This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here — the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.
-The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives
“What you are doing is too dangerous,” Teg said. “My orders are to protect you and strengthen you. I cannot permit this to continue.”
Teg and Duncan stood in the long, wood-paneled hallway just outside the no-globe’s practice floor. It was late afternoon by the clock of their arbitrary routine and Lucilla had just swept away in anger after a vituperative confrontation.
Every meeting between Duncan and Lucilla lately had taken on the nature of a battle. Just now, she had stood in the doorway to the practice hall, a solid figure saved from being stolid by her softening curves, the seductive movements obvious to both males.
“Stop it, Lucilla!” Duncan had ordered.
Only her voice betrayed her anger: “How long do you think I will wait to carry out my orders?”
“Until you or someone else tells me that I –”
“Taraza requires things of you that none of us here knows!” Lucilla said.
Teg tried to soothe the mounting angers: “Please. Isn’t it enough that Duncan continues to improve his performance? In a few days, I will start keeping regular watch outside. We can –”
“You can stop interfering with me, damn you!” Lucilla snapped. She whirled and stalked away.
As he saw the hard resolution on Duncan’s face now, something furious began to work in Teg. He felt impelled by the necessities of their isolated situation. His intellect, that marvelously honed Mentat instrument, was shielded here from the mental uproar to which it adjusted on the outside. He thought that if he could only silence his mind, bring everything to stillness, all things would become clear to him.
“Why are you holding your breath, Bashar?”
Duncan’s voice impaled Teg. It required a supreme act of will to resume normal breathing. He felt the emotions of his two companions in the no-globe as an ebb and flow temporarily removed from other forces.
Other forces.
Mentat awareness could be an idiot in the presence of other forces that swept through the universe. There might exist in the universe people whose lives were infused with powers he could not imagine. Before such forces he would be chaff moved on the froth of wild currents.
Who could plunge into such an uproar and emerge intact?
“What can Lucilla possibly do if I continue to resist her?” Duncan asked.
“Has she used Voice on you?” Teg asked. His own voice sounded remote to him.
“Once.”
“You resisted?” Remote surprise lurked somewhere within Teg.
“I learned the way of that from Paul Muad’dib himself.”
“She is capable of paralyzing you and –”
“I think her orders prohibit violence.”
“What is violence, Duncan?”
“I’m going to the showers, Bashar. Are you coming?”
“In a few minutes.” Teg took a deep breath, sensing how close he was to exhaustion. This afternoon on the practice floor and afterward had drained him. He watched Duncan leave. Where was Lucilla? What was she planning? How long could she wait? That was the central question and it put the no-globe’s peculiar emphasis on their isolation from Time.
Again, he sensed that ebb and flow which their three lives influenced. I must talk to Lucilla! Where has she gone? The library? No! There is something else I must do first.
Lucilla sat in the room she had chosen for her personal quarters. It was a small space with an ornate bed filling an inset into one wall. Gross and subtle signs around her said this had been the room of a favorite Harkonnen hetaira. Pastel blues with darker blue accents shaded the fabrics. Despite the baroque carvings on bed, alcove, ceiling, and every functioning appurtenance, the room itself could be swept out of her consciousness once she relaxed here. She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes against the sexually gross figures on the alcove ceiling.