Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert

“Ahhhh,” Odrade said. “Do you hear that? The priest, Krutansik, and his faction have arrived outside our door. They will propose that one of your Face Dancers assume the guise of the late Hedley Tuek. Any other course would cause too much turmoil. Krutansik is a fairly wise man who has held himself in the background until now. His Uncle Stiros groomed him well.”

“What does your Sisterhood gain from alliance with us?” Waff managed.

Odrade smiled. Now she could speak the truth. That was always much easier and often the most powerful argument.

“Our survival in the face of the storm that is brewing among the Scattered Ones,” she said. “Tleilaxu survival, too. The farthest thing from our desires is an end to those who preserve the Great Belief.”

Waff cringed. She spoke it openly! Then he understood. What matter if others heard? They could not see through to the secrets beneath her words.

“Our breeding mothers are ready for you,” Odrade said. She stared hard into his eyes and made the handsign of a Zensunni priest.

Waff felt a tight band release itself from his breast. The unexpected, the unthinkable, the unbelievable thing was true! The Bene Gesserit were not powindah! All the universe would yet follow the Bene Tleilax into the True Faith! God would not permit otherwise. Especially not here on the planet of the Prophet!

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?

-A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archives

The reports, the summations and scattered tidbits lay in rows across the long table where Taraza sat. Except for the night watch and essential services, Chapter House Core slumbered around her. Only the familiar sounds of maintenance activities penetrated her private chambers. Two glowglobes hovered over her table, bathing the dark wood surface and rows of ridulian paper in yellow light. The window beyond her table was a dark mirror reflecting the room.

Archives!

The holoprojector flickered with its continuing production above the tabletop — more bits and pieces that she had summoned.

Taraza rather distrusted Archivists, which she knew was an ambivalent attitude because she recognized the underlying necessity for data. But Chapter House Records could only be viewed as a jungle of abbreviations, special notations, coded insertions, and footnotes. Such material often required a Mentat for translation or, what was worse, in times of extreme fatigue demanded that she delve into Other Memories. All Archivists were Mentats, of course, but this did not reassure Taraza. You could never consult Archival Records in a straightforward manner. Much of the interpretation that emerged from that source had to be accepted on the word of the ones who brought it or (hateful!) you had to rely on the mechanical search by the holosystem. This, in its turn, required a dependency on those who maintained the system. It gave functionaries more power than Taraza cared to delegate.

Dependencies!

Taraza hated dependency. This was a rueful admission, reminding her that few developing situations were ever precisely what you imagined they would be. Even the best of Mentat projections accumulated errors . . . given enough time.

Still, every move the Sisterhood made required the consultation of Archives and seemingly endless analyses. Even ordinary commerce demanded it. She found this a frequent irritation. Should they form this group? Sign that agreement?

There always came the moment during a conference when she was forced to introduce a note of decision:

“Analysis by Archivist Hesterion accepted.”

Or, as was often the case: “Archivists’ report rejected; not pertinent.”

Taraza leaned forward to study the holoprojection: “Possible breeding plan for Subject Waff.”

She scanned the numbers, gene plans from the cell sample forwarded by Odrade. Fingernail scrapings seldom produced enough material for a secure analysis but Odrade had done quite well under the cover of setting the man’s broken bones. Taraza shook her head at the data. Offspring would surely be like all the previous ones the Bene Gesserit had attempted with Tleilaxu: The females would be immune to memory probing; males, of course, would be an impenetrable and repellent chaos.