Sisterhood of Dune Read Free

the dock. Their vessel drifted away from the rigged battle group.
    Within the hour, all the Butlerian strike vessels rendezvoused above the dark robot ships. “One minute left on the timers, sir,” Swordmaster Ellus transmitted. Manford nodded, his gaze intent on the screen, but he spoke no words aloud. None were necessary.
    One of the robot ships blossomed into flame and shrapnel. In rapid succession, the other ships detonated, their engine compartments overloading or their fuel ignited by timed explosions. The shock waves combined, swirling the debris into a soup of metal vapor and expanding gases. For a few moments, the sight was as bright as a new sun, reminding him of Rayna’s radiant smile … then it gradually dissipated and faded.
    Across the calm, Manford spoke to his devout followers. “Our work here is done.”

 
    We are barometers of the human condition.
    — REVEREND MOTHER RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL , remarks to third graduating class
    Out of necessity, Reverend Mother Raquella Berto-Anirul took a long view of history. Because of the wealth of unique ancestral memories in her mind—history personified—the old woman had a perspective of the past that was not available to anyone else … not yet.
    With so many generations to draw from in her thoughts, Raquella was well equipped to see the future of the human race. And the other Sisters in her school looked to their sole Reverend Mother to be their guide. She had to teach that perspective to others, expanding the knowledge and objectivity of her order, the physical and mental skills that set members of the Sisterhood apart from average women.
    Raquella felt a drizzle of rain on her face as she stood with other Sisters on a cliff balcony of the Rossak School, the formal training facility of the Sisterhood. Dressed in a black robe with a high collar, she gazed solemnly down from the edge of the cliff at the purplish jungle below. Though the air was warm and humid for the somber ceremony, the weather was hardly ever uncomfortable at this time of year, because of breezes that blew regularly along the cliff faces. The air had a faint sour smell, a brimstone aftertaste from distant volcanoes mixed with the stew of environmental chemicals.
    Today they were enduring another funeral for a dead Sister, one more tragic death from poison … another failure to create the second Reverend Mother.
    More than eight decades ago, the dying and bitter Sorceress Ticia Cenva had given Raquella a lethal dose of the most potent poison available. Raquella should have died, but deep in her mind, in her cells, she had manipulated her biochemistry, shifting the molecular structure of the poison itself. Miraculously she survived, but the ordeal had changed something fundamental inside her, initiating a crisis-induced transformation at the farthest boundaries of her mortality. She had emerged whole but different, with a library of past lives in her mind and a new ability to see herself on a genetic level, possessing an intimate understanding of every interconnected fiber of her own body.
    Crisis. Survival. Advancement.
    But in all the years afterward, despite many attempts, no one else had achieved the same result, and Raquella didn’t know how many more lives she could justify losing in order to reach the elusive goal. She knew only one way to push a Sister over the brink: driving her to the edge of death where—possibly—she could find the strength to evolve.…
    Optimistic and determined, her best trainees continued to believe in her. And they died.
    Raquella looked on sadly as a black-robed Sister and three green-robed acolytes took positions on top of the canopy of trees and lowered the corpse down into the humid depths of the silvery-purple jungle. The body would be left there for predators as part of the eternal circle of life and death, recycling human remains back into the soil.
    The valiant young woman’s name had been Sister Tiana, but now her body was wrapped in pale