They met for what Schwangyu called “a regular assessment session,” just the two of them in Schwangyu’s study. The time was shortly after their light supper. The sounds of the Keep around them were those of transition — night patrols beginning, off-duty personnel enjoying one of their brief free-time periods. Schwangyu’s study had not been completely insulated from such things, a deliberate contrivance of the Sisterhood’s renovators. The trained senses of a Reverend Mother could detect many things from the sounds around her.
Schwangyu felt more and more at a loss in these “assessment sessions.” It was increasingly obvious that Lucilla could not be won over to those opposing Taraza. Lucilla also was immune to a Reverend Mother’s manipulative subterfuges. Most damnable of all, Lucilla and Teg between them were imparting highly volatile abilities to the ghola. Dangerous in the extreme. Added to all of her other problems, Schwangyu nurtured a growing respect for Lucilla.
“He thinks we use occult powers to practice our arts,” Lucilla said. “How did he arrive at such a peculiar idea?”
Schwangyu felt the disadvantage imposed by this question. Lucilla already knew this had been done to weaken the ghola. Lucilla was saying: “Disobedience is a crime against our Sisterhood!”
“If he wants our knowledge, he will surely get it from you,” Schwangyu said. No matter how dangerous, in Schwangyu’s view, this was certainly a truth.
“His desire for knowledge is my best lever,” Lucilla said, “but we both know that is not enough.” There was no reproof in Lucilla’s tone but Schwangyu felt it nevertheless.
Damn her! She’s trying to win me over! Schwangyu thought.
Several responses entered Schwangyu’s mind: “I have not disobeyed my orders.” Pah! A disgusting excuse! “The ghola has been treated according to standard Bene Gesserit training practices.” Inadequate and untrue. And this ghola was not a standard object of education. There were depths in him that could only be matched by a potential Reverend Mother. And that was the problem!
“I have made mistakes,” Schwangyu said.
There! That was a double-pronged answer that another Reverend Mother could appreciate.
“You made no mistake when you damaged him,” Lucilla said.
“But I failed to anticipate that another Reverend Mother might expose the flaws in him,” Schwangyu said.
“He wants our powers only to escape us,” Lucilla said. “He’s thinking: Someday I’ll know as much as they do and then I’ll run away.”
When Schwangyu did not respond, Lucilla said: “That was clever. If he runs, we will have to hunt him down and destroy him ourselves.”
Schwangyu smiled.
“I will not make your mistake,” Lucilla said. “I tell you openly what I know you would see anyway. I now understand why Taraza sent an Imprinter to one so young.”
Schwangyu’s smile vanished. “What are you doing?”
“I am bonding him to me the way we bond all of our acolytes to their teachers. I am treating him with candor and loyalty as one of our own.”
“But he’s male!”
“So the spice agony will be denied him, but nothing else. He is, I think, responding.”
“And when the time comes for the ultimate stage of imprinting?” Schwangyu asked.
“Yes, that will be delicate. You think it will destroy him. That, of course, was your plan.”
“Lucilla, the Sisterhood is not unanimous in following Taraza’s designs for this ghola. Certainly, you know this.”
It was Schwangyu’s most powerful argument and the fact that it had been reserved for this moment said much. The fears that they might produce another Kwisatz Haderach were deep-seated and the dissension in the Bene Gesserit comparably powerful.
“He is primitive genetic stock and not bred to be a Kwisatz Haderach,” Lucilla said.
“But the Tleilaxu have interfered with his genetic inheritance!”
“Yes; at our orders. They have sped up his nerve and muscle responses.”
Is that all they have done?” Schwangyu asked.
“You’ve seen the cell studies,” Lucilla said.
“If we could do as much as the Tleilaxu we would not need them,” Schwangyu said. “We would have our own axlotl tanks.”
“You think they have hidden something from us,” Lucilla said.
“They had him completely outside our observation for nine months!”
“I have heard all of these arguments,” Lucilla said.