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.This was three and fourdegrees colder every night.Get the whole thing over in a week or so and plungethem all into the seemingly interminable chill.Cold to match the news about Lampadas.One result of this weather shift was fog.She could see it dissipating as thebrief snow flurry ended.Very confusing weather.They got the dewpoint next tothe air temperature and the fog rolled into the remaining wet spots.It liftedfrom the ground in tulle mists that wandered through leafless orchards like apoisonous gas.No survivors at all?Bellonda shook her head from side to side in answer to Odrade's questioninglook.Lampadas -- a jewel in the Sisterhood's network of planets, home of their mostprized school, another lifeless ball of ashes and hardened melt.And the BasharAlef Burzmali with all of his handpicked defense force.All dead?"All dead," Bellonda said.Burzmali, favorite student of the old Bashar Teg, gone and nothing gained by it.Lampadas -- the marvelous library, the brilliant teachers, the premier students.all gone."Even Lucilla?" Odrade asked.The Reverend Mother Lucilla, vice chancellor ofLampadas, had been instructed to flee at the first sign of trouble, taking withher as many of the doomed as she could store in Other Memory."The spies said all dead," Bellonda insisted.It was a chilling signal to surviving Bene Gesserit: "You may be next!"How could any human society be anesthetized to such brutality? Odrade wondered.She visualized the news with breakfast at some Honored Matre base: "We'vedestroyed another Bene Gesserit planet.Ten billion dead, they say.That makessix planets this month, doesn't it? Pass the cream, will you, dear?"Almost glassy-eyed with horror, Odrade picked up the report and glanced throughit.From the Rabbi, no doubt of that.She put it down gently and looked at herCouncillors.Bellonda -- old, fat and florid, Mentat-Archivist, wearing lenses to read now,uncaring what that revealed about her.Bellonda showed her blunt teeth in awide grimace that said more than words.She had seen Odrade's reaction to thereport.Bell might argue once more for retaliation in kind.That could beexpected from someone valued for her natural viciousness.She needed to bethrown back into Mentat mode where she would be more analytical.In her own way, Bell is right, Odrade thought.But she won't like what I havein mind.I must be cautious in what I say now.Too soon to reveal my plan."There are circumstances where viciousness can blunt viciousness," Odrade said."We must consider it carefully."There! That would forestall Bell's outburst.Tamalane shifted slightly in her chair.Odrade looked at the older woman.Tam,composed there behind her mask of critical patience.Snowy hair above thatnarrow face: the appearance of aged wisdom.Odrade saw through the mask to Tam's extreme severity, the pose that said shedisliked everything she saw and heard.In contrast to the surface softness of Bell's flesh, there was a bony solidityto Tamalane.She still kept herself in trim, her muscles as well-toned aspossible.In her eyes, though, was the thing that belied this: a sense ofwithdrawing there, pulling back from life.Oh, she observed yet, but somethinghad begun the final retreat.Tamalane's famed intelligence had become a kind ofshrewdness, relying mostly on past observations and past decisions rather thanon what she saw in the immediate present.We must begin readying a replacement.It will be Sheeana, I think.Sheeana isdangerous to us but shows great promise.And Sheeana was blooded on Dune.Odrade focused on Tamalane's shaggy eyebrows.They tended to hang over her lidsin a concealing disarray.Yes.Sheeana to replace Tamalane.Knowing the complicated problems they must solve, Tam would accept the decision.At the moment of announcement, Odrade knew she would only have to turn Tam'sattention to the enormity of their predicament.I will miss her, dammit!You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move with its currents.Every leader requires outsiders to perpetuate his leadership.Examine mycareer: I was leader and outsider.Do not assume I merely created a Church-State.That was my function as leader and I copied historical models.Barbaricarts of my time reveal me as outsider.Favorite poetry: epics.Populardramatic ideal: heroism.Dances: wildly abandoned.Stimulants to make peoplesense what I took from them.What did I take? The right to choose a role inhistory.-Leto II (The Tyrant): Vether Bebe TranslationI am going to die! Lucilla thought.Please, dear Sisters, don't let it come before I pass along the precious burdenI carry in my mind!Sisters!The idea of family seldom was expressed among the Bene Gesserit but it wasthere.In a genetic sense, they were related.And because of Other Memory,they often knew where.They had no need for special terms such as "secondcousin" or "great aunt." They saw the relationships as a weaver sees his cloth.They knew how the warp and weft created the fabric [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]