All Sisters have common training, a common wardrobe, and presumably a common mind-set, but beneath the surface they are as diverse and separate as the roots that spread out from a single tree.

—REVEREND MOTHER RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL, Manual of the Sisterhood

Sister Candys Venport was filled with excitement and fascination as she ran up to Valya. “It’s Sister Anna! You should see this for yourself.”

Valya lurched to her feet, ready to follow the girl through the tunnels. “Is she hurt?” The Emperor’s sister had very little common sense, and could easily have gotten herself in trouble. On the other hand, since returning from the survival quest and finding Ingrid’s body, Anna was more serious about her studies, and had been showing more dedication to them.

“Not hurt.” The girl tugged on Valya’s hand. “She’s done much better than Sabine or I ever could.”

Inside the small chamber, Anna sat cross-legged on the floor, staring intently at the wall panel that enclosed the hive of burrowing insects. Her concentration interrupted, Anna blinked and turned around, surprised to see Valya there. “Straight lines…” She sounded exhausted. “Who would imagine it’s so difficult just to make straight lines?”

At first, Valya didn’t understand what the young woman meant, but Candys ran forward to point at the tunnels made by the scuttling nematodes. Most of the burrows swirled around in the random curves of nature, but in one corner of the panel, all the lines were perfectly straight, exactly horizontal and vertical, intersecting in precise perpendicular junctions.

“It’s like what I did with the fogwood trees back in the Imperial garden,” Anna said. “These burrowers respond to me. They must be telepathically sensitive, like fogwood trees.” Anna looked at Valya’s stunned expression, and the Princess’s face fell. “Are you disappointed? When you told me to meditate on their movements, wasn’t this what I was supposed to do?”

“No—I mean yes, this is fine, I’m just … surprised.” She would have to look into it further. “I’m very impressed. I wonder if other Sisters can do this.”

“It’s a knack I have,” Anna said. The girl might be spoiled, immature, and emotionally unstable, yet now Valya revised her opinion. If carefully guided, those mental powers might be useful, though she doubted if Anna Corrino had the maturity or drive to achieve anything significant.

Before she could take Anna to see the Reverend Mother, Dorotea stopped at the door to the chamber. She seemed stern and hardened. “Sister Valya, I’ve been looking for you. I’d like you to join me, along with some specially chosen Sisters, at an important private meeting.”

“Can I go along?” Anna rose to her feet. “I could share some ideas for a meeting.”

“This meeting is not for acolytes. Valya belongs with us.”

Anna looked stung and disappointed, and a flash of jealousy rippled across her face. Trying to calm the Corrino girl, Valya said, “I’ll come back to you as soon as I can. Sister Candys, will you take Anna back to her quarters? Dorotea and I have some business to discuss.” She wondered what the other woman was up to.

Despite the ever-growing number of Sisters being trained on Rossak, it was not difficult to find true privacy. The great cliff city had once been populated with nearly a hundred thousand Sorceresses, their mates, and children, along with all the normal Rossak inhabitants and offworlders who came to harvest the jungle’s wealth. The Omnius plagues, however, had wiped out so much of the population that large sections of the tunnels were now empty.

Dorotea led Valya to a windowless room, where Valya quickly assessed the nine other women gathered there, including Sister Perianna, who had recently returned from Salusa, along with Sister Esther-Cano, Sister Ninke, Sister Woodra, and five more whom she did not know.

“I told them we could trust you—I hope I’m not wrong about you,” Dorotea said to her. “You seem to be the Reverend Mother’s darling, but I know you’ve also worked with Karee Marques. I believe you’re dedicated to our cause. We’re meeting here to discuss the future of the Sisterhood.”

“You can trust me,” Valya said automatically. She began evaluating the women in her mind, to discover the common denominator.

Dorotea announced to all the women, “We’re here because we’re concerned that Reverend Mother Raquella has lost her way.”

Valya’s brow furrowed. “In what way? She created the Sisterhood—so doesn’t she define the goals of the order, as the only Reverend Mother?”

“The Sisterhood has its own identity,” Dorotea said.

“And we have much to offer,” said Perianna. “The Emperor has discovered this. Many noble families and commercial interests also see the value in our training. But if the Reverend Mother throws her support on the side of the Machine Apologists, she will damage our reputation.”

“Not just our reputation,” said Sister Woodra, “but our souls. The very core of the Sisterhood is to help women achieve superiority with their bodies and minds, keeping them from the seductive lure of machines.”

Valya hid her surprise and took a seat. Already she guessed she would have to report this discussion to Raquella. “And how do you think the Reverend Mother has strayed from this? She has voices and memories the rest of us cannot hear. I am inclined to trust her judgment.”

“None of us knows what a Reverend Mother is,” said Dorotea.

“Yet,” said Ninke.

“Raquella has changed,” Dorotea continued. “I have watched it. Isn’t it possible that those voices and memories in her head can deceive her as well as advise her?”

Valya pretended to consider the point. “We’ll never know for sure until we discover how to create other Reverend Mothers, so we can compare one to another.”

“She’s done almost nothing to investigate the murder of Sister Ingrid!” Dorotea said.

“Murder? Isn’t it more likely she just slipped from the path?” Valya kept her tone casual. “There’s a reason the cliffside trail is restricted. She probably went where she wasn’t supposed to go.”

“That isn’t all. We’ve heard rumors that there may even be forbidden thinking machines hidden here on Rossak!” said Sister Esther-Cano, lowering her voice to a nervous whisper.

A gasp circled the room, and Valya did not have to feign her surprise. How could these others possibly know about the breeding computers? She had stopped Ingrid before she could tell anyone else. Valya made a disbelieving snort. “That sounds like a Butlerian witch hunt.”

Dorotea pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. “When the Reverend Mother sent me away to my first assignment on Lampadas, she wanted me to study Manford Torondo, to analyze his followers and their supposedly irrational actions. I don’t think she expected me to listen. However, I saw Manford’s truth there. I listened to the recorded speeches of Rayna Butler. And though I didn’t live through those times myself, I learned how horrific the thinking machines truly were.”

Valya sat back and listened as the women discussed rumors they had heard, and expressed their fears. She had no intention of throwing in with these women. She nodded at appropriate times, responded with a troubled expression or contemplative look. It seemed she had infiltrated them.

*   *   *

WHEN SHE REPORTED to the Reverend Mother, the old woman received the news with a grave expression, and told Valya to continue befriending the group. “You seem to have a natural talent for deception.”

She heard no condemnation in the statement, but even so, Valya felt naked in front of the old woman, with her soul bared and all her thoughts and motivations laid out for observation and analysis. Valya kept her eyes down, a deliberate attempt to elicit sympathy. “I’m sorry if you think I’m untrustworthy, Reverend Mother.”

“The ability to lie convincingly can be useful, provided it is used for the proper purpose. Once you understand what it is to lie, you can move to truth—our truth.”

Valya averted her eyes as the Reverend Mother continued, “Sister Valya, I know you harbor a burning desire to redeem House Harkonnen, and I accept that I can never entirely divert you from your goal. But I have looked deep into your soul and I believe that you are in the right place at the right time for the welfare of the Sisterhood.” The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t view you on a scale of good or bad. Rather, I see you as a means by which our order can achieve true greatness. The two goals are not necessarily contradictory.”

She had already sensed Raquella grooming both her and Sister Dorotea, even pitting them against each other. To see who was better.

Raquella paused with a gentle smile. “You will achieve what you wish to achieve. I believe you are one of the most capable young women I’ve ever met, and this is why I have entrusted you with so much.”

Valya smiled with pride, but felt odd, as if she had been cleverly and deviously manipulated away from a path she had set for herself.

“And if you became a Reverend Mother like myself, then you would be powerful indeed.”