember the woman. She hurt me and loved me, and I loved her passionately."
They didn't have far to walk. Jessica had selected a particular broken tower, a slumped, thin pyramid that would serve as an appropriate grave marker. Jessica and Paul said their goodbyes during the procession, so that when they reached the collapsed structure they carried the girl inside through a lopsided trapezoidal opening, pushed debris aside to clear a space for her, and laid Alia Atreides on the smooth metal floor. Then Jessica stood over the wrapped child, saying another quiet farewell. Paul grasped his mother's hand, and she squeezed back.
After a lingering, painful silence, she turned and spoke to Duncan. "We've done all we need to do."
"I'll take care of the rest," Duncan said. When they had withdrawn from the fallen pyramid, Duncan raised his hands, fingers splayed, and his face took on a distant expression. The metalform buildings around them began to tremble and sway, growing and curving. The remnants of the pyramid folded around Alia's body and reinforced the walls, drawing polished alloys from other structures. Like a magnificent crystal and quicksilver monument, the ruined spire then rose heavenward. The rapidly growing tower crackled and clanged like mechanical thunder as flowmetal streamed upward. Its curves and angles were streamlined, its polished surfaces perfectly reflective.
Duncan guided the semisentient structures with greater care and focus than the evermind ever had. When he was finished, he had created a tomb, a memorial, a work of art that would amaze anyone who looked upon it.
It left a mark on Synchrony that could never compare with the mark her daughter's loss left on Jessica's heart.
Some problems are best solved with an optimistic approach. Optimism shines a light on alternatives that are otherwise not visible.
--SHEEANA,
Reflections on the New Order
In the aftermath, the humans in Synchrony gradually began to believe that their race would survive.
When Sheeana looked at Duncan, he seemed strangely distant, though that was to be expected. Often his gaze flicked from side to side as if he were in a thousand places at once.
While Mother Commander Murbella called down lighters from her newly arrived battleships, and the Guild provided shuttles full of workers and administrators to help consolidate the strange city, Sheeana watched self-guided robots clean up remnants of the bloody duels in the cathedral chamber.
The Ithaca's refugees had taken shelter inside the torn-open ship. The vessel would never fly in space again, even if Duncan forced the living-metal docking cradle to release the no-ship.
Courier drones and buzzing watcheyes, now personally directed by Duncan, led crowds of people through the broken streets, summoning them to a meeting where they would discuss the changed universe. Sheeana's renegade Bene Gesserits from the no-ship were uneasy about facing the former Honored Matre Murbella.
But the Mother Commander had grown much wiser in the intervening quarter century since the schism. Years ago, had she known of Sheeana's plan to steal the no-ship, Murbella would have killed her rival outright. Sheeana wondered what the former Honored Matre would think of all those years Duncan had pined for her. Did Murbella still love him? For that matter, had she ever?
Reverend Mothers Elyen and Calissa led a weary and uneasy crowd into the enormous cathedral hall. Guild crewmen from the ships above also entered the chamber, Administrator Gorus among them. He appeared drained, no longer in control of anything, and remained silent, following rather than leading his fellow Guildsmen.
When they had settled into a low hum of conversation approaching silence, Duncan took his place in the center of the chamber where Omnius and Erasmus had once presided over their thinking machines. He used no amplification system, yet his words resounded through the hall.
"This fate, this grand culmination of Kralizec, is what we sought for so many years." He swept his gaze over Sheeana and the refugee Bene Gesserits. "Your long journey is at an end, for this is the new heartland you dreamed of finding. The planet is yours now. Use the remnants of Synchrony to form an entirely new Bene Gesserit order, your base far from Chapterhouse."
The gathered Sisters were confused and astounded. Even Sheeana had not known Duncan would propose this. "But this is the heart of the thinking-machine empire!" cried Calissa. "The homeworld of Omnius."
"It's your homeworld now. Stake your claim and build your future."
Sheeana understood. "Duncan is exactly right. Challenges strengthen the Sisterhood. The universe has changed, and we belong here, regardless of the difficulties we may face. Even the sandworms have come to Synchrony, burrowing deep underground." She smiled. "They may reemerge when we least expect them. Someone has to keep an eye on the restored Tyrant."
