The Winds of Dune (18 page)

“You must feel so sorry about what you have done.” Stokiah’s voice was slippery and poisonous, not at all compassionate. “So sorry, and so terribly guilty.”

Tessia felt the psychic waves. Her heart hammered, and her conscience became a palpable weight. She could hardly breathe.

“How could you betray the Sisterhood, after all we have done for you? All we’ve taught you?” Stokiah’s insidious tone unlocked flood-gates of memories and regrets in Tessia’s mind. “We gave you a mission, and now you have let us down.” Each word scratched across her nerves like a sharpened steel nail. “You turned your back on us. You failed us. Worst of all, you succumbed to love.”

Tessia wanted to shrink away, desperate to avoid each accusation, but she couldn’t move. The weight thrummed around her, made her head throb, dulled her thoughts.

“You betrayed your son, too. Does Bronso know that Rhombur is not his real father? You allowed yourself to be impregnated with another man’s sperm, for love—yet you refuse to do it for
us
?”

Though Stokiah’s voice did not change, the volume of the words inside Tessia’s head grew louder and louder. Each phrase became a scream. She closed her eyes, shuddered, tried to withdraw into a corner. Stokiah wielded her power like a Master Jongleur who could manipulate every audience member, stopping hearts with terror or wringing tears from their eyes.

The tiny rational corner that remained in Tessia’s mind insisted that the words were an exaggeration, that they had no merit. She clung to her confidence, her love for Rhombur, for Bronso. And she failed miserably.

Thick oppression wrapped itself around Tessia, strangling her like a black ghost as she collapsed to the floor. She couldn’t hear anymore, but the remembered words continued to echo in her mind. She couldn’t move her body, couldn’t run, couldn’t scream. She tried to retreat, to find a zone of refuge inside her head, convinced she could survive no more of this.

But it continued . . . and continued.

A flicker of respite surprised her then, and she could see again. Stokiah stood at her doorway, ready to depart. “Never forget that you belong to the Sisterhood—heart, mind, soul, and flesh. You exist to serve. Contemplate that in your personal hell.” With a dismissive gesture and an uttered syllable, Stokiah slammed the curtains of guilt back down around Tessia.

With mental screams, she fell deeper and deeper into herself, hiding inside a single black dot of consciousness. But even there, Tessia was not safe. Not even close.

When he returned to their quarters, Rhombur found his wife lying on the floor, conscious but unresponsive. Tessia’s eyes were glazed and unseeing; her skin twitched and trembled as if her nerves were firing in random patterns. He shook her, called out her name, but received no response.

She had folded into herself like a dying butterfly. Lifting her back onto the bed, Rhombur called for emergency medical help. He ordered the immediate shutdown of the Grand Palais and sent teams to look for assassins, fearing that she had been poisoned.

Dr. Yueh rushed in, used his medical kit to check her pulse and brain activity. He ran blood samples through a scanner to detect drugs or toxins. “I see no obvious cause for this, my Lord. No head injury, no telltale marks of a needle or any other known poison-delivery system.”

Rhombur was like an overheated engine about to explode. “Vermillion Hells, something caused it!”

As the alarms continued to sound, Vernius guards rushed to the royal chambers. Gurney Halleck arrived with Duncan Idaho, swiftly followed by a very concerned looking Jessica. Bronso came running into the room with Paul Atreides beside him, the two boys sagging with worry and confusion as they saw Tessia, her jaws clenched together, her eyelids twitching and trembling.

Frightened and angry, Bronso jumped to conclusions. “The technocrats couldn’t kill me, so they attacked my mother instead?”

Rhombur had seen how the climbing equipment had been sabotaged, presumably by agents working for the Technocrat Council. “Is this another attempt to strike at me—through my wife?”

Yueh looked up from his portable diagnostic instrument, looked at the readings from the blood sample, shook his head, and repeated, “No detectable poison.”

“What else could have put her in a state like this?” Duncan asked.

Paul spoke up. “Some kind of stunner, or neural scrambler? Does Ix have any new weapon that could account for this?”

Rhombur felt as if his artificial systems were about to collapse. “I can’t know every project my scientists undertake. I see only the results when a device is ready for marketing. It’s . . . possible, I admit.” He increased the volume of his voice until the windowplates rattled. “Summon Bolig Avati! Tell him his Earl demands his presence—it is not a request.”

Rhombur turned to Jessica. “And what about those three Bene Gesserits? They were here to demand that Tessia become a breeding mistress. Could
they
have done this? Do they have such powers?”

Jessica paused long enough to be certain of her answer. “I’ve never heard of any such skills.”

Seeking answers, he called for the three Bene Gesserits, and the women were ushered in so swiftly that they nearly tripped on the hems of their robes. They did not seem overly upset as they regarded Tessia, who lay curled up, shivering, lost in some inner maze of pain.

Rhombur demanded, “Well? Are you responsible for this?”

Stokiah raised her chin haughtily. “We have seen this before—it is peculiar to members of our order, very rare. The conflicting pressures of your demands upon Tessia and her obligations to the Bene Gesserit order were too much. But we have ways of treating her on Wallach IX.”

The youngest of the Bene Gesserit trio spoke to Yueh. “Your medicine can treat diseases or poisons, Wellington, but this . . . this appears to be a condition of the mind. Yes, I am aware of similar collapses among the Bene Gesserit. The mind ties itself into a Gordian knot, and it requires a skillful sword to cut apart the twisted strands without destroying the mind.” She turned to the cyborg leader. “Earl Vernius, as Reverend Mother Stokiah suggests, let us take her back to Wallach IX. Only the Sisterhood has ways of treating this.”

“I will not leave her side! If she goes there to be treated, then I go with her.”

“You are not welcome on Wallach IX, Rhombur Vernius,” Stokiah said. “Release Tessia to our care. There is no telling how long our treatment might require, and no guarantee of success. But you cannot cure her here. If you love this woman, as you claim, then give us an opportunity to work on her.”

The Suk doctor remained at a loss. “I’ll continue to run tests, my Lord, but I suspect my diagnosis will not change. If there’s a chance, and time is of the essence . . .”

“Don’t worry, Rhombur.
I
can go see her as the treatment progresses,” Jessica offered. “The Sisterhood takes care of its own.”

Bronso knelt beside Tessia, his reddish hair tousled with sweat. “Mother, come back to us! I don’t want them to take you.” But she did not respond.

Rhombur realized that he had already lost. He felt cast adrift, a man floating in space with no lifeline and no oxygen tank. “Keep trying, Yueh. I will give you two more days. If you can’t do anything to save her by then, then I’ll have to trust the witches.”

Everyone lies, every day of his life. The effect of such untruths is a matter of degree, of purpose, and of benefit. Falsehoods are more numerous than the organisms in all the seas in the galaxy. Why then are we Tleilaxu perceived as being deceptive and untrustworthy, while others are not?

—
RAKKEEL IBAMAN
, the oldest living Tleilaxu Master

B
ronso watched helplessly as his father allowed the witches to take Tessia away to their far-off world. After two seemingly unending, painful days had passed, there was no better option. Though he had attempted every esoteric Suk treatment, Dr. Yueh had been unable to penetrate her mindless state.

Tessia was clearly in pain, in terror, in misery, and she would not wake up. And the Bene Gesserits claimed they could help.

Bronso knew where to place the blame. The technocrats had done something to her mind, he was sure of it. In the past several years, the bureaucratic bastards had tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get rid of Bronso’s father. They had sabotaged Bronso’s own climbing gear only a few days ago, in hopes of killing him. Now the enemies of House Vernius had found a way to make his mother vulnerable and strike her down. . . .

The interrogation of an indignant Bolig Avati revealed nothing useful, though the technocrat leader did admit that if Ix were to be “unencumbered by archaic noble traditions,” business would proceed more smoothly. But there was no proof to link him to any of the sabotages or assassination attempts.

While Yueh tried in vain to revive Tessia, a distraught Rhombur
gave full investigative authority to Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. Along with loyal House Vernius guards, they searched the Ixian research facilities, studied the test records and prototype apparatus being developed by Ixian research teams, broke down doors to high-security areas—and found one researcher dead.

A man named Talba Hur, a solitary genius with an abrasive personality, lay in his locked lab with a broken neck and his skull crudely bashed in, dead among the cinders of research papers and diagrams. According to the only known records of his work, Talba Hur had been developing a technological means to erase or disrupt the human mind. Such a device might explain what had happened to Tessia.

Rhombur had no proof, no direct suspects . . . and no doubts. But even that didn’t help cure his wife. The damage had been done, and Yueh was unable to do anything to aid her.

Only the Bene Gesserits offered a slender hope, though they seemed to be without compassion. Distraught, Bronso stared as the three dark-robed Sisters whisked his mother away as if she were some sort of package to be delivered. He hated their attitude. The young man had already said goodbye to her, struggling to contain his tears. The Bene Gesserits merely brushed him aside, hurrying her along. Bronso thought he saw a knowing look in their eyes, which he presumed meant they had a particular treatment in mind.

But he wondered if he could truly trust them.

Bolig Avati stood among the party, wearing an expression of studied grief. “My Lord Vernius, perhaps it would be best if you withdrew from public life for a time.” Avati sounded drippingly sincere. “Rest and spend time with your son.”

Bronso wanted to strike the leader of the Technocrat Council. How could the man seize this opportunity to make Earl Vernius loosen his hold even further? Rhombur stood looking lost, devastated, speechless—he did not know what else to do, couldn’t conceive of any alternative. Not bothering to answer Avati, Bronso’s father stared in disbelief as the shuttle’s doors sealed and the vessel withdrew, rising up to the launching area.

Jessica and Paul both watched, keeping their distance but ready to show their support if Rhombur needed them. In light of the turmoil and tragedy, Jessica had suggested that it would be best if Paul returned
to Caladan, leaving Bronso alone with his father and their shared grief.

No one could do anything to help. All of Bronso’s preconceptions and assumptions were crumbling. Throughout his life, he had expected his father to solve all problems, to be a decisive leader. Right now, he should have forced the technocrats to confess, or at the very least extract promises from the witches for the treatment they proposed. When could they visit Tessia? When would they know something about the treatment? How would the Sisters take care of her?