Yohsa had wanted to perform a sonogram, using machines that would send harmless pulses into Jessica’s womb and take holo-images of the baby growing inside. Technically, such procedures did not violate the Bene Gesserit strictures against tampering with children in utero, but Jessica had flatly refused the test, afraid it would reveal too much.
Seeing the surprised, annoyed expression on the Medical Sister’s face, Mohiam took Jessica’s side, showing rare compassion. “There will be no sonograms, Yohsa. Like all of us, Jessica has the ability to determine for herself if anything has gone wrong during the gestation period. We trust her.”
Jessica had looked up at her mentor and fought a stinging sensation in her eyes. “Thank you, Reverend Mother.” Mohiam’s gaze had searched for answers, though Jessica would not provide them, voluntarily or otherwise….
Now the Duke’s concubine sat alone on the balcony, blanketed in the Imperial sunset. She thought of the skies on Caladan, of the storms that came swiftly across the sea. Over the past several Standard Months, she and Leto had exchanged numerous letters and gifts, but such tokens were not nearly enough for either of them.
Though Kaitain held many treasures to amaze visitors, Jessica wanted to be back on her ocean world with the man she loved, at peace, leading her former life. What if the Sisterhood exiles me after our son is born? What if they kill the baby?
Jessica continued to make entries in the bound journal Lady Anirul had given to her, jotting down impressions and ideas, using a coded language of her own devising. She recorded her innermost thoughts, filling page after page with plans for her unborn son, and for her relationship with Leto.
In this process, however, she avoided writing about an increasingly unsettled feeling that she did not understand and which she hoped would go away. What if she had made a terribly wrong decision?
We depend entirely upon the benevolent cooperation of the unconscious mind. The unconscious, in a sense, invents the next moment for us.
— Bene Gesserit Precept
When Anirul awakened, she discovered that the Medical Sister had been monitoring and adjusting her medication to keep the disturbed clamor of Other Memory from overwhelming her.
“Good color in your skin, alertness in your eyes. Excellent, Lady Anirul.” Yohsa smiled gently, reassuringly.
Anirul managed to sit up on her bed, overcoming a wave of weakness. She felt almost recovered, almost sane. For now.
Margot Fenring and Mohiam scurried into the bedchamber, wearing anxious expressions that would have earned them a scolding rebuke if she had been feeling better.
Margot changed the polarity of the filter field at a private patio door, allowing bright sunlight into the room. Anirul shielded her eyes and sat up straighter in bed so that the warm, golden sunlight splashed across her skin. “I can’t spend my life in darkness.”
To her intent Bene Gesserit listeners, she explained the nightmare of the desert sandworm fleeing an unseen, unknown pursuer. “I must determine what this dream means, while the terror is still fresh in my mind.” The skin on her face began to feel hot in the sunlight, as if she had been sunburned by her vision.
The Medical Sister tried to interrupt, but Anirul shooed her away. Frowning in brittle disapproval, Yohsa left her alone with the other two women, closing the door behind her a bit more forcefully than necessary.
Anirul walked barefoot to the terrace, into full sunlight. Instead of recoiling from the heat, she stood naked and unself-conscious, absorbing the rays of the sun on her bare skin. “I journeyed to the brink of madness, and came back.” She experienced a strange longing to roll on… hot sand.
The three Sisters stood beside a waving immian rosebush at the terrace. “Dreams are always triggered by conscious events,” Mohiam said, paraphrasing a Bene Gesserit teaching.
Contemplating, Anirul picked one of the tiny yellow immian roses from the bush beside her; as the sensitive flower flinched, she lifted it to her nose to smell the delicate scent. “I think it has something to do with the Emperor, spice… and Arrakis… Have you heard of Project Amal? One day I walked into my husband’s study while he was discussing such a project with Count Fenring. They were arguing about the Tleilaxu. Both of them fell awkwardly silent, as guilty men always do. Shaddam told me not to meddle in affairs of state.”
“All men behave strangely,” Reverend Mother Mohiam observed. “That has long been known.”
Margot frowned. “Hasimir keeps trying to hide the fact that he spends so much time on