Beneath the hall, Sheeana thought she felt the ground trembling, as from a great behemoth moving under the foundat
ions. Many robots had been destroyed or damaged during the sandworm attack, but thousands more of the machines remained perfectly functional. Sheeana knew that the Bene Gesserits here would have all the labor pool they could possibly desire, if the machines would work with them.
Murbella spoke up. "I shall return to Chapterhouse. It will take some effort to spread news of the new reality." She gazed at Sheeana. "Don't worry. My combined Sisterhood doesn't need to be at odds with your orthodox Bene Gesserit base here. There have always been many schools, many trains of thought. In proper balance, rivalry promotes strength and innovation--so long as we can avoid the acrimony of conflict and mutual destruction."
Sheeana knew that Duncan would go back to Chapterhouse with Murbella, at least for a time. With his guidance, Murbella would shepherd the reintroduction and integration of superior technology into a thriving society. If handled properly, Sheeana saw no reason for humans to fear cooperation with thinking machines any more than they needed to fear religion itself, or competition among Bene Gesserit elements. Any group could be dangerous if managed improperly.
Sheeana, though, would remain here. She saw no point in going back. Addressing Murbella, she said, "Even before Honored Matres destroyed Rakis, the Bene Gesserit order made me the centerpiece of a manufactured religion. For decades I had to hide while the Missionaria spread myths about me. I let the legend continue without me. What would I achieve if I stopped it now? So I say, leave it, if the thought comforts people. My place is on this planet."
She saw that Scytale was also in the audience. The last of the Tleilaxu Masters had, in the end, proved greatly helpful, fighting for instead of against them. "Scytale, will you remain with us? Will you join my new order here? We can use your knowledge and genetic expertise. We are, after all, founding a colony, and we have only a few hundred people."
"I expect others from the outside will eventually join you," Murbella said.
The little Tleilaxu was surprised by the invitation. "Of course I will stay. Thank you. My people have no other place now, not even sacred Bandalong." He smiled at Sheeana. "Perhaps at your side I can accomplish something worthwhile."
Duncan walked among the Bene Gesserit refugees. "You are gardeners laying down flagstones on our path of destiny. Many of us will return to worlds we once called home, but you will remain here."
With a warm feeling toward him, Sheeana touched Duncan's arm. Though still flesh and bone, and human, she knew he was far more than that. And his words rang true. "Thanks to you Duncan, my Sisters and I are finally home."
The worst part of going back is that the past is never exactly the way you remember it.
--PAUL ATREIDES,
Notebooks of a Ghola
Back in the Old Empire, the last Chapterhouse defenders waited, tense and alert, but nothing changed for days. The machine warships had not moved, and Bashar Janess Idaho had received no further word from the Navigator ships that had whisked the Mother Commander away. Fast scouts flitted back and forth from the hundred laststand groupings, and the situation was the same along the entire front.
Waiting. No one knew what was happening.
Janess reacted with alarm and dismay when a large swarm of ships burst out of foldspace in all sizes and configurations. Shouting into the commline, the bashar rallied all of her functional defensive craft that remained in orbit. At first she did not recognize the configurations, but then she saw that the newly arrived cluster included smaller human and thinking-machine vessels that had been towed along by the Holtzman engines of great Guildships.
"Identify yourselves!" Janess said to the unexpected armada.
On the bridge of her large battleship, returning home, Murbella smiled at Duncan. "That is your--our daughter."
He raised his eyebrows and performed quick mental calculations. "One of the twins?"
"Janess." Murbella frowned slightly. "The other one, Rinya, didn't survive the Agony. I forgot you didn't know. Tanidia, the middle one, is alive and well, assigned with the Missionaria among the refugees. But we lost Gianne, our youngest--born just before I became a Reverend Mother. She died during the Chapterhouse plague."
Duncan steadied himself. How odd to feel a blow of genuine grief to learn of the death of two children he had never met. He hadn't even known their names until now. He tried to imagine what the young women might have been like. As Kwisatz Haderach and evermind, he could do many things . . . almost anything. But he couldn't bring back his daughters.
Duncan studied Janess's features on the screen: dark hair and round face from his own genes, a petite figure, intense eyes, and a hard expression showing she would never run from a challenge. A synthesis of himself and Murbella. He activated the commline himself. "Bashar Janess Idaho, this is Duncan Idaho, your father. I am with the Mother Commander."
Murbella leaned into the field of view. "Stand down, Janess. The war is over. You have nothing to fear from us."
Janess seemed suspicious. "There are thinking-machine ships with you."
"They are my ships now," Duncan said.
The female bashar did not flinch. "How do I know you're not Face Dancers?"
Murbella answered, "Janess, when we stood against the thinking machines and discovered that Ixians and Face Dancers had deceived us, you and I were ready to throw away our lives in a final burst of glory. Don't be so eager to die now that we finally have hope."
The image of Janess stared at them from the viewing plate. Duncan was proud of his daughter's caution. He said, "We will all meet in the great hall of the Keep. A good place for us to discuss the future." He smiled wistfully. "I never actually saw the inside of the Keep when I was here. . . . I had to remain aboard the no-ship at all times."
Janess hesitated just a moment longer, then nodded curtly. "We will have guards."
Duncan already missed his no-ship comrades, but they had their own places to go now, important niches to fill. Paul and Chani would return to Arrakis, where they had always known they belonged. Jessica had chosen Caladan, and she surprised many by asking Yueh to go with her. And on Synchrony, Scytale's nullentropy capsule still contained a wealth of cells, a treasure chest of prizes.
Duncan had already decided on the first request he would make of the Tleilaxu Master. The turmoil and changes, the repercussions and adaptations would last for decades, even centuries. He would value the assistance and advice of a great man. He needed Miles Teg at his side again. . . .
As the ship descended toward the main city on Chapterhouse, Duncan knew he could never think of this world as home, despite the time he'd spent there. In his genetic incarnations he had experienced many places and known innumerable people. Duncan's developing prescience, and his mental connection to decillions of eyes spread across the cosmos and linked through the evermind's tachyon net, made the entire universe his home now.
Now you begin to understand the fascinating obligation I helped you to assume, said a familiar-sounding voice in his mind. Erasmus! I could have made it much harder on you, Kwisatz Haderach. Instead, I cooperated. This is only an echo of me, an observer. You can access me as you like. Use my knowledge like a databank. A tool. I am curious to see what you will do.
"Are you haunting me now, like a demon?"
Consider me an advisor, but my research continues. I will always be here to guide you, and I am confident you will not let me down.
"Like the witches' Other Memory, but far bigger, and more easily accessible."
You are here to serve both humans and thinking machines--and the future. It is all under your command.
Duncan laughed softly to himself at the friendly bantering between the two of them. Though Erasmus was in a subservient position, he still had a bit of humanlike pride, even if he was only an echo, and an advisor.
Entering the Keep, Duncan and Murbella marched into the echoing great hall, side by side. Watcheyes followed them, along with a pair of sentinel robots. The robots greatly disturbed the people who waited there, but in the future humans must learn to set
aside their fears and preconceptions.
Without Omnius, the thinking-machine empire continued to function but without a unified mind or mission. Duncan would direct them, but he refused to simply continue the endless cycle of enslavement. They had potential to be more than tools or puppets, more than just a destructive force. Some of the machines were merely that, but more sophisticated robots and advisory mechanisms could grow and develop into something far superior. Erasmus himself had become independent, developing a unique personality when he was isolated from the homogenizing influence of the evermind. With so many thinking machines spread across so many planets, other prominent figures would arise if given the opportunity. If guided. If Duncan allowed them.
He had to achieve a balance.
The Mother Commander's imposing chair stood high and empty in front of a segmented window that looked out on the arid, dying landscape. Janess stood to one side, welcoming Murbella to the empty seat, with nearly a hundred of the New Sisterhood's guards standing at high alert in the chamber. Though all of the insidious Face Dancers had been exposed and killed, Janess was not letting down her guard, and Duncan felt proud of his daughter.
She bowed formally. "Mother Commander, we are glad to have you back. Please, take your place."
"It is no longer only my place. Duncan, your daughter has been raised in the Bene Gesserit ways, but she also made a point of learning about you. She trained herself to become the equivalent of a Ginaz Swordmaster."
Thinking bittersweet thoughts about all he had missed, Duncan formally shook his daughter's hand and found her grip pleasingly strong. Until this moment they had been strangers who shared a bond of blood and patriotic allegiance. Their real relationship was just beginning.
Murbella had fought a long and bloody battle to combine the opposing forces of the Honored Matres and the Bene Gesserits, after which she had wrestled with the disparate groups of humanity to forge them into one whole. On an even larger scale, Duncan, through his newfound abilities, was shaping an even greater, farther reaching union.