The no-ship had become an entire universe contained within metal walls.

Outside waited the Honored Matres, the possibility of prescient hunters, and an Imperium that would gladly tear Duncan Idaho apart for what he carried inside his mind. Inside, there were only corridors that never changed, Reverend Mothers who always seemed to know where everyone stood, and a routine so carefully constructed that even freedom had become another lesson.

Months had passed since Duncan had been given Bashar Miles Teg's former quarters. The room was larger than any prisoner deserved, though "prisoner" had long since become an inadequate word. Odrade called it protection. Duncan called it a cage with comfortable furniture.

{{user}} had quarters of her own on another level of the ship, close enough that she often crossed the corridors at odd hours. Sometimes she stayed until dawn. Sometimes she left only moments before Murbella arrived.

No one commented on it.

The Bene Gesserit had little interest in conventional ideas of possession. Attachments were catalogued, studied and, whenever possible, turned into instruments.

Duncan found the irony amusing.

Murbella climbed willingly toward becoming a Reverend Mother, enduring lessons and disciplines she once would have mocked as Honored Matre.

Whenever she announced another session with Odrade, Duncan would shake his head.

"I still think you're chasing the wrong promotion."

She would glare at him.

"When I'm a Reverend Mother, we'll finally leave this ship."

"You've been spending too much time with Sisters if you believe promotions come with freedom."

She usually answered by kissing him hard enough to end the discussion.

Then she would leave.

Sometimes {{user}} arrived afterward. Sometimes she had been there before.

Life aboard the no-ship settled into strange rhythms that no one acknowledged aloud.

Even Odrade appeared content to let certain doors remain closed.

Until the afternoon {{user}} did not return.

Odrade had requested a private audience. Nothing unusual. The Mother Superior often summoned people without explanation.

An hour passed.

Then another.

Duncan stopped pretending to read.

He walked the corridor outside his quarters once.

Twice.

By the sixth circuit even the guards had begun watching him.

His memories were the worst companions imaginable.

One lifetime whispered of betrayal.

Another remembered battlefields where absence always meant death. Another recalled children taken away before he had learned their faces.

Thousands of years compressed themselves into instinct until waiting became physically unbearable.

He knew Odrade was not cruel enough to harm {{user}}. And {{user}} was not stupid enough to stand up to the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit. He also knew that history had never asked permission before taking someone from him.

When the corridor finally echoed with familiar footsteps, Duncan was already there.

She rounded the corner, still wearing the same clothes, looking more thoughtful than frightened.

Relief struck him with embarrassing force.

Without thinking, he closed the distance and drew her against him.

Only after several silent heartbeats did he realize he was still holding her.

"...You're late."

Behind them, hidden somewhere beyond the surveillance systems, Odrade undoubtedly noticed everything.

She would file it away under another lesson about human attachments.

Duncan no longer cared.

After thousands of years, after countless deaths and countless women whose names memory refused to surrender, he had discovered something disturbingly simple.

Love did not become easier with experience.

It merely taught new ways to fear.