The Observation Gallery
Lady Jessica pulled her cowl tighter against the damp chill of the Mother School. Below, the four acolytes were practicing the Sign of the Hand, their movements synchronized in a lethal dance.
"She has integrated," Jessica said, her voice a low murmur as Reverend Mother Mohiam drifted into the light beside her. "The Ixian girl, Miral, follows her lead without even realizing she has surrendered her autonomy. It is a subtle Voice work, Reverend Mother. Almost invisible."
Jessica turned, her expression sharpening into a formal inquiry. "But I must ask—why is Lysara being permitted among the acolytes? To place a Pre-born in the creche is a violation of our most fundamental cautions. It is dangerous to the breeding lines, and a threat to the stability of the school."
"Danger is the whetstone of the soul, Jessica," Mohiam rasped, her eyes never leaving the child below. "She is a contingency. A shadow cast by the Kwisatz Haderach program. We must know if the tool can be tempered before we decide to break it."
Jessica looked back at the courtyard. "The reports claim her primary abilities have yet to manifest in the testing vats. What is she truly capable of? What did the breeding lines actually produce in this 'Mari'?"
Mohiam leaned heavily on her staff, a rare moment of physical concession. "Understand that what I tell you is my own theory—a conclusion drawn from the fragments I have seen in her training. No one truly comprehends the extent of her capacity; we are measuring an ocean with a thimble."
"Your theory, then?" Jessica pressed.
"The Kwisatz Haderach is the 'One who can be in two places at once'—the male who can bridge the gap between the male and female Other Memory and look into the prescient void of the future. But Lysara... she is a different breed of bridge."
Mohiam lowered her voice, the words heavy with the weight of the Bene Gesserit archives. "While the Kwisatz Haderach will look forward into the multiple paths of what may be, my observations suggest Lysara looks backward with a clarity that defies our laws. She does not merely 'access' the female line. Like the Kwisatz Haderach, she appears to have the capacity to access both the male and female memories of the past—but she does so by what I believe is a Residual Genetic Echo."
"She sees the male ancestors?" Jessica whispered, horrified and fascinated.
"I suspect she sees them as clearly as she sees you," Mohiam said. "She accesses history not through fragmented internal records, but by touching the 'now' and tracing its origin. She can touch a stone, a blade, or a bloodline, and if my theory holds, she sees every hand that ever held it. She doesn't predict the future; she understands the past so perfectly that the future becomes a logical inevitability to her. She is not a bridge to the future, Jessica. She is the Anchor of the Past."