"Never another surprise? What could be more boring?"
"Ahhhh... Oh! But that's not what I mean."
"Then I'm afraid I do not understand what you want, Great Honored Matre."
"No matter. We'll return to it tomorrow."
Reprieve!
Great Honored Matre stood. "Back into your cage."
"Eat?" The Futar sounded plaintive.
" I have some wonderful food for you downstairs, darling. Then I'll rub your back."
Lucilla entered her cage. Great Honored Matre threw a chair cushion in after her. "Use that against the shigawire. See how kind I can be?"
The cage door sealed with a click.
The Futar in its cage slid back into the wall. The panel snapped closed over it.
"They get so restless when they're hungry," Great Honored Matre said. She opened the door to the room and turned to contemplate Lucilla for a moment. "You will not be disturbed here. I am refusing permission for anyone else to enter this room."
Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant.
- Mentat Text Two (dicto)
Periodically, Odrade went for dinner with acolytes and their Proctor-Watchers, the most immediate warders in this mind-prison from which many would never be released.
What the acolytes thought and did really informed the depths of Mother Superior's consciousness on how well Chapterhouse functioned. Acolytes responded from their moods and forebodings more directly than Reverend Mothers. Full Sisters got very good at not being seen at their worst. They did not try to conceal essentials, but anyone could walk in an orchard or close a door and be out of the view of watchdogs.
Not so the acolytes.
There was little slack time in Central these days. Even the dining halls had their constant streams of occupants no matter the hour. Workshifts were staggered and it was easy for a Reverend Mother to adjust her circadian rhythms to off-beat time. Odrade could not waste energy on such adjustments. At the evening meal, she paused at the door to the Acolyte Hall and heard the sudden hush.
Even the way they conveyed food to their mouths said something. Where did the eyes go as the chopsticks progressed mouthward? Was it a quick stab and a rapid chew before a convulsive swallow? That was a one to watch. She was brewing upsets. And that thoughtful one over there who looked at each mouthful as though wondering how they hid the poison in such slop? A creative mind behind those eyes. Test her for a more sensitive position.
Odrade entered the hall.
The floor had a large checkerboard pattern, black and white plaz, virtually unscratchable. Acolytes said the pattern was for Reverend Mothers to use as a game board: "Place one of us here and another over there and some along that central line. Move them thus - winner take all."
Odrade took a seat near the corner of a table beside the western windows. The acolytes made room for her, their movements quietly unobtrusive.
This hall was part of the oldest construction on Chapterhouse. Built of wood with clear-span beams overhead, enormously thick and heavy things finished in dull black. They were some twenty-five meters long without a joint. Somewhere on Chapterhouse there was a grove of genetically tailored oaks reaching up to sunlight in their carefully tended plantations. Trees going up thirty meters at least without a limb, and more than two meters through the boles. They had been planted when this hall was built, replacements for these beams when age weakened them. Nineteen hundred SY the beams were supposed to endure.
How carefully the acolytes around her watched Mother Superior without ever appearing to look directly at her.
Odrade turned her head to peer out the western windows at the sunset. Dust again. The spreading intrusion from the desert inflamed the setting sun and set it glowing like a distant ember that might explode into uncontrollable fire at any instant.
Odrade suppressed a sigh. Thoughts such as these recreated her nightmare: the chasm... the tightrope. She knew if she closed her eyes she would feel herself swaying on the rope. The hunter with the axe was nearer!
Acolytes eating close by stirred nervously as though they sensed her disquiet. Perhaps they did. Odrade heard the movement of fabrics and this dragged her out of her nightmare. She had become sensitized to a new note in the sounds of Central. There was a grating noise behind the most commonplace movements - that chair being shifted behind her... and the opening of that kitchen door. Rasping grit. Cleaning crews complained of sand and "the damnable dust."
Odrade stared out the window at the source of that irritation: wind from the south. A dull haze, something between tan and earth brown, drew a curtain across the horizon. After the wind, dustings of its deposits would be found in building corners and on lee sides of hills. There was a flinty aroma to it, something alkaline that irritated the nostrils.
She looked down at the table as a serving acolyte placed her meal in front of her.
Odrade found herself enjoying this change from quick meals in her workroom and private dining room. When she ate alone up there, acolytes brought food so quietly and cleared away with such silent efficiency that sometimes she was surprised to find everything gone. Here, dining was bustle and conversation. In her quarters, Chef Duana might come in clucking, "You are not eating enough." Odrade generally heeded such admonitions. Watchdogs had their uses.
Tonight's meal was sligpork in a sauce of soy and molasses, minimal melange, a touch of basil and lemon. Fresh green beans cooked al dente with peppers. Dark red grape juice to drink. She took a bite of sligpork with anticipation and found it passable, a bit overcooked for her taste. Acolyte chefs had not missed it by much.