His words conjured another dream fragment. A beast with two heads. Both mouths open. Words in there. On the left, "One word" and on the right, "leads to another."
Mirth displaced fear. It subsided without laughter. "Duncan!"
"Mmmmmmm." Mentat distance in the sound.
"Bell said the Bene Gesserit use words as weapons - Voice. 'Tools of control,' she called them."
"A lesson you must learn almost as instinct. They'll never trust you into the deeper training until you learn this."
And I won't trust you afterward.
She rolled away from him and looked at the comeyes glittering in the ceiling around the time projection.
I'm still on probation.
She was aware her teachers discussed her privately. Conversations were choked off when she approached. They stared at her in their special way, as though she were an interesting specimen.
Bellonda's voice cluttered her mind.
Nightmare tendrils. Midmorning then and the sweat of her own exertions a stink in her nostrils. Probationer a dutiful three paces from Reverend Mother. Bell's voice:
"Never be an expert. That locks you up tight."
All of this because I asked if there were no words to guide the Bene Gesserit.
"Duncan, why do they mix mental and physical teaching?"
"Mind and body reinforce each other." Sleepy. Damn him! He's going back to sleep.
She shook Duncan's shoulder. "If words are so damned unimportant, why do they talk about disciplines so much?"
"Patterns," he mumbled. "Dirty word."
"What?" She shook him more roughly.
He turned onto his back, moving his lips, then: "Discipline equals pattern equals bad way to go. They say we're all natural pattern creators... means 'order' to them, I think."
"Why is that so bad?"
"Gives others handle to destroy us or traps us in... in things we won't change."
"You're wrong about mind and body."
"Hmmmmph?"
"It's pressures locking one to the other."
"Isn't that what I said? Hey! Are we going to talk or sleep or what?"
"No more 'or what.' Not tonight."
A deep sigh lifted his chest.
"They're not out to improve my health," she said.
"Nobody said they were."
"That comes later, after the Agony." She knew he hated reminders of that deadly trial but there was no avoiding it. The prospect filled her mind.
"All right!" He sat up, punched his pillow into shape and leaned back against it to study her. "What's up?"
"They're so damned clever with their word-weapons! She brought Teg to you and said you were fully responsible for him."
"You don't believe it?"
"He thinks of you as his father."
"Not really."
"No, but... did you think that about the Bashar?"
"When he restored my memories? Yeah."
"You're a pair of intellectual orphans, always looking for parents who aren't there. He hasn't the faintest idea of how much you will hurt him."
"That tends to split up the family."
"So you hate the Bashar in him and you're glad you'll hurt him."
"Didn't say that."
"Why is he so important?"
"The Bashar? Military genius. Always doing the unexpected. Confounds his foes by appearing where they never expect him to be."
"Can't anyone do that?"
"Not the way he does it. He invents tactics and strategies. Just like that!" Snapping his fingers.
"More violence. Just like Honored Matres."
"Not always. Bashar had a reputation for winning without battle."
"I've seen the histories."
"Don't trust them."
"But you just said..."
"Histories focus on confrontations. Some truth in that but it hides more persistent things that go on in spite of upheavals."
"Persistent things?"
"What history touches the woman in the rice paddy driving her water buffalo ahead of her plow while her husband is off somewhere, most likely a conscript, carrying a weapon?"
"Why is that persistent and more important than..."
"Her babies at home need food. Man's away on this perennial madness? Someone has to do the plowing. She's a true image of human persistence."
"You sound so bitter... I find that odd."
"Considering my military history?"
"That, yes, the Bene Gesserit emphasis on... on their Bashar and elite troops and..."
"You think they're just more self-important people going on about their self-important violence? They'll ride right over the woman with her plow?"
"Why not?"
"Because very little escapes them. The violent ones ride past the plowing woman and seldom see they have touched basic reality. A Bene Gesserit would never miss such a thing."
"Again, why not?"
"The self-important have limited vision because they ride a death-reality. Woman and plow are life-reality. Without life-reality there'd be no humankind. My Tyrant saw this. The Sisters bless him for it even while they curse him."
"So you're a willing participant in their dream."
"I guess I am." He sounded surprised.
"And you're being completely honest with Teg?"
"He asks, I give him candid answers. I don't believe in doing violence to curiosity."
"And you have full responsibility for him?"
"That isn't exactly what she said."
"Ahhhhh, my love. Not exactly what she said. You call Bell hypocrite and don't include Odrade. Duncan, if you only knew..."