Frank Herbert - The Godmakers

What was there in a blank wall to produce such a warning?

Bakrish glanced at Orne. “Is it not true, my student, that one should obey the orders of his superiors?”

The priest’s voice carried a hollow echo in the room’s immensity. Orne coughed to clear the rasping dryness of his throat. “If the orders make sense and the ones who give them are truly superior, I suppose so. Why do you ask?”

“Orne, you were sent here as a spy, as an agent of the I-A. By rights, anything that happens to you here is the concern of your superiors and no concern of ours.”

Orne tensed. “What’re you driving at?”

Sweat gleamed on Bakrish’s forehead. He looked down at Orne, the dark eyes glistening. “These machines terrify us sometimes, Orne. They are unpredictable in any absolute sense. Anyone who comes within their field can be subjected to their power.”

“Like back there when you were hanging on the edge of the inferno?”

“Yes.” Bakrish shuddered.

“But you still want me to go through with this?”

“You must. It is the only way you can accomplish what you were sent here to do. You could not stop, you do not want to stop. The wheel of the Great Mandala is turning.”

“I was not sent here,” Orne said. “The Abbod summoned me. I am your concern, Bakrish. Otherwise you would not be here with me. Where is your own faith?”

Bakrish pressed his palms together, placed them in front of his nose and bowed. “The student teaches the guru.”

“Why do you voice these fears?” Orne asked.

Bakrish lowered his hands. “It is because you still suspect us and fear us. I reflect your own fears. This emotion leads to hate. You saw that in your first test. But in the test you are about to undergo, hate represents the supreme danger.”

“To whom, Bakrish?”

“To yourself, to all of those you may influence. Out of this test comes a rare kind of understanding, for it is…”

He broke off at a scraping sound behind them. Orne turned, saw two acolytes depositing a heavy, square-armed chair on the floor facing the barrier wall. They cast frightened glances at Orne, scurried away toward one of the bronze doors.

“They fear me,” Orne said, nodding toward the door where the acolytes had fled. “Does that mean they hate me?”

“They stand in awe of you,” Bakrish said. “They are prepared to offer you reverence. It would be difficult for me to say how much of awe and reverence represents suppressed hate.”

“I see.”

Bakrish said: “I merely follow orders here, Orne. I beg of you not to hate me, nor to hate anyone. Do not harbor hate during this test.”

“Why do those two stand in awe of me and prepared to reverence me?” Orne asked, his gaze still on the door where the acolytes had gone.

“Word of you has gone forth,” Bakrish said. “They know this test. The fabric of our universe is woven into it. Many things hang in the balance here when a potential psi focus is concerned. The possibilities are infinite.”

Orne probed for Bakrish’s motives. The priest obviously sensed the probe. He said: “I am terrified. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Why?”

“In my ordeal, this test almost proved fatal. I had sequestered a core of hate. This place clutches at me even now.” He shivered.

Orne found the priest’s fear unsteadying.

Bakrish said: “I would deem it a favor if you would pray with me now.”

“To whom?” Orne asked.

“To any force in which we have faith,” Bakrish said. “To ourselves, to the One God, to each other. It does not matter; only it helps if we pray.”

Bakrish clasped his hands, bowed his head.

After a moment’s hesitation, Orne imitated him.

“Why did you choose Bakrish to guide him in the ordeal?” Macrithy asked the Abbod.

They stood in the Abbod’s study, Macrithy having returned to report that Orne had passed the first test. A smell of sulfur dominated the room and it seemed oppressively hot to Macrithy, although the fire had died in the fireplace.

The Abbod bowed his head over the standing easel, spoke without turning and without observing that Macrithy had coveted this honor for himself.

“I chose Bakrish because of something he said when he was my student,” the Abbod murmured. “There are times, you know, when even a god needs a friend.”

“What’s that smell in here?” Macrithy asked. “Have you been burning something odd in the fireplace, Reverend Abbod?”

“I have tested my own soul in hellfire,” the Abbod said, knowing that his tone betrayed his dissatisfaction with Macrithy. To soften this, he added: “Pray for me, my dear friend. Pray for me.”

“You must sit in that chair,” Bakrish said when they had finished praying. He indicated the squat, ugly shape facing the barrier wall.

Orne looked at the chair, noted an inverted metallic bowl fitted to swing over the seat. There was prescient tension in that chair. Orne felt his heartbeats pumping pressure into this moment.

“Sometimes we go for the sake of going.” The words rang in his memory and he wondered who had said them. The great wheel was turning.

Orne crossed to the chair, sat down. In the act of sitting, he felt the sense of peril come to full surge within him. Metal bands leaped from concealed openings in the chair, pinned his arms, circled his chest and legs. He surged against them, twisting.

“Do not struggle,” Bakrish warned. “You cannot escape.”

“Why didn’t you warn me I’d be pinned here?” Orne demanded.

“I did not know. Truly. The chair is part of the psi machine and, through you, has a life of its own. Please, Orne, I beg of you as a friend: do not struggle, do not hate us. Hate magnifies your danger manyfold. It could cause you to fail.”

“Dragging you down with me?”

“Quite likely,” Bakrish said. “One cannot escape the consequences of his hate.” He glanced around the enormous room. “And I once hated in this place.” He sighed, moved behind the chair and shifted the inverted bowl until it could be lowered over Orne’s head. “Do not move suddenly or try to jerk away. The microfilament probes within this bowl will cause you great pain if you do.” Bakrish lowered the bowl.

Orne felt something touch his scalp in many places, a crawling and tickling sensation. “What is this thing?” he asked, his voice echoing oddly in his ears. And he wondered suddenly: Why am I going through with this? Why do I take their word for everything?

“This is one of the great psi machines,” Bakrish said. He adjusted something on the back of the chair. Metal clicked. “Can you see the wall in front of you?”

Orne stared straight ahead under the lip of the bowl. “Yes.”

“Observe that wall,” Bakrish said. “It can manifest your most latent urges. With this machine, you can bring about miracles. You can call forth the dead, do many wonders. You may be on the brink of a profound mystical experience.”

Orne tried to swallow in a dry throat. “If I wanted my father to appear here he would?”