He was dismayed to realize that she had no better answer for him. Even if she made excuses, he wasn’t sure he would want to hear them. He could not comprehend what her reasons might have been.
Then further suspicion tingled at the back of his mind, scraped along his nerve endings, and brought a heated flush to his skin. She had done this so easily, seemingly without a second thought. How many other times had Jessica taken similar actions, making decisions in his name without being caught? Without him realizing?
She knew him so well.…
Was he truly so naïve that he hadn’t seen it earlier?
That was when he suspected that her manipulation was likely part of some insidious Sisterhood scheme, which made him even more upset. It reminded him that the Bene Gesserit dispatched their concubines with instructions to pull strings as if they were puppeteers in order to achieve the Sisterhood’s goals. Another thing and another thing.
He should have kept in mind that her beauty and shrewd intelligence came with a price: conflicted loyalties. The very people who raised and trained Jessica also had a claim on her allegiance.
“You learned too damned much in that Bene Gesserit school,” he muttered, taking her off guard. “But I have learned, too.”
Jessica’s expression fell, and she looked lost and devastated, completely convincing. Leto didn’t think it was an act, but he did not know what to believe right now. “Leto, I—”
“You should leave. I do not trust myself right now. Go, and close the door before I make a decision that I cannot retract.”
The person who appears to be stark raving mad, especially a Reverend Mother with an ocean of Other Memories churning inside her head, might be much more than what she seems. Rather, she could have a sharper grasp on sanity, because she sees things no one else can see.
—LARIBA PYLE, embattled Mother Superior in the Dark Ages after the Butlerian Jihad
Lethea had begun her precipitous decline only a few days earlier, but the crone’s violent instability made the time seem much longer to Harishka. The Mother Superior hated going to the guarded medical room, where danger simmered in the air. Instead, she viewed the patient remotely, from her own office.
Before departing for Kaitain, Reverend Mother Mohiam had helped Harishka craft an appropriate letter to Lady Jessica on Caladan. A firm, undeniable letter laying out the other woman’s obligations. Considering Lethea’s rasping demands, and dire warnings, Jessica might be the only person who could unlock the mind of the failing old Kwisatz Mother. She needed her to come here immediately. Take her away from the boy! Disaster to the Sisterhood!
If Lethea lived long enough …
They had no choice but to pull Jessica from Caladan. Perhaps permanently.
The Mother Superior stood at a wallscreen observing the seemingly harmless old woman on her bed. As anxious medical Sisters tended the ancient patient, Lethea squirmed and struggled to get out of bed. She showed surprising strength and resistance when four Acolytes and a Reverend Mother named Venedicto tried to get her under control.
An Acolyte approached with an injector, but Venedicto expressed reservations about the harsh tranquilizers and antipsychotics. “Not yet. It could harm her prescience, and we need to know what she will say.”
“If she says anything worthwhile,” Harishka muttered to herself as she watched the images. “We have always needed to know, but that woman withholds it from us.”
In a croaking voice, Lethea began to rant. “It is not right! I see it in my mind, and it is not right! Jessica … I must see Jessica of Caladan. Now! She and the boy. The patterns are not correct!”
The medical Sisters managed to wrestle Lethea back into bed. Reverend Mother Venedicto leaned close and spoke soothingly, her words clearly picked up by the wallscreen in Harishka’s room. “Lethea, listen to me. Jessica has been summoned. The message was already sent.”
Harishka whispered, “She will be here soon. She must obey.”
Venedicto made another soothing sound, leaning close to the old woman. “Please calm your thoughts, so they do not overwhelm you. Use prana-bindu breathing exercises and find your inner calmness. When you reach that serene place inside, all will be better.”
Lethea lunged at her, trying to claw out Venedicto’s eyes, and the Acolytes barely grabbed her in time. “My inner calmness? Do I appear calm? There is no reason for calm.” Faint, rippling waves appeared in the air around Lethea’s head, and her brittle white hair crawled and whipped around from the psychic energy stirred up by her powerful mind.
Venedicto tried to control the writhing crone while the medical Sisters retreated, terrified. “Be still. You must not fear! Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is—”
Lethea fought back with surprising strength. “You do not understand! Patterns are out of alignment! One failed Kwisatz Haderach after another, dead-end breeding lines, birth mothers unwilling to follow commands, not considering the consequences of their actions. Jessica must not remain on Caladan! It may already be too late!”
Her voice rattled, and she wheezed exhausted breaths. “Some Sisters allow themselves to fall in love! What can we do about that? Put them all to death?” She let out a staccato, acid laugh. The psychic waves rippled around her head, reflecting her internal turmoil. “It is breeding chaos, completely out of control!”
Harishka continued to observe, growing tense but listening carefully as Venedicto asked the necessary questions. “What patterns are out of alignment? Kwisatz Mother, tell us what you mean!”
The old woman slumped back on her bed and began to cackle. Before long, her laughter turned into a moan. “You could never begin to understand what I am saying, what I am seeing, images folding off into the past and the future.” She tried to throw herself out of bed again. “Let me out of here. I will go to Jessica myself.”
The strange energy continued to swirl, pounding ripples that seemed to emanate from within her anguished, dangerous mind. Lethea’s crackling hair gave her a feral, crazed look. Such a dramatic manifestation of her mental abilities alarmed Harishka. She recalled the terrible, long-vanished Sorceresses of Rossak back in the time of the Butlerian Jihad. There might still be genetic markers of Sorceress bloodlines in the human race. Perhaps Lethea had them.
The crone’s powerful mind shifted like a burning beacon in the cosmos, searching for one thing, and one thing only.
Making up her mind, Harishka activated a speaker in the room. “Lethea, I will be there right away. I need to talk with you.”
The fragile patient looked around the medical room, desperate and confused, as if she did not know who was speaking to her.
Leaving her office, the Mother Superior began to run. She reached the medical chamber in minutes. Venedicto met her at the door, hurrying her inside. “Your voice triggered something. She is much worse.” On the bed, all four Acolytes used their strength to hold Lethea down.
Instead of ranting, though, Lethea had lapsed into senseless muttering. Her hair still crackled with energy, and translucent ripples swirled over her bed.
“You have given her no drugs?” Harishka asked. “Nothing to alter her mind?”
“Nothing, Mother Superior. Her mind is … twisting on its own. She needs deep psychological treatment, not drugs.”