[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Staged for our benefit?Odrade thought it likely.There probably were two thousand young women on thatfield.Look how many recruits we have coming along!No one to greet her but Odrade saw a familiar structure down a paved lane to herleft.Obvious Spacing Guild artifact with a recent tower added.She spoke ofthe tower as she glanced around her, giving the implanted transmitter data on achange from Teg's groundplan.Nobody who had ever seen a Guild building couldmislabel this place, though.So this was like other Junction planets.Somewhere in Guild records theredoubtless was a serial number and code for it.So long under Guild controlbefore Honored Matres that, in these first moments of debarking, getting their"ground legs," everything around them could be seen to have that special Guildflavor.Even the playing field -- designed for outdoor meetings of Navigatorsin their giant containers of melange gas.The Guild flavor: It was compounded of Ixian technology and Navigator design --buildings wrapped around space in the most energy-conserving way, paths direct;few slide-walks.They were wasteful and only the gravity-bound needed them.Noflowery plantings near the Landing Flat.They were susceptible to accidentaldestruction.And that permanent grayness to all construction -- not silver butas dull as Tleilaxu skin.The structure on her left was a great bulging shape with extrusions, somerounded and some angular.This had been no lavish hostelry.Opulent littlenooks, of course, but those were rare, built for VVIPs, mostly inspectors fromthe Guild.Once more, Teg is right.Honored Matres kept existing structures, remodelingminimally.A tower!Odrade reminded herself then: This is not only another world but also anothersociety with its own social glue.She had a handle on that from Sharing withMurbella but did not think she had plumbed what held Honored Matres together.Surely not just a lusting after power."We'll walk," she said and led the way down the paved lane toward the giantstructure.Goodbye, Clairby.Blow your ship as soon as you can.Let it be our first greatsurprise for Honored Matres.The Guild structure loomed higher as they approached. The most astonishing thing to Odrade whenever she saw one of these functionalconstructions was that someone had taken a great deal of care in planning it.Intentional detail in everything although you sometimes had to dig for it.Budget dictated reduced quality in many choices, endurance preferred over luxuryor eye appeal.Compromise and, like most compromise, satisfying no one.Guildcomptrollers undoubtedly had complained at the price, and present occupantsstill could feel irritated at shortcomings.No matter.The thing was tangiblesubstance.It was here to be used now.Another compromise.The lobby was smaller than she had expected.Some interior changes.Only aboutsix meters long and perhaps four meters wide.Reception slot was on their rightas they entered.Odrade motioned Suipol to register their party and indicatedthat the rest of them should wait in the open area well within striking distanceof one another.Treachery had not been ruled out.Dortujla obviously expected it.She looked resigned.Odrade made a careful inspection and commented on their surroundings.Plenty ofcomeyes but the rest of it.Each time she entered one of these places, she had the sensation of being in amuseum.Other Memory said hostelries of this sort had not changed significantlyin eons.Even in early times she found prototypes.A glimpse of the past inthe chandeliers -- gigantic glittering things imitative of electric devices butfurnished with glowglobes.Two of them dominated the ceiling like imaginaryspaceships descending in splendor from the void.There were more glimpses of the past that few transients in this age wouldnotice.The arrangement of reception area behind grilled slots, space forwaiting with its mixture of seats and inconvenient lighting, signs directingthem to services -- restaurants, narcoparlors, assignation bars, swimming andother exercise facilities, automassage rooms, and the like.Only language andscript had changed from ancient times.Given an understanding of the language,the signs would be recognizable to pre-space primitives.This was a temporarystopping place.Plenty of security installations.Some had the look of artifacts from theScattering.Ix and Guild had never wasted gold on comeyes and sensors.A frenetic dance of roboservants in the reception area -- dartings here andthere, cleaning, picking up litter, guiding newcomers.A party of four Ixianshad preceded Odrade's group.She gave them close attention.How self-importantyet fearful.To her Bene Gesserit eye, the people of Ix were always recognizable no matterthe disguises.Basic structure of their society colored its individuals.Ixians displayed a Hogbenesque attitude toward their science: that politicaland economic requirements determined permissible research
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]