"There are loopholes in any system."

"You know, darling, acolytes learn things."

"That's why they're acolytes."

"I mean we talk to one another."

"We? You're an acolyte? You're a proselyte!"

"Whatever I am, I've heard stories. Your Teg may not be what he seems."

"Acolyte gossip."

"There are stories out of Gammu, Duncan."

He stared at her. Gammu? He could never think of it by any name other than the original: Giedi Prime. Harkonnen hell hole.

She took his silence as an invitation to continue. "They say Teg moved faster than the eye could see, that he..."

"Probably started those stories himself."

"Some Sisters don't discount them. They're taking a wait-and-see attitude. They want precautions."

"Haven't you learned anything about Teg from your precious histories? It would be typical of him to start such rumors. Make people cautious."

"But remember I was on Gammu then. Honored Matres were very upset. Enraged. Something went wrong."

"Sure. Teg did the unexpected. Surprised them. Stole one of their no-ships." He patted the wall beside him. "This one."

"The Sisterhood has its forbidden ground, Duncan. They're always telling me to wait for the Agony. All will become clear! Damn them!"

"Sounds like they're preparing you for the Missionaria teaching. Engineer religions for specific purposes and selected populations."

"You don't see anything wrong in that?"

"Morality. I don't argue that with Reverend Mothers."

"Why not?"

"Religions founder on that rock. BGs don't founder."

Duncan, if you only knew their morality! "It annoys them that you know so much about them."

"Bell only wanted to kill me because of it."

"You don't think Odrade is just as bad?"

"What a question!" Odrade? A terrifying woman if you let yourself dwell on her abilities. Atreides, for all that. I've known Atreides and Atreides. This one is Bene Gesserit first. Teg's the Atreides ideal.

"Odrade told me she trusts your loyalty to the Atreides."

"I'm loyal to Atreides honor, Murbella." And I make my own moral decisions - about the Sisterhood, about this child they've thrust into my care, about Sheeana and... and about my beloved.

Murbella bent close to him, breast brushing his arm, and whispered in his ear: "Sometimes, I could kill any of them within my reach!"

Does she think they can't hear? He sat upright, dragging her with him. "What's set you off?"

"She wants me to work on Scytale."

Work on. Honored Matre euphemism. Well, why not? She "worked on" plenty of men before she ran afoul of me. But he had an antique husband's reaction. Not only that... Scytale? A damned Tleilaxu?

"Mother Superior?" He had to be sure.

"The one, the only." Almost lighthearted now that she had unburdened herself.

"What's your reaction?"

"She says it was your idea."

"My... No way! I suggested we could try to pry information out of him but..."

"She says it's an ordinary thing for the Bene Gesserit just as it is with Honored Matres. Go breed with this one. Seduce that one. All in a day's work."

"I asked for your reaction."

"Revolted."

"Why?" Knowing your background...

"It's you I love, Duncan and... and my body is... is to give you pleasure... just as you..."

"We're an old married couple and the witches are trying to pry us apart."

His words ignited in him a clear vision of Lady Jessica, lover of his long-dead Duke and mother of Muad'Dib. I loved her. She didn't love me but... The look he saw now in Murbella's eyes, he had seen Jessica look at the Duke that way: blind, unswerving love. The thing the Bene Gesserit distrusted. Jessica had been softer than Murbella. Hard to the core, though. And Odrade... she was hard at the beginning. Plasteel all the way.

Then what of the times when he had suspected her of sharing human emotions? The way she spoke of the Bashar when they learned the old man was dead on Dune.

"He was my father, you know."

Murbella dragged him out of reverie. "You may share their dream, whatever that is, but..."

"Grow up, humans!"

"What?"

"That's their dream. Start acting like adults and not like angry children in a schoolyard."

"Mama knows best?"

"Yes... I believe she does."

"Is that how you really see them? Even when you call them witches?"

"It's a good word. Witches do mysterious things."

"You don't believe it's the long and severe training plus the spice and the Agony?"

"What's belief have to do with it? Unknowns create their own mystique."

"But you don't think they trick people into doing what they want?"

"Sure they do!"

"Words as weapons, Voice, Imprinters..."

"None as beautiful as you."

"What's beauty, Duncan?"

"There're styles in beauty, sure."

"Exactly what she says. 'Styles based on procreative roots buried so deeply in our racial psyche we dare not remove them.' So they've thought of meddling there, Duncan."

"And they might dare anything?"

"She says, 'We won't distort our progeny into what we judge to be non-human.' They judge, they condemn."

He thought of the alien figures in his vision. Face Dancers. And he asked: "Like the amoral Tleilaxu? Amoral - not human."

"I can almost hear the gears whirling in Odrade's head. She and her Sisters - they watch, they listen, they tailor every response, everything calculated."

Is that what you want, my darling? He felt trapped. She was right and she was wrong. Ends justifying means? How could he justify losing Murbella?

"You think them amoral?" he asked.

It was as though she did not hear. "Always asking themselves what to say next to get the desired response."

"What response?" Couldn't she hear his pain?

"You never know until too late!" She turned and looked at him.

"Exactly like Honored Matres. Do you know how Honored Matres trapped me?"

He could not suppress awareness of how avidly the watchdogs would hang on Murbella's next words.

"I was picked off the streets after an Honored Matre sweep. I think the whole sweep was because of me. My mother was a great beauty but she was too old for them."

"A sweep?" The watchdogs would want me to ask.

"They go through an area and people disappear. No bodies, nothing. Whole families vanish. It's explained as punishment because people plot against them."

"How old were you?"

"Three... maybe four. I was playing with friends in an open place under trees. Suddenly, there was a lot of noise and shouting. We hid in a hole behind some rocks."

He was caught in a vision of this drama.

"The ground shook." Her gaze went inward with the memory. "Explosions. After a while it was quiet and we peeked out. The whole corner where my house had been was a hole."

"You were orphaned?"

"I remember my parents. He was a big, robust fellow. I think my mother was a servant somewhere. They wore uniforms for such jobs and I remember her in uniform."

"How can you be sure your parents were killed?"

"The sweep is all I know for sure but they're always the same. There was screaming and people running about. We were terrified."

"Why do you think the sweep was because of you?"

"They do that sort of thing."

They. What a victory the watchers would count in that one word.

Murbella was still deep in memory. "I think my father refused to succumb to an Honored Matre. That was always considered dangerous. Big, handsome man... strong."

"So you hate them."

"Why?" Really surprised by his question. "Without that, I would never have been an Honored Matre."

Her callousness shocked him. "So it was worth anything!"

"Love, do you resent whatever brought me to your side?"

Touche! "But don't you wish it had happened some other way?"