Chapterhouse: Dune – Entry #2

Meanwhile, back on Chapterhouse, Mother Superior Odrade tends to her plans to keep humanity going against the threat of the Honored Matres.  Sheeana is tending the growing desert created by the sand trout born of the death from the one old worm saved from Rakis (Dune).  Duncan lives on the no-ship as do Murbella and the captured Tleilaxu Master Scytale.  Early on we learn that Sheeana, the youngest ever to survive the Agony to become a Reverend Mother, is plotting and creating her own plans with Duncan.  The following passage provides her inner thoughts as she works on a sculpture:

Not that Duncan was a consort.  That had been the Bene Gesserit’s original plan: “Bond Sheeana to Duncan.  We control him and he can control her.”

Murbella cut that plan short.  And a good thing for both of us.  Who needs a sexual obsession? But Sheeana was forced to admit she harbored oddly confused feelings about Duncan Idaho.  The hand-talks, the touching.  And what could they say to Odrade when she came prying?  Not if, but when.

“We talk about ways for Duncan and Murbella to escape you, Mother Superior.  We talk about other ways to restore Teg’s memories.  We talk about our own private rebellion against the Bene Gesserit.  Yes Darwi Odrade!  Your former student has become a rebel against you.”

(Chapterhouse: Dune, p. 46)

Ah, yes, who needs a sexual obsession?  It seems to me that the Honored Matres developed their own form of control using sex rather than voice.  Voice could be used on anyone given a talented Reverend Mother delivering that voice, unlike the ability of the Jedi Masters in Star Wars whose control was limited to the “weak-minded”.  But sex as a tool of control … not that big a stretch.  And Duncan was interested in how they taught this tool.

The comeye record of such interest to Bell was of Idaho questioning Murbella about Honored Matre sexual-addition techniques.  Why?  His parallel abilities came from Tleilaxu conditioning impressed on his cells in the axlotl tank.  Idaho’s abilities originated as an unconscious pattern akin to instincts but the result was indistinguishable from the Honored Matre effect: ecstasy amplified until it drove out all reason and bound its victims to the source of such rewards.

(Chapterhouse: Dune, p. 50)

Just a word here about Bell.  She is a primary advisor to the Mother Superior and is sure that Duncan Idaho poses a severe threat to the Bene Gesserit and by extension to all humans.  The Bene Gesserit see their survival tied to the survival of human kind.  As explained by Rachel, the Jewish woman who “saved” Lucilla by “sharing” with her before she was captured thus saving all the Other Memories, the Bene Gesserit seek “[i]nfluence on the maturing of humankind” (Chapterhouse: Dune, p. 61).