Tamalane had a full account of the most recent such confrontation. Stiros and Tuek alone, debating far into the night, just the two of them (they thought) in Tuek’s quarters, comfortably ensconced in rare blue chairdogs, melange-laced confits close at hand. Tamalane’s holophoto record of the meeting showed a single yellow glowglobe drifting on its suspensors close above the pair, the light dimmed to ease the strain on tired eyes.
“Perhaps that first time, leaving her in the desert with a thumper, was not a good test,” Stiros said.
It was a sly statement. Tuek was noted for not having an excessively complicated mind. “Not a good test? Whatever do you mean?”
“God might wish us to perform other tests.”
“You have seen her yourself! Many times in the desert talking to God!”
“Yes!” Stiros almost pounced. Clearly, it was the response he wanted. “If she can stand unharmed in the presence of God, perhaps she can teach others how this is accomplished.”
“You know this angers her when we suggest it.”
“Perhaps we have not approached the problem in quite the right way.”
“Stiros! What if the child is right? We serve the
The expression on Stiros’ face said this was exactly the kind of mental gymnastics his faction feared. He tried to divert the High Priest but Tuek was not to be shifted from a single-track plunge into metaphysics.
“The ultimate test,” Tuek insisted. “To see the good in evil and the evil in good.”
Stiros’ expression could only be described as consternation. Tuek was God’s Supreme Anointed. No priest was allowed to doubt
“I would never suggest that I might debate such profound ideas with my High Priest,” Stiros said. “But perhaps I can offer a proposal that might resolve many doubts.”
“Propose then,” Tuek said.
“Subtle instruments could be introduced in her clothing. We might listen when she talks to—”
“Do you think God would not know what we did?”
“Such a thought never crossed my mind!”
“I will not order her taken into the desert,” Tuek said.
“But if it is her own idea to go?” Stiros assumed his most ingratiating expression. “She has done this many times.”
“But not recently. She appears to have lost her need to consult with God.”
“Could we not offer suggestions to her?” Stiros asked.
“Such as?”
“Sheeana, when will you speak again with your Father? Do you not long to stand once more in His presence?”
“That has more the sound of prodding than suggestion.”
“I am only proposing that—”
“This Holy Child is no simpleton! She talks to God, Stiros. God might punish us sorely for such presumption.”
“Did God not put her here for us to study?” Stiros asked.
This was too close to the Dromind heresy for Tuek’s liking. He sent a baleful stare at Stiros.
“What I mean,” Stiros said, “is that surely God means us to learn from her.”
Tuek himself had said this many times, never hearing in his own words a curious echo of Dromind’s words.
“She is not to be prodded and tested,” Tuek said.
“Heaven forbid!” Stiros said. “I will be the soul of holy caution. And everything I learn from the Holy Child will be reported to you immediately.”
Tuek merely nodded. He had his own ways to be sure Stiros spoke the truth.
The subsequent sly proddings and testings were reported immediately to Chapter House by Tamalane and her subordinates.
“Sheeana has a thoughtful look,” Tamalane reported.
Among the Reverend Mothers on Rakis and those to whom they reported, this thoughtful look had an obvious interpretation. Sheeana’s antecedents had been deduced long ago. Stiros’ intrusions were making the child homesick. Sheeana kept a wise silence but she clearly thought much about her life in a pioneer village. Despite all of the fears and perils, those obviously had been happy times for her. She would remember the laughter, poling the sand for its weather, hunting scorpions in the crannies of the village hovels, smelling out spice fragments in the dunes. From Sheeana’s repeated trips to the area, the Sisterhood had made a reasonably accurate guess as to the location of the lost village and what had happened to it. Sheeana often stared at one of Tuek’s old maps on the wall of her quarters.
As Tamalane expected, one morning Sheeana stabbed a finger at the place on the wall map where she had gone many times. “Take me there,” Sheeana commanded her attendants.
A ’thopter was summoned.
While priests listened avidly in a ’thopter hovering far overhead, Sheeana once more confronted her nemesis in the sand. Tamalane and her advisors, tuned into the priestly circuits, observed just as avidly.
