(no subject)

[worm_dancer]

Idaho's hands went to his console, fingers splayed in the comfield to grasp
required elements of the circuit control. No time for niceties. Gross
disruption. He was into the core within a second. From there, it was a simple
matter to dump entire segments. Navigation went first. He saw the net begin to
thin, the look of surprise on the man's face. Nullfields were next. Idaho felt
the ship lurching in foldspace. The net tipped, becoming elongated with the two
watchers foreshortened and thinned. Idaho wiped out star-memory circuits,
taking his own data with them.

Net and watchers vanished.

How did I know they would be there?

He had no answer except a certainty rooted in the repeated visions.

Sheeana did not look up when he found her at the temporary flight-control board
in the guard quarters. She was bent over the board, staring at it in
consternation. The projection above her showed they had emerged from foldspace.
Idaho recognized none of the visible star patterns but he had expected that.

Sheeana swiveled and looked at Garimi standing over her. "We've lost all data
storage!"

Idaho tapped his temple with a forefinger. "No we haven't."

"But it'll take years to recover even the essentials!" Sheeana protested. "What
happened?"

"We're an unidentifiable ship in an unidentifiable universe," Idaho said.
"Isn't that what we wanted?"

Comments

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana lost her breath for a few seconds then.

"...It is! Oh Duncan, look at the canvas I have!"

She gestured expansively at the sea of unfamiliar stars.

[sworntoatreides.livejournal.com]

He hid a smile at that, for all the good that would do him.

"I expect we'll have very little else to look at in the days to come," he teased, tucking away the part of himself that would always be Murbella's. Not forever, just for now. Committed.

Free.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

"Hmmph. We'll find a planet. With moons." It wasn't a statement of her Atreides ancestry coming to the fore. It was something simpler, and older than that: Hope.

[sworntoatreides.livejournal.com]

Reflexively, Idaho dismissed the options his Mentat mind presented at Sheeana's suggestion. A scattering implied more, well, scatter.

"And oceans." Call him sentimental. "Living oceans and ice caps."

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

"I am too much the Fremen to want oceans. But if it will make you happy, I will include it in my hopes."

She flashed him a small smile, uncharacteristically girlish for a jaded Reverend Mother. Now that she was alone with him for the first time in months, those feelings, the ones the Sisterhood had wanted her to have. She didn't like it, and decided to turn the conversation towards more businesslike matters.

"And the dreaming tyrant in the hold, he will need a home too." And instantly regretted it after saying it. Her look was apologetic. She knew how much remembering those deaths hurt him.

[sworntoatreides.livejournal.com]

His deaths were recalled as one death, and whatever emotion they evoked (disproportionately related to the God Emperor as they were), they were his own, and vital. He winced and smiled back, reading her as easily as she was surely reading him.

"Moons and oceans, Sheeana. I haven't counted the tides in lifetimes. There will be viable worlds enough, for us and our progeny - and his as well."

As they both knew, happiness would have far less say than necessity, but it didn't take away from his pleasure at her vision. Imagination! All else they could make.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Our...progeny...

The thought was enough to make her queasy. She had never particularly liked children, probably because her own childhood had been cut abruptly short. And she knew enough about herself that she could predict the future resentment she would have towards happy children.

Maybe she could finnagle something out of the disgusting little Tleilaxu in the hold and skip the whole pregnancy process entirely.

She knew her obligation though. She was the only carrier of the Siona gene in this new universe.

Knowing this, her hand settled in Duncan's. If he wanted to take things farther at that time, the invitation was there. But she was mature enough to handle the rejection if not. She would never be one of those women who mourned a lost love like a child with a broken toy. She would support him regardless.

[sworntoatreides.livejournal.com]

Oi, collective 'our,' there! Considering the last child either of them had close dealings with (not his newborn daughter, no, nor the others, damn them) had been Teg, parenthood might be a, mm, delicate subject.

Although Idaho had come to the same conclusions, breeding plans were definitely something he would prefer to leave out entirely, thanks in the hands of others. Even in need, he'd never ask it of her. But if it was offered...

He read Sheeana's gesture as clearly as any of their hand signals, and then turned to look back in the direction they had come. Not a rejection - but the loss of Murbella was too fresh. He could make no answer yet.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana had the same thought at the same time. Gods below, he's only a few hours away from Murbella. Look at me lying in wait like a jackal. She recognized that this was the down side of her wildness, a tendency to react in animallike ways. She squeezed his hand and slid it away. He would come to her when the withdrawal became too much to bear anyway.

"I am going to go ask our maker and futars where they wish to go. And perhaps try to find out what type of planet Scytale likes least so we know where to exile him if he becomes too irritating. Come with me if you wish." It was a measure of her trust in him that she did not fear the last Tleilaxu master reasserting his control over him, as he had tried to do to him thousands of years ago at the birth of the Atreides twins.

Or maybe she was just interested in torturing the little man. See? Your creation no longer obeys you.