Free Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson Page A

back to before our schools were formed.”
    Raquella led the doctor up the path to the cliff city. Inside a special section of caves used as the Sisterhood’s infirmary, she guided Dr. Zhoma to a private ward where four young women lay in vegetative states; in adjacent rooms, five more mentally afflicted women lived in varying states of awareness and normalcy. Two of them spoke in languages that no one could understand, not even Raquella with the countless generations of past memories inside her mind. Two were haunted by terrible nightmares. One, Sister Lila, lived in stony, affectless silence most of the time, but became perfectly lucid for no more than ten minutes each day, during which time she excitedly tried to explain what she had seen and experienced. As soon as her memories began to crystallize, however, Lila fell back into her blank state.
    Now, Dr. Zhoma knelt by the four comatose patients, studied their eyes, their pulses, their skin tones. She was competent, efficient, but had no bedside manner; the victims’ vegetative state allowed her to work without distractions. Zhoma took blood samples and moved about as if going through a detailed checklist in her mind.
    This section of the caves had been used to care for the Misborn, the children of Rossak Sorceresses who had suffered severe birth defects—which were once common because of the planet’s pervasive mutagens and environmental contaminants. Thinking of the Misborn, Raquella felt a pang for the young deformed Jimmak Tero, a child of Sorceress Ticia Cenva. A long time ago, when Raquella had suffered from the plague, Jimmak took her out to the jungle, tended her, and kept her alive by a miracle. He was dead now—most of the people Raquella had known in those days were long gone, as were so many Sister volunteers who tried to find the same uncharted path that she had traveled.
    So many dead … and so little hope of achieving the goal.
    As she looked at these victims, she spoke her thoughts to Zhoma, “Could it be I am just an anomaly? What if it’s not possible for anyone else to repeat my transformation? Such an agonizing process, so much death and injury.” She sighed. “Is it worth the risk? Maybe I should stop.”
    Zhoma’s cool expression hardened, showing true determination. “Reaching our human potential is always worth the risk, Reverend Mother. Now that our race is free of machine domination, we must improve ourselves, stretching our abilities of mind and body in every possible direction. That is what the Suk doctors believe. That is what your Sisterhood believes, and also the Mentats on Lampadas, and the Swordmasters. And even—if I understand correctly—the mutated Navigators used by the VenHold Spacing Fleet. We can’t back away now. We can’t let our resolve fail. It is our common destiny.”
    Raquella’s heart warmed as she heard this, and she smiled at the stocky woman. “Ah, Ori, maybe you should have stayed in the Sisterhood after all.”

 
    It is a trivial thing to say you agree with certain beliefs, but a far greater challenge to have the conviction to act on them.
    — MANFORD TORONDO , address to the Landsraad Hall
    Normally, whenever Manford appeared before a crowd of loyal supporters on Lampadas, the cheers buffeted him like the winds of a cleansing storm. Today, however, when two bearers carried his palanquin into the Landsraad Hall on Salusa Secundus, the reception was much cooler.
    The sergeant-at-arms announced him in a booming voice filled with pretentious formality, though surely everyone recognized the leader of the Butlerian movement. The responding applause from the nobles was polite and anticipatory, but not overwhelming, not ecstatic. Manford chose not to notice. Sitting on the palanquin, rather than on his Swordmaster’s shoulders, he straightened his back. His own shoulders were broad, his arm muscles well developed from compensating for the loss of his legs by using his arms to get about, and from regular,