Odrade allowed herself a smile. With the change of language, Waff’s entire personality, his whole manner, changed. He was performing exactly as expected. None of his doubts had been reinforced in this tongue!
She responded with an equal confidence: “Fools fear that we may bring back another Kwisatz Haderach! That is what a few of my Sisters argue.”
“There is no more need of such a one,” Waff said. “The one who could be many places simultaneously has been and he has gone. He came only to bring the Prophet.”
“God would not send such a message twice,” she said.
It was the very sort of thing Waff had heard often in this tongue. He no longer thought it strange that a woman could utter such words. The language and the familiar words were enough.
“Has Schwangyu’s death restored unity among your Sisters?” he asked.
“We have a common enemy,” Odrade said.
“The Honored Matres!”
“You were wise to kill them and learn from them.”
Waff leaned forward, completely caught up in his familiar tongue and the flow of their conversation. “They rule with sex!” he exulted. “Remarkable techniques of orgasmic amplification! We –” Belatedly, he became aware of who was sitting in front of him hearing all of this.
“We already know such techniques,” Odrade reassured him. “It will be interesting to compare, but there are obvious reasons why we have never tried to ride to power on such a dangerous conveyance. Those whores are just stupid enough to make that mistake!”
“Mistake?” He was clearly puzzled.
“They are holding the reins in their own hands!” she said. “As the power grows, their control of it must grow. The thing will shatter of its own momentum!”
“Power, always power,” Waff muttered. Another thought struck him. “Are you saying this was how the Prophet fell?”
“He knew what he was doing,” she said. “Millennia of enforced peace followed by the Famine Times and the Scattering. A message of direct results. Remember! He did not destroy the Bene Tleilax or the Bene Gesserit.”
“For what do you hope from an alliance between our two peoples?” Waff asked.
“Hope is one thing, survival another,” she said.
“Always pragmatism,” Waff said. “And some among you fear that you may restore the Prophet on Rakis with all of his powers intact?”
“Did I not say it?” The language of the Islamiyat was particularly potent in this questioning form. It placed the burden of proof on Waff.
“So they doubt God’s hand in the creation of your Kwisatz Haderach,” he said. “Do they also doubt the Prophet?”
“Very well, let us have it all out in the open,” Odrade said, and launched herself on the chosen course of. deception: “Schwangyu and those who supported her broke away from the Great Belief. We harbor no anger toward any Bene Tleilax for having killed them. They saved us the trouble.”
Waff accepted this utterly. Given the circumstances, it was precisely what could be expected. He knew he had revealed much here that might better have been held in reserve but there were still things the Bene Gesserit did not know. And the things he had learned!
Odrade shocked him totally then by saying: “Waff, if you think your descendants from the Scattering have returned to you unchanged, then foolishness has become your way of life.”
He held himself silent.
“You have all of the pieces in your hands,” she said. “Your descendants belong to the whores of the Scattering. And if you think any of them will abide by an agreement, then your stupidity goes beyond description!”
Waff’s reactions told her she had him. The pieces were clicking into place. She had told him truth where it was required. His doubts were refocused where they belonged: against the people of the Scattering. And it had been done in his own tongue.
He tried to speak past a constriction in his throat and was forced to massage his throat before speech returned. “What can we do?”
“It’s obvious. The Lost Ones have their eyes on us as just one more conquest. They think of it as cleaning up behind them. Common prudence.”
“But they are so many!”
“Unless we unite in a common plan to defeat them, they will chew us up the way a slig chews up its dinner.”