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.New in-Keep procedures had to be laid out, holding Schwangyu at arm'slength from the ghola.Taraza's orders."She can observe all she wants.She can't touch."In spite of the work pressures, Teg found himself staring into space at oddmoments, prey to free-floating anxiety.The experience of rescuing Taraza'sparty from the Guildship and Odrade's odd revelations did not fit into any dataclassification he constructed.Dependencies.key logs.Teg found himself seated in his own workroom, an assignment schedule projectedin front of him with shift changes to approve and, for a moment, he had no ideaof the time or even the date.It took a moment to relocate himself.Midmorning.Taraza and her party had been gone two days.He was alone.Yes,Patrin had taken over this day's training schedule with Duncan, freeing Teg forthe command decisions.The workroom around Teg felt alien.Yet, when he looked at each element in it,he found each thing familiar.Here was his own personal data console.Hisuniform jacket had been draped neatly across a chair-back beside him.He triedto fall into Mentat mode and found his own mind resisting.He had notencountered that phenomenon since training days.Training days.Taraza and Odrade between them had thrown him back into some form of training.Self-training.In a detached way, he felt his memory offering up a long-ago conversation withTaraza.How familiar it was.He was right there, caught in the moments of hisown memory-snare.Both he and Taraza had been quite tired after making the decisions and takingthe actions to prevent a bloody confrontation -- the Barandiko incident.Nothing but a hiccough in history now but at the time it had demanded all oftheir combined energies. Taraza invited him into the small parlor of her quarters on her no-ship afterthe agreement was signed.She spoke casually, admiring his sagacity, the way hehad seen through to the weaknesses that would force a compromise.They had been awake and active for almost thirty hours and Teg was glad for theopportunity to sit while Taraza dialed her foodrink installation.It dutifullyproduced two tall glasses of creamy brown liquid.Teg recognized the smell as she handed him his glass.It was a quick source ofenergy, a pick-me-up that the Bene Gesserit seldom shared with outsiders.ButTaraza no longer considered him an outsider.His head tipped back, Teg took a long swallow of the drink, his gaze on theornate ceiling of Taraza's small parlor.This no-ship was an old-fashionedmodel, built in the days when more care had been taken with decoration --heavily incised cornices, baroque figures carved in every surface.The taste of the drink pushed his memory back into childhood, the heavy infusionof melange."My mother made this for me whenever I was overly strenuous," he said, lookingat the glass in his hand.He already could feel the calming energy flow throughhis body.Taraza took her own drink to a chairdog opposite him, a fluffy white bit ofanimate furniture that fitted itself to her with the ease of long familiarity.For Teg, she had provided a traditional green upholstered chair, but she saw hisglance flick across the chairdog and grinned at him."Tastes differ, Miles." She sipped her drink and sighed."My, that wasstrenuous but it was good work.There were moments when it was right on theedge of getting very nasty."Teg found himself touched by her relaxation.No pose, no ready-made mask to setthem apart and define their separate roles in the Bene Gesserit hierarchy.Shewas being obviously friendly and not even a hint of seductiveness.So this wasjust what it seemed to be -- as much as that could be said about any encounterwith a Reverend Mother.With quick elation, Teg realized that he had become quite adept at reading AlmaMavis Taraza, even when she adopted one of her masks."Your mother taught you more than she was told to teach you," Taraza said."Awise woman but another heretic.That's all we seem to be breeding nowadays.""Heretic?" He was caught by resentment."That's a private joke in the Sisterhood," Taraza said."We're supposed tofollow a Mother Superior's orders with absolute devotion [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